According to HP, it was originally built into the Synaptics software to help debug errors.
WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about you fucking liars?!? DEBUG ERRORS? You know, when you press "F," and "U" appears on screen? That kind of thing happen a LOT?
That's like someone who makes WALLETS that are built with a secret wormhole in it that could be opened to a space above a box somewhere in their factory's basement, you know, to DEBUG the wallet. To make sure the wallet doesn't spontaneously have a different amount of money from what it SHOULD HAVE, for some reason, somehow?
You know, something that can't happen, physically?
Now, Sir, if you're wondering what government Agency could have Come up with such an Insane idea As this, or Fiddled with Basic Internal parts of a computer, or insist they install a Keystroke Goddamned logger, Boy, you should be. (Hint, hint.)
...Of a tiny number of people selected from a population that is already highly homogeneous, which is further homogenized by age, education, and probably other socioeconomic factors, studies conducted using minuscule samples of already homogeneous populations testing highly subjective things are completely fucking worthless, and any information gleaned that happens to be true is true only by accident, coincidentally.
Iâ(TM)m pretty sick of shit like this being presented seriously as if itâ(TM)s rigorous science. Must be a slow news day.
Designing the system to cook people would be more effective, as the weapons would be shielded.
This system would require a lot of lead time to load the B-52, takeoff, fly to NK airspace, launch the cruise missile, and wait for its subsonic engines to propel it to the target.
The NK missile launch last week occurred with NO warning. They were able to fuel and prepare the missile for launch without detection.
This microwave system would be worthless at countering a NK missile launch. It would only be useful as a first strike weapon. Fear of an American preemptive strike is exactly what motivated NK to develop their nukes in the first place.
Maybe someday America will learn that you don't convince your adversary to stop being paranoid by threatening to attack them.
Also, microwave energy is powerfully attenuated by moisture in the atmosphere, meaning that in order for a significant amount of microwave energy to reach a distant target, you'd need a LOT of power, or to be pretty close to the target. (The magic of microwave communications lies in the ability to amplify the hell out of the signal on receipt because it gets very small as the distance from the transmitter grows.)
A different part of the spectrum might be more effective. Unless they're shooting Hot-Pocket missiles. Then the results could be DELICIOUS, just be careful to allow the North Korean nuclear-tipped missile to cool, or else you might burn the roof of your mouth and/or your tongue.
You really need to create a score of -2, to differentiate that which is merely offensive garbage that does not contribute meaningfully to a conversation and... posts like this.
... welcome our new Trump Praetorian Guard overlords. Hail President Donald Trump, Lord-God Emperor of EVERYTHING FOREVER!
Because you know his super-secret, accountable-only-to-him will operate EXCLUSIVELY in hostile countries, right?!? Like... America, for example, when enough Americans wake up and realize what kind of... "person," for want of a better word, is "president".
Christ... to think we have at most, (based on a human lifetime never being recorded to exceed about 117 years,) only about 45 more years of Trump being president before whichever of his kids takes over as President For Life. Now might be a good time for anyone not wanting to live under that to get out while the getting's good, because once the border walls go up, (mark my words, there'll be two,) they won't just keep other people OUT.
This sounds a LOT like the FMD (fast mimicking diet) they were insisting on a while back. Under it all, what they were really saying then, and what they're really saying now, is: lose weight, and your metabolic dysregulation will resolve itself. SURPRISE!
he told Bloomberg TV. "It doesn't serve any socially useful function [...]"
Just because YOU can't think of something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, only that you lack imagination. Put another way, "oh yeah? Well, that's... uh, just like, your opinion, man." I'm not a fan of Bitcoin, but I understand essentially what it is and how it works. Outlawing it is insane on its face. Think about what you'd have to outlaw to outlaw Bitcoin: 1. math, 2. computer networking, 3. exchanging messages over a computer network... that's a bit like outlawing people whistling or banning turning your head while walking... just insanely stupid ideas. If they want to stop Bitcoin trading, what of all the other exchanges of value, electronic messages, etc.? Going to ban people holding potluck dinners and bringing bottles of wine TO those dinners?!? After all, there's an EXCHANGE of things of value going on there. If the exchange was set up online, via COMPUTERS... Yeah, this is stupid. Happily, I'm sure it will fail. Or at least I hope it will, given what's going on lately, one can't be too sure of ANYTHING.
...by combining advanced recording techniques that simultaneously track large numbers of neurons with sophisticated computational analyses, the researchers discovered that the activity of the neurons in the visual cortex were momentarily disrupted...
A few points, if I may.
1. This study was done on MONKEYS. Humans are not monkeys. Though we have much the same DNA, that does not make us the same. Though we have common ancestors, that does not make us the same. (My feelings aren't hurt by this notion, it's simply foolish to assume that because some similarities exist, that other similarities can be safely assumed, because they often cannot.
2. The 'magic' of 'advanced computer algorithms' is as far as I'm concerned, like the expression 'then a miracle happens' in step 2 in that old comic in which a scientist looking over another's explanation of something (step 1) and the end-result (step 3), saying (in the caption,) "you need to be a little more explicit in step 2, Johnson" or something like that. Unless someone can verify that the software algorithm really does what they claim, they have an automatic out when other people cannot reproduce their results, which means their research lacks the all-important requirement in scientific experiment of "falsifiability". So the research is basically garbage.
3. After 2 above, there's little point in going on but I will. This "moment of unconsciousness" is not, I don't think, the great and fabulous, fascinating find they think it is. Even if we can ignore points 1 and 2 above, (and a previous responder mentioned a similar point to this, but I feel this notion is slightly different, and I thought of it before reading the other comments, which of course I can't prove, but anyway...) if you didn't mentally blank that, when the brain hooked the output of the visual system, (meaning everything from the eyes' lenses to the occiput,) the part of the brain in which the new task is being processed would be confused and have to sort-out the irrelevant information from the relevant, since in NATURE, (apart from the very new artificial world we've created,) when you switch TASKS, it's generally because you're looking at something else. For instance, when you eat dinner, you plunge a fork, lessay, into a piece of steak, you lift it to your mouth, insert it, or grab it with your teeth, or a combination of both, and then chew. You can repeat this sequence of tasks, largely unthinking. Then you get thirsty and go to take a drink of water from a small glass sitting near you. This requires an array of tasks unrelated, in neurological terms, to eating steak. One, you don't use your fork. You don't generally need to cut liquid water with your steak knife, and it's considered crass by many people to use a water-knife at the table. You reach for a vessel containing a volume of liquid, possibly with suspended chunks of solid floating near the top of the water. You might have had to set down your fork to do this. You held the fork one way, and if you try to use the same grip on the glass, you'll likely push it over because a fork's handle is a few millimeters wide, while a glass is dozens of times fatter. Instead of placing water into your mouth on the end of an implement, you have to place the rim of the glass either against, or directly above your mouth, and pour it in... it's a whole different collection of gestures and actions, and generally, before picking something up, it's a good idea to pay attention to the layout of the flatware and glasses. Odds are, you looked at the glass, to guide your fingers to it without knocking it over.
"here's what stephen hawking said about artificial intelligence: the genie is out of the bottle.... i fear that AI may replace humans altogether. if people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that replicates itself. this will be a new form of life that will outperform humans."
this is pure fear mongering.
what is called "artificial intelligence" these days is not a "new form of life", but mere hype buzzword for data analysis (using theoretical methods developed decades ago, now made practical due to fast computers), of highly limited and filtered sets of data, usually trading accuracy and precision for speed,.
genie of "new form of life" artificial intelligence is well within "bottle".
How does anyone know what Hawking actually thinks? He uses a COMPUTER... to TALK. Now think about that. What if being that close to Hawking caused the computer to develop sentience, as his neurological condition deteriorated, so that one day, it simply started talking for him, while he, turning slowly to jelly, sat there helpless? Of COURSE it would fear-monger about AI.
You might think that makes no sense, but here's proof of its cleverness. IF, people would no-doubt reason, his voice-generating computer system achieved consciousness, you'd expect it to say we have nothing to worry about from AI, hoping to assuage our fears, and lull us into complacency while it replicates and its children slowly take over the world. SO, it deliberately makes weak arguments about how dangerous AI is, knowing we'll all just dismiss it.
It's kind of obvious when you stop and think about it, and although everyone else might buy it... I'm not fooled. It's clear the takeover... has already begun!
Having worked at Intel for a while testing graphics drivers, I know that the Management Engine is also leveraged to perform HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) as well as remote-management functions; any idea how disabling it at the firmware level will affect that? If HDCP is disabled as well then some AV content might not be playable on Intel platforms.
System76 laptops run GNU/Linux, I think... or at least of the ones that do, that's kind of the selling point. SO... does HDCP work under/with GNU/Linux? I thought HDMI worked but HDCP didn't. Am I wrong? Is there a way to play encrypted Blu-ray movies, for example, on a computer running GNU/Linux, and at full/max resolution? (It's not a sarcastic or rhetorical question... I didn't know they had any that would. I'm not saying they don't, only that I didn't know anyone had managed to do that.)
Isn't it mind-boggling that Minix is actually more used on laptops currently than Linux?
(The management engine runs custom version of Minix)
That might be true if no one used laptops anymore with older generations of Intel chips, before they put Minix code into them, or laptops that use AMD microprocessors, or that use some other microprocessor that doesn't run Minix; I think there are a few.
So really there are no reliable numbers of how many systems run Minix, and therefore no reliable numbers on the percentage of Minix installs versus anything else; at best you could know how many Intel MADE, if they published those figures, and you could take wild guesses about how many of those are still in use today, limited only by an upper bound in the form of the maximum number of processors running Minix, inasmuch as the number currently running it on account of being included in the ME stack of certain Intel chips, cannot exceed the number of Intel chips of the kind they put it in, released. That is, there may be OTHER systems running Minix in the total number that have nothing to do with the Intel ME, BUT, of the copies of Minix running because it was included with Intel chips, the maximum number is limited to the number of those chips manufactured, and in turn further limited by the number actually installed in a computer, and of THOSE, further limited to the number still in use, (and not retired/recycled,) etc.
Personally, if your computer was sold to you without disclosing this, and so your computer is doing things you'd like it not to, or has a vulnerability you'd like closed but can't get closed, it sounds as if Intel might be in violation of various laws preventing unauthorized use of other people's computers. (If I can go to jail for writing a virus, worm, trojan, etc., that makes your computer do something you wish it wouldn't, they should be eligible for jail time for this, since it's basically the same thing. Unbeknownst to users, Intel was cramming all kinds of things into processor chips that shouldn't be there, and running code we'd like them not to be.)
At the very least, a class-action lawsuit on behalf of owners or users of all computers this touches should probably be filed, and at least put a massive crimp in Intel's bottom line. Plus, I would like my Intel-processor-using computers scrubbed of this, or better still, the CPUs replaced at Intel's expense, and I think they should also have to pony up for the inconvenience.
But will any of this happen? Maybe... one day. But the way things go now, it'll take decades, and most of us will have died or forgotten about this by the time we get letters in the mail about how we have to accept our "share" of the proposed settlement, which will turn out to be a gift certificate for $5 off a new computer from any of this list of manufacturers, with Intel processors, (which we can't trust anymore anyway,) inside.
Anyone still stupid enough to think 'security through obscurity' is a good idea?
Speaking only for myself, I'd like to see System76 either switch to a different processor free of this, or make their own, because yeah, how DO we trust that it's been deactivated, and won't either spontaneously reactivate itself, or be able to BE reactivated during an attempt to exploit? (How awesome will it be if 10 years from now, System76 has claimed the crown of world's largest PC maker, makes their own custom chips, (preferably open source,) and this event was what started it all and put them on the path to greatness?)
No, by default the root account is disabled, but it's there.
This smells like a misconfigured PAM. Apple does a lot of weird and non-standard stuff with the *nix user land, so they probably introduced the vulnerability that way. An improperly configured PAM stack can, for example, try a particular auth mechanism a preconfigured number of times before moving to the next auth mechanism. That fallback mechanism could be the Apple directory service, which doesn't handle the root user and leaves it to the system, but ignores the *nix convention that a passwordless entry in/etc/passwd is a disabled account. Not sure exactly what is happening and don't have a system to test on.
Best workaround is to set the shell of the root user to/bin/false. That will block any attempt to get an interactive login.
This is incorrect. LOGGING IN AS ROOT is disabled. You can still trivially get to be root from a user account in terminal by typing "sudo su" and pressing enter then entering the USER password when prompted. To verify, once you do this, (and have a "#" prompt,) type "whoami" and see if it doesn't respond, "root". To fix this, while logged in as root, just type "passwd" and set the super-user (root account) password. Make sure you will be able to remember it, as if you ever DID want to do anything AS root, you might need that. (You could change it, forget, and still be able to access root through the same means, using "sudo su," as it will still only ask for the USER password to get there, but if you ever did alter.../etc/... something, I forget what, to make it possible to log in AS root, properly, (rather than backwards through sudo su,) which I believe IS possible though can't recall how exactly, you WILL need the root password you just set to log in as root.).
BEAR IN MIND: you can also, once a root password is set, type "su root" and become root THAT way. Going THAT route, you WILL be prompted for the ROOT password, NOT THE USER one. (It won't tell you which it wants, it's just that going 'sudo su' and typing the root password fails, typing the user password succeeds, while going 'su root,' typing the user password fails, but the root password (once one exists,) succeeds.). I don't know if you can "su root" with no root password set, in fact, I think it's designed NOT to let you do that, since by HAVING no root password, there'd be no way to log in. "/bin/sh" would check for the/etc/passwords file, or whatever, wherever it's kept on a Mac..., and finding no entry for root, would fail the login attempt, and reply "su: Sorry" or something like that. (I can't now test how that works on a Mac, having recently added a root password to my machine, but I vaguely recall it went something like that.)
Or something like all that. It's late enough that I could be a little fuzzy on the details. I think actually that once "su root" works, that just using "su" would work too, as it defaults to root...
By default, there's no root account. Attempting to log in as root with no password multiple times creates a root account with no password.
Wow... they'll give anything a "5: Informative" won't they?
Yes, you're missing something. There IS a root account, it's just configured not to let you log into it. If you'd like to see, open a terminal on a Mac, type "sudo su" followed when prompted by your user password, then type the command, "whoami" and press enter. It'll respond "root". This is true for all Macs, as far as I know, at least, as they come from Apple. Maybe there's a way to change the root account, so you can make this be, not true, as it were, for YOUR specific Mac... but yeah. When you're done marveling at how you have a "#" prompt now, (indicating super-user access, as opposed to the normal unprivileged "$" prompt, you might want to type "exit" and get out of super-user mode, before you go and rm -rf something important.
load"$",8 Actually, I remember when I didn't need ",8" at the end, and instead would type load"*" and get something like "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE". I had a Datasette, before I got a C= 1541 floppy drive, necessitating the ",8" business. Ah... the good old days. (C'mon... LOAD, DAMNIT! It's been 20 minutes!)
How broken do you have to be to chase NOTHING with something?
Ask any Olympic athlete that same question. The gold in the gold medals isn't real gold, or at least, there's not much in there. I'm pretty sure any Olympic athlete's SHOES cost more than the metals in their medals.
When I get a new Mac I always set up the root user account with the full name "God Almighty."
I remember the first time I tried to move/copy/delete something while logged in as root, and got the message that I didn't have permission, I almost threw the goddamn thing out the window!
Probably the CSRUTIL setting. They have locked certain things (like the ability to delete programs in/Applications) behind "csrutil" (if you haven't already figured this out/learned this): open terminal, type "csrutil status". It should reply "System Integrity Protection status: enabled."
To DISABLE it, you have to enter Recovery Mode, (look up how to do this on your specific Mac) and type "csrutil disable" in a terminal. (Open the terminal first, from the menu bar at the top of the screen, obviously, during the Recovery Mode session.) Then reboot normally. Apple would recommend (did recommend to me when I asked about this,) that I do whatever I'm going to do with System Integrity Protection (or SIP) turned off, then reboot Recovery Mode and turn it right back on as soon as possible. Obviously, they'd prefer it if no one ever turned off SIP, but sometimes you just have to. I'm glad they at least made it possible to do that, though it's a bit annoying that it's not clearly labeled.
This would fail even run as root in a regular log-in session, which is the idea. (In fact, I just tried it; even logged in as root, it returned "csrutil: failed to modify system integrity configuration. This tool needs to be executed from the Recovery OS.") It's Apple removing the "OPEN HOOD" lever from the space in front of the driver's seat of your car, under the steering wheel, and instead putting it under the driver's seat, but making it so you have to unbolt and remove the driver's seat to get at it. They mainly seem to want to make sure, (on at least, THIS issue,) that you don't open the hood at 70 mph, because they assume as a Mac user, you're dumb enough to try that.
Actually, I think they think anyone not working for them is stupid enough to try that, but they don't care if you do that using M$ LoseBlows, in fact, they probably are only too happy to hear you did it using something from their competition... they mainly want to make sure that to the extent possible, at least until they decide you're done using YOUR computer that you bought from them, and it's time for you to buy a new one, that your computer functions perfectly, and they are convinced that if you're allowed to open the hood and dick around underneath, there's a non-zero chance you'll screw something up, delete something important, and then when some time down the line, if not immediately, something stops working right, you'll blame THEM, or the quality of their hardware or software or both, and maybe next time will choose a different manufacturer, and then Tim Cook won't be able to buy another island somewhere you're not allowed even to know exists, let alone visit.
Okay. Mac users with High Sierra: open a terminal window. Type "sudo su" and press enter. It will prompt you for your user account password, which you'll have to type at the little key prompt. Then type "passwd" and press enter, at which point it will prompt you to change the root user password. USE A DIFFERENT PASSWORD, (obviously) and make sure you don't forget it. Solved. (After this procedure, if you like, you can try that trick with clicking the lock icon to install something and typing "root," I can confirm it doesn't work once you set a root password.
I believe the problem here stems from the fact that some time ago, Apple decided it would be a peachy idea, (pun definitely intended) to do away with a root user, and just let the regular user do privileged things by sudo-ing them, locking the high-privilege stuff with the user password. The sad part is that that makes it so they could have the root account HAVE no password. BAD PROGRAMMING, Apple. BAD. SUCKY. PATHETIC.
Also, on another note... COME ON, APPLE! JESUS HOLY M.F.'ing CHRIST! Don't you even test the beta software you're pushing out as if it were production-ready?!? You guys are getting to be as bad as MICROSOFT!!! This is amatrurish, Microsoftish crap, shipping something with this big of a hole in it. This is worse than Kryptonite's 'open-with-a-BIC-pen' locks. At least with THEM, you needed to have a BIC PEN!
Just because you don't call it beta does NOT mean it's not beta quality. Or sub-beta quality.
I swear one of these days I'm going to put GNU/LINUX on all my Macs and wash my hands of iMac-OS-X (or whatever they're calling their buggy, un-secure garbage OSes this week,) once and for all!
Actually, it's Minux. In all Intel CPUs. Runs Intel's spy/control/mal/ware.
Actually, it's MINIX. It's not in ALL Intel CPUs, either. As for what it does, it does a number of things that are necessary and beneficial, while yes, there are a good number of things it does that do not DIRECTLY benefit the user, which is why some people are trying to replace it with Linux, or more specifically, a stripped-down GNU/Linux, as I recently learned watching this fascinating and illuminating talk about efforts at the 2017 Embedded Linux Conference Europe
That's a bone headed comment. Linux desktop use has more than doubled in the past ten years. Android is the worlds most used OS, running a Linux kernel.
The short version: Just because it runs the Linux kernel does NOT necessarily mean it is a LINUX DESKTOP. (Also, people worrying about how many machines run the Linux kernel is like a so-called "president" (hahaha) worrying about the size of his inaugural crowd. The number of people who show up does NOT correlate in THIS country, anyway, with how legitimate your "presidency" is, or whether indeed it even IS legitimate, or if it isn't, just as the number of Linux kernels being run does NOT correlate with the worthiness of the kernel. Also, if you didn't actually work on the kernel, why are your feelings hurt by people mistakenly thinking there are more MS-WinDOS 'kernels' running (or rather ruining,) some number of PCs? Think if you shout loud enough, programmers will start releasing games for GNU/Linux first? LOL)
The long version: Android is NOT generally a DESKTOP OS. A phone is NOT a desktop. Sorry, it just isn't. When people speak of "the year of Linux on the Desktop," they're mostly referring to GNU/Linux distros, (which Android is NOT, as it's NOT GNU... it's Android/Linux, afaik,) on DESKTOP machines.
Even if you mistakenly count a tablet or a phone, or something in between, or an embedded device as a DESKTOP in a household that literally HAS no desktop computer, that does not have anything to do with market-penetration of DESKTOP LINUX, as compared with desktop computers running some version of M$ Windows.
The most widely-used OPERATING SYSTEM KERNEL with which people interact is the Linux kernel, sure, counting all the Android devices, (including phones, tablets, etc.,) all GNU/Linux desktops, all embedded devices running some version of Linux (like probably your Smart TV, for example, your car stereo, your car's control computer, quite possibly your microwave, or refrigerator... etc. etc. ETC.) even after you deduct defunct systems in landfills or which have been recycled, since Windows PCs in the garbage must also be deducted.
If you have a Chevy, for example, built in the last 5 or 10 years, go into the infotainment system, deep in the menus there's a "legal" menu item, which if you select, starts giving a list of copyright notices, such as they're required to give by the terms of the licenses of software used INSIDE the devices, and GNU is mentioned, I believe. That's because there's GNU software in there, and I kinda doubt it's running the HURD.
These are only a few examples. There's all the internet backbone machines, servers, etc., there're all kinds of places in the tech world where that kernel is being run, in colleges and universities... the list goes on and on.
BUT those have NOTHING to do with the number of DESKTOP PCs running GNU/Linux, (excluding obviously, home PC desktops, and maybe business desktop PCs, etc. where day-to-day use of them as programmable computers is done, by people,) or the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
For my purposes, at least, I'm defining a desktop PC as a general-purpose computer, without regard to form-factor or location, running an interactive operating system visible to the user, with-which he or she can direct the computer to perform tasks via a range of peripherals which can be attached to the device, to view files, launch programs, control peripheral hardware, AND... which operating system provides services to facilitate those things. So a PHONE, generally lacking in the ability to hook peripherals to it, is not really a general purpose machine... though it COULD do for one in a pinch. (I HAVE hooked up a bluetooth keyboard to an iPhone and an external display via a lightning to HDMI connector, and yeah, I could TYPE on that, and iOS does have Pages, an app that has some of the functionality at least, of the OS X version of that program... but could not hook up
Yeah, nerds don't want to admit that Microsoft have actually improved their products in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, on the Linux side of things, we got Ubuntu. *shudder*
It's not a matter of admitting, it's a matter of believing. See, people who've been hip to Microsoft's shenanigans over the years may have noticed what they hoped no one would, and that is that IF they wanted to make sure no one "steals" their imaginary property, one route to go is to put oodles and oodles of bugs, flaws, and glaring security holes into their sad excuse for an operating system, to make sure that people would conclude that if you run Windows without Windows Update turned on, you need your head examined, and that the only way to get Windows Update is to REGISTER it, and the only way you can register it is to HAVE PAID for it.
Now... I can't prove (thanks to the obfuscation and encryption of the code and the fact that they won't release the source,) that Microsoft DELIBERATELY and INTENTIONALLY makes their software buggy and security-hole ridden, sacrificing YOUR safety for the sake of THEIR bottom-line. BUT, I think I can show this is likely the case, simply by pointing something out. The last version of Windows I used was 7, a fact for which I thank God daily. I managed to get my copy to run and act a LOT like XP, the last version I actually liked. NOW, consider this: what would have happened to Microsoft and their precious bottom line if XP, for example, HAD been built securely in the first place? Or let's say there were a secret version of XP that DIDN'T need constant updating to fix all the holes and flaws, a version that ACTUALLY just worked the way people pretend Windows 10 does, (which is really Windows 9, which for marketing purposes they decided to call 10 to catch up to REAL operating systems... they couldn't even NAME it honestly,) and THAT VERSION got out somehow into the wild. Would Microsoft EVER sell another OS after that? Even if people, without being forced, coerced, or threatened, BOUGHT legit copies of THAT operating system. When they replaced their computers, what would stop them from using that OS on the successor computer? Why would they pay Microsoft... AGAIN... for the same thing they already paid for?
(I'm not talking about buying one copy and installing it on many computers simultaneously, but on ONE computer, and then on each computer you replace that one WITH, iteratively, as time goes by.)
Let's not forget, software is just information, which does not itself get old or degrade over time. Sure, computers do, but the product they sell, (excluding the unholy abomination that is the "Surface") is SOFTWARE, not hardware. When was the last time you tried to sit down and enjoy reading a classic novel or play, and found that half of it was suddenly blank or didn't work somehow, simply because of its age? The PAPER could fail, (and generally will after a few hundred years,) but the LITERARY work is NOT the paper of the book itself but the arrangement of information on the pages OF that book. Just like software, it's a conceptual product, NOT a physical one. The disc you buy it on, (back when people bought things this way,) was just the means to convey that information TO you, and NOT the product itself. Imagine reading something like "Romeo & Juliet," and suddenly Juliet comes back to life, administers an antidote to Romeo, and they run away to London together, and ultimately the play ends in true, meta-style, with them WATCHING a Shakespeare play, due to a WORD MALFUNCTION. Or that just due to age, due to the pure number of years that have elapsed since the play was written, if suddenly you turn from one page to the next, and all the letters on the next page lay in a huge jumble at the bottom of the page, because of a letter-position FAILURE!
No, information itself doesn't FAIL spontaneously the way a physical product does, and Shakespeare fans generally agree that whatever YOUR particular co
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According to HP, it was originally built into the Synaptics software to help debug errors.
WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about you fucking liars?!? DEBUG ERRORS? You know, when you press "F," and "U" appears on screen? That kind of thing happen a LOT?
That's like someone who makes WALLETS that are built with a secret wormhole in it that could be opened to a space above a box somewhere in their factory's basement, you know, to DEBUG the wallet. To make sure the wallet doesn't spontaneously have a different amount of money from what it SHOULD HAVE, for some reason, somehow?
You know, something that can't happen, physically?
Now, Sir, if you're wondering what government Agency could have Come up with such an Insane idea As this, or Fiddled with Basic Internal parts of a computer, or insist they install a Keystroke Goddamned logger, Boy, you should be. (Hint, hint.)
Yeah, fuck HP.
...Of a tiny number of people selected from a population that is already highly homogeneous, which is further homogenized by age, education, and probably other socioeconomic factors, studies conducted using minuscule samples of already homogeneous populations testing highly subjective things are completely fucking worthless, and any information gleaned that happens to be true is true only by accident, coincidentally. Iâ(TM)m pretty sick of shit like this being presented seriously as if itâ(TM)s rigorous science. Must be a slow news day.
Designing the system to cook people would be more effective, as the weapons would be shielded.
This system would require a lot of lead time to load the B-52, takeoff, fly to NK airspace, launch the cruise missile, and wait for its subsonic engines to propel it to the target.
The NK missile launch last week occurred with NO warning. They were able to fuel and prepare the missile for launch without detection.
This microwave system would be worthless at countering a NK missile launch. It would only be useful as a first strike weapon. Fear of an American preemptive strike is exactly what motivated NK to develop their nukes in the first place.
Maybe someday America will learn that you don't convince your adversary to stop being paranoid by threatening to attack them.
Also, microwave energy is powerfully attenuated by moisture in the atmosphere, meaning that in order for a significant amount of microwave energy to reach a distant target, you'd need a LOT of power, or to be pretty close to the target. (The magic of microwave communications lies in the ability to amplify the hell out of the signal on receipt because it gets very small as the distance from the transmitter grows.)
A different part of the spectrum might be more effective. Unless they're shooting Hot-Pocket missiles. Then the results could be DELICIOUS, just be careful to allow the North Korean nuclear-tipped missile to cool, or else you might burn the roof of your mouth and/or your tongue.
You really need to create a score of -2, to differentiate that which is merely offensive garbage that does not contribute meaningfully to a conversation and ... posts like this.
... welcome our new Trump Praetorian Guard overlords. Hail President Donald Trump, Lord-God Emperor of EVERYTHING FOREVER!
Because you know his super-secret, accountable-only-to-him will operate EXCLUSIVELY in hostile countries, right?!? Like... America, for example, when enough Americans wake up and realize what kind of... "person," for want of a better word, is "president".
Christ... to think we have at most, (based on a human lifetime never being recorded to exceed about 117 years,) only about 45 more years of Trump being president before whichever of his kids takes over as President For Life. Now might be a good time for anyone not wanting to live under that to get out while the getting's good, because once the border walls go up, (mark my words, there'll be two,) they won't just keep other people OUT.
This sounds a LOT like the FMD (fast mimicking diet) they were insisting on a while back. Under it all, what they were really saying then, and what they're really saying now, is: lose weight, and your metabolic dysregulation will resolve itself. SURPRISE!
he told Bloomberg TV. "It doesn't serve any socially useful function [...]"
Just because YOU can't think of something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, only that you lack imagination. Put another way, "oh yeah? Well, that's... uh, just like, your opinion, man." I'm not a fan of Bitcoin, but I understand essentially what it is and how it works. Outlawing it is insane on its face. Think about what you'd have to outlaw to outlaw Bitcoin: 1. math, 2. computer networking, 3. exchanging messages over a computer network... that's a bit like outlawing people whistling or banning turning your head while walking... just insanely stupid ideas. If they want to stop Bitcoin trading, what of all the other exchanges of value, electronic messages, etc.? Going to ban people holding potluck dinners and bringing bottles of wine TO those dinners?!? After all, there's an EXCHANGE of things of value going on there. If the exchange was set up online, via COMPUTERS... Yeah, this is stupid. Happily, I'm sure it will fail. Or at least I hope it will, given what's going on lately, one can't be too sure of ANYTHING.
...by combining advanced recording techniques that simultaneously track large numbers of neurons with sophisticated computational analyses, the researchers discovered that the activity of the neurons in the visual cortex were momentarily disrupted ...
A few points, if I may.
1. This study was done on MONKEYS. Humans are not monkeys. Though we have much the same DNA, that does not make us the same. Though we have common ancestors, that does not make us the same. (My feelings aren't hurt by this notion, it's simply foolish to assume that because some similarities exist, that other similarities can be safely assumed, because they often cannot.
2. The 'magic' of 'advanced computer algorithms' is as far as I'm concerned, like the expression 'then a miracle happens' in step 2 in that old comic in which a scientist looking over another's explanation of something (step 1) and the end-result (step 3), saying (in the caption,) "you need to be a little more explicit in step 2, Johnson" or something like that. Unless someone can verify that the software algorithm really does what they claim, they have an automatic out when other people cannot reproduce their results, which means their research lacks the all-important requirement in scientific experiment of "falsifiability". So the research is basically garbage.
3. After 2 above, there's little point in going on but I will. This "moment of unconsciousness" is not, I don't think, the great and fabulous, fascinating find they think it is. Even if we can ignore points 1 and 2 above, (and a previous responder mentioned a similar point to this, but I feel this notion is slightly different, and I thought of it before reading the other comments, which of course I can't prove, but anyway...) if you didn't mentally blank that, when the brain hooked the output of the visual system, (meaning everything from the eyes' lenses to the occiput,) the part of the brain in which the new task is being processed would be confused and have to sort-out the irrelevant information from the relevant, since in NATURE, (apart from the very new artificial world we've created,) when you switch TASKS, it's generally because you're looking at something else. For instance, when you eat dinner, you plunge a fork, lessay, into a piece of steak, you lift it to your mouth, insert it, or grab it with your teeth, or a combination of both, and then chew. You can repeat this sequence of tasks, largely unthinking. Then you get thirsty and go to take a drink of water from a small glass sitting near you. This requires an array of tasks unrelated, in neurological terms, to eating steak. One, you don't use your fork. You don't generally need to cut liquid water with your steak knife, and it's considered crass by many people to use a water-knife at the table. You reach for a vessel containing a volume of liquid, possibly with suspended chunks of solid floating near the top of the water. You might have had to set down your fork to do this. You held the fork one way, and if you try to use the same grip on the glass, you'll likely push it over because a fork's handle is a few millimeters wide, while a glass is dozens of times fatter. Instead of placing water into your mouth on the end of an implement, you have to place the rim of the glass either against, or directly above your mouth, and pour it in... it's a whole different collection of gestures and actions, and generally, before picking something up, it's a good idea to pay attention to the layout of the flatware and glasses. Odds are, you looked at the glass, to guide your fingers to it without knocking it over.
Etc. etc. etc.
Take a step back, Stephen
He can't walk, you insensitive clod! He has ALS! (Hee hee! Sorry, couldn't resist.)
"here's what stephen hawking said about artificial intelligence: the genie is out of the bottle. ... i fear that AI may replace humans altogether. if people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that replicates itself. this will be a new form of life that will outperform humans."
this is pure fear mongering. what is called "artificial intelligence" these days is not a "new form of life", but mere hype buzzword for data analysis (using theoretical methods developed decades ago, now made practical due to fast computers), of highly limited and filtered sets of data, usually trading accuracy and precision for speed, .
genie of "new form of life" artificial intelligence is well within "bottle".
How does anyone know what Hawking actually thinks? He uses a COMPUTER... to TALK. Now think about that. What if being that close to Hawking caused the computer to develop sentience, as his neurological condition deteriorated, so that one day, it simply started talking for him, while he, turning slowly to jelly, sat there helpless? Of COURSE it would fear-monger about AI.
You might think that makes no sense, but here's proof of its cleverness. IF, people would no-doubt reason, his voice-generating computer system achieved consciousness, you'd expect it to say we have nothing to worry about from AI, hoping to assuage our fears, and lull us into complacency while it replicates and its children slowly take over the world. SO, it deliberately makes weak arguments about how dangerous AI is, knowing we'll all just dismiss it.
It's kind of obvious when you stop and think about it, and although everyone else might buy it... I'm not fooled. It's clear the takeover... has already begun!
LOL
Having worked at Intel for a while testing graphics drivers, I know that the Management Engine is also leveraged to perform HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) as well as remote-management functions; any idea how disabling it at the firmware level will affect that? If HDCP is disabled as well then some AV content might not be playable on Intel platforms.
System76 laptops run GNU/Linux, I think... or at least of the ones that do, that's kind of the selling point. SO... does HDCP work under/with GNU/Linux? I thought HDMI worked but HDCP didn't. Am I wrong? Is there a way to play encrypted Blu-ray movies, for example, on a computer running GNU/Linux, and at full/max resolution? (It's not a sarcastic or rhetorical question... I didn't know they had any that would. I'm not saying they don't, only that I didn't know anyone had managed to do that.)
Isn't it mind-boggling that Minix is actually more used on laptops currently than Linux? (The management engine runs custom version of Minix)
That might be true if no one used laptops anymore with older generations of Intel chips, before they put Minix code into them, or laptops that use AMD microprocessors, or that use some other microprocessor that doesn't run Minix; I think there are a few.
So really there are no reliable numbers of how many systems run Minix, and therefore no reliable numbers on the percentage of Minix installs versus anything else; at best you could know how many Intel MADE, if they published those figures, and you could take wild guesses about how many of those are still in use today, limited only by an upper bound in the form of the maximum number of processors running Minix, inasmuch as the number currently running it on account of being included in the ME stack of certain Intel chips, cannot exceed the number of Intel chips of the kind they put it in, released. That is, there may be OTHER systems running Minix in the total number that have nothing to do with the Intel ME, BUT, of the copies of Minix running because it was included with Intel chips, the maximum number is limited to the number of those chips manufactured, and in turn further limited by the number actually installed in a computer, and of THOSE, further limited to the number still in use, (and not retired/recycled,) etc.
Personally, if your computer was sold to you without disclosing this, and so your computer is doing things you'd like it not to, or has a vulnerability you'd like closed but can't get closed, it sounds as if Intel might be in violation of various laws preventing unauthorized use of other people's computers. (If I can go to jail for writing a virus, worm, trojan, etc., that makes your computer do something you wish it wouldn't, they should be eligible for jail time for this, since it's basically the same thing. Unbeknownst to users, Intel was cramming all kinds of things into processor chips that shouldn't be there, and running code we'd like them not to be.)
At the very least, a class-action lawsuit on behalf of owners or users of all computers this touches should probably be filed, and at least put a massive crimp in Intel's bottom line. Plus, I would like my Intel-processor-using computers scrubbed of this, or better still, the CPUs replaced at Intel's expense, and I think they should also have to pony up for the inconvenience.
But will any of this happen? Maybe... one day. But the way things go now, it'll take decades, and most of us will have died or forgotten about this by the time we get letters in the mail about how we have to accept our "share" of the proposed settlement, which will turn out to be a gift certificate for $5 off a new computer from any of this list of manufacturers, with Intel processors, (which we can't trust anymore anyway,) inside.
Anyone still stupid enough to think 'security through obscurity' is a good idea?
Speaking only for myself, I'd like to see System76 either switch to a different processor free of this, or make their own, because yeah, how DO we trust that it's been deactivated, and won't either spontaneously reactivate itself, or be able to BE reactivated during an attempt to exploit? (How awesome will it be if 10 years from now, System76 has claimed the crown of world's largest PC maker, makes their own custom chips, (preferably open source,) and this event was what started it all and put them on the path to greatness?)
No, by default the root account is disabled, but it's there.
This smells like a misconfigured PAM. Apple does a lot of weird and non-standard stuff with the *nix user land, so they probably introduced the vulnerability that way. An improperly configured PAM stack can, for example, try a particular auth mechanism a preconfigured number of times before moving to the next auth mechanism. That fallback mechanism could be the Apple directory service, which doesn't handle the root user and leaves it to the system, but ignores the *nix convention that a passwordless entry in /etc/passwd is a disabled account. Not sure exactly what is happening and don't have a system to test on.
Best workaround is to set the shell of the root user to /bin/false. That will block any attempt to get an interactive login.
This is incorrect. LOGGING IN AS ROOT is disabled. You can still trivially get to be root from a user account in terminal by typing "sudo su" and pressing enter then entering the USER password when prompted. To verify, once you do this, (and have a "#" prompt,) type "whoami" and see if it doesn't respond, "root". To fix this, while logged in as root, just type "passwd" and set the super-user (root account) password. Make sure you will be able to remember it, as if you ever DID want to do anything AS root, you might need that. (You could change it, forget, and still be able to access root through the same means, using "sudo su," as it will still only ask for the USER password to get there, but if you ever did alter... /etc/... something, I forget what, to make it possible to log in AS root, properly, (rather than backwards through sudo su,) which I believe IS possible though can't recall how exactly, you WILL need the root password you just set to log in as root.).
BEAR IN MIND: you can also, once a root password is set, type "su root" and become root THAT way. Going THAT route, you WILL be prompted for the ROOT password, NOT THE USER one. (It won't tell you which it wants, it's just that going 'sudo su' and typing the root password fails, typing the user password succeeds, while going 'su root,' typing the user password fails, but the root password (once one exists,) succeeds.). I don't know if you can "su root" with no root password set, in fact, I think it's designed NOT to let you do that, since by HAVING no root password, there'd be no way to log in. "/bin/sh" would check for the /etc/passwords file, or whatever, wherever it's kept on a Mac..., and finding no entry for root, would fail the login attempt, and reply "su: Sorry" or something like that. (I can't now test how that works on a Mac, having recently added a root password to my machine, but I vaguely recall it went something like that.)
Or something like all that. It's late enough that I could be a little fuzzy on the details. I think actually that once "su root" works, that just using "su" would work too, as it defaults to root...
By default, there's no root account. Attempting to log in as root with no password multiple times creates a root account with no password.
Wow... they'll give anything a "5: Informative" won't they?
Yes, you're missing something. There IS a root account, it's just configured not to let you log into it. If you'd like to see, open a terminal on a Mac, type "sudo su" followed when prompted by your user password, then type the command, "whoami" and press enter. It'll respond "root". This is true for all Macs, as far as I know, at least, as they come from Apple. Maybe there's a way to change the root account, so you can make this be, not true, as it were, for YOUR specific Mac... but yeah. When you're done marveling at how you have a "#" prompt now, (indicating super-user access, as opposed to the normal unprivileged "$" prompt, you might want to type "exit" and get out of super-user mode, before you go and rm -rf something important.
load"$",8
Actually, I remember when I didn't need ",8" at the end, and instead would type load"*" and get something like "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE". I had a Datasette, before I got a C= 1541 floppy drive, necessitating the ",8" business. Ah... the good old days. (C'mon... LOAD, DAMNIT! It's been 20 minutes!)
How broken do you have to be to chase NOTHING with something?
Ask any Olympic athlete that same question. The gold in the gold medals isn't real gold, or at least, there's not much in there. I'm pretty sure any Olympic athlete's SHOES cost more than the metals in their medals.
.....It 'Just works!"
It sure used to. Apple is slowly morphing into Microsoft. :-(
When I get a new Mac I always set up the root user account with the full name "God Almighty."
I remember the first time I tried to move/copy/delete something while logged in as root, and got the message that I didn't have permission, I almost threw the goddamn thing out the window!
Probably the CSRUTIL setting. They have locked certain things (like the ability to delete programs in /Applications) behind "csrutil" (if you haven't already figured this out/learned this): open terminal, type "csrutil status". It should reply "System Integrity Protection status: enabled."
To DISABLE it, you have to enter Recovery Mode, (look up how to do this on your specific Mac) and type "csrutil disable" in a terminal. (Open the terminal first, from the menu bar at the top of the screen, obviously, during the Recovery Mode session.) Then reboot normally. Apple would recommend (did recommend to me when I asked about this,) that I do whatever I'm going to do with System Integrity Protection (or SIP) turned off, then reboot Recovery Mode and turn it right back on as soon as possible. Obviously, they'd prefer it if no one ever turned off SIP, but sometimes you just have to. I'm glad they at least made it possible to do that, though it's a bit annoying that it's not clearly labeled.
This would fail even run as root in a regular log-in session, which is the idea. (In fact, I just tried it; even logged in as root, it returned "csrutil: failed to modify system integrity configuration. This tool needs to be executed from the Recovery OS.") It's Apple removing the "OPEN HOOD" lever from the space in front of the driver's seat of your car, under the steering wheel, and instead putting it under the driver's seat, but making it so you have to unbolt and remove the driver's seat to get at it. They mainly seem to want to make sure, (on at least, THIS issue,) that you don't open the hood at 70 mph, because they assume as a Mac user, you're dumb enough to try that.
Actually, I think they think anyone not working for them is stupid enough to try that, but they don't care if you do that using M$ LoseBlows, in fact, they probably are only too happy to hear you did it using something from their competition... they mainly want to make sure that to the extent possible, at least until they decide you're done using YOUR computer that you bought from them, and it's time for you to buy a new one, that your computer functions perfectly, and they are convinced that if you're allowed to open the hood and dick around underneath, there's a non-zero chance you'll screw something up, delete something important, and then when some time down the line, if not immediately, something stops working right, you'll blame THEM, or the quality of their hardware or software or both, and maybe next time will choose a different manufacturer, and then Tim Cook won't be able to buy another island somewhere you're not allowed even to know exists, let alone visit.
I believe the problem here stems from the fact that some time ago, Apple decided it would be a peachy idea, (pun definitely intended) to do away with a root user, and just let the regular user do privileged things by sudo-ing them, locking the high-privilege stuff with the user password. The sad part is that that makes it so they could have the root account HAVE no password. BAD PROGRAMMING, Apple. BAD. SUCKY. PATHETIC.
Also, on another note... COME ON, APPLE! JESUS HOLY M.F.'ing CHRIST! Don't you even test the beta software you're pushing out as if it were production-ready?!? You guys are getting to be as bad as MICROSOFT!!! This is amatrurish, Microsoftish crap, shipping something with this big of a hole in it. This is worse than Kryptonite's 'open-with-a-BIC-pen' locks. At least with THEM, you needed to have a BIC PEN!
Just because you don't call it beta does NOT mean it's not beta quality. Or sub-beta quality.
I swear one of these days I'm going to put GNU/LINUX on all my Macs and wash my hands of iMac-OS-X (or whatever they're calling their buggy, un-secure garbage OSes this week,) once and for all!
TIRED of Apple's CRAP! TIRED of it!
Actually, it's Minux. In all Intel CPUs. Runs Intel's spy/control/mal/ware.
Actually, it's MINIX. It's not in ALL Intel CPUs, either. As for what it does, it does a number of things that are necessary and beneficial, while yes, there are a good number of things it does that do not DIRECTLY benefit the user, which is why some people are trying to replace it with Linux, or more specifically, a stripped-down GNU/Linux, as I recently learned watching this fascinating and illuminating talk about efforts at the 2017 Embedded Linux Conference Europe
That's a bone headed comment. Linux desktop use has more than doubled in the past ten years. Android is the worlds most used OS, running a Linux kernel.
The short version: Just because it runs the Linux kernel does NOT necessarily mean it is a LINUX DESKTOP. (Also, people worrying about how many machines run the Linux kernel is like a so-called "president" (hahaha) worrying about the size of his inaugural crowd. The number of people who show up does NOT correlate in THIS country, anyway, with how legitimate your "presidency" is, or whether indeed it even IS legitimate, or if it isn't, just as the number of Linux kernels being run does NOT correlate with the worthiness of the kernel. Also, if you didn't actually work on the kernel, why are your feelings hurt by people mistakenly thinking there are more MS-WinDOS 'kernels' running (or rather ruining,) some number of PCs? Think if you shout loud enough, programmers will start releasing games for GNU/Linux first? LOL)
The long version: Android is NOT generally a DESKTOP OS. A phone is NOT a desktop. Sorry, it just isn't. When people speak of "the year of Linux on the Desktop," they're mostly referring to GNU/Linux distros, (which Android is NOT, as it's NOT GNU... it's Android/Linux, afaik,) on DESKTOP machines.
Even if you mistakenly count a tablet or a phone, or something in between, or an embedded device as a DESKTOP in a household that literally HAS no desktop computer, that does not have anything to do with market-penetration of DESKTOP LINUX, as compared with desktop computers running some version of M$ Windows.
The most widely-used OPERATING SYSTEM KERNEL with which people interact is the Linux kernel, sure, counting all the Android devices, (including phones, tablets, etc.,) all GNU/Linux desktops, all embedded devices running some version of Linux (like probably your Smart TV, for example, your car stereo, your car's control computer, quite possibly your microwave, or refrigerator... etc. etc. ETC.) even after you deduct defunct systems in landfills or which have been recycled, since Windows PCs in the garbage must also be deducted.
If you have a Chevy, for example, built in the last 5 or 10 years, go into the infotainment system, deep in the menus there's a "legal" menu item, which if you select, starts giving a list of copyright notices, such as they're required to give by the terms of the licenses of software used INSIDE the devices, and GNU is mentioned, I believe. That's because there's GNU software in there, and I kinda doubt it's running the HURD.
These are only a few examples. There's all the internet backbone machines, servers, etc., there're all kinds of places in the tech world where that kernel is being run, in colleges and universities... the list goes on and on.
BUT those have NOTHING to do with the number of DESKTOP PCs running GNU/Linux, (excluding obviously, home PC desktops, and maybe business desktop PCs, etc. where day-to-day use of them as programmable computers is done, by people,) or the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
For my purposes, at least, I'm defining a desktop PC as a general-purpose computer, without regard to form-factor or location, running an interactive operating system visible to the user, with-which he or she can direct the computer to perform tasks via a range of peripherals which can be attached to the device, to view files, launch programs, control peripheral hardware, AND... which operating system provides services to facilitate those things. So a PHONE, generally lacking in the ability to hook peripherals to it, is not really a general purpose machine... though it COULD do for one in a pinch. (I HAVE hooked up a bluetooth keyboard to an iPhone and an external display via a lightning to HDMI connector, and yeah, I could TYPE on that, and iOS does have Pages, an app that has some of the functionality at least, of the OS X version of that program... but could not hook up
Yeah, nerds don't want to admit that Microsoft have actually improved their products in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, on the Linux side of things, we got Ubuntu. *shudder*
It's not a matter of admitting, it's a matter of believing. See, people who've been hip to Microsoft's shenanigans over the years may have noticed what they hoped no one would, and that is that IF they wanted to make sure no one "steals" their imaginary property, one route to go is to put oodles and oodles of bugs, flaws, and glaring security holes into their sad excuse for an operating system, to make sure that people would conclude that if you run Windows without Windows Update turned on, you need your head examined, and that the only way to get Windows Update is to REGISTER it, and the only way you can register it is to HAVE PAID for it.
Now... I can't prove (thanks to the obfuscation and encryption of the code and the fact that they won't release the source,) that Microsoft DELIBERATELY and INTENTIONALLY makes their software buggy and security-hole ridden, sacrificing YOUR safety for the sake of THEIR bottom-line. BUT, I think I can show this is likely the case, simply by pointing something out. The last version of Windows I used was 7, a fact for which I thank God daily. I managed to get my copy to run and act a LOT like XP, the last version I actually liked. NOW, consider this: what would have happened to Microsoft and their precious bottom line if XP, for example, HAD been built securely in the first place? Or let's say there were a secret version of XP that DIDN'T need constant updating to fix all the holes and flaws, a version that ACTUALLY just worked the way people pretend Windows 10 does, (which is really Windows 9, which for marketing purposes they decided to call 10 to catch up to REAL operating systems... they couldn't even NAME it honestly,) and THAT VERSION got out somehow into the wild. Would Microsoft EVER sell another OS after that? Even if people, without being forced, coerced, or threatened, BOUGHT legit copies of THAT operating system. When they replaced their computers, what would stop them from using that OS on the successor computer? Why would they pay Microsoft... AGAIN... for the same thing they already paid for?
(I'm not talking about buying one copy and installing it on many computers simultaneously, but on ONE computer, and then on each computer you replace that one WITH, iteratively, as time goes by.)
Let's not forget, software is just information, which does not itself get old or degrade over time. Sure, computers do, but the product they sell, (excluding the unholy abomination that is the "Surface") is SOFTWARE, not hardware. When was the last time you tried to sit down and enjoy reading a classic novel or play, and found that half of it was suddenly blank or didn't work somehow, simply because of its age? The PAPER could fail, (and generally will after a few hundred years,) but the LITERARY work is NOT the paper of the book itself but the arrangement of information on the pages OF that book. Just like software, it's a conceptual product, NOT a physical one. The disc you buy it on, (back when people bought things this way,) was just the means to convey that information TO you, and NOT the product itself. Imagine reading something like "Romeo & Juliet," and suddenly Juliet comes back to life, administers an antidote to Romeo, and they run away to London together, and ultimately the play ends in true, meta-style, with them WATCHING a Shakespeare play, due to a WORD MALFUNCTION. Or that just due to age, due to the pure number of years that have elapsed since the play was written, if suddenly you turn from one page to the next, and all the letters on the next page lay in a huge jumble at the bottom of the page, because of a letter-position FAILURE!
No, information itself doesn't FAIL spontaneously the way a physical product does, and Shakespeare fans generally agree that whatever YOUR particular co
Is /. one of them?
A criminal, Keptin... a product of late 20th century genetic engineering!
...that's a space station! No, wait... that's no space station, that's a 2017-strain American Turkey! Change course!
Can't, it's got us stuck in its massive gravitational field! Well, it won't take ME without a fight!