No, it does not, not unless you actually breach (apparently ineffective) security and enter a system you are not allowed to have access to. Just by checking a response that a server will give publically as to which Operating System it is running is NOT breaching security.
If you have actually bothered to read the press release, it clearly states that West actually penetrated a (supposedly) secure service. He found a security hole, and then used it to breach the security on the server. Whether or not he had malicious intentions is irrelevant - I know it's often used, but the following euphemism still holds true: If someone breaks into your house, just to look around, without doing any actual harm, they are still breaking the law. Just because they climbed in through a window that they discovered you hadn't locked doesn't make them any less guilty.
The fact that he didn't seem to have any malicious intent is reflected in the fact that he was charged with (and pleaded guilty to) a misdemeanor. Had he had malicious intent, or done any malicious damage, I'm sure that he would have been charged with an actual crime (there is, to the best of my knowledge, even though IAMAL, a legal difference between a misdemeanor and a crime).
"Last time I checked, most informed (not speculative) news analysis in mainstream papers..."
I'd hardly call the British Press in general, and the Daily Telegraph especially (as a tabloid newspaper of the highest order) well informed.
If you read the rest of John Keegan's report, as you quoted it, it's obvious the guy has no clue. I quote:
"The World Trade Centre outrage was co-ordinated on the internet, without question" - What evidence does he call to support this? Yes, it may have been co-ordinated over the Internet - but that is only one of many ways the whole thing may have been co-ordinated."
Any sane person can see that Keegan's a complete idiot - his suggested solution (ban all encryption over the Internet) throws the baby out with the bathwater, and his suggestion that ISPs foreign to the US who refuse to disallow the transmission of encrypted data be taken out with cruise missiles is just ludicrous.
Keegan obviously has issues with the Internet - hardly surprising when it allows people the world over to see what a complete fool he is. He is using the recent attack as a weapon against the Internet, blaming the Internet for the attack - he has obviously forgotten that terrorist attacks happened before the Internet existed. Next he'll be campaigning to have shaving outlawed, because someone who shaves might have a razor, which they could use as a weapon.
"I am sure ms did this with NT4 as well to force me to upgrade to w2k."
It's not that simple - before making comments on Microsoft's NT based operating systems, at least know something about them.
It would be quite difficult to re-write the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) in NT4 to allow for USB support. Since Win2K was developed after the uptake of USB, it's HAL was written to include USB from the start. Yes, Win2K is based on NT4, to some degree - but making such a major change to an operating system already in production (I'm talking about NT4 here) would have been deemed too dangerous.
Firstly, condolences to this child's family, friends, teachers and schoolmates - this would be hard to deal with, no matter what relationship you had with this boy.
I can see the school getting the blame from some people for this - which is a bit unfair. What this kid did do was evidently illegal - stressing the point I would say was done more to emphasise that he shouldn't do similar things again, than to push him into the kind of depression that leads to suicide. Being so smart as to know what he was doing, one must wonder how he didn't already know it was illegal, or at least morally and ethically wrong, and really, being 13 is no excuse - if he's smart enough to hack into the school district's systems, then he should know the ramifications of being caught, and the likelyhood of it happening.
It does appear that the suspension was the limit of the punishment that the school intended on carrying out on the boy - the real trajedy here (apart from the death) is that the boy appears not to have been clear on this himself. It is important, *especially* so with children, to be very clear when indicating the future direction of actions to be taken in response to someone's actions - the boy, from his suicide note, felt that he was going to be sent to prison - when the worst he appeared to be destined for was a negative mark on his school record - this obviously wasn't made clear to him, and his suicide was the result.
A very sad day when someone, gifted as this boy was or not, commits suicide, especially when it's at least partially due to a lack of understanding about the situation.
Already, several games contain faked advertising. Certain Counter-Strike maps contain billboards for imaginary products related to the game's fiction. These could easily be replaced with advertisements for real products. The Half-Life single player game starts with a monologue from a government employee - surely a message not to do drugs, or to quit smoking, could be delivered in this speech (government departments advertise too remember). There are also rolling advertisement banners in the coridoors as you progress through the game.
Even Duke Nukem 3D had advertising for ficticious products - it wouldn't be hard to replace them with ads for real products in Duke Nukem Forever (the forever though seems to relate to how long we'll be waiting for it...).
In fact, I'm sure that any game which takes place within a semi-realistic environment could easily be non-intrusively advertised in.
My only question though is this: Would this makes games cheaper for the end-user, or would it simply mean that game developers would get more money for their efforts, with the gamer still paying "full price" for what is a advertising subsidised product.
I subscribe to the Optus@Home service in Australia. Optus@Home are an Australian joint venture between Optus (owned by Cable & Wireless, though there's news of SingTel purchasing them), and Excite@Home (who I believe are responsible for the @Home cable Internet service in North America, though from what I understand, a lot of their network is run by franchise partners in different regions).
Australian Universities are all (I believe, certainly the major ones are) connected to the Internet through Optus, most of them using ATM. This means that connections from my Optus@Home service to Australian Universities are generally as fast as I'm likely to get, except for perhaps my local hub's proxy server - giving a pretty good indication of the true maximum speed of the service.
Connecting to mirror.aarnet.edu.au (hosted at University of Queensland I believe), I can download, using FTP (no proxying, and a better protocol than http to do speed testing) at around 400KB/sec (that's kilobytes, not kilobits). I'd guess that realistically gives me around 4Mb/sec - not bad at all.
I've actually had 600MB/sec http downloads from the Optus@Home proxy server - but that's rather rare, and it's not a good indication of the service's speed, as it's internal, and doesn't take into account my service's connection to the Internet itself (which is often a bottleneck for Internet Access Providers).
Optus@Home is one of two cable Internet services available in Australia - the other is run by Telstra, who are Australias national, partly-government owned Telecommunications company/carrier. Telstra offer two kinds of accounts - an "unlimited download" account, which is speed capped (I'm not aware of what speed this service is capped at) and an uncapped service, for which you pay per megabyte once you have downloaded over 200MB (it could be 500MB, but for some reason 200MB sticks in my head). The unlimited download account is quite slow compared to Optus' cable service, but from all reports the pay-per-megabyte service is just as fast, if not faster.
Telstra also initially rolled their cable network out using a proprietry system, forcing people to buy their particular cable modem (a modified Motorola CyberSurfer I believe), though they are now in the process of converting it to the DOCSIS standard - all new connections are now DOCSIS. Optus@Home used DOCSIS from the start.
ADSL in Australia is in it's infancy - Telstra and a company called iPrimus are the only ones (so far) offering line rental and Internet connectivity - iPrimus recently pulled their unlimited data plan (well, they no longer offer it to new customers, anyone who signed up on that plan still has unlimited data), I don't know much about the Telstra plans. I believe though that 2 different speed connections - the fastest of which is 1.5mb/sec download.
Our geographical location (away from the US) and expensive telecommunications and Internet charges (Australian Internet access providers, including Telstra and Optus, still get charged per megabyte for data coming from overseas) means that the uptake of broadband in Australia is slow. But we are getting there.:)
I should have mentioned, I live in Australia - where the availability of high quality, affordable broadband internet connection is rather low. My views are at least partly "clouded" by the environment I live in (I actually have high speed Internet access through the Optus@Home cable Internet service, considered the best in Australia at the moment, but it's not available to the vast majority of people).
Last is the possibility of internet "commercials". These would merely be much more immersive banner ads, similar to what is shown on TV now. Before accesing the site, the browser would first have to view a 30 second flash movie from a sponsor, for example.
The only problem with this sort of thing is that the majority of Internet users are *still* not hooked up to a broadband service - 30 second flash animations/commercials take a LONG time to download on a 56k modem - especially if they're of a significant size....
If I were on a modem, and a site decided to make me watch a 30 second flash advert before accessing the site, I'd be seriously considering finding an alternative site which offered the same sort of information/services....
Now I'm not going to go and shout and scream about how Microsoft is buying off a potential competitor, but it does look kind of suspicious. Here's a company that could do a lot to boost Linux as a desktop competitor for Windows, and after getting a big cash infusion from Microsoft they're giving up their plans to do so.
With all due respect, I think Corel have proven beyond reasonably doubt that they're incapable of pushing Linux as a competitor to Windows on the desktop - Corel Linux, designed for exactly this purpose, was a dismal failure. And Corel showed no signs of knowing how to fix it, or improve it.
There are companies which are, I'm sure, capable of boosting Linux's share in the desktop Operating System Market, but I don't think Corel is one of them. In fact, Corel's entire product line has faltered recently, they've had a receding market share for all their products, and I think pulling out of the Linux market is a rationalisation move. Hooking up with Microsoft, simply good business sense - Microsoft aren't about to fail any time soon, despite the hopes and dreams of the anti-Microsoft movement.
Following standard operating procedure, Optimum field staff resolved the issue as quickly as possible..."
What IS the standard operating procedure when a fibre cable is severed by a bullet?
I can just see it now - a black van pulls up at the Optimum Online office, the side door slides open, and several black-clad men jump out, and do what? Take cover, and start returning fire?
"Pioneer of the first ever GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), Nvidia is now introducing a programmable GPU, seven times faster than the previous Geforce 2 Ultra, the NV20."
Now, there are two possibilities here - either the article's author has a shocking grasp of the English language (wouldn't THAT be bad, considering he writes for ZDNet UK, the home of "The Queen's English"), or he hasn't done his research properly, and thinks that NV20 refers to the GeForce2 Ultra.
The GeForce2 Ultra is the NV15 if I'm not mistaken - simply a GeForce2 GTS with faster RAM. GeForce2 MX is the NV10.
The NV20 is the new GPU ZDNet's supposed "leaked documents" claim will be 7 times faster in complex scenes (ie TreeMark). You've gotta love it when the speed at which a product performs is judged by how it performs in a program designed to make it shine.
Bad journalism all round I think - not that we should be surprised....
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft Select would include the non-subscription version of Office - meaning that large companies at least will be able to avoid the yearly nightmare....
I work for a moderately sized company - we only have 500 or so workstations, about 300 of which have Office 97/2000 installed - even with our small size, it would be a nightmare to obtain and issue new licenses each year. I would like to think that Microsoft can see that, and will continue to offer non-subscription versions of their software, to both corporate and consumer customers.
If they don't, maybe we'll see a revival of Lotus SmartSuite....
Alternatively, he could actually be correct, and merely stating fact.
While it *is* possible that he's just covering his ass, just because he works for Microsoft doesn't mean that's his only motivation, or that he's not capable of doing his job.
Assuming that the story is true (that the hackers closed the hole and then informed the Slashdot admins of what had happened, rather than planting bombs, scripts, backdoors, etc), I believe that this is a good example of the fact that hackers aren't all bad - that they can, despite the media's poor representation of them (let's not go into the hacker vs cracker argument) actually serve a useful purpose.
Guys, well done for showing some maturity. I assume you've boosted your Slashdot karma scores to reflect your recent real-life boost in karma?:)
From what I'm reading, Red Hat Network is NOTHING like apt-get
Sure, it lets you simply get updates from a recognised source.
But it's not free.
I can apt-get anything I want for my Debian system, without paying someone (other than my ISP) for it.
I could be on the Red Hat Network for a year, paying a monthly subscription fee, for which I don't get a promise of quality, regular updates, or anything other than being able to say "Hey, I run Red Hat Linux, and I'm on the Red Hat Network."
Reminds me of the Microsoft Network. Abso-fscking-lutely useless.
I know which distribution I'll be using.
*sniff* *sniff*
Do I smell potato?
The /. news item is badly written....
on
Speak To Your Palm
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· Score: 2
The way it's worded makes it sound like ZDNet have licenses the SpeechWorks technology, when in fact it is Palm Inc who have licensed the software.
My first thought when I read the news article was "And How do ZDNet plan on getting the SpeechWorks technology into Pal Pilots? Are they going to charge Palm a royalty?"
Of course, my second thought was "No, that's absurd - the news item is just badly written..."
It can't be too hard (since as a regular user I have a "Preview" button) for the/. staffers to check what they're about to post, surely....
Yep - women are the logical next step from mice. No, really, they are.
The scientists who spend their time butchering innocent mice would be better off, both scientifically and ethically, spending their time doing something which is a) of benefit to people and not mice and b) less offensive to decent Christians.
Butchering - I think you'll find that genetic manipulation is a LITTLE more refined than "butchering". Have you stoppped to think of the possible benefits we might gain from this research? Perhaps making people resistant to AIDS? Or perhaps cancer (since bigotted religeous zealots like you would naturally assume that AIDS is a disease of people of low moral quality)? Or polio, SIDS, or in fact any of the multitude of diseases and illnesses which currently afflict the innocent?
And this sentance - "Scientists in Australia have done some fun things with genetics..." - am I the only person who thinks that this flappant attitude is appalling?
That'd be "sentence" and "flippant" unless I'm mistaken, but we'll leave the semantics of correct spelling, grammar and punctuation out of this, shall we? Have you perchance thought that some people actually find scientific discovery interesting, and perchance fun? Just because you've got a stick up your ass doesn't meant the rest of us do.
Tinkering with the natural order of things which God has decreed is not a "bit of fun", it is both dangerous and amoral and needs to be stopped.
Granted, there are potentially "bad" uses for this technology (at least when it matures). But we've had nuclear weapons since the end of the 2nd world war, they're proven to be VERY destructive, and yet we've managed to (albeit only just at times) avoid blowing the living shit out of the planet with them. Give human kind SOME credit, please. You'd be surprised just how moral we can be as a race when necessary.
Did you know that the majority of our technological advancements (even the good ones, that save lives) have come about due to war? A point to ponder....
Unfortunately thanks to the liberal fundamentalists who hold power over much of the Western world, these people are given free license to blaspheme and tamper with something which could kill us all even worse than the plagues God sent to punish the Egyptians.
Ah, a fire and brimstone Christian - now I'm starting to understand. Have you perchance read this wonderful part of the Bible called the "New Testament"? Incidently, I suggest that you look up the meaning of the political buzzwords you're using - because Liberal Fundamentalists are generally the very people opposing the sort of research and development of scientific knowledge that you youreself are complaining about.
Genetic "engineering" is not a bit of fun, it is the greatest threat to humanity we have ever faced.
And you have scientific proof to back up this statement? Oh, silly me - of course you don't - science is the art of witches isn't it! You wouldn't want to make a well backed up point and end up being burned at the stake now, would you?
Today it may be fat mice, but who knows what horrors tomorrow may bring?
Bigger cattle, which feed more people? Better crop averages, so that we might feed the starving? The health benefits I mentioned before? Sure, there COULD be bad things that come of this technology, but other great scientific discoveries, like electricity, can also be used for the powers of darkness. Quick, shut down your PC - it uses the Devil's own power!
Most of you probably remember the robot insect that was made a few years ago now, it's actions were controlled by an artificial neural net.
This insect had been programmed with basic functions - and in reaction to certain stimuli, it would act in a particular way.
One thing it was programmed to do was to run away from light, and to hide in dark places. Without re-programming, it would ALWAYS run away from a light source...
Why does this new robot have 2 different reactions to light? In one instance, it runs away from the light, in another it follows it - to me, that's peculiar - and sounds more like programming than simple basic reactions to a stimuli....
Turns out Klamath and Willamette are rivers in Oregon... since Intel is largely in Oregon as well, that makes some sense. Besides, those are just codenames anyway (along the same line, IIRC, Katmai is a mountain).
Intel name ALL their processors (at least the code names) on rivers in the Oregon area... Coppermine and Katmai are rivers as well AFAIK....
I've played UO now for... well, close on three years - since JUST after beta.
I had a look at EQ, I had a look at AC, Shadowboobs (sorry, Shadowbane, what *WAS* I thinking) just doesn't interest me, Star Wars Online could be good (especially if the rumours that Raph Koster and Richard Vogel, who were instrumental in the development of UO, have joined it's development team are true).
One of the big draws of such games is that you can pretty much do what you want within the game mechanics (sorry, the intentionally programmed game mechanics - find a fault in the programming and use it, and you're likely to be banned).
One thing that all these games have in common though is that to have posession of certain items (be they hard to come by, or rare) is a status symbol of sorts - in UO in particular, the "rares" market is worth a LOT of money, both ingame, and out of it.
Richard Garriott (and therefor Origin, at least before he left) supported the sale of accounts and items on E-Bay - not necessarily because they thought it was a good idea (if you sell your account, you can STILL get it back as long as you have the original CD case with the rego number on it, so the system IS open to abuse0, but because he/they realised that to try stifle this would just alienate the players, who happen to be the paying customers.
Sony/Verant seem to be quite intent on alienating their player base with this sort of attitude - Origin, although they can be harsh, at least have the smarts not to play "Big Brother" too often.
I hope for the sake of EQ players, and the game itself (which although it didn't interest me, doesn't mean it's not any good), and the MMORPG market, that Sony/Verant wake up very quickly, or they're going to find themselves with a slowly but surely dwindling player population, despite the pretty picture of the submissively bound, buxom female on the front of the game box....
IMHO, this is a *bad* thing to encourage users to do.
Email was never intended to be used for file transfers, and is poorly suited to this task. Message attachments, or the ability to make attachments, is a hack of the system - if you've ever read an email without decoding the "attachment" all you see is a rather large amount of seemingly meaningless text.
It's also important to note that the majority of people connected to the Internet are still connected with analogue modems - and to download even a 2MB file can cause timeouts on a 56k (or 33.6k) line.
I cannot recount the number of times I had to clear a "blocked" mailbox in my 5-odd years of working in the ISP industry, mainly due to the presense of a message with a large (2MB or above) attachment.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it does not, not unless you actually breach (apparently ineffective) security and enter a system you are not allowed to have access to. Just by checking a response that a server will give publically as to which Operating System it is running is NOT breaching security.
If you have actually bothered to read the press release, it clearly states that West actually penetrated a (supposedly) secure service. He found a security hole, and then used it to breach the security on the server. Whether or not he had malicious intentions is irrelevant - I know it's often used, but the following euphemism still holds true: If someone breaks into your house, just to look around, without doing any actual harm, they are still breaking the law. Just because they climbed in through a window that they discovered you hadn't locked doesn't make them any less guilty.
The fact that he didn't seem to have any malicious intent is reflected in the fact that he was charged with (and pleaded guilty to) a misdemeanor. Had he had malicious intent, or done any malicious damage, I'm sure that he would have been charged with an actual crime (there is, to the best of my knowledge, even though IAMAL, a legal difference between a misdemeanor and a crime).
So Microsoft is claiming "unfair targeting due to their popularity"?
:)
Do they mean popularity as a target of Internet worm/virus/trojan attacks?
I was referring more to the style of writing then to the width of the paper it's printed on, yes.
I quote sulli:
"Last time I checked, most informed (not speculative) news analysis in mainstream papers..."
I'd hardly call the British Press in general, and the Daily Telegraph especially (as a tabloid newspaper of the highest order) well informed.
If you read the rest of John Keegan's report, as you quoted it, it's obvious the guy has no clue. I quote:
"The World Trade Centre outrage was co-ordinated on the internet, without question" - What evidence does he call to support this? Yes, it may have been co-ordinated over the Internet - but that is only one of many ways the whole thing may have been co-ordinated."
Any sane person can see that Keegan's a complete idiot - his suggested solution (ban all encryption over the Internet) throws the baby out with the bathwater, and his suggestion that ISPs foreign to the US who refuse to disallow the transmission of encrypted data be taken out with cruise missiles is just ludicrous.
Keegan obviously has issues with the Internet - hardly surprising when it allows people the world over to see what a complete fool he is. He is using the recent attack as a weapon against the Internet, blaming the Internet for the attack - he has obviously forgotten that terrorist attacks happened before the Internet existed. Next he'll be campaigning to have shaving outlawed, because someone who shaves might have a razor, which they could use as a weapon.
"I am sure ms did this with NT4 as well to force me to upgrade to w2k."
It's not that simple - before making comments on Microsoft's NT based operating systems, at least know something about them.
It would be quite difficult to re-write the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) in NT4 to allow for USB support. Since Win2K was developed after the uptake of USB, it's HAL was written to include USB from the start. Yes, Win2K is based on NT4, to some degree - but making such a major change to an operating system already in production (I'm talking about NT4 here) would have been deemed too dangerous.
Firstly, condolences to this child's family, friends, teachers and schoolmates - this would be hard to deal with, no matter what relationship you had with this boy.
I can see the school getting the blame from some people for this - which is a bit unfair. What this kid did do was evidently illegal - stressing the point I would say was done more to emphasise that he shouldn't do similar things again, than to push him into the kind of depression that leads to suicide. Being so smart as to know what he was doing, one must wonder how he didn't already know it was illegal, or at least morally and ethically wrong, and really, being 13 is no excuse - if he's smart enough to hack into the school district's systems, then he should know the ramifications of being caught, and the likelyhood of it happening.
It does appear that the suspension was the limit of the punishment that the school intended on carrying out on the boy - the real trajedy here (apart from the death) is that the boy appears not to have been clear on this himself. It is important, *especially* so with children, to be very clear when indicating the future direction of actions to be taken in response to someone's actions - the boy, from his suicide note, felt that he was going to be sent to prison - when the worst he appeared to be destined for was a negative mark on his school record - this obviously wasn't made clear to him, and his suicide was the result.
A very sad day when someone, gifted as this boy was or not, commits suicide, especially when it's at least partially due to a lack of understanding about the situation.
Already, several games contain faked advertising. Certain Counter-Strike maps contain billboards for imaginary products related to the game's fiction. These could easily be replaced with advertisements for real products. The Half-Life single player game starts with a monologue from a government employee - surely a message not to do drugs, or to quit smoking, could be delivered in this speech (government departments advertise too remember). There are also rolling advertisement banners in the coridoors as you progress through the game.
Even Duke Nukem 3D had advertising for ficticious products - it wouldn't be hard to replace them with ads for real products in Duke Nukem Forever (the forever though seems to relate to how long we'll be waiting for it...).
In fact, I'm sure that any game which takes place within a semi-realistic environment could easily be non-intrusively advertised in.
My only question though is this: Would this makes games cheaper for the end-user, or would it simply mean that game developers would get more money for their efforts, with the gamer still paying "full price" for what is a advertising subsidised product.
How the post looks in Sydney, Australia (GMT10+).
Gotta hate it when your April Fools joke bites you due to differences in time zones....
I subscribe to the Optus@Home service in Australia. Optus@Home are an Australian joint venture between Optus (owned by Cable & Wireless, though there's news of SingTel purchasing them), and Excite@Home (who I believe are responsible for the @Home cable Internet service in North America, though from what I understand, a lot of their network is run by franchise partners in different regions).
:)
Australian Universities are all (I believe, certainly the major ones are) connected to the Internet through Optus, most of them using ATM. This means that connections from my Optus@Home service to Australian Universities are generally as fast as I'm likely to get, except for perhaps my local hub's proxy server - giving a pretty good indication of the true maximum speed of the service.
Connecting to mirror.aarnet.edu.au (hosted at University of Queensland I believe), I can download, using FTP (no proxying, and a better protocol than http to do speed testing) at around 400KB/sec (that's kilobytes, not kilobits). I'd guess that realistically gives me around 4Mb/sec - not bad at all.
I've actually had 600MB/sec http downloads from the Optus@Home proxy server - but that's rather rare, and it's not a good indication of the service's speed, as it's internal, and doesn't take into account my service's connection to the Internet itself (which is often a bottleneck for Internet Access Providers).
Optus@Home is one of two cable Internet services available in Australia - the other is run by Telstra, who are Australias national, partly-government owned Telecommunications company/carrier. Telstra offer two kinds of accounts - an "unlimited download" account, which is speed capped (I'm not aware of what speed this service is capped at) and an uncapped service, for which you pay per megabyte once you have downloaded over 200MB (it could be 500MB, but for some reason 200MB sticks in my head). The unlimited download account is quite slow compared to Optus' cable service, but from all reports the pay-per-megabyte service is just as fast, if not faster.
Telstra also initially rolled their cable network out using a proprietry system, forcing people to buy their particular cable modem (a modified Motorola CyberSurfer I believe), though they are now in the process of converting it to the DOCSIS standard - all new connections are now DOCSIS. Optus@Home used DOCSIS from the start.
ADSL in Australia is in it's infancy - Telstra and a company called iPrimus are the only ones (so far) offering line rental and Internet connectivity - iPrimus recently pulled their unlimited data plan (well, they no longer offer it to new customers, anyone who signed up on that plan still has unlimited data), I don't know much about the Telstra plans. I believe though that 2 different speed connections - the fastest of which is 1.5mb/sec download.
Our geographical location (away from the US) and expensive telecommunications and Internet charges (Australian Internet access providers, including Telstra and Optus, still get charged per megabyte for data coming from overseas) means that the uptake of broadband in Australia is slow. But we are getting there.
I should have mentioned, I live in Australia - where the availability of high quality, affordable broadband internet connection is rather low. My views are at least partly "clouded" by the environment I live in (I actually have high speed Internet access through the Optus@Home cable Internet service, considered the best in Australia at the moment, but it's not available to the vast majority of people).
Last is the possibility of internet "commercials". These would merely be much more immersive banner ads, similar to what is shown on TV now. Before accesing the site, the browser would first have to view a 30 second flash movie from a sponsor, for example.
The only problem with this sort of thing is that the majority of Internet users are *still* not hooked up to a broadband service - 30 second flash animations/commercials take a LONG time to download on a 56k modem - especially if they're of a significant size....
If I were on a modem, and a site decided to make me watch a 30 second flash advert before accessing the site, I'd be seriously considering finding an alternative site which offered the same sort of information/services....
Now I'm not going to go and shout and scream about how Microsoft is buying off a potential competitor, but it does look kind of suspicious. Here's a company that could do a lot to boost Linux as a desktop competitor for Windows, and after getting a big cash infusion from Microsoft they're giving up their plans to do so.
With all due respect, I think Corel have proven beyond reasonably doubt that they're incapable of pushing Linux as a competitor to Windows on the desktop - Corel Linux, designed for exactly this purpose, was a dismal failure. And Corel showed no signs of knowing how to fix it, or improve it.
There are companies which are, I'm sure, capable of boosting Linux's share in the desktop Operating System Market, but I don't think Corel is one of them. In fact, Corel's entire product line has faltered recently, they've had a receding market share for all their products, and I think pulling out of the Linux market is a rationalisation move. Hooking up with Microsoft, simply good business sense - Microsoft aren't about to fail any time soon, despite the hopes and dreams of the anti-Microsoft movement.
Following standard operating procedure, Optimum field staff resolved the issue as quickly as possible..."
What IS the standard operating procedure when a fibre cable is severed by a bullet?
I can just see it now - a black van pulls up at the Optimum Online office, the side door slides open, and several black-clad men jump out, and do what? Take cover, and start returning fire?
I quote from the article...
"Pioneer of the first ever GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), Nvidia is now introducing a programmable GPU, seven times faster than the previous Geforce 2 Ultra, the NV20."
Now, there are two possibilities here - either the article's author has a shocking grasp of the English language (wouldn't THAT be bad, considering he writes for ZDNet UK, the home of "The Queen's English"), or he hasn't done his research properly, and thinks that NV20 refers to the GeForce2 Ultra.
The GeForce2 Ultra is the NV15 if I'm not mistaken - simply a GeForce2 GTS with faster RAM. GeForce2 MX is the NV10.
The NV20 is the new GPU ZDNet's supposed "leaked documents" claim will be 7 times faster in complex scenes (ie TreeMark). You've gotta love it when the speed at which a product performs is judged by how it performs in a program designed to make it shine.
Bad journalism all round I think - not that we should be surprised....
I'm pretty sure that Microsoft Select would include the non-subscription version of Office - meaning that large companies at least will be able to avoid the yearly nightmare....
I work for a moderately sized company - we only have 500 or so workstations, about 300 of which have Office 97/2000 installed - even with our small size, it would be a nightmare to obtain and issue new licenses each year. I would like to think that Microsoft can see that, and will continue to offer non-subscription versions of their software, to both corporate and consumer customers.
If they don't, maybe we'll see a revival of Lotus SmartSuite....
Alternatively, he could actually be correct, and merely stating fact.
While it *is* possible that he's just covering his ass, just because he works for Microsoft doesn't mean that's his only motivation, or that he's not capable of doing his job.
Assuming that the story is true (that the hackers closed the hole and then informed the Slashdot admins of what had happened, rather than planting bombs, scripts, backdoors, etc), I believe that this is a good example of the fact that hackers aren't all bad - that they can, despite the media's poor representation of them (let's not go into the hacker vs cracker argument) actually serve a useful purpose.
:)
Guys, well done for showing some maturity. I assume you've boosted your Slashdot karma scores to reflect your recent real-life boost in karma?
You don't NEED to take multiple captures of the whole screen/desktop - one is enough.
:)
And once you've got that, you don't even have to CROP your images.
ALT-PrntScrn will capture just the active window - leaving background windows and objects out of the picture.
I hope someone finds that helpful.
From what I'm reading, Red Hat Network is NOTHING like apt-get
Sure, it lets you simply get updates from a recognised source.
But it's not free.
I can apt-get anything I want for my Debian system, without paying someone (other than my ISP) for it.
I could be on the Red Hat Network for a year, paying a monthly subscription fee, for which I don't get a promise of quality, regular updates, or anything other than being able to say "Hey, I run Red Hat Linux, and I'm on the Red Hat Network."
Reminds me of the Microsoft Network. Abso-fscking-lutely useless.
I know which distribution I'll be using.
*sniff* *sniff*
Do I smell potato?
The way it's worded makes it sound like ZDNet have licenses the SpeechWorks technology, when in fact it is Palm Inc who have licensed the software.
/. staffers to check what they're about to post, surely....
My first thought when I read the news article was "And How do ZDNet plan on getting the SpeechWorks technology into Pal Pilots? Are they going to charge Palm a royalty?"
Of course, my second thought was "No, that's absurd - the news item is just badly written..."
It can't be too hard (since as a regular user I have a "Preview" button) for the
Giant mice? What's next, giant women?
..." - am I the only person who thinks that this flappant attitude is appalling?
Yep - women are the logical next step from mice. No, really, they are.
The scientists who spend their time butchering innocent mice would be better off, both scientifically and ethically, spending their time doing something which is a) of benefit to people and not mice and b) less offensive to decent Christians.
Butchering - I think you'll find that genetic manipulation is a LITTLE more refined than "butchering". Have you stoppped to think of the possible benefits we might gain from this research? Perhaps making people resistant to AIDS? Or perhaps cancer (since bigotted religeous zealots like you would naturally assume that AIDS is a disease of people of low moral quality)? Or polio, SIDS, or in fact any of the multitude of diseases and illnesses which currently afflict the innocent?
And this sentance - "Scientists in Australia have done some fun things with genetics
That'd be "sentence" and "flippant" unless I'm mistaken, but we'll leave the semantics of correct spelling, grammar and punctuation out of this, shall we? Have you perchance thought that some people actually find scientific discovery interesting, and perchance fun? Just because you've got a stick up your ass doesn't meant the rest of us do.
Tinkering with the natural order of things which God has decreed is not a "bit of fun", it is both dangerous and amoral and needs to be stopped.
Granted, there are potentially "bad" uses for this technology (at least when it matures). But we've had nuclear weapons since the end of the 2nd world war, they're proven to be VERY destructive, and yet we've managed to (albeit only just at times) avoid blowing the living shit out of the planet with them. Give human kind SOME credit, please. You'd be surprised just how moral we can be as a race when necessary.
Did you know that the majority of our technological advancements (even the good ones, that save lives) have come about due to war? A point to ponder....
Unfortunately thanks to the liberal fundamentalists who hold power over much of the Western world, these people are given free license to blaspheme and tamper with something which could kill us all even worse than the plagues God sent to punish the Egyptians.
Ah, a fire and brimstone Christian - now I'm starting to understand. Have you perchance read this wonderful part of the Bible called the "New Testament"? Incidently, I suggest that you look up the meaning of the political buzzwords you're using - because Liberal Fundamentalists are generally the very people opposing the sort of research and development of scientific knowledge that you youreself are complaining about.
Genetic "engineering" is not a bit of fun, it is the greatest threat to humanity we have ever faced.
And you have scientific proof to back up this statement? Oh, silly me - of course you don't - science is the art of witches isn't it! You wouldn't want to make a well backed up point and end up being burned at the stake now, would you?
Today it may be fat mice, but who knows what horrors tomorrow may bring?
Bigger cattle, which feed more people? Better crop averages, so that we might feed the starving? The health benefits I mentioned before? Sure, there COULD be bad things that come of this technology, but other great scientific discoveries, like electricity, can also be used for the powers of darkness. Quick, shut down your PC - it uses the Devil's own power!
Most of you probably remember the robot insect that was made a few years ago now, it's actions were controlled by an artificial neural net.
This insect had been programmed with basic functions - and in reaction to certain stimuli, it would act in a particular way.
One thing it was programmed to do was to run away from light, and to hide in dark places. Without re-programming, it would ALWAYS run away from a light source...
Why does this new robot have 2 different reactions to light? In one instance, it runs away from the light, in another it follows it - to me, that's peculiar - and sounds more like programming than simple basic reactions to a stimuli....
Turns out Klamath and Willamette are rivers in Oregon... since Intel is largely in Oregon as well, that makes some sense. Besides, those are just codenames anyway (along the same line, IIRC, Katmai is a mountain).
Intel name ALL their processors (at least the code names) on rivers in the Oregon area... Coppermine and Katmai are rivers as well AFAIK....
I've played UO now for... well, close on three years - since JUST after beta.
I had a look at EQ, I had a look at AC, Shadowboobs (sorry, Shadowbane, what *WAS* I thinking) just doesn't interest me, Star Wars Online could be good (especially if the rumours that Raph Koster and Richard Vogel, who were instrumental in the development of UO, have joined it's development team are true).
One of the big draws of such games is that you can pretty much do what you want within the game mechanics (sorry, the intentionally programmed game mechanics - find a fault in the programming and use it, and you're likely to be banned).
One thing that all these games have in common though is that to have posession of certain items (be they hard to come by, or rare) is a status symbol of sorts - in UO in particular, the "rares" market is worth a LOT of money, both ingame, and out of it.
Richard Garriott (and therefor Origin, at least before he left) supported the sale of accounts and items on E-Bay - not necessarily because they thought it was a good idea (if you sell your account, you can STILL get it back as long as you have the original CD case with the rego number on it, so the system IS open to abuse0, but because he/they realised that to try stifle this would just alienate the players, who happen to be the paying customers.
Sony/Verant seem to be quite intent on alienating their player base with this sort of attitude - Origin, although they can be harsh, at least have the smarts not to play "Big Brother" too often.
I hope for the sake of EQ players, and the game itself (which although it didn't interest me, doesn't mean it's not any good), and the MMORPG market, that Sony/Verant wake up very quickly, or they're going to find themselves with a slowly but surely dwindling player population, despite the pretty picture of the submissively bound, buxom female on the front of the game box....
IMHO, this is a *bad* thing to encourage users to do.
Email was never intended to be used for file transfers, and is poorly suited to this task. Message attachments, or the ability to make attachments, is a hack of the system - if you've ever read an email without decoding the "attachment" all you see is a rather large amount of seemingly meaningless text.
It's also important to note that the majority of people connected to the Internet are still connected with analogue modems - and to download even a 2MB file can cause timeouts on a 56k (or 33.6k) line.
I cannot recount the number of times I had to clear a "blocked" mailbox in my 5-odd years of working in the ISP industry, mainly due to the presense of a message with a large (2MB or above) attachment.