"I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time."
Well, it's a good thing you don't have to, because the ads are overlaid at the very bottom of the video. There's no "waiting". E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcGUKtzBCbA Similar to when a television station advertises another program while you're watching one. Not to mention, you can close them (wish I could do that with the television advertisements).
Yeah, it's all fixed. What the summary failed to mention is that those 158 million records were 158 million individual breakins for 1 record each. It actually was the same guy's record each time. So, it's not that bad. Sucks to be that guy, though.
Nasa Chief: "Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?"
To be honest, why would I care if they're "tracking me down" using torrents? The only things I use Bittorrent for are to download Linux ISOs and World of Warcraft updates (it's built into their updater).
But let's say someone out there is using Bittorrent to download stuff they're not supposed to. Why use a change in the protocol to monitor usage when big media can just force ISPs to open up their logs?
Back to the issue at hand: would I care if they monitored me? No.
Out of curiosity, what exactly is "wrong" about them closing the source in Bittorrent's case? I mean, if it was an OS or something where security was critical I could see a problem. But really the only "benefit" I saw from the source being available was a bunch of clients that just leeched without sharing their bandwidth.
I know it's not the Slashdot party line, but not everything benefits from open source. Perhaps more importantly, this sets a bad precedent for companies that want to release code. If they ever have to pull back they have a PR mess on their end. Most PR flacks will just say not to release code to begin with.
I'm always bothered when I read articles like this because I know the Slashdot party line is always "File sharing good, fuck the content creators". I get upset because I think of my little brother, who's basically been screwed by piracy.
My little brother has a band. The music is quite good. The band is quite popular locally. It's so popular, in fact, that people bootleg their music and share it across the internet.
At first they were quite happy about this. They were reaching a much larger audience. Surely these people will come to their concerts and buy their CDs if they like the music (at least, that's what Slashdot always says will happen).
However, it didn't. Turns out (from conversations with their fans on their message board) that no one wants to buy their music. They like it, but hwy buy the music when fans can download every one of their albums for free online? Also, concert attendance has stayed flat. The pirating of their music hasn't suddenly increased attendance like they hoped it would.
So, while the band has a large fanbase (and it's growing), they've had barely enough to scrap by. My brother personally cleans a local diner's grease pit every night for a free dinner. They haven't (yet) gotten a recording contract, and I personally hope they do before my brother is actually eating the grease.:P
Long story short: don't believe everything you read on Slashdot. While I agree that the big content holders don't deserve any sympathy, there are artists out there that actually ARE hurting from piracy. It's mostly the little guys, and I haven't found one comment on Slashdot yet that recognizes this is as a problem.
Actually I have and I do, and I very much understand what is going on here compared to "traditionally" supported devices like WIndows Mobile units.
We don't use Windows Mobile units. They are flaky from a stability standpoint and aren't as simple to use by executives as Blackberries. Not to mention, I wouldn't call them "traditionally supported" (no mobile device could be considered "traditionally supported" when it comes to updates -- you often don't know what devices are on the network, if they'll suddenly fall off the network during updates, etc).
Of course. But all of that is irrelevant in terms of what the iPhone supports or does not support, because all that happens anyway! At least the iPhone offers you a fighting chance that the exec may in fact update his own phone, and not bother you about it. That's how simple the updates are.
I don't think you understand how corporate updates work. I KNOW, when I check the update server, whether or not a given device has been updated. If I see something like "98% updated, 2% failed", I KNOW exactly what devices are behind in patches. I often KNOW, by looking at the server, WHY they failed (device off the network, download screwed up, etc). I also KNOW exactly where to send the techs so we can prempt any problems before they occur.
With the iPhone, I know nothing. I don't know which devices are updated. I don't know who canceled their upgrades. I don't know when a user's iTunes will check for updates next. It's not even like Mac OS X where I can control it through ARD. I have absolutely no control over the devices that I'm supposed to be controlling.
But at the moment, you can't install third party apps on the iPhone and so the greater likleyhood is that this will all still work because Apple is in charge of testing the updates. I know you feel uncomfortable letting that go, but why? What makes you think you can do any better job than Apple testing a closed system?
I work at an advertising conglomerate. I support several thousand Macs. Actually, 40% of our userbase is Macs.
APPLE MAKES MISTAKES. I know you might not want to hear this, but it's true. Example: there have been 5 updates to address Airport incompatibilities in the past year. There have been over a dozen to address Safari mistakes. And these aren't isolated bugs. These are updates to address the same bugs over and over, and sometimes to address bugs that they themselves created in the last patch.
Now, picture yourself in an IT management system. Apple releases an Airport update. Do you a) blindly install the update and deal with the CEO calling from overseas the next day when he can't connect to the hotel WiFi? Or b) regression test the update on a dozen different models of G4 and Intel Macs you have on the floor.
The day of change all the iPhones worked without your intervention because APple released a patch about a month beforehand. Don't you realize that in fact Macs had to address that very issue, and through software updates did in fact fix just about every Mac on the planet well beforehand?
Ok, now I know you have no clue about the corporate world.
First, like I mentioned, Apple patches occasionally break things. To call wireless "fixed on just about every Mac on the planet" after, say, the first Airport update would be ludicrous.
Second, like I mentioned, not every Mac user understand they need to run updates as soon as they come out. Apple has said before that a lot of people out there are still running 2 or 3 point versions behind.
Third, anyone who runs Macs on a large scale in a corporate environment is using ARD to push out updates -- not relying on Software Update roulette.
I agree corporations are too fearful to deploy them. What I am saying is that they are there, and you should be less fearful than you are of what that means - or at least understand in what ways you do have control to react to issues, and to what degree you should in fact say the co
To be honest I'm a little frightened that your post was rated +5 Insightful. It's very clear that you don't work in a corporate environment and don't understand what the OP is driving at.
When a user has a problem, WE'RE the support. Not Dell, not Apple, etc. Us. When an executive can't print, we don't tell them to call HP. When the CEO wrecks his home machine downloading spyware, we drive to his house and fix it. I wish this wasn't the case sometimes, but this is how IT support works in large environments (my company in particular has 10s of thousands of users).
Software patches DO break stuff. Often. I've pushed out thousands of patches across multiple OSes and devices over the years (computers, phones, printers, etc). Usually it's unintentional, but anytime a bug fixes a vulnerability or a library gets updated, some important app somewhere is going to get screwed.
When you have 10s of thousands of users, you have to maintain control. All boxes report to update servers of one kind or another. Every time an update gets released, it goes into a "holding" area where we regression test it across several dozen OS builds with varying degrees of apps. Only after everything in the matrix is checked does it get pushed out.
Our phones, in particular, are managed by a BES (Blackberry server). Anytime an update is available, it's tested across Blackberry models before getting pushed out. We never allow our users to update devices themselves.
Let me give you a recent example of how important it is maintain control (and how Apple's current scheme for iPhones wouldn't work in today's corporations): the time zone change. From the time congress officially approved the change to the time we had to implement it, thousands of phones needed to be updated. In particular, calendar apps became a nightmare. Now, imagine we have no idea of telling what users have updated their phones, whether the patch installed correctly, etc (e.g. they all have iPhones). Now, picture the day of the change. The cost of hundreds of users (including some executives that make billion-dollar transactions) calling the helpdesk simultaneously would FAR outweigh the costs of properly testing and deploying the patch.
At it stands right now, no corporation would distribute iPhones without some key changes: real Exchange support, remote manageability, remote updates. My corporation has outright banned the devices. I personally own one and love it (I use it everyday) but I can't in all honesty recommend it for my business.
MS didn't reinvent Bittorrent. They built something better: Avalanche. It's more efficient and (I know this phrase is weird to use around MS, but...) more secure. Read the research papers (they touch on BT, its advantages and disadvantages). I imagine most of this stuff is on its way into standard BT, if it hasn't been worked in already.
"How do you feel about subsidizing Microsoft's bandwidth costs?"
Frankly I don't give 2 shits as long as they don't patent the hell out of it (and sue existing P2P solutions). But this came out of MS Research, so I doubt that'll happen (one of the only decent groups at MS).
By the way, MS has been messing around with P2P for years. How do you think Xbox Live works? Every time a game is played multiplayer, at least one Xbox/Xbox 360 is hosting. Not a single MS server hosts a game. Question this all you want (why pay $60 a year then?) but the fact of the matter is that from a technological standpoint, it works well.
"Since when do we ask permission to bend our gadgets to our will?"
You don't need to.
But if you, you get your hands on all kinds of advanced, documented APIs that give you fancy graphics, direct access to functions that send data over the net, etc. In other words, you end up with a fancy iPhone that does fancier things in a pretty way. Instead of a fancy iPhone with a terminal that scares the crap out of your non-gadgety friends.
"How did you break your iPhone?"
"It runs Python now."
"What's Python? What happened to text messaging?"
"That button doesn't work. No matter. I never got many text messages. I don't care. I have Python."
*pause* "So when are you going to the Apple Store to fix it?"
In all fairness (do they even deserve it?), the password listed in the script is for ZDNet's FTP, not Fox. Still pretty embarrassing, but it's not going to hurt Fox at all (I imagine it could have hurt CNet/ZDNet). And it definitely could've hurt the relationship between both corporations' IT departments.
There seems to be a string of these lately between content aggregators. About a month ago there was that page on MS's site endorsing Linux. Turns out the content was from another site (I think, actually, CNet).
Not to say I'm not totally surprised. In this day when about 50% of someone's site is content from somebody else, it's not surprising there's snafus. I'm just waiting for the day when one of the sites leaves up SSH logins for another.
Patch Tuesday, thank you very much. Any administrator worth their salt knows that continual update is a recipe for disaster when you have to regress against a ton of apps. I've seen more patches break things (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc) than get caught by the vulnerabilities they're intended to fix.
Back in 1996, FoxTrax came into existence. It used state of the art technology to wrap the puck in a "glow" onscreen (and for kicks Fox added "comet trails" to the puck when it was fired at high speeds).
You know what? It COMPLETELY SUCKED. You know why? Because ANY IDIOT can see a black object against a bright white surface.
Not to mention, it was completely invasive. Contrast it with the yellow line shown during football games. Out of the way and easily ignored.
Hockey's problem in America isn't that Americans can't see the puck. Americans so the puck just fine during the NHL resurgence back in the 90s. Hockey's problem is that Americans won't return to any sport after a lockout unless the players have salaries greater than the GNP of some small nations (baseball).
"I can understand their concern where they don't want after-market apps taking down the whole phone network," said iClip developer John Casasanta, who called last week's comments by Jobs "fantastic."
Wait... did this guy just insinuate that an app on one guy's iPhone is enough to take down all of AT&T/Cingular's network? Or did someone add the word "network" afterwards? Suddenly I have a lot less faith in iClip (whatever it is) being a quality app...
That isn't entirely true. There's a VMware research paper out there that says turning on those extensions doesn't necessarily increase speed (and in fact sometimes decreases it). Do a Google search for it.
One could argue that someone out there taking pictures of our house is a homebuilder and will use the ideas in a future home. Again, we should be up in arms about it?
And there are alternate answers:
1.) Put up a one way mirror. 2.) Put up venetian blinds that automatically close. 3.) Leave it a wall.
In my mind a window is a pretty obvious invitation for people to look in both directions. If you only want people looking in one direction you don't put up a window. Commercial entity looking in or not.
But that's precisely the problem here: her interior is visible from the exterior.
To put it in perspective, my family has a home at the beach. My mom bought a large picturesque window for the front so they could look at the beach. It also happens to be by the TV. So, anytime people are watching the TV inside, people outside can look in.
My mom complains about this all the time. "It's late at night. People are relaxing while watching TV. Why do they have to look in?" My response is always the same: "Why did you put the window up?"
People have a right to privacy, but if they're "flaunting" their interior with windows and no curtains, how far does Google have to go to ensure their privacy? Same thing with my family's home. It's a nice house. Should we be up in arms when passersby take pictures of it? Should we freak out that they're potentially taking pictures of us watching TV?
The answer, like most things in life, is simple: put up curtains.
You have absolutely no clue what you're talking about, do you?
Right now having a dual or quad core for most apps is like having a care with an extra engine or two in the trunk not connected to any drivelines.
If you present a multicore machine to any OS that understands multiprocessor, it'll treat it as a multiprocessor system. Windows, as noted in the article, is already optimized for multiprocessor (as are most modern OSes).
By your analogy, the 2nd/3rd/8th core just sits there. This is not true. They're all being used. Just not well.
A more accurate analogy would be that each core is treated by the OS like an additional engine (extra weight and all). The car is using them but if it realized all the "engines" were just one "engine" it would use them better.
Now, whether or not apps take advantage of multiprocessors -- that's a different story. If they aren't built to utilize multiple processors they will take no advantage of multiple cores. But considering multiprocessor machines have been around for decades, that's the app designers' fault.
Apple doesn't care about any of this. Seriously, they don't. It's a waste of time and effort to go after one guy copying one file to a friend.
What they're interested in (or, more accurately, the record companies are interested in) are the guys that ARE going to copy these songs straight to P2P. They'll be looking for repeat offenders: how many times does joepirate@pirate.org copy his files. Then they have a case to say "Ok, let's go after this one guy".
If you think Apple is going to knock at your door because you gave your non-DRM iTunes song to a friend, you're both alarmist and foolish.
Slashdot Mirror
"I can't wait to sit through a dozen commercials while I try to waste some free time."
r mat/2100-1024_3-6203802.html?tag=nefd.lede). But I guess it's just easier to toss the article up there and throw in a stupid comment. All about the page views, right?
Well, it's a good thing you don't have to, because the ads are overlaid at the very bottom of the video. There's no "waiting". E.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcGUKtzBCbA Similar to when a television station advertises another program while you're watching one. Not to mention, you can close them (wish I could do that with the television advertisements).
Of course, you would know this if you read the article. Or did a little research with other news sites (CNET has a good overview here: http://news.com.com/YouTube+tests+10-second+ad+fo
What makes Microsoft think it can seriously compete in video games? The PS2 ecosystem had too much of a head start to be caught in the short term.
And yet here MS is, tied neck and neck with Wii for 1st place as PS3 flounders.
Yeah, it's all fixed. What the summary failed to mention is that those 158 million records were 158 million individual breakins for 1 record each. It actually was the same guy's record each time. So, it's not that bad. Sucks to be that guy, though.
Nasa Chief: "Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?"
To be honest, why would I care if they're "tracking me down" using torrents? The only things I use Bittorrent for are to download Linux ISOs and World of Warcraft updates (it's built into their updater).
But let's say someone out there is using Bittorrent to download stuff they're not supposed to. Why use a change in the protocol to monitor usage when big media can just force ISPs to open up their logs?
Back to the issue at hand: would I care if they monitored me? No.
Out of curiosity, what exactly is "wrong" about them closing the source in Bittorrent's case? I mean, if it was an OS or something where security was critical I could see a problem. But really the only "benefit" I saw from the source being available was a bunch of clients that just leeched without sharing their bandwidth.
I know it's not the Slashdot party line, but not everything benefits from open source. Perhaps more importantly, this sets a bad precedent for companies that want to release code. If they ever have to pull back they have a PR mess on their end. Most PR flacks will just say not to release code to begin with.
I'm always bothered when I read articles like this because I know the Slashdot party line is always "File sharing good, fuck the content creators". I get upset because I think of my little brother, who's basically been screwed by piracy.
:P
My little brother has a band. The music is quite good. The band is quite popular locally. It's so popular, in fact, that people bootleg their music and share it across the internet.
At first they were quite happy about this. They were reaching a much larger audience. Surely these people will come to their concerts and buy their CDs if they like the music (at least, that's what Slashdot always says will happen).
However, it didn't. Turns out (from conversations with their fans on their message board) that no one wants to buy their music. They like it, but hwy buy the music when fans can download every one of their albums for free online? Also, concert attendance has stayed flat. The pirating of their music hasn't suddenly increased attendance like they hoped it would.
So, while the band has a large fanbase (and it's growing), they've had barely enough to scrap by. My brother personally cleans a local diner's grease pit every night for a free dinner. They haven't (yet) gotten a recording contract, and I personally hope they do before my brother is actually eating the grease.
Long story short: don't believe everything you read on Slashdot. While I agree that the big content holders don't deserve any sympathy, there are artists out there that actually ARE hurting from piracy. It's mostly the little guys, and I haven't found one comment on Slashdot yet that recognizes this is as a problem.
Actually I have and I do, and I very much understand what is going on here compared to "traditionally" supported devices like WIndows Mobile units.
We don't use Windows Mobile units. They are flaky from a stability standpoint and aren't as simple to use by executives as Blackberries. Not to mention, I wouldn't call them "traditionally supported" (no mobile device could be considered "traditionally supported" when it comes to updates -- you often don't know what devices are on the network, if they'll suddenly fall off the network during updates, etc).
Of course. But all of that is irrelevant in terms of what the iPhone supports or does not support, because all that happens anyway! At least the iPhone offers you a fighting chance that the exec may in fact update his own phone, and not bother you about it. That's how simple the updates are.
I don't think you understand how corporate updates work. I KNOW, when I check the update server, whether or not a given device has been updated. If I see something like "98% updated, 2% failed", I KNOW exactly what devices are behind in patches. I often KNOW, by looking at the server, WHY they failed (device off the network, download screwed up, etc). I also KNOW exactly where to send the techs so we can prempt any problems before they occur.
With the iPhone, I know nothing. I don't know which devices are updated. I don't know who canceled their upgrades. I don't know when a user's iTunes will check for updates next. It's not even like Mac OS X where I can control it through ARD. I have absolutely no control over the devices that I'm supposed to be controlling.
But at the moment, you can't install third party apps on the iPhone and so the greater likleyhood is that this will all still work because Apple is in charge of testing the updates. I know you feel uncomfortable letting that go, but why? What makes you think you can do any better job than Apple testing a closed system?
I work at an advertising conglomerate. I support several thousand Macs. Actually, 40% of our userbase is Macs.
APPLE MAKES MISTAKES. I know you might not want to hear this, but it's true. Example: there have been 5 updates to address Airport incompatibilities in the past year. There have been over a dozen to address Safari mistakes. And these aren't isolated bugs. These are updates to address the same bugs over and over, and sometimes to address bugs that they themselves created in the last patch.
Now, picture yourself in an IT management system. Apple releases an Airport update. Do you a) blindly install the update and deal with the CEO calling from overseas the next day when he can't connect to the hotel WiFi? Or b) regression test the update on a dozen different models of G4 and Intel Macs you have on the floor.
The day of change all the iPhones worked without your intervention because APple released a patch about a month beforehand. Don't you realize that in fact Macs had to address that very issue, and through software updates did in fact fix just about every Mac on the planet well beforehand?
Ok, now I know you have no clue about the corporate world.
First, like I mentioned, Apple patches occasionally break things. To call wireless "fixed on just about every Mac on the planet" after, say, the first Airport update would be ludicrous.
Second, like I mentioned, not every Mac user understand they need to run updates as soon as they come out. Apple has said before that a lot of people out there are still running 2 or 3 point versions behind.
Third, anyone who runs Macs on a large scale in a corporate environment is using ARD to push out updates -- not relying on Software Update roulette.
I agree corporations are too fearful to deploy them. What I am saying is that they are there, and you should be less fearful than you are of what that means - or at least understand in what ways you do have control to react to issues, and to what degree you should in fact say the co
To be honest I'm a little frightened that your post was rated +5 Insightful. It's very clear that you don't work in a corporate environment and don't understand what the OP is driving at.
When a user has a problem, WE'RE the support. Not Dell, not Apple, etc. Us. When an executive can't print, we don't tell them to call HP. When the CEO wrecks his home machine downloading spyware, we drive to his house and fix it. I wish this wasn't the case sometimes, but this is how IT support works in large environments (my company in particular has 10s of thousands of users).
Software patches DO break stuff. Often. I've pushed out thousands of patches across multiple OSes and devices over the years (computers, phones, printers, etc). Usually it's unintentional, but anytime a bug fixes a vulnerability or a library gets updated, some important app somewhere is going to get screwed.
When you have 10s of thousands of users, you have to maintain control. All boxes report to update servers of one kind or another. Every time an update gets released, it goes into a "holding" area where we regression test it across several dozen OS builds with varying degrees of apps. Only after everything in the matrix is checked does it get pushed out.
Our phones, in particular, are managed by a BES (Blackberry server). Anytime an update is available, it's tested across Blackberry models before getting pushed out. We never allow our users to update devices themselves.
Let me give you a recent example of how important it is maintain control (and how Apple's current scheme for iPhones wouldn't work in today's corporations): the time zone change. From the time congress officially approved the change to the time we had to implement it, thousands of phones needed to be updated. In particular, calendar apps became a nightmare. Now, imagine we have no idea of telling what users have updated their phones, whether the patch installed correctly, etc (e.g. they all have iPhones). Now, picture the day of the change. The cost of hundreds of users (including some executives that make billion-dollar transactions) calling the helpdesk simultaneously would FAR outweigh the costs of properly testing and deploying the patch.
At it stands right now, no corporation would distribute iPhones without some key changes: real Exchange support, remote manageability, remote updates. My corporation has outright banned the devices. I personally own one and love it (I use it everyday) but I can't in all honesty recommend it for my business.
MS didn't reinvent Bittorrent. They built something better: Avalanche. It's more efficient and (I know this phrase is weird to use around MS, but...) more secure. Read the research papers (they touch on BT, its advantages and disadvantages). I imagine most of this stuff is on its way into standard BT, if it hasn't been worked in already.
"How do you feel about subsidizing Microsoft's bandwidth costs?"
Frankly I don't give 2 shits as long as they don't patent the hell out of it (and sue existing P2P solutions). But this came out of MS Research, so I doubt that'll happen (one of the only decent groups at MS).
By the way, MS has been messing around with P2P for years. How do you think Xbox Live works? Every time a game is played multiplayer, at least one Xbox/Xbox 360 is hosting. Not a single MS server hosts a game. Question this all you want (why pay $60 a year then?) but the fact of the matter is that from a technological standpoint, it works well.
"Since when do we ask permission to bend our gadgets to our will?"
You don't need to.
But if you, you get your hands on all kinds of advanced, documented APIs that give you fancy graphics, direct access to functions that send data over the net, etc. In other words, you end up with a fancy iPhone that does fancier things in a pretty way. Instead of a fancy iPhone with a terminal that scares the crap out of your non-gadgety friends.
"How did you break your iPhone?"
"It runs Python now."
"What's Python? What happened to text messaging?"
"That button doesn't work. No matter. I never got many text messages. I don't care. I have Python."
*pause* "So when are you going to the Apple Store to fix it?"
In all fairness (do they even deserve it?), the password listed in the script is for ZDNet's FTP, not Fox. Still pretty embarrassing, but it's not going to hurt Fox at all (I imagine it could have hurt CNet/ZDNet). And it definitely could've hurt the relationship between both corporations' IT departments.
There seems to be a string of these lately between content aggregators. About a month ago there was that page on MS's site endorsing Linux. Turns out the content was from another site (I think, actually, CNet).
Not to say I'm not totally surprised. In this day when about 50% of someone's site is content from somebody else, it's not surprising there's snafus. I'm just waiting for the day when one of the sites leaves up SSH logins for another.
Patch Tuesday, thank you very much. Any administrator worth their salt knows that continual update is a recipe for disaster when you have to regress against a ton of apps. I've seen more patches break things (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc) than get caught by the vulnerabilities they're intended to fix.
Back in 1996, FoxTrax came into existence. It used state of the art technology to wrap the puck in a "glow" onscreen (and for kicks Fox added "comet trails" to the puck when it was fired at high speeds).
You know what? It COMPLETELY SUCKED. You know why? Because ANY IDIOT can see a black object against a bright white surface.
Not to mention, it was completely invasive. Contrast it with the yellow line shown during football games. Out of the way and easily ignored.
Hockey's problem in America isn't that Americans can't see the puck. Americans so the puck just fine during the NHL resurgence back in the 90s. Hockey's problem is that Americans won't return to any sport after a lockout unless the players have salaries greater than the GNP of some small nations (baseball).
This is Slashdot, not Digg.
Wait... did this guy just insinuate that an app on one guy's iPhone is enough to take down all of AT&T/Cingular's network? Or did someone add the word "network" afterwards? Suddenly I have a lot less faith in iClip (whatever it is) being a quality app...
That isn't entirely true. There's a VMware research paper out there that says turning on those extensions doesn't necessarily increase speed (and in fact sometimes decreases it). Do a Google search for it.
Didn't say curtains solve all problems. Just that a lot of problems have simple answers.
In your case, I'd recommend the venetian blinds.
One could argue that someone out there taking pictures of our house is a homebuilder and will use the ideas in a future home. Again, we should be up in arms about it?
And there are alternate answers:
1.) Put up a one way mirror.
2.) Put up venetian blinds that automatically close.
3.) Leave it a wall.
In my mind a window is a pretty obvious invitation for people to look in both directions. If you only want people looking in one direction you don't put up a window. Commercial entity looking in or not.
But that's precisely the problem here: her interior is visible from the exterior.
To put it in perspective, my family has a home at the beach. My mom bought a large picturesque window for the front so they could look at the beach. It also happens to be by the TV. So, anytime people are watching the TV inside, people outside can look in.
My mom complains about this all the time. "It's late at night. People are relaxing while watching TV. Why do they have to look in?" My response is always the same: "Why did you put the window up?"
People have a right to privacy, but if they're "flaunting" their interior with windows and no curtains, how far does Google have to go to ensure their privacy? Same thing with my family's home. It's a nice house. Should we be up in arms when passersby take pictures of it? Should we freak out that they're potentially taking pictures of us watching TV?
The answer, like most things in life, is simple: put up curtains.
Pussy? Sure thing, "Rik".
Did you see the chairs? Massive. They give them like dentist chairs to sit in. In bright red, too.
If you present a multicore machine to any OS that understands multiprocessor, it'll treat it as a multiprocessor system. Windows, as noted in the article, is already optimized for multiprocessor (as are most modern OSes).
By your analogy, the 2nd/3rd/8th core just sits there. This is not true. They're all being used. Just not well.
A more accurate analogy would be that each core is treated by the OS like an additional engine (extra weight and all). The car is using them but if it realized all the "engines" were just one "engine" it would use them better.
Now, whether or not apps take advantage of multiprocessors -- that's a different story. If they aren't built to utilize multiple processors they will take no advantage of multiple cores. But considering multiprocessor machines have been around for decades, that's the app designers' fault.
Apple doesn't care about any of this. Seriously, they don't. It's a waste of time and effort to go after one guy copying one file to a friend.
What they're interested in (or, more accurately, the record companies are interested in) are the guys that ARE going to copy these songs straight to P2P. They'll be looking for repeat offenders: how many times does joepirate@pirate.org copy his files. Then they have a case to say "Ok, let's go after this one guy".
If you think Apple is going to knock at your door because you gave your non-DRM iTunes song to a friend, you're both alarmist and foolish.
Yes but the idea of having the camera/PDA/whatever interact like that is completely new in my mind. I haven't seen anything like that.
Props to MS for taking existing tech and adding some real functionality to it. Usually they just steal it outright. lol