If you are BSODing 3 times a day, it is some or another software you are running.
That's the problem right there, running an application, even a small
one. I have found Windows to be extremely stable if you simply don't
mess with it by running applications. But users insist on doing just
that, poking and prodding, clicking and dragging, making demands on
the OS, and then they're surprised when the thing crashes and blame
Microsoft. Same thing with viruses, users running things, and clicking
on things, and displaying things with executable content, busy, busy,
busy subverting the function of what is otherwise a very stable
operating system.
This includes enemy soldiers acting within the United States, even if they legally have citizenship. As early as the Jefferson and Madison administrations, this fact was used to detain port saboteurs working in the service of the French government.
No, you're wrong. The Constitution protects the rights of all American citizens and legal residents, except in time of war. However, the United States is not at war, no matter what Chimpy likes to think, because only Congress has the right to declare war, and it hasn't.
The French spies you refer to were not citizens. Jose Padilla is.
As for the German spy, allow me to remind you two things: 1) war was declared against Japan by the United States on December 8, 1941; and, on the 11th, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States. 2) the German saboteurs were tried by a military tribunal, and so had the opportunity to defend themselves in open court, rather unlike Padilla.
Also note that the Constitution makes very specific provisions about aiding the enemies of the United States in times of war; the current administration has blatantly ignored and perverted these principles to serve their own political interest.
Speaking of the Dept. of Homeland Security, here's an link to an article with some suggestions to Tom Ridge on how to improve his department, so that it actually keeps the citizenry well-informed and aware of possible terrorist threats and how to handle them (as opposed to keeping them scared and in an information blackout).
If we apply this scientific method to computer science, Microsoft could have collected 220 computer specialists telling the world that Linux is bad, and everyone would have to agree.
Yeah, really. Science by majority vote? What kind of bullshit is that? Besides, one of the main postulates of modern science states that scientific theories must be falsifiable, that is, you're looking to construct hypotheses which can be demonstrated to be false by experiment; advancements in science are only brought by demonstrating the weaknesses in a particular theory, and coming up with a better one.
Don't complain about eBay and other companies doing this--complain about the laws that don't protect our privacy.
But the laws do protect our privacy. It's just that the power-mad Republican jingoes will do anything to bypass the Fourth Amendment, and will allow corporations to do so as well.
Having just concluded a continuous 14-hour conversation with
technical support people at Microsoft, my weekend plans have been
altered to simply sleep.
The original topic was, "Why am I able to use my floppy drive in
DOS, but not in Windows on the (brand new) Pentium box Hillary
just bought, with the (brand new) Win95 installation?" Microsoft
promised to resolve the issue, or refund my up-front consultation
fee. Thirty-five bucks. (You're way ahead of me, I'm sure.) Did I
mention this box had plug 'n play hardware and BIOS? Takes care
of installation and configuration *automatically*.
Fourteen hours later, however, the issues had become much deeper
and more richly textured. Hillary, who Just Doesn't Get It,
wanted to break off the phone call and go return the system
around hour five. And hour ten. I told her to shut the fuck up
and go home. Things had gotten beyond "fixing" the "computer."
I did get to know three technical support staff rather well; I
was certainly impressed by their perseverance and
courteousness. They were a little frightened by my focus, I think
-- senior technical consultant #3 kept checking the logs he'd
gotten from junior technical consultants #1 and #2, and asking me
if I'd really been having a continuous conversation since 2
pm. He also kept getting concerned that I was running up a
painful phone bill. I told him it was OK, not to worry about
it. I didn't tell him I'd managed to get in on an 800 number
(which entitles me to chalk up the $35 I paid them as a "pyrrhic
failure," I guess).
In the end, Win95 had been reinstalled 3 times, from
scratch. Individual drivers had been downloaded off the net and
installed dozens of times. The system had been rebooted on
average once every 3 minutes, I would estimate, for well over
half a day. At some point, each of my floppy, cd rom, serial
ports, modem, and display had all worked. For one golden moment,
they had all worked. But upon the next reboot, it all vanished, a
fleeting, evanescent moment of forever-after unattainable satori.
Needless to say, neither the system nor the floppy drive now
work. But I certainly learned a very valuable lesson from the
experience, and one would have to be mean-spirited and churlish
not to consider the $35 fee that currently remains on my credit
card anything but a welcome reminder of such hard-earned
wisdom. A cash mnemonic, as it were.
My current plans, beyond abandoning my friends for the weekend,
center around going to Lechemere, and returning their Pentium
system (which was really cheap, by the way -- it's truly
remarkable what a bargain I got on the thing) by the simple
expedient of hurling the box from the sun-roof of my car through
some convenient plate-glass window, en passant.
I might add that when the revolution comes, and the mob at the
factory gates drags Bill Gates screaming from behind the wheel of
his Porsche 959, I, for one, will not be there to urge clemency.
What is needed is a foolproof way of saying "I want this, please send it to me" and then being able to reject it safly without needing the other party to do it for you. For example:
It's called Usenet. You post something to a newsgroup, and anybody who is interested may read it without their mailbox getting stuffed with crap. Electronic mailing lists are for people who are too dumb to figure out how to configure a newsgroup reader.
If he hadn't framed them for burning the Reichstag he never would have been given his emergency powers.
He didn't frame the Jews; he framed the Communists instead. The supposed arsonists were a Dutchman, Marinus van der Lubbe, who was a very shady figure (rumored to have been paid by the Nazis to do his role), and a Bulgarian Communist activist, Georgi Dimitrov. Van der Lubbe was convicted; Dimitrov was acquitted after his famous defense. Later he would become the first post-war prime minister of Bulgaria, and play an instrumental role in crushing the opposition and establishing a Communist dictatorship that lasted half a century or so. But that's another story...
You do realize that the US govenment exists to protect the people of the US, right? Sorry, if you're not a US citizen, you really shouldn't expect the US government to defend you, unless you are important to US interests.
I really do hope you're only joking, but allow me to remind you that the Constitution and Declaration of Independance do not suggest that governments somehow "assign" rights because of national origin, but are rather established to protect the people under their jurisdiction, because these are asserted
to be the inalienable rights of mankind. The equal protection clause in the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that all people under the jurisdiction of the United States are entitled to equal protection of the law. This principle has been upheld in the landmark case Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886). The court asserted that The guarantees of protection contained in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution extend to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, without regard to differences of race, of color, or of nationality. [...]
Those subjects of the Emperor of China who have the right to temporarily or permanently reside within the United States, are entitled to enjoy the protection guaranteed by the Constitution and afforded by the laws.
Show me in the Bill of Rights were you are guaranteed a right to privacy.
IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
(Hint: its not in the Bill of Rights)
It is indeed the Bill of Rights that guarantees the protection of individual liberties; you'll remember that the federalists argued that no such things is necessary, because enumerating specific rights only means that the government can find ways to infringe upon other rights, that have not been explicitly enumerated. The anti-federalists, on the other hand, were afraid of a strong central government, and wanted a bill of rights to serve as an explicit social contract between the people and the government.
Everybody knows that guns DO NOT kill people... bullets DO!!!
I know you were only joking, but I feel obligated to point out that the acceleration of the bullet, times its mass, gives it the force necessary to penetrate your body and disrupt the function of vital organs.
This article contained absolutely no discussion of the pathetic quality of Microsoft's "software." Can't these people understand that the best way to stop the worms is to send a squadron of B-52's to wipe out Microsoft's campus? Sheesh...
"That was a joke son, you missed it." -Foghorn Leghorn
Oh, what has the world come to, when kids can't even properly quote Foghorn Leghorn anymore! Allow me:
Lookit here son, I say son, did ya see that hawk after those hens? He
scared 'em! That Rhode Island Red turned white. Then blue. Rhode
Island. Red, white, and blue. That's a joke, son. A flag waver. You're
built too low. The fast ones go over your head. Ya got a hole in your
glove. I keep pitchin' 'em and you keep missin' 'em. Ya gotta keep
your eye on the ball. Eye. Ball. I almost had a gag, son. Joke, that
is.
Have all of you gone insane?
TCPA...DRM...Palladium? What the hell's the difference in the end? I cannot believe that anyone is supporting ANYTHING even remotely resembling any type of DRM or trusted computing scheme.
Have we really lost so much focus that we are willing to give up our RIGHT to do whatever we please with the data that resides on our drives? Even if it's a small concession, the road to hell is walked one small step at a time.
I would also like to point out that once the content publishers control everyone's computer, we will have NO freedom of expression, as Big Business already controls most of the printed media, as well as radio and television. A resolute, coordinated and firm rejection of all attempts for control of the public consciousness is the only hope we have for winning back our free society from Gates, RIAA/MPAA, the Republican jingoes, and other vermin.
So I guess we like Real now? Real has been one of the worst offenders in hidden opt-in agreements, obnoxious marketing tactics, and borderline spyware reporting of usage metrics back to their home base.
Well, actually, RealPlayer for Linux behaves rather nicely, and has none of the problems you mention. Perhaps it's time for you to switch to a real (ha!) operating system?
Why is this serial stuff so much quicker than the older parallel connections?
Parallel bus interfaces are much harder to get to work properly, because usually there are very small differences in the lengths of the individual wires in the ribbon cable and so the signal delay varies from wire to wire; so you have to design your controllers to account for these delays (and that's why there was so much voodoo magic involved in configuring early SCSI equipment). The practical limit of synchronous transmission rates is much lower for parallel than it is for serial. That's why Ethernet and FireWire are serial interfaces.
You are describing totalitarianism, with yourself as dictator.
As opposed to totalitarianism with Dubya and the oil barons as tyrants? Whatever.
What the court did WAS judicial restraint.
Oh, so when five Supreme Justices stopped the vote recount and anointed George W. as the president, that was judicial restraint, too, I'm sure. How convenient. I guess the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have now been replaced with one single "right":
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
So the much touted by Republicans "judicial restraint" actually means, when translated from doublespeak, "judges voting in accordance with the party line." Please, please, please don't vote for jingoes and corporate cronies at the next elections.
I still don't understand why we need some kind of special legislation for the so called "cyber crime." Don't the states already have laws punishing crimes of trespassing and/or fraud?
Without a well-defined semantics it is no easier reverse-engineer XML than it is to reverse engineer a binary format.
True, but what sane programmer will use XML as a mere wrapper for Base64-encoded binary data? Outside of Microsoft, anybody with reasonable programming experience will indeed use XML as it's meant to be used, and adhere to strict, well-documented (and hopefully published) semantic specifications. While Apple software certainly has its issues, I think we should give them a little more credit this time.
It's called QNX - it's a single floppy and while the browser isn't as powerful or feature-rich as Mozilla or IE, it does show the power of QNX (it's also POSIX compliant - or mostly compliant, I forget which).
Actually, nowadays you can download the entire CD for "evaluation purposes." I think they're scared by Linux. It also has glibc and most of the utilities from the NetBSD distribution; because of that, I'm presuming the kernel must support POSIX system calls.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are BSODing 3 times a day, it is some or another software you are running.
That's the problem right there, running an application, even a small one. I have found Windows to be extremely stable if you simply don't mess with it by running applications. But users insist on doing just that, poking and prodding, clicking and dragging, making demands on the OS, and then they're surprised when the thing crashes and blame Microsoft. Same thing with viruses, users running things, and clicking on things, and displaying things with executable content, busy, busy, busy subverting the function of what is otherwise a very stable operating system.
This includes enemy soldiers acting within the United States, even if they legally have citizenship. As early as the Jefferson and Madison administrations, this fact was used to detain port saboteurs working in the service of the French government.
No, you're wrong. The Constitution protects the rights of all American citizens and legal residents, except in time of war. However, the United States is not at war, no matter what Chimpy likes to think, because only Congress has the right to declare war, and it hasn't.
The French spies you refer to were not citizens. Jose Padilla is.
As for the German spy, allow me to remind you two things: 1) war was declared against Japan by the United States on December 8, 1941; and, on the 11th, Germany and Italy declared war against the United States. 2) the German saboteurs were tried by a military tribunal, and so had the opportunity to defend themselves in open court, rather unlike Padilla.
Also note that the Constitution makes very specific provisions about aiding the enemies of the United States in times of war; the current administration has blatantly ignored and perverted these principles to serve their own political interest.
Speaking of the Dept. of Homeland Security, here's an link to an article with some suggestions to Tom Ridge on how to improve his department, so that it actually keeps the citizenry well-informed and aware of possible terrorist threats and how to handle them (as opposed to keeping them scared and in an information blackout).
My God, 3 comments and nobody can fucking spell 'gist.'
They're all business people!
From the FAQ:
;-)
Hey, this is Slashdot! I'm not supposed to have read the article before spouting off opinions
If we apply this scientific method to computer science, Microsoft could have collected 220 computer specialists telling the world that Linux is bad, and everyone would have to agree.
Yeah, really. Science by majority vote? What kind of bullshit is that? Besides, one of the main postulates of modern science states that scientific theories must be falsifiable, that is, you're looking to construct hypotheses which can be demonstrated to be false by experiment; advancements in science are only brought by demonstrating the weaknesses in a particular theory, and coming up with a better one.
Don't complain about eBay and other companies doing this--complain about the laws that don't protect our privacy.
But the laws do protect our privacy. It's just that the power-mad Republican jingoes will do anything to bypass the Fourth Amendment, and will allow corporations to do so as well.
This is something written by one of my professors, some time after Win 95 was released. I thought it is strangely appropriate for this occasion.
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 06:03:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Olin Shivers
To: sunday-lunch-list
Subject: Losing $35
Reply-to: shivers@ai.mit.edu
No lunch on Sunday, I am afraid.
Having just concluded a continuous 14-hour conversation with technical support people at Microsoft, my weekend plans have been altered to simply sleep.
The original topic was, "Why am I able to use my floppy drive in DOS, but not in Windows on the (brand new) Pentium box Hillary just bought, with the (brand new) Win95 installation?" Microsoft promised to resolve the issue, or refund my up-front consultation fee. Thirty-five bucks. (You're way ahead of me, I'm sure.) Did I mention this box had plug 'n play hardware and BIOS? Takes care of installation and configuration *automatically*.
Fourteen hours later, however, the issues had become much deeper and more richly textured. Hillary, who Just Doesn't Get It, wanted to break off the phone call and go return the system around hour five. And hour ten. I told her to shut the fuck up and go home. Things had gotten beyond "fixing" the "computer."
I did get to know three technical support staff rather well; I was certainly impressed by their perseverance and courteousness. They were a little frightened by my focus, I think -- senior technical consultant #3 kept checking the logs he'd gotten from junior technical consultants #1 and #2, and asking me if I'd really been having a continuous conversation since 2 pm. He also kept getting concerned that I was running up a painful phone bill. I told him it was OK, not to worry about it. I didn't tell him I'd managed to get in on an 800 number (which entitles me to chalk up the $35 I paid them as a "pyrrhic failure," I guess).
In the end, Win95 had been reinstalled 3 times, from scratch. Individual drivers had been downloaded off the net and installed dozens of times. The system had been rebooted on average once every 3 minutes, I would estimate, for well over half a day. At some point, each of my floppy, cd rom, serial ports, modem, and display had all worked. For one golden moment, they had all worked. But upon the next reboot, it all vanished, a fleeting, evanescent moment of forever-after unattainable satori.
Needless to say, neither the system nor the floppy drive now work. But I certainly learned a very valuable lesson from the experience, and one would have to be mean-spirited and churlish not to consider the $35 fee that currently remains on my credit card anything but a welcome reminder of such hard-earned wisdom. A cash mnemonic, as it were.
My current plans, beyond abandoning my friends for the weekend, center around going to Lechemere, and returning their Pentium system (which was really cheap, by the way -- it's truly remarkable what a bargain I got on the thing) by the simple expedient of hurling the box from the sun-roof of my car through some convenient plate-glass window, en passant.
I might add that when the revolution comes, and the mob at the factory gates drags Bill Gates screaming from behind the wheel of his Porsche 959, I, for one, will not be there to urge clemency.
Good night.
-Olin
What is needed is a foolproof way of saying "I want this, please send it to me" and then being able to reject it safly without needing the other party to do it for you. For example:
It's called Usenet. You post something to a newsgroup, and anybody who is interested may read it without their mailbox getting stuffed with crap. Electronic mailing lists are for people who are too dumb to figure out how to configure a newsgroup reader.
If he hadn't framed them for burning the Reichstag he never would have been given his emergency powers.
He didn't frame the Jews; he framed the Communists instead. The supposed arsonists were a Dutchman, Marinus van der Lubbe, who was a very shady figure (rumored to have been paid by the Nazis to do his role), and a Bulgarian Communist activist, Georgi Dimitrov. Van der Lubbe was convicted; Dimitrov was acquitted after his famous defense. Later he would become the first post-war prime minister of Bulgaria, and play an instrumental role in crushing the opposition and establishing a Communist dictatorship that lasted half a century or so. But that's another story...
You do realize that the US govenment exists to protect the people of the US, right? Sorry, if you're not a US citizen, you really shouldn't expect the US government to defend you, unless you are important to US interests.
I really do hope you're only joking, but allow me to remind you that the Constitution and Declaration of Independance do not suggest that governments somehow "assign" rights because of national origin, but are rather established to protect the people under their jurisdiction, because these are asserted to be the inalienable rights of mankind. The equal protection clause in the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that all people under the jurisdiction of the United States are entitled to equal protection of the law. This principle has been upheld in the landmark case Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886). The court asserted that The guarantees of protection contained in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution extend to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, without regard to differences of race, of color, or of nationality. [...] Those subjects of the Emperor of China who have the right to temporarily or permanently reside within the United States, are entitled to enjoy the protection guaranteed by the Constitution and afforded by the laws.
Show me in the Bill of Rights were you are guaranteed a right to privacy.
IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
(Hint: its not in the Bill of Rights)
It is indeed the Bill of Rights that guarantees the protection of individual liberties; you'll remember that the federalists argued that no such things is necessary, because enumerating specific rights only means that the government can find ways to infringe upon other rights, that have not been explicitly enumerated. The anti-federalists, on the other hand, were afraid of a strong central government, and wanted a bill of rights to serve as an explicit social contract between the people and the government.
Everybody knows that guns DO NOT kill people ... bullets DO!!!
I know you were only joking, but I feel obligated to point out that the acceleration of the bullet, times its mass, gives it the force necessary to penetrate your body and disrupt the function of vital organs.
This article contained absolutely no discussion of the pathetic quality of Microsoft's "software." Can't these people understand that the best way to stop the worms is to send a squadron of B-52's to wipe out Microsoft's campus? Sheesh...
"That was a joke son, you missed it." -Foghorn Leghorn
Oh, what has the world come to, when kids can't even properly quote Foghorn Leghorn anymore! Allow me:
Lookit here son, I say son, did ya see that hawk after those hens? He scared 'em! That Rhode Island Red turned white. Then blue. Rhode Island. Red, white, and blue. That's a joke, son. A flag waver. You're built too low. The fast ones go over your head. Ya got a hole in your glove. I keep pitchin' 'em and you keep missin' 'em. Ya gotta keep your eye on the ball. Eye. Ball. I almost had a gag, son. Joke, that is.
Mozilla is great... until it crashes at the attempt to load http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2002/2002.html
Works fine for me in Mozilla 1.1 and Mandrake 9.0. I have some of the JavaScript features disabled, so maybe that's why it works.
Have all of you gone insane? TCPA...DRM...Palladium? What the hell's the difference in the end? I cannot believe that anyone is supporting ANYTHING even remotely resembling any type of DRM or trusted computing scheme.
Have we really lost so much focus that we are willing to give up our RIGHT to do whatever we please with the data that resides on our drives? Even if it's a small concession, the road to hell is walked one small step at a time.
I would also like to point out that once the content publishers control everyone's computer, we will have NO freedom of expression, as Big Business already controls most of the printed media, as well as radio and television. A resolute, coordinated and firm rejection of all attempts for control of the public consciousness is the only hope we have for winning back our free society from Gates, RIAA/MPAA, the Republican jingoes, and other vermin.
So I guess we like Real now? Real has been one of the worst offenders in hidden opt-in agreements, obnoxious marketing tactics, and borderline spyware reporting of usage metrics back to their home base.
Well, actually, RealPlayer for Linux behaves rather nicely, and has none of the problems you mention. Perhaps it's time for you to switch to a real (ha!) operating system?
Will Linus accept the BSOD patch for the kernel?
I'd be more curious to find out whether he would accept the IE patch...
Why is this serial stuff so much quicker than the older parallel connections?
Parallel bus interfaces are much harder to get to work properly, because usually there are very small differences in the lengths of the individual wires in the ribbon cable and so the signal delay varies from wire to wire; so you have to design your controllers to account for these delays (and that's why there was so much voodoo magic involved in configuring early SCSI equipment). The practical limit of synchronous transmission rates is much lower for parallel than it is for serial. That's why Ethernet and FireWire are serial interfaces.
You are describing totalitarianism, with yourself as dictator.
As opposed to totalitarianism with Dubya and the oil barons as tyrants? Whatever.
What the court did WAS judicial restraint.
Oh, so when five Supreme Justices stopped the vote recount and anointed George W. as the president, that was judicial restraint, too, I'm sure. How convenient. I guess the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have now been replaced with one single "right":
All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
So the much touted by Republicans "judicial restraint" actually means, when translated from doublespeak, "judges voting in accordance with the party line." Please, please, please don't vote for jingoes and corporate cronies at the next elections.
I still don't understand why we need some kind of special legislation for the so called "cyber crime." Don't the states already have laws punishing crimes of trespassing and/or fraud?
Without a well-defined semantics it is no easier reverse-engineer XML than it is to reverse engineer a binary format.
True, but what sane programmer will use XML as a mere wrapper for Base64-encoded binary data? Outside of Microsoft, anybody with reasonable programming experience will indeed use XML as it's meant to be used, and adhere to strict, well-documented (and hopefully published) semantic specifications. While Apple software certainly has its issues, I think we should give them a little more credit this time.
It's called QNX - it's a single floppy and while the browser isn't as powerful or feature-rich as Mozilla or IE, it does show the power of QNX (it's also POSIX compliant - or mostly compliant, I forget which).
Actually, nowadays you can download the entire CD for "evaluation purposes." I think they're scared by Linux. It also has glibc and most of the utilities from the NetBSD distribution; because of that, I'm presuming the kernel must support POSIX system calls.