Vista has horrible "out of memory" problems even without Kaspersky AV. I used to use Vista at work (used to work at MSFT) and I have a Vista machine at home (as soon as I have a chance I'm gonna flatten it and put on Ubuntu). Here are some of the problems I've been having that sound like TFA, and we're talking about straight up out-of-the-box installs here:
- tabs in dialogs disappearing when you click on them - IE7 can't open a new window or tab (just flashes and disappears, or crashes) once you have 20-30 web pages open (my wife always has 3 different email accounts + several knitting blogs open when I sit down to do anything, and that's usually putting it at the limit) - right-click context menus don't appear when you right-click on the taskbar once you have too many windows open - file copy "completed" but it really stopped partway through
All of these problems seem to crop up once you have enough windows / buttons / menus / etc. open in the apps on your desktop. The painful thing is that I have 2 GB of memory and it really does not take much to hit that limit. I bought a new computer this May just to run Vista, and it has reduced $3500 of hardware to a steaming pile.
I have a Debian box with 512 MB of RAM sitting next to the Vista box at home and it looks more and more capable every day.
I don't even want to think about the next version of Windows unless it's called "Min"dows, and I hear that the entire engineering effort went into giving it a code liposuction.
If you want to make games without a manager constantly looking over your shoulder telling you what your game should be like, then it makes a lot of sense.
Bungie relinquished control of Halo years ago when Microsoft bought them. While at MGS, they had to fight constantly for whatever control of Halo they could get. Keep in mind, Halo is a good series, but having Halos and Master Chiefs in your game isn't what makes it great. Just look at single-player Halo 2. Freedom to be creative -- to break all the rules and make something new, unexpected, and fun -- is where great games come from. You have to create the right conditions for that to happen, and that's what Bungie is doing by increasing their independence.
Just a few days ago Robert Scoble wrote about how Bungie was the one bright spot in the sea of Microsoft:
Microsoft needs a new story. If I were on the management team I'd be looking hard at the Bungie team, the folks who brought us Halo 3.
Bungie splitting off makes a lot of sense, but I doubt it is the start of a trend at Microsoft. I used to work at MGS, and with Bungie -- they had a longer leash than any other group that I knew about at the company, and they fought constantly to keep it that way.
You could literally install your OS X on a thousand machines without issue, outside of the law, and I don't think Apple would care as it's a hardware company). Not sure how it is on the Windows side I suppose...
Interestingly enough, Microsoft tried to do something along those lines when it charged OEMs for a copy of Windows with every PC sale, even when the end user wasn't buying Windows. The antitrust suit ended all that, and how we have product activation instead.
Would you want to piss away a bunch of your developers time writing in crazy DRM crap that only keeps your company from innovating?
If I had a few billion $$$ in the bank but I was short on good ideas... maybe I'd rather keep the developers busy writing crazy DRM crap than innovating for a competitor.
FTFA: "There should be no way that a legitimate user of a product should be suddenly cut off from use of that product because of an authentication server error, ever.... All this proves is that these Web-based applications cannot be trusted."
WGA does not fit into the same category as Google and Amazon.com (or even good old/.!). Some software is best provided as a service, and it's worth trusting for the value it provides. That sort of software derives most of its value from the fact that it is connected to information that its customers want.
Now, WGA on the other hand isn't worth trusting. As a service, it doesn't enable any valuable functionality; all it can do is disable existing functionality. It relies on locally running code to do its work, anyway, which is why this "service" doesn't even work on Linux, Mac, or early versions of Windows. (Can you imagine implementing a WGA client for Linux?)
Maybe a better conclusion would be that some software does more harm than good when it's implemented as a service, or just when it's implemented at all.
IANAL, but the defendant doesn't need to appeal anything; they "won". From TFA it sounds like RIAA is not paying up yet because they think they can win on appeal. They think the lower court was wrong and can get a higher court to say that they don't really owe anything, so why pay up. The defendant is asking the RIAA to post a $210K security in anticipation of the additional cost of fighting an appeal. Technically this could go on through each level of the US federal court system, all the way up to the US Supreme Court, but the higher you go the less chance your appeal will actually be heard by the court (which is good if you're not the one who lost in a lower court).
The only ones whining will be the MP3 futures traders who are buying in bulk. When you're buying them one at a time the $0.98 price cap means you're whining about pennies.
With any pseudo-random number generator, choosing a seed is key. If someone else knows how you're choosing your seed values and can repeat it then they can repeat your sequence.
Modern OSes like Linux and Windows actually have kernel support for random number generation. Certain devices -- e.g. disk, keyboard -- generate interrupts more or less randomly. The kernel buffers this "entropy". In Linux you can sample it from/dev/random. In Windows you can call into the CryptoAPI or use rand_s (pseudorandom number generation layered on top of Windows' kernel-based entropy).
When used correctly, fancy pseudo-random number generation algorithms just help you generate more from a smaller amount of truly random bits. If you require a large volume of random data, you will either have to wait for the kernel to produce enough entropy (takes time) or you can use a pseudo-random algorithm. When you look at the bitrate vs. the amount of data you require, this can actually become very significant.
Bitmunk is already doing this, just on PCs instead of handheld devices. But it takes a lot of $$$ to grease the wheels. If you look at Bitmunk, you'll notice that what's missing is most of the content from the big labels. It takes serious cash just to get distributor access to their catalogs.
Maybe Microsoft's patent has something new in it (user lockout after 3 days) but allowing peer distribution where intermediaries get paid is prior art.
you've sold out and want everyone else to be okay with that as well as yourself
Nope. Internal accounting needs to do a better job of covering koolaid because it can be very cumbersome.
You could always choose to work elsewhere
I did.
"Testing would be too hard"
Misquote. I said it would have taken more time, which is true. And I would have happily done it if it had been allowed. As I said in my original post, I would have enjoyed making this game available on XP. It would have performed better on older hardware, too, due to the smaller OS footprint and more mature drivers.
I was a developer for one of the cracked games in the article. I would really have enjoyed making this game available for XP and not just Vista. Believe me, it would have taken longer to finish because the test matrix would have been so much bigger, but it's so frustrating to finish a game that none of your friends can even play because they don't have the right OS and won't be getting it anytime soon. That's the thing though, at MSFT you have to drink the koolaid.
I have a hard time believing that using these games to leverage Vista was illegal. Stupid and annoying maybe, but not illegal. Believe me, us devs who actually *cared* about the game argued against this sort of product hobbling on a regular basis. Requirements like this get thrown at you constantly. If it was actually illegal we would have played that card for sure.
I am a US citizen and a former Microsoft employee. I am very glad to see that these senators are investigating the H-1B visa program. Microsoft makes use of this program and is always very vocal about increasing its role. I hope they will have a chance to investigate how Microsoft uses the H-1B and L visa programs and what sort of work environment that creates here in the US.
I worked at Microsoft from January 2001 until May 2007 as a software design engineer at the corporate headquarters in Redmond, WA. Most of Microsoft's products, such as Windows, Office, Exchange, and SQL Server are developed here in Redmond. If you walk through the halls where the programmers are working, you will see that the majority of the workers are not from the US.
While at Microsoft, I interviewed job candidates for programming positions. Microsoft HR provided screened resumes, and my team interviewed and made hiring decisions. Microsoft HR publicly states that they make "diverse hiring" a goal. Race and nationality never are and never have been factors in my hiring decisions, but I was very rarely presented with American candidates, which is strange given that we are in America. Almost every candidate was a foreign worker. The positions we were trying to fill are not very unique that we needed to look outside the US - these were typical programming and testing positions. Microsoft has thousands of such positions, and the job functions performed by foreign programmers do not differ from those of American programmers.
In some of Microsoft's product development divisions, including one that I worked in for 5 years, foreign workers also participate in the hiring process as interviewers. Some teams are comprised almost entirely of foreign workers, mostly from India or China, from the bottom up through several levels of management. It is to a point now that many foreign workers are the ones conducting the job interviews and making the hiring decisions here in Redmond.
Being an American on a team with mostly H-1B visaholders is discouraging at times. As an American you want to live your life, work hard, and make your workplace the best it can be. Your coworkers are more concerned about navigating their way through the immigration system and ensuring that they keep their visa sponsor happy.
I don't have any ill-will towards H-1B workers, rather I feel sorry for them because of the leverage that their employer has over their lives as their visa sponsor. My gut feeling is that employers like Microsoft are either directly abusing the H-1B program or indirectly benefiting from its abuse. The program allows them to hire thousands of employees and relocate them to a place where they have no citizenship and can have their sponsorship revoked at any time. This naturally makes them more attractive to hire than an American who is already here and trying to get a job. Without the sponsorship component of the visa, this would not be possible.
Without telling Windows Update which software and hardware you have, and which patches you have installed in the past, your only option would be to download every patch for every application and device ever released. This would quickly become unworkable.
It's more like suing your drug dealer after you go to prison for getting caught with a rock.
Actually it's more like suing your drug dealer after you go to prison for drug dealing because the rocks you got from your dealer were being dealt in your name to other people, while you thought you were only a user.
Slashdot Mirror
Vista has horrible "out of memory" problems even without Kaspersky AV. I used to use Vista at work (used to work at MSFT) and I have a Vista machine at home (as soon as I have a chance I'm gonna flatten it and put on Ubuntu). Here are some of the problems I've been having that sound like TFA, and we're talking about straight up out-of-the-box installs here:
- tabs in dialogs disappearing when you click on them
- IE7 can't open a new window or tab (just flashes and disappears, or crashes) once you have 20-30 web pages open (my wife always has 3 different email accounts + several knitting blogs open when I sit down to do anything, and that's usually putting it at the limit)
- right-click context menus don't appear when you right-click on the taskbar once you have too many windows open
- file copy "completed" but it really stopped partway through
All of these problems seem to crop up once you have enough windows / buttons / menus / etc. open in the apps on your desktop. The painful thing is that I have 2 GB of memory and it really does not take much to hit that limit. I bought a new computer this May just to run Vista, and it has reduced $3500 of hardware to a steaming pile.
I have a Debian box with 512 MB of RAM sitting next to the Vista box at home and it looks more and more capable every day.
I don't even want to think about the next version of Windows unless it's called "Min"dows, and I hear that the entire engineering effort went into giving it a code liposuction.
Hey, remember the antitrust case? A federal Judge concluded that Microsoft committed "violence" against the marketplace. :-P
D
If you want to make games without a manager constantly looking over your shoulder telling you what your game should be like, then it makes a lot of sense.
Bungie relinquished control of Halo years ago when Microsoft bought them. While at MGS, they had to fight constantly for whatever control of Halo they could get. Keep in mind, Halo is a good series, but having Halos and Master Chiefs in your game isn't what makes it great. Just look at single-player Halo 2. Freedom to be creative -- to break all the rules and make something new, unexpected, and fun -- is where great games come from. You have to create the right conditions for that to happen, and that's what Bungie is doing by increasing their independence.
Just a few days ago Robert Scoble wrote about how Bungie was the one bright spot in the sea of Microsoft:
Bungie splitting off makes a lot of sense, but I doubt it is the start of a trend at Microsoft. I used to work at MGS, and with Bungie -- they had a longer leash than any other group that I knew about at the company, and they fought constantly to keep it that way.
A true audiophile would use speaker cable elevators!
Those of us in places like Seattle might not see any stars at all from Oct 1 - 15, and it's not because of light pollution.
Interestingly enough, Microsoft tried to do something along those lines when it charged OEMs for a copy of Windows with every PC sale, even when the end user wasn't buying Windows. The antitrust suit ended all that, and how we have product activation instead.
DDL
Have a look at ps -eH under your zsh process next time you are in the middle of a ">". It spawns a cat to do its dirty work.
DDL
You think you aren't using a program to write that file? Instead of cat you're just using your shell, which is probably several hundred KB.
DDL
I came across my favorite piece of bloat-free software while learning about Linux's ELF file format. It's only 45 bytes, and quite educational. :-)
DDL
If I had a few billion $$$ in the bank but I was short on good ideas... maybe I'd rather keep the developers busy writing crazy DRM crap than innovating for a competitor.
Vista is supposed to be Windows version 6.
FTFA: "There should be no way that a legitimate user of a product should be suddenly cut off from use of that product because of an authentication server error, ever. ... All this proves is that these Web-based applications cannot be trusted."
WGA does not fit into the same category as Google and Amazon.com (or even good old /.!). Some software is best provided as a service, and it's worth trusting for the value it provides. That sort of software derives most of its value from the fact that it is connected to information that its customers want.
Now, WGA on the other hand isn't worth trusting. As a service, it doesn't enable any valuable functionality; all it can do is disable existing functionality. It relies on locally running code to do its work, anyway, which is why this "service" doesn't even work on Linux, Mac, or early versions of Windows. (Can you imagine implementing a WGA client for Linux?)
Maybe a better conclusion would be that some software does more harm than good when it's implemented as a service, or just when it's implemented at all.
IANAL, but the defendant doesn't need to appeal anything; they "won". From TFA it sounds like RIAA is not paying up yet because they think they can win on appeal. They think the lower court was wrong and can get a higher court to say that they don't really owe anything, so why pay up. The defendant is asking the RIAA to post a $210K security in anticipation of the additional cost of fighting an appeal. Technically this could go on through each level of the US federal court system, all the way up to the US Supreme Court, but the higher you go the less chance your appeal will actually be heard by the court (which is good if you're not the one who lost in a lower court).
The only ones whining will be the MP3 futures traders who are buying in bulk. When you're buying them one at a time the $0.98 price cap means you're whining about pennies.
With any pseudo-random number generator, choosing a seed is key. If someone else knows how you're choosing your seed values and can repeat it then they can repeat your sequence.
/dev/random. In Windows you can call into the CryptoAPI or use rand_s (pseudorandom number generation layered on top of Windows' kernel-based entropy).
Modern OSes like Linux and Windows actually have kernel support for random number generation. Certain devices -- e.g. disk, keyboard -- generate interrupts more or less randomly. The kernel buffers this "entropy". In Linux you can sample it from
When used correctly, fancy pseudo-random number generation algorithms just help you generate more from a smaller amount of truly random bits. If you require a large volume of random data, you will either have to wait for the kernel to produce enough entropy (takes time) or you can use a pseudo-random algorithm. When you look at the bitrate vs. the amount of data you require, this can actually become very significant.
Bitmunk is already doing this, just on PCs instead of handheld devices. But it takes a lot of $$$ to grease the wheels. If you look at Bitmunk, you'll notice that what's missing is most of the content from the big labels. It takes serious cash just to get distributor access to their catalogs.
Maybe Microsoft's patent has something new in it (user lockout after 3 days) but allowing peer distribution where intermediaries get paid is prior art.
Nope. Internal accounting needs to do a better job of covering koolaid because it can be very cumbersome.
I did.
Misquote. I said it would have taken more time, which is true. And I would have happily done it if it had been allowed. As I said in my original post, I would have enjoyed making this game available on XP. It would have performed better on older hardware, too, due to the smaller OS footprint and more mature drivers.
I was a developer for one of the cracked games in the article. I would really have enjoyed making this game available for XP and not just Vista. Believe me, it would have taken longer to finish because the test matrix would have been so much bigger, but it's so frustrating to finish a game that none of your friends can even play because they don't have the right OS and won't be getting it anytime soon. That's the thing though, at MSFT you have to drink the koolaid.
I have a hard time believing that using these games to leverage Vista was illegal. Stupid and annoying maybe, but not illegal. Believe me, us devs who actually *cared* about the game argued against this sort of product hobbling on a regular basis. Requirements like this get thrown at you constantly. If it was actually illegal we would have played that card for sure.
I am a US citizen and a former Microsoft employee. I am very glad to see that these senators are investigating the H-1B visa program. Microsoft makes use of this program and is always very vocal about increasing its role. I hope they will have a chance to investigate how Microsoft uses the H-1B and L visa programs and what sort of work environment that creates here in the US.
I worked at Microsoft from January 2001 until May 2007 as a software design engineer at the corporate headquarters in Redmond, WA. Most of Microsoft's products, such as Windows, Office, Exchange, and SQL Server are developed here in Redmond. If you walk through the halls where the programmers are working, you will see that the majority of the workers are not from the US.
While at Microsoft, I interviewed job candidates for programming positions. Microsoft HR provided screened resumes, and my team interviewed and made hiring decisions. Microsoft HR publicly states that they make "diverse hiring" a goal. Race and nationality never are and never have been factors in my hiring decisions, but I was very rarely presented with American candidates, which is strange given that we are in America. Almost every candidate was a foreign worker. The positions we were trying to fill are not very unique that we needed to look outside the US - these were typical programming and testing positions. Microsoft has thousands of such positions, and the job functions performed by foreign programmers do not differ from those of American programmers.
In some of Microsoft's product development divisions, including one that I worked in for 5 years, foreign workers also participate in the hiring process as interviewers. Some teams are comprised almost entirely of foreign workers, mostly from India or China, from the bottom up through several levels of management. It is to a point now that many foreign workers are the ones conducting the job interviews and making the hiring decisions here in Redmond.
Being an American on a team with mostly H-1B visaholders is discouraging at times. As an American you want to live your life, work hard, and make your workplace the best it can be. Your coworkers are more concerned about navigating their way through the immigration system and ensuring that they keep their visa sponsor happy.
I don't have any ill-will towards H-1B workers, rather I feel sorry for them because of the leverage that their employer has over their lives as their visa sponsor. My gut feeling is that employers like Microsoft are either directly abusing the H-1B program or indirectly benefiting from its abuse. The program allows them to hire thousands of employees and relocate them to a place where they have no citizenship and can have their sponsorship revoked at any time. This naturally makes them more attractive to hire than an American who is already here and trying to get a job. Without the sponsorship component of the visa, this would not be possible.
Without telling Windows Update which software and hardware you have, and which patches you have installed in the past, your only option would be to download every patch for every application and device ever released. This would quickly become unworkable.
D
It's more like suing your drug dealer after you go to prison for getting caught with a rock.
Actually it's more like suing your drug dealer after you go to prison for drug dealing because the rocks you got from your dealer were being dealt in your name to other people, while you thought you were only a user.
DDL
...would have been an equally valid title.
I bet they forgot the AM/FM radio!
D