which brings up the question, what happens when you trash the boot sector, or something like the file system? I'm pretty sure MS thought of this, and there is a lot of protection against this sort of thing, but people just decide to turn a console on and off at a whim and to me it seems that sooner or later the file system on a hard drive would end up damaged. If you get the root of the file system, then what? New MS doorstop?
I think the verdict is still out on the hard drive thing. Hard drives are precision pieces of equipment and rather fragile really. Consoles need to be somewhat sturdy by their nature as they probably get many many times more abuse than a computer ever would. With cards about the only thing you can do is somehow kick the card sideways while inserted in something like a PS2 - and perhaps break it off. Bad sectors, hard drive crashes... it just sounds like a new can of worms to me. I guess I just have a lot more faith in the durability of solid state memory.
Truthfully I just bought a PS2 and I'm pretty happy with it. To me the biggest drag for the Xbox will be the lack of cool Japanese style games. This might change in the future, but whether or not the X-box will penetrate very far into Japan and sign on Japanese game makers has yet to be seen. And am I the only one that isn't so hot on net access for a console? To me, if I can't type at other people an online game doesn't have much of a point to it.
from Cnet:
"ndustry analysts have been estimating that Microsoft will have to absorb losses of $1 billion to $2 billion related to its effort to subsidize for the manufacturing of Xbox."
How do you view Linux in the scheme of things? Mainly where do you think the niche of Linux is now, and where will it be years from now. How do you view the direction Linux tends to be taking compared to other OS's (Windows XP, FreeBSD, etc) - ["direction" is up to what ever you personally interpret it to be BTW]
On top of evrything else now my company has to figure out how to migrate over 100 3000 systems, with over a terabyte of data and several million lines of code to a new platform.
lots and lots of tapes, and the mother of all perl scripts.
It's true that everything was new, but there were/are some glaring problems. Taking a different perspective and looking at businesses which do not depend on the web at all you see consistent problems. Bad organization (if any), and horrible design. Looking at the place I work for now, when I got here the web site was a disaster. Horrible color schemes, bad organization, cheesy animated gifs, link exchange banners that were not only unnecessary, but not even relevant, and generally a pain any way you looked at it - it wasn't even spell checked. Sad thing is, that for smaller businesses this isn't so uncommon, and it isn't so much about being "new" as lacking common sense. I mean would you want something so horrible looking appearing in a magazine? No.
I imagine this is a bit off-topic since this all seems to be more about businesses actually somewhat based off of the web, but something I had to rant about none the less...
Over clocking was cooler back in the day when overclocking could potentially make your processor burn up. Now days Athlons can almost burst into flames all by themselves... and that sort of takes the fun out of it!
Truthfully I think microsoft's biggest threat is the stupidity of MS itself. I can already see the idiotic licensing scheme for MS office backfiring. Other things such as passport will probably only make things worse once a major security hole is found. Why am I not using XP (other than I don't want to)? Because maybe I want to take my sound card out, and put it back in 5 times in a row just because I WANT to, and I don't want to call uncle MS to explain to them why I am worthy of them gracing me with my validation code. MS is probably only doing Linux a favor by focusing more on Linux. I think if MS actually focused on THEIR crap and made it better, and didn't try to screw customers at every turn, they probably wouldn't even have to worry about Linux.
is this "protection" going to become mainstream? I don't even own a CD player, but I use my computer all the time. Truthfully, I could care less about the stuff on that list since I mainly listen to metal (the more obscure stuff). But if this becomes standard practice I think they'll probably lose my business entirely. Get a CD player? I don't think so. If they adopt this scheme, how long will it be before they say "oh, looks like they figured out how to bypass the last scheme, so lets make a new one that isn't playable on the newer CD players". Like I want to be stuck on a perpetual hardware upgrade cycle just to play a freaking CD. If most of the smaller labels don't adopt this, I actually think it will help. These big corporations will only shoot themselves in the foot since people will HAVE to get the ripped version to listen to it on their computer.
Hmm... looks like it's time to start out-sourcing encryption to other countries that don't sign on. - India and China come to mind.
I feel safer, don't you?
Re:go on, hide behind your cloak of anonimity...
on
KDE Wins 3 awards
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· Score: 1
" how configurable an os is is not necessarily a meaure of worth, in fact if something is 'highly configurable' then it usually means you have to fuck around with it for hours to get it how you like it."
And if it doesn't do what I want it to do, and it isn't configurable, I have to fuck around with it for hours trying to figure out a work around. It's give and take. Linux people are more apt to take things into their own hands, so I'd think that commensurability would be more appropriate
this is true, but you have to consider you have to make the water 99.9% pure, and you have to make sure it STAYS pure in this situation. Generally I think this would be a pain in the ass, and it would probably be easier to use something else.
it's actually sort of scary when you think about what would happen if a building full of computers using this suddenly started on fire. Instead of your normal fire, you have a simulation of a WWI battlefield and haz-mat teams evacuating everyone in the area.
"Microsoft more time to violate antitrust laws. XP shows they haven't learned anything from the proceedings"
What exactly was MS supposed to learn? I think if MS has learned anything, it's that the courts and officials are too technically illiterate to really understand what going on. Unfortunately I think most of these proceedings have proven this.
I think that your comparison to WWII is slightly off. I'm not sure that Emperor Hirohito was so much concerned about his own safety as he was for that of the people. I'm sure he started to think that if the bombs started killing hundreds of thousands of people at a time, that it was very possible that there would be no Japanese left in existence. It's also true that he probably thought of himself (being only human and all), but if he HAD died, I doubt the Japanese would have listened to anyone BUT him, and the fighting would have gone on for years. I think after the war Hirohito sort of gracefully accepted defeat, and unconditionally surrendered to insure that his people would survive. The rest of his life was generally spent in obscurity tending his garden.
But yeah, it does seem like the Afghans are being used as pawns in all of this - so it seems like a much different situation.
"WinME for example, was a load of crap...it's just a couple of add-ons that could have been patched on to win98"
WinME is more than a couple of add-ons. I'm not sure what MS did, but suddenly a lot of legacy 9x drivers had huge problems. I've seen more than a few things which seem to be different for WinME and Win98 on the software level. But, yes it is a pile of crap - proof positive that monopolies can suck.
Re:Glad someone has the guts !
on
Gamecube Guts
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· Score: 1
Think the only reason I open up a case initally is to make sure all the cards are seated correctly. And of course now days some of us want to make sure the CPU fan is seated correctly so the entire thing doesn't burst into flames.
yeah, I think Linus has the right attitude. I think there is a point where you can become so anti microsoft that all you do is criticize what they do, and lose focus on the things in front of you. REAL innovations come from concentrating on the task at hand, not watching what the other guy is doing. Although MS has gained an empire by building on other people's stuff, I don't think that could work well with Linux just because of the difference in philosophies.
Slashdot Mirror
"Todd English, Iron Chef American; Jean Francois Meteigner, Iron Chef French; Alessandro Stratta, Iron Chef Italian"
Is this the way the Japanese Iron chef works? Why am I getting visions of some 60's superhero team; each with their own super power?
Iron Chef American was surely doomed until the arrival of his comerad Iron Chef Italian who saved the day with his bottle of soi.
as Gerald Ford said:
"If Lincoln was alive today, he'd roll over in his grave."
which brings up the question, what happens when you trash the boot sector, or something like the file system? I'm pretty sure MS thought of this, and there is a lot of protection against this sort of thing, but people just decide to turn a console on and off at a whim and to me it seems that sooner or later the file system on a hard drive would end up damaged. If you get the root of the file system, then what? New MS doorstop?
I think the verdict is still out on the hard drive thing. Hard drives are precision pieces of equipment and rather fragile really. Consoles need to be somewhat sturdy by their nature as they probably get many many times more abuse than a computer ever would. With cards about the only thing you can do is somehow kick the card sideways while inserted in something like a PS2 - and perhaps break it off. Bad sectors, hard drive crashes... it just sounds like a new can of worms to me. I guess I just have a lot more faith in the durability of solid state memory.
Truthfully I just bought a PS2 and I'm pretty happy with it. To me the biggest drag for the Xbox will be the lack of cool Japanese style games. This might change in the future, but whether or not the X-box will penetrate very far into Japan and sign on Japanese game makers has yet to be seen. And am I the only one that isn't so hot on net access for a console? To me, if I can't type at other people an online game doesn't have much of a point to it.
:)
from Cnet:
"ndustry analysts have been estimating that Microsoft will have to absorb losses of $1 billion to $2 billion related to its effort to subsidize for the manufacturing of Xbox."
Nice to see MS take in the rear for once
How do you view Linux in the scheme of things? Mainly where do you think the niche of Linux is now, and where will it be years from now. How do you view the direction Linux tends to be taking compared to other OS's (Windows XP, FreeBSD, etc) - ["direction" is up to what ever you personally interpret it to be BTW]
On top of evrything else now my company has to figure out how to migrate over 100 3000 systems, with over a terabyte of data and several million lines of code to a new platform.
lots and lots of tapes, and the mother of all perl scripts.
pirating web pages...
It's true that everything was new, but there were/are some glaring problems. Taking a different perspective and looking at businesses which do not depend on the web at all you see consistent problems. Bad organization (if any), and horrible design. Looking at the place I work for now, when I got here the web site was a disaster. Horrible color schemes, bad organization, cheesy animated gifs, link exchange banners that were not only unnecessary, but not even relevant, and generally a pain any way you looked at it - it wasn't even spell checked. Sad thing is, that for smaller businesses this isn't so uncommon, and it isn't so much about being "new" as lacking common sense. I mean would you want something so horrible looking appearing in a magazine? No.
I imagine this is a bit off-topic since this all seems to be more about businesses actually somewhat based off of the web, but something I had to rant about none the less...
Over clocking was cooler back in the day when overclocking could potentially make your processor burn up. Now days Athlons can almost burst into flames all by themselves... and that sort of takes the fun out of it!
Truthfully I think microsoft's biggest threat is the stupidity of MS itself. I can already see the idiotic licensing scheme for MS office backfiring. Other things such as passport will probably only make things worse once a major security hole is found. Why am I not using XP (other than I don't want to)? Because maybe I want to take my sound card out, and put it back in 5 times in a row just because I WANT to, and I don't want to call uncle MS to explain to them why I am worthy of them gracing me with my validation code. MS is probably only doing Linux a favor by focusing more on Linux. I think if MS actually focused on THEIR crap and made it better, and didn't try to screw customers at every turn, they probably wouldn't even have to worry about Linux.
is this "protection" going to become mainstream? I don't even own a CD player, but I use my computer all the time. Truthfully, I could care less about the stuff on that list since I mainly listen to metal (the more obscure stuff). But if this becomes standard practice I think they'll probably lose my business entirely. Get a CD player? I don't think so. If they adopt this scheme, how long will it be before they say "oh, looks like they figured out how to bypass the last scheme, so lets make a new one that isn't playable on the newer CD players". Like I want to be stuck on a perpetual hardware upgrade cycle just to play a freaking CD. If most of the smaller labels don't adopt this, I actually think it will help. These big corporations will only shoot themselves in the foot since people will HAVE to get the ripped version to listen to it on their computer.
Hmm... looks like it's time to start out-sourcing encryption to other countries that don't sign on. - India and China come to mind.
I feel safer, don't you?
" how configurable an os is is not necessarily a meaure of worth, in fact if something is 'highly configurable' then it usually means you have to fuck around with it for hours to get it how you like it."
And if it doesn't do what I want it to do, and it isn't configurable, I have to fuck around with it for hours trying to figure out a work around. It's give and take. Linux people are more apt to take things into their own hands, so I'd think that commensurability would be more appropriate
almost. They still have to make it a bigger pain in the ass to deal with, and figure out how to make it more virus friendly.
this is true, but you have to consider you have to make the water 99.9% pure, and you have to make sure it STAYS pure in this situation. Generally I think this would be a pain in the ass, and it would probably be easier to use something else.
it's actually sort of scary when you think about what would happen if a building full of computers using this suddenly started on fire. Instead of your normal fire, you have a simulation of a WWI battlefield and haz-mat teams evacuating everyone in the area.
"Microsoft more time to violate antitrust laws. XP shows they haven't learned anything from the proceedings"
What exactly was MS supposed to learn? I think if MS has learned anything, it's that the courts and officials are too technically illiterate to really understand what going on. Unfortunately I think most of these proceedings have proven this.
I think that your comparison to WWII is slightly off. I'm not sure that Emperor Hirohito was so much concerned about his own safety as he was for that of the people. I'm sure he started to think that if the bombs started killing hundreds of thousands of people at a time, that it was very possible that there would be no Japanese left in existence. It's also true that he probably thought of himself (being only human and all), but if he HAD died, I doubt the Japanese would have listened to anyone BUT him, and the fighting would have gone on for years. I think after the war Hirohito sort of gracefully accepted defeat, and unconditionally surrendered to insure that his people would survive. The rest of his life was generally spent in obscurity tending his garden.
But yeah, it does seem like the Afghans are being used as pawns in all of this - so it seems like a much different situation.
you know, at the rate these updates are comming, they're going to run out of numbers, and they'll have to start calling them 'service packs'...
"WinME for example, was a load of crap...it's just a couple of add-ons that could have been patched on to win98"
WinME is more than a couple of add-ons. I'm not sure what MS did, but suddenly a lot of legacy 9x drivers had huge problems. I've seen more than a few things which seem to be different for WinME and Win98 on the software level. But, yes it is a pile of crap - proof positive that monopolies can suck.
Think the only reason I open up a case initally is to make sure all the cards are seated correctly. And of course now days some of us want to make sure the CPU fan is seated correctly so the entire thing doesn't burst into flames.
Actually there is an easier way to do this with the undocumented /AUTOTEST switch. Basically it just formats with no furthar prompts.
/AUTOTEST
format C:
yeah, I think Linus has the right attitude. I think there is a point where you can become so anti microsoft that all you do is criticize what they do, and lose focus on the things in front of you. REAL innovations come from concentrating on the task at hand, not watching what the other guy is doing. Although MS has gained an empire by building on other people's stuff, I don't think that could work well with Linux just because of the difference in philosophies.
Now days Microsoft has given us spork XP. It can do what a fork() and spoon() do, but really can't do any job quite as well.