Security over function. That makes sense. I already love it everytime windows warns me that I am about to do something dangerous, restricts me from seeing files I shouldn't touch by default, and dumbs down everything to the point where it takes me 45 minutes to make the machine useful after a clean installation.
Now they are going to focus on security instead of function.
I have a pocket calculator that adds, subtracts, multiplies and divides. The square root button is broken. I just jammed an RJ-45 cable into the slot where the battery normally goes. It appears to be doing nothing.
I'm certain that my calculator now meets Bill's new objectives. It does nothing, but is entirely secure. Particularly since it is behind a firewall.
I didn't say it was. You are right. Linux suffers from the same problem. Would I be stating the obvious, though, to mention that the upgrade cost for a new build of Linux = $0? So profit is clearly not the motive for planned obsolescence in the Linux world.
I believe this is actually one of the things that drives users to upgrade their MS OS. The undergrad lab in my department has been running NT4 and Office 97 for quite a while now. It all runs very smoothly, and although it is a bit antiquated, it is damn stable at this point. However, the systems will be upgraded to XP in the not so distant future because MS (in theory) will not be releasing more NT4 fixes. It is actually a bit ironic since XP is currently riddled with holes by most accounts.
Nothing would prohibit you from writing bad source code with massive security flaws, only selling the bad source code.
Your freedom to express yourself as a writer of hideously unsecure patchwork code would remain yours, but if you try to call it Windows (again) and sell it to me, then you are no longer protected - which is quite reasonable. Much like an engineer at Ford. He could design and build a vehicular deathtrap in his garage and nobody would stop him. He would simply be expressing his (sadistic?) self. However if he took it a step further and tried to sell it, things would not go as well.
But Windows XP is not the only Microsoft product with security failings.
For example Microsoft Bob.
I've been waiting for a service pack for it for years. I'm just not as comfortable hooking Bob up to the internet as I once was. Bob has gotten more viral infections than an old French Whore in a port town.
There is no way he could actually want to track the distance between the earth and moon over the course of the entire eliptical orbit and then compare the data from one year to the next. That would be silly. Maybe you should send him an email and point out his mistake. Scientists like that.
I'm in Seattle. I'm capped at 1.5 mbps also. Have been since the switch. Complained to CS for the record, but obviously they could do nothing for me.
More annoying is the change in the way they handle DHCP. @Home used to assign each user a unique name that would be associated with a DNS entry for the IP address given to the machine by the DHCP. The result is that I could always find my machine through name resolution, regardless of my changing DHCP lease (they also gave static IPs if you wanted, but it wasn't necessary if you could resolve your name to an IP address). Now the Powers That Be at ATT have had the utter lack of foresight to assign dynamic names to the DHCP clients, which are in fact simply the TCP/IP address with slashes. For example if your IP address is
192.54.75.213
Then your name resolves to
192-54-75-213.client.attbi.com
I suggested to a tech to tell anyone who would listen that they should be using MAC IDs, but once again he had the obligatory complete lack of power that goes hand in hand with phone tech support, so he did nothing.
I think the key will be to not pay them for services, since they are not giving me the service I expect. They have avenues for diminished payment due to support failure. As far as I'm concerned, my service has been down since the switch.
Production of hydrogen can be done many ways, but all of them require energy in.
They have no novel or interesting process for it. They haven't figured out a way to trick the first law of thermodynamics, and all of the efficiencies or inefficiencies of the hydrogen generation will be based on their actual energy source.
Did you even read the article? It is a hydrogen fuel cell. The sodium borohydride is simply a storage bin for hydrogen. That statement was like saying "While this automobile uses a gas tank derivative..."
One of the biggest problems for gaining acceptance of hydrogen as a fuel is containment of the hydrogen. Hydrogen gas will diffuse out of any container you put it in. So if you have a tank of hydrogen sitting around for a while (how long depends on the material), you will end up with an empty tank.
You're smoking crack here dhovis.
Containment is one of the biggest problems with hydrogen fuel cells, but it is not because of the hydrogen diffusivity through metals (yes it does, but very slowly...not a big deal), but rather the handling properties of combustible gases as opposed to liquid fuels.
The energy density of a liquid hydrocarbon (based on heat of combustion) is about 100,000 Btu/gallon. For hydrogen it is a little less than 40 Btu/gallon at 1 atmosphere pressure and room temperature. So you need to compress the hell out of it to get a sufficiently high energy density.
That is the containment problem people don't like. Nobody will care if a year passes and you have lost 1% of your hydrogen.
Electric cars are on the market. You could go out and buy one tomorrow. The government would even give you a break on your income tax for buying one. Gas/electric hybrids appear to be a bit better at this point. Look into it.
For a Honda Insight...
Fuel cell vehicles do not use direct combustion engines so there is very little in common with a traditional vehicle. You would be much better off trying to upgrade from an electric car.
The Redhat idea was too fitting to be accepted by the Gubment. Poetic Justice is unfortunately not the US DoJ weapon of choice.
Damn shame.
I think that the counter recommended proposal for a completely independent trust set up with real dollars is a nice solution that would allow for the purchase of machines running Redhat or other distributions in addition to Apples, and M$ Machines. The key, I think, is that M$ must actually hand over real dollars from the coffer, not just pseudo bucks where each CD is theoretically $300, even though we all know they aren't worth much more than a dime.
Also, the solution must address the monopoly. If it does not, the states can simply sue again next year. The criminal concept of double jeopardy does not apply here. If at any point in the future M$ is again considered a monopoly, they will again be in violation of anti-trust laws and can be punished accordingly. If the so called solution increases the monopoly (as the first-hit-free-save-the-children scenario clearly would) or even maintains the monopoly, it will not prevent further action by the states, or class action suits on behalf of the users.
1) FWIW, I personally agree with those that feel Linux is difficult for the inexperienced user. There are many things that can't be done by happily pointing and clicking which is how the average consumer copes with computer issues.
2) Why do we want Linux mainstreamed. There appears to be a trade off between ease of use and power in OS design. Power users really can't be power users while running MacOS 9.x (no flamebait intended). Win 9x/ME leaves you reasonably lame. Win NT/2k gives you some tools and power (if you are Admin). Linux let's it all hang out (for Root anyway). The more power you have, the more damage you can do to your system if you don't know what the hell you are doing. A very reasonable, natural progression.
Therefore, I don't think any incarnation of Linux that the Slashdot community will embrace and use will be truly friendly to the mainstream.
reasonably sensitive voltage comparisons in the 1V range
What are you smoking crack?
The sound card microphone Line In typically has a threshold of around 100 millivolts, and probably a 2 order of magnitude span. 2 orders is just fine for a scope if you can select your magnitude. A preamp could be used if signal is too weak, but this would cost real dollars. If signal is too hot, you just play the parallel resistor game and scale it to whatever you want.
Strangely, I can't contact kpmg.com right now. I wonder what could have happened to their site that would have caused it to go down?
I wish I could read their policy page to see whether they allow themselves to be slammed simultaneously by thousands of Slashdot users, but their site doesn't seem to be working right now.
Slashdot Mirror
Security over function. That makes sense. I already love it everytime windows warns me that I am about to do something dangerous, restricts me from seeing files I shouldn't touch by default, and dumbs down everything to the point where it takes me 45 minutes to make the machine useful after a clean installation.
Now they are going to focus on security instead of function.
I have a pocket calculator that adds, subtracts, multiplies and divides. The square root button is broken. I just jammed an RJ-45 cable into the slot where the battery normally goes. It appears to be doing nothing.
I'm certain that my calculator now meets Bill's new objectives. It does nothing, but is entirely secure. Particularly since it is behind a firewall.
Good idea Bill.
-Rothfuss
Armor baby!
I will become the machine.
-Rothfuss
I believe this is just the first step in a larger attempt by Microsoft to buy the entire 3rd Dimension.
I'm really going to hate having to pay them royalties when I'm using it.
-Rothfuss
Get enough caffeine this morning?
This is not a Windows Vs Linux problem.
I didn't say it was. You are right. Linux suffers from the same problem. Would I be stating the obvious, though, to mention that the upgrade cost for a new build of Linux = $0? So profit is clearly not the motive for planned obsolescence in the Linux world.
You must chill.
-Rothfuss
I believe this is actually one of the things that drives users to upgrade their MS OS. The undergrad lab in my department has been running NT4 and Office 97 for quite a while now. It all runs very smoothly, and although it is a bit antiquated, it is damn stable at this point. However, the systems will be upgraded to XP in the not so distant future because MS (in theory) will not be releasing more NT4 fixes. It is actually a bit ironic since XP is currently riddled with holes by most accounts.
-Rothfuss
I don't think so.
Nothing would prohibit you from writing bad source code with massive security flaws, only selling the bad source code.
Your freedom to express yourself as a writer of hideously unsecure patchwork code would remain yours, but if you try to call it Windows (again) and sell it to me, then you are no longer protected - which is quite reasonable. Much like an engineer at Ford. He could design and build a vehicular deathtrap in his garage and nobody would stop him. He would simply be expressing his (sadistic?) self. However if he took it a step further and tried to sell it, things would not go as well.
-Rothfuss
But Windows XP is not the only Microsoft product with security failings.
For example Microsoft Bob.
I've been waiting for a service pack for it for years. I'm just not as comfortable hooking Bob up to the internet as I once was. Bob has gotten more viral infections than an old French Whore in a port town.
-Rothfuss
Yeah. Good point.
There is no way he could actually want to track the distance between the earth and moon over the course of the entire eliptical orbit and then compare the data from one year to the next. That would be silly. Maybe you should send him an email and point out his mistake. Scientists like that.
Nice work.
-Rothfuss
Yeah, but I shouldn't need to if they did things right.
Thanks for the info thought.
-Rothfuss
I'm in Seattle. I'm capped at 1.5 mbps also. Have been since the switch. Complained to CS for the record, but obviously they could do nothing for me.
More annoying is the change in the way they handle DHCP. @Home used to assign each user a unique name that would be associated with a DNS entry for the IP address given to the machine by the DHCP. The result is that I could always find my machine through name resolution, regardless of my changing DHCP lease (they also gave static IPs if you wanted, but it wasn't necessary if you could resolve your name to an IP address). Now the Powers That Be at ATT have had the utter lack of foresight to assign dynamic names to the DHCP clients, which are in fact simply the TCP/IP address with slashes. For example if your IP address is
192.54.75.213
Then your name resolves to
192-54-75-213.client.attbi.com
I suggested to a tech to tell anyone who would listen that they should be using MAC IDs, but once again he had the obligatory complete lack of power that goes hand in hand with phone tech support, so he did nothing.
I think the key will be to not pay them for services, since they are not giving me the service I expect. They have avenues for diminished payment due to support failure. As far as I'm concerned, my service has been down since the switch.
-Rothfuss
I thought /. sent Katz on assignment to Afghanistan as their field correspondent.
I even remember reading melodramatic overly wordy reports from the front from his Tales from the AfghaniHellmouth series.
Was it all just a dream?
Really?
Reality can be so cruel!
-Rothfuss
Moon Unit Zappa.
-Rothfuss
No, you're smoking crack here boopus.
Production of hydrogen can be done many ways, but all of them require energy in.
They have no novel or interesting process for it. They haven't figured out a way to trick the first law of thermodynamics, and all of the efficiencies or inefficiencies of the hydrogen generation will be based on their actual energy source.
-Rothfuss
While this fuel-cell uses borax derivatives
Did you even read the article? It is a hydrogen fuel cell. The sodium borohydride is simply a storage bin for hydrogen. That statement was like saying "While this automobile uses a gas tank derivative..."
I can't believe you were modded 5 for that...
-Rothfuss
One of the biggest problems for gaining acceptance of hydrogen as a fuel is containment of the hydrogen. Hydrogen gas will diffuse out of any container you put it in. So if you have a tank of hydrogen sitting around for a while (how long depends on the material), you will end up with an empty tank.
You're smoking crack here dhovis.
Containment is one of the biggest problems with hydrogen fuel cells, but it is not because of the hydrogen diffusivity through metals (yes it does, but very slowly...not a big deal), but rather the handling properties of combustible gases as opposed to liquid fuels.
The energy density of a liquid hydrocarbon (based on heat of combustion) is about 100,000 Btu/gallon. For hydrogen it is a little less than 40 Btu/gallon at 1 atmosphere pressure and room temperature. So you need to compress the hell out of it to get a sufficiently high energy density.
That is the containment problem people don't like. Nobody will care if a year passes and you have lost 1% of your hydrogen.
-Rothfuss
Electric cars are on the market. You could go out and buy one tomorrow. The government would even give you a break on your income tax for buying one. Gas/electric hybrids appear to be a bit better at this point. Look into it.
For a Honda Insight...
-Rothfuss
No you cannot retrofit current automobiles.
Fuel cell vehicles do not use direct combustion engines so there is very little in common with a traditional vehicle. You would be much better off trying to upgrade from an electric car.
Rothfuss
The Redhat idea was too fitting to be accepted by the Gubment. Poetic Justice is unfortunately not the US DoJ weapon of choice.
Damn shame.
I think that the counter recommended proposal for a completely independent trust set up with real dollars is a nice solution that would allow for the purchase of machines running Redhat or other distributions in addition to Apples, and M$ Machines. The key, I think, is that M$ must actually hand over real dollars from the coffer, not just pseudo bucks where each CD is theoretically $300, even though we all know they aren't worth much more than a dime.
Also, the solution must address the monopoly. If it does not, the states can simply sue again next year. The criminal concept of double jeopardy does not apply here. If at any point in the future M$ is again considered a monopoly, they will again be in violation of anti-trust laws and can be punished accordingly. If the so called solution increases the monopoly (as the first-hit-free-save-the-children scenario clearly would) or even maintains the monopoly, it will not prevent further action by the states, or class action suits on behalf of the users.
-Rothfuss
1) FWIW, I personally agree with those that feel Linux is difficult for the inexperienced user. There are many things that can't be done by happily pointing and clicking which is how the average consumer copes with computer issues.
2) Why do we want Linux mainstreamed. There appears to be a trade off between ease of use and power in OS design. Power users really can't be power users while running MacOS 9.x (no flamebait intended). Win 9x/ME leaves you reasonably lame. Win NT/2k gives you some tools and power (if you are Admin). Linux let's it all hang out (for Root anyway). The more power you have, the more damage you can do to your system if you don't know what the hell you are doing. A very reasonable, natural progression.
Therefore, I don't think any incarnation of Linux that the Slashdot community will embrace and use will be truly friendly to the mainstream.
reasonably sensitive voltage comparisons in the 1V range
What are you smoking crack?
The sound card microphone Line In typically has a threshold of around 100 millivolts, and probably a 2 order of magnitude span. 2 orders is just fine for a scope if you can select your magnitude. A preamp could be used if signal is too weak, but this would cost real dollars. If signal is too hot, you just play the parallel resistor game and scale it to whatever you want.
I managed to get in before it all went down. I am now officially 3/4 Cherokee and the legitimate owner of South Dakota.
Thank you Microsoft.
-Rothfuss
You can get an old Mattel Football game on Ebay for around $20. That's about $400 less than the (NCube + Madden 2002 + PortaScreen).
I also think the screen is slightly bigger, although I haven't actually measured.
That'll free up more than enough cash to buy yourself a GeForce3, processor, and giant bag of Doritos. Morpheus will happily meet your software needs.
The team is currently studying the rats' behaviour to assess how good their eyesight is.
While the rat team is currently trying to figure out how to anaesthetize a large group of humans, and then gnaw their eyes out.
Strangely, I can't contact kpmg.com right now. I wonder what could have happened to their site that would have caused it to go down?
I wish I could read their policy page to see whether they allow themselves to be slammed simultaneously by thousands of Slashdot users, but their site doesn't seem to be working right now.
I'll just keep trying and encourage everyone else to do the same.
I think we need a way to directly mod down stories as being redundant.
-Rothfuss