Re:Not hard to get...
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Chrome Vs. IE 8
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· Score: 5, Informative
Mostly Wrong. The reason you don't see all 4 GB on Windows machines is a combination of 2 factors.
#1. Memory mapped devices. This includes device which has onboard RAM (video card is biggest factor with the 1GB of RAM that's usual now). This must be mapped somewhere in the physical address space (virtual address space is irrelevant for this issue). And for compatibility with 32-bit DMA purposes has to be below the 4GB mark. So modern motherboards will remap the "displaced" RAM above the 4GB mark so it is still accessible.
Now onto issue #2. Windows *could* use PAE to access this relocated RAM, but it doesn't on desktop editions (even if PAE is enabled). Technically from a hardware point, it should be accessible, but once again for compatibility purposes, the Microsoft folk have opted to simply not use any RAM seen above the 4GB mark. The reason why is because of poorly programmed 3rd party drivers which assume all RAM is below 4GB, and try to do 32-bit DMA (and thus trash random memory and crash the system). For Microsoft, it's easier to simply avoid the issue then explain why it's not there fault to customers. (BTW server editions are a different story and DO support using RAM above 4GB).
You can verify this by opening up Microsoft's "System Information" utility and going to the "Memory" section. Simply put, it does not show ANY memory above 0xffffffff despite the fact that I know for a fact that there is RAM mapped above that address (installing Linux with "64GB memory support", aka PAE support, shows this to also be true and DOES report and using all 4GB of my RAM).
This issue has NOTHING to do with "shared memory space between processes.
I hear ya. I've wondered for a long while why things like the "biosphere" concept isn't being tried more often.
One of those setup on the moon could potentially reach of point of self sustainability. Something like that, if done correctly could be a huge step in space exploration.
However, one thing to keep in mind is that currently the vast majority of "owned" windows boxes, were not infected by an remote exploit, but were infected by trojan horses.
This poses an interesting and hard problem for Microsoft (i'm not trying to defend them, but i do believe in being fair). The issue is, how the heck do you prevent the installation of malware if the user ASKED for it to be installed?
Windows defender actually does a pretty good job here. It's not perfect, but nothing is. UAC is an "ok" solution and to be honest, not too different from Ubunut's password prompt during privileged operations.
I think Microsoft got the "right idea" with UAC, but the implementation of it went very wrong. Primarily due to the coarse granularity of what is "privileged." It's a tough thing to get right, and the *nix world has an advantage in this category, namely that the users are *used* to things like sudo and su to do things that are privileged.
I've seen plenty of Windows users complaining on forums about UAC with things like "why the heck do I need a UAC prompt for just changing the time?!?" They simply don't get that anything that could potentially have an effect on other users of the system is an "admin" task.
So all in all, I think Vista is better, but is simply a tough pill to swallow for the users who simply don't care or don't get security concepts...
I think something better with UAC would be something like: "You are about to install something, would you like it to be installed for the current user or every user on the system?" Default to current user, and if they pick "every user" ask them for a password then.
Well as far as I understand, the theory is that a single large moon keep the earth's tilt relatively constant. In simulations, if the large moon is not present, it varies wildly anywhere from 0 to 90 degrees.
The expected result of this would be no "perminant" ice caps on the poles since they would be exposed more directly to the sun just as much as any other part of the planet. Net result... Higher oceans constantly, and much more erratic weather patterns.
Some believe that life would have evolved anyway, but would have taken much different evolutionary routes. Most likely with aquatic life forms being dominant.
Agreed...but I do think there would be some merit to having a station orbit the moon. It could be used as a middle ground between the earth and the moon (and eventual moon base). The way I figure it, instead of going direct to the moon (and taking a moon lander with you). You could go to the ISS, dock with it, and use *its* lander to go to/from the moon as you pleased. In general, I could see such a thing making trips to the moon significantly easier (once of course all of the other major issues are ironed out...and I have doubts about those).
if you want those features, why not just use c++? I know this sounds sarcastic, but to be honest, you don't HAVE to use things like objects and templates in c++. And you can gain the benefits of things like: std::string (basically handles ALL of what you just asked for and is standard). Or std::vector (resizable array), or std::list, and so forth.
The reality is that c++ code can be just as efficient as c code when it is written well (just as in any language). And to be honest, an awful lot of c code would work just fine in a c++ compiler with little to no changes.
My uncle fell into this category. For years he would happily log into his ISP, check his stocks, read emails, the usual operations. Time after time, I explained that for just about the same price he could have a MUCH faster Internet. He would constantly reply with "it's ok, I'm patient and this works." Usually, I would retort this by saying that his patients was admirable and a good thing, but simply not necessary.
Until one day he moved to a new community which had all the houses pre-setup with cable modems. In fact, at the new community, broadband was cheaper since it was just "part of the deal."
Since then, I haven't heard the end of "how much faster his computer is now." He absolutely loves it and says he will never go back to dial-up.
Realistically, I think most broadband holdouts fit into this description. Hesitant to change, content and generally patient with the shortcoming they have. But if they had the opportunity to try broadband for an extended period of time, I think most reasonable people would agree it's just better.
To be completely frank, you picked the wrong major if you don't want to do programming. I also graduated with a BS in Comp Sci and the VAST majority of the course load was programming related.
Why didn't you transfer to another more appropriate major, perhaps IT or MIS or any other computer related major not heavy in programming?
Now, to answer your question, I would say probably not many. You can almost certainly get an IT administration position if you have the appropriate experience. But you'll have a tough time getting a great salary as entry level IT positions are usually just "ok"
OK, I could ben wring about it being a captured object. But does giant planet migration address the orbit of Eris being 44 degrees tilted compared to the other planets and the like?
IIRC it is a kuiper belt object that actually isn't on the same plane as the other planets.
I think I actually recall it being found by accident because it isn't where we would expected it to be, most likely it is a captured object not formed by our suns accretion disk.
Why is it that people who doubt evolution ("the big E version as you put it). Seem to think that there is some limitation to the types of mutations and what their effects can be? If you are willing to concede that evolution happens on a small scale, as in small changes, what is stopping small changes from adding up to large effects? Think about it...if selection can turn a wolf into a chihuahua (in this case, human preference was the selection mechanism) over just a few hundred years, just imagine what can happen given _millions_.
you say "othewise, you are just seeing persistent change from generation to generation that eventually produces something useful."
Well what the heck do you think evolution is?! You just defined evolution (well evolution doesn't have to be useful, just the less useful ones don't tend to stay around).
In Addition you say "Or, maybe if the bacterium suddenly developed the ability to feed on their glass petri dishes."
Why does the particular type of adaptation determine whether or not it was evolution? Because eating glass would be more impressive? That's a ridiculous standard, evolution doesn't have a goal to impress you, it doesn't have any goal at all.
Finally you say "Otherwise, neither side should be to quick to exclaim or disclaim anything."
Fair enough, though I agree for different reasons. Personally, I don't see the need to disprove that which has NO evidence at all.
to be fair, a lot of those errors are by using the XHTML style closing "/>" in non-paired tags...not a huge offense (though, if they claim HTML 4.01, they should use it and not XHTML!).
Beyond that, the errors don't get much worse, a lot of things like using an ampersand instead of "& amp;" (space added so it shows here) and the like... easily fixed.
I have FIOS for Internet but I've kept Comcrap for my TV for one simple reason: Verizon requires you to use their crappy Actiontec router if you want to use FIOS TV. what is the actiontec router? Are you referring to the wireless network router they give you? If so, What does TV service have to do with that? I am not trying to tell you, that you are wrong. I am actually curious because I have FIOS for both TV and internet and as far as TV goes, I just use my Tivo with a cable card and for internet, sure I use there router, in the end it has better features than my linksys that I had before.
Well, just out of curiosity, what were the numbers before an after enabling compiz? For all I know your system is just bloated all the time and compiz just doesn't add much MORE bloat:-P. Unless you can supply metrics here I don't know if you metacity uses 30 MB or 3000 MB on average. Also what are you using for measuring? I'm not trying to say you are wrong, but such claims need backup.
the answer is simple, the value given does not directly equate to a percentage of conformance, it just means it screwed up earlier or later...but does not indicate how much it screwed up by (or more importantly what ELSE would screw up). So i would imagine that IE 5.5 probably has does some things simply "differently" from the later versions that make it fail at a different time, but that doesn't mean it failed less badly.
The thing is, the supposed proof provided at this site is based on broken logic and pseudo science, but I'll appease your need for a logical rebutal:
point #1 proves nothing either way, it's more of a background on the issue. All it really says is "we thought one thing, then thought another thing." The issue of race really has no bearing on the issue of creation as far as I can say. If Adam/Eve were not white, so what, this neither confirms nor contradicts the idea of creation.
#2 is entirely ignoring that ocean levels are believed (with a LOT of evidence to have risen and fallen over the centuries, a classic example of this is that there is evidence of coral fossils in some places which are now more than 20 feet above sea level.
#3 is irrelevant, all it does is prove the age of the Niagara Falls, NOT the earth. I can agree that Niagara Falls is not billions of years old, in fact common geological theories is that the earths surface is constantly being reshaped by weather. There was a time when Niagara wasn't there, and there will be another time in the future too.
#4 is based on opinions, not facts at all. "precise distances that could not possibly be created by an explosion..." Says who? Is there ANY proof that order cannot arise from an explosion over enough time? Also as far as precise distances, well that's a matter of perspective. Perhaps the distance is so perfect because life evolved on earth and the creatures best suited for the local temperatures were the best at surviving. Also, back the explosion point, there have been repeated experiments by astronauts that demonstrate accretion of small particles. Basically there is a static cling bringing them together do to "rubbing" until they are big enough that gravity takes hold. The comet stuff is one again opinion, it doesn't account for many variables such as perhaps comets also collect particles in addition to losing them. As mentioned (on the page) the earth collects millions of tons of dust a year, why not comets too? You can't have it both ways.
#5 is based on science from a different era based on outdated knowledge. There is a difference between size, density and mass. For example, something can have bigger bounds but be less dense. A perfect example of this is gases. They can expand to large distances in fact a small amount of a gas can fill a space much larger than a large amount of gas given the opportunity.
#6 is just stupid, it opens with "The moon has always been an enigma, where did it come from? To this day there is no agreed answer except perhaps that God created it and placed it there on the fourth day of Creation." I didn't agree to that, so the "god put it there" is just as disputable as other theories. However, there is a theory which is gaining more and more acceptance in the scientific community. This is that the moon was created by a massive collision with another large "proto-planet." Collisions of this size could easily create enough heat to "meld" large bodies together in addition to tear large chunks out of bodies. I understand that this is not proof...but neither is "god put it there." Finally as far as dust collection on the moon, but the article doesn't account for the lack of atmosphere and FAR less gravity..so of course it would collect much less.
#7 is also not based on fact at all, but mis-informed speculation. An _obvious_ reason why the earth isn't cooling as fast as one might expect...is because well, it is being warmed up by the sun too! Also the radioactive decay claim that helium would fill the atmosphere, um, once again says who? Is there a measured volume leaching into the atmosphere per year that they could claim this is the case? If not, what about all that carbon dioxide, methane, oxygen and other gases that animals and plants like the continuously pump into the air? How does that volume compare? If you have nothing to compare, you can't make such claims.
#8 once again proves nothing but the geological age of a feature of the earth. Even if the math is correct (which
First of all, let me say I agree with you. Backwards compatibility while a noble goal, it is difficult to accomplish while making real worth while changes to a large system. However, I have a proposed solution... why not have an *optionally installed software compatibility layer, which would work similarly to wine? It could hypothetically have the same compatibility as Windows XP (so long as it's all user space, drivers are a whole other ball of wax). And not necessarily be needed. You could even have a special directory for legacy stuff and use something like syminks to keep things accessible to the user. Something like, "C:\CompatXP\" which all legacy apps would be "chrooted" to would work nicely, your regular file system could be present as a separate driver letter or something. Finally, if anyone is in a position to do this correctly, it's the people who wrote the APIs to begin with!
Heck, they could do this for each generation of windows too. Like "C:\Compat2K\", etc. In fact, I could see this as a very nice upgrade path as well. There are tons of opportunities here to keep the legacy optional and very functional. I just don't see why no-one at MS seems to have thought of this.
I've seen several articles and such about CO2 capturing techniques, and it sounds like a great idea. Anything we can do to keep it out of the air seems like a win to me. But is there any effort towards looking into an efficient O2 extraction technique? I would imagine this would have some benefits. Primarily, it would be a direct way to replace CO2 in the are with O2. Also, it could be a key player in terraforming technologies in the future.
I kinda feel like it wasn't the Warner Bros. announcement that did it, but more the reaction by the geek community to it. After the announcement, pretty much everyone in the geek community who cared immediately declared Bluray the winner. To me, this had way more impact than the loss of Warner Bros. Because it causes a chain reaction of "information" being spread all over the internet how HD-DVD is dead. So now, when consumers try to do some research on HD-DVD they find blogs and articles all saying Bluray is the winner. I would also imagine that this also effected sales reps in places like BestBuy where you have pseudo geek employees repeating all stuff they read on the internet to there customers.
All in all, this is a formula for a runaway sales drop in HD-DVD. Which to be honest, I am happy about, I _want_ there to be a winner (though I wish Sony didn't benefit from it...). But now I am getting to the point where I don't feel a purchase would potentially be for the losing format.
So in the end, I think that enough people said it was happening to the point where it made it happen.
I've wondered this before. But then I read about the precautions they put in place to make sure this very thing doesn't happen. NASA actually does a very good job making sure to the best of there ability that we wouldn't bring anything with us (unintentionally) and more importantly, it puts even more effort into making sure nothing comes back;).
After the moon landing, the astronauts were in quarantine for several days just to make sure they didn't accidentally bring back some crazy microbe from the moon:-P.
All in all, I think that if something is found, it'll be pretty clear cut that it isn't from earth for several reasons.
The problem is that the application compatibility problem is really a double edged sword. Microsoft bit themselves in the ass by pretty much forcing the habit of always running as admin when using windows. This led to programmers doing things like writing to there install dir and using system wide registry keys when a local one is more appropriate.
The real problem is poorly written applications for the most part. The fact the microsoft had to add file system and registry virtualization to vista is just a demonstration of this.
So the question comes...do we make easier to write bad software and install malware as a normal user? or do we tighten up security and break backwards compatibility? In all fairness the answer isn't obvious, because it depends on your needs.
There are other issues as well for compatibility. Unfortunately there is no win-win here. If they make it more compatible, it will be just as much of a security cluster fuck as previous versions.
Oh, I agree that the switch from PPC to x86 had several non-engineering related factors. But the point of my statement was that Apple at one point said "PPC is better" and now either directly or indirectly says that the switch to x86 was an improvement (computing wise).
Whether the motivation to switch was lack of supply, lack of R&D dedicated to chips by suppliers, or simply politics of doing business, doesn't matter. The end result is the same, Apple now sells x86's and presents there new products as an improvement.
I do agree that PPC vs. x86 is a philosophical debate. I personally think that each architecture has its pros and cons. Like i said, if I were chief architect at Intel, I would have done things differently...but I'm not, so that doesn't really matter.
perhaps you are not familiar with the technologies used to harden Vista. Just off the top of my head:
UAC: designed to help prevent a successful exploit from having system wide impact. yea *nix has been doing this from the start, but being slow on the uptake doesn't make it any less of a good idea.
Non-Executable Stack: yea, XP had it, but it is still a good idea. Makes standard overflows just a little harder to write (unless you use return to libc techniques).
ASLR: this addresses 2 things. Almost eliminates return to libc techniques, making the No-Exec Stack much more effective. And makes finding viable "offsets" for your shellcode trampoline instructions much harder to do. This makes things a pain in the ass for exploit writers as well.
More Heap Hardening: XP/SP2 introduced safe unlinking which kills a certain class of heap overflow exploits. But there were still some attacks. Vista improves on this in several ways.
Newer Microsoft Apps are compiled with newer visual studio: This has several effects, the most prominent is auto-warning of dangerous function use. But even some more subtle things exists. For example, the printf family doesn't by default support "%n" anymore without a certain #define specified. This turns all format string vulns from a arbitrary code exec to a DoS. Not great but BETTER.
IE runs in a sandbox: self explanatory, not a fix for IE being insecure. But being realistic about the fact that a web browser will have holes and trying to mitigate that fact is a good thing.
PatchGuard: yea, there has been some whining over this, but the hard and fast fact of it is: Kernel mode rootkits are harder to make with this active. No way around it. At the very least all the existing ones will need to be modified to even have a chance at working. While it would ignorant to say "it stops rootkits." it certainly will be a thorn in a rootkit writers side (at least until well known work-arounds become common place).
The list goes on, and BTW, not one of these things is visible to the average joe user. If they bolted these things onto XP and called in SP3, would you still say they are bad? I think not. The fact is that Microsoft has taken security seriously in Vista. It's not perfect, and never will be. But from a security point of view Vista is better. No question.
You know, when Microsoft (or any company) makes a mistake, I'm usually first on the bandwagon trying to point out the stupidity. But times change. What was awesome last year may be crap this year. Especially in the computer world where technology moves very fast.
Think about it, there was a time when Apple said that the PPC arch was far superior to x86....they may have even been right, there are tons of things that I personally would have designed differently. But here we are today, using x86 Macs. No biggie, it was a big flip flop or anything, they just decided that switching to PPC made more sense on enough levels. In fact, now Apple is advertising that they are great because they can run Windows too (more that Windows is faster on a mac...but still). This implies that the switch to x86 was an improvement!
Bottom line is that they weren't lying when they said XP was better. By the time SP2 came out, this was very much the truth. Now they believe that Vista is an improvement, and antiquates XP. And you know what, in many ways this is the truth. Vista is FAR more secure than XP is, the technologies applied make it simply harder to weaponize vulnerabilities than it was with XP.
Technologies evolve, times change, perspectives get updated. No biggie.
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Mostly Wrong. The reason you don't see all 4 GB on Windows machines is a combination of 2 factors.
#1. Memory mapped devices. This includes device which has onboard RAM (video card is biggest factor with the 1GB of RAM that's usual now). This must be mapped somewhere in the physical address space (virtual address space is irrelevant for this issue). And for compatibility with 32-bit DMA purposes has to be below the 4GB mark. So modern motherboards will remap the "displaced" RAM above the 4GB mark so it is still accessible.
Now onto issue #2. Windows *could* use PAE to access this relocated RAM, but it doesn't on desktop editions (even if PAE is enabled). Technically from a hardware point, it should be accessible, but once again for compatibility purposes, the Microsoft folk have opted to simply not use any RAM seen above the 4GB mark. The reason why is because of poorly programmed 3rd party drivers which assume all RAM is below 4GB, and try to do 32-bit DMA (and thus trash random memory and crash the system). For Microsoft, it's easier to simply avoid the issue then explain why it's not there fault to customers. (BTW server editions are a different story and DO support using RAM above 4GB).
You can verify this by opening up Microsoft's "System Information" utility and going to the "Memory" section. Simply put, it does not show ANY memory above 0xffffffff despite the fact that I know for a fact that there is RAM mapped above that address (installing Linux with "64GB memory support", aka PAE support, shows this to also be true and DOES report and using all 4GB of my RAM).
This issue has NOTHING to do with "shared memory space between processes.
I hear ya. I've wondered for a long while why things like the "biosphere" concept isn't being tried more often.
One of those setup on the moon could potentially reach of point of self sustainability. Something like that, if done correctly could be a huge step in space exploration.
Agreed...
However, one thing to keep in mind is that currently the vast majority of "owned" windows boxes, were not infected by an remote exploit, but were infected by trojan horses.
This poses an interesting and hard problem for Microsoft (i'm not trying to defend them, but i do believe in being fair). The issue is, how the heck do you prevent the installation of malware if the user ASKED for it to be installed?
Windows defender actually does a pretty good job here. It's not perfect, but nothing is. UAC is an "ok" solution and to be honest, not too different from Ubunut's password prompt during privileged operations.
I think Microsoft got the "right idea" with UAC, but the implementation of it went very wrong. Primarily due to the coarse granularity of what is "privileged." It's a tough thing to get right, and the *nix world has an advantage in this category, namely that the users are *used* to things like sudo and su to do things that are privileged.
I've seen plenty of Windows users complaining on forums about UAC with things like "why the heck do I need a UAC prompt for just changing the time?!?" They simply don't get that anything that could potentially have an effect on other users of the system is an "admin" task.
So all in all, I think Vista is better, but is simply a tough pill to swallow for the users who simply don't care or don't get security concepts...
I think something better with UAC would be something like: "You are about to install something, would you like it to be installed for the current user or every user on the system?" Default to current user, and if they pick "every user" ask them for a password then.
Well as far as I understand, the theory is that a single large moon keep the earth's tilt relatively constant. In simulations, if the large moon is not present, it varies wildly anywhere from 0 to 90 degrees.
The expected result of this would be no "perminant" ice caps on the poles since they would be exposed more directly to the sun just as much as any other part of the planet. Net result... Higher oceans constantly, and much more erratic weather patterns.
Some believe that life would have evolved anyway, but would have taken much different evolutionary routes. Most likely with aquatic life forms being dominant.
Agreed...but I do think there would be some merit to having a station orbit the moon. It could be used as a middle ground between the earth and the moon (and eventual moon base). The way I figure it, instead of going direct to the moon (and taking a moon lander with you). You could go to the ISS, dock with it, and use *its* lander to go to/from the moon as you pleased. In general, I could see such a thing making trips to the moon significantly easier (once of course all of the other major issues are ironed out...and I have doubts about those).
if you want those features, why not just use c++? I know this sounds sarcastic, but to be honest, you don't HAVE to use things like objects and templates in c++. And you can gain the benefits of things like: std::string (basically handles ALL of what you just asked for and is standard). Or std::vector (resizable array), or std::list, and so forth.
The reality is that c++ code can be just as efficient as c code when it is written well (just as in any language). And to be honest, an awful lot of c code would work just fine in a c++ compiler with little to no changes.
My uncle fell into this category. For years he would happily log into his ISP, check his stocks, read emails, the usual operations. Time after time, I explained that for just about the same price he could have a MUCH faster Internet. He would constantly reply with "it's ok, I'm patient and this works." Usually, I would retort this by saying that his patients was admirable and a good thing, but simply not necessary.
Until one day he moved to a new community which had all the houses pre-setup with cable modems.
In fact, at the new community, broadband was cheaper since it was just "part of the deal."
Since then, I haven't heard the end of "how much faster his computer is now." He absolutely loves it and says he will never go back to dial-up.
Realistically, I think most broadband holdouts fit into this description. Hesitant to change, content and generally patient with the shortcoming they have. But if they had the opportunity to try broadband for an extended period of time, I think most reasonable people would agree it's just better.
To be completely frank, you picked the wrong major if you don't want to do programming. I also graduated with a BS in Comp Sci and the VAST majority of the course load was programming related.
Why didn't you transfer to another more appropriate major, perhaps IT or MIS or any other computer related major not heavy in programming?
Now, to answer your question, I would say probably not many. You can almost certainly get an IT administration position if you have the appropriate experience. But you'll have a tough time getting a great salary as entry level IT positions are usually just "ok"
OK, I could ben wring about it being a captured object. But does giant planet migration address the orbit of Eris being 44 degrees tilted compared to the other planets and the like?
IIRC it is a kuiper belt object that actually isn't on the same plane as the other planets.
I think I actually recall it being found by accident because it isn't where we would expected it to be, most likely it is a captured object not formed by our suns accretion disk.
Why is it that people who doubt evolution ("the big E version as you put it). Seem to think that there is some limitation to the types of mutations and what their effects can be? If you are willing to concede that evolution happens on a small scale, as in small changes, what is stopping small changes from adding up to large effects? Think about it...if selection can turn a wolf into a chihuahua (in this case, human preference was the selection mechanism) over just a few hundred years, just imagine what can happen given _millions_.
you say "othewise, you are just seeing persistent change from generation to generation that eventually produces something useful."
Well what the heck do you think evolution is?! You just defined evolution (well evolution doesn't have to be useful, just the less useful ones don't tend to stay around).
In Addition you say "Or, maybe if the bacterium suddenly developed the ability to feed on their glass petri dishes."
Why does the particular type of adaptation determine whether or not it was evolution? Because eating glass would be more impressive? That's a ridiculous standard, evolution doesn't have a goal to impress you, it doesn't have any goal at all.
Finally you say "Otherwise, neither side should be to quick to exclaim or disclaim anything."
Fair enough, though I agree for different reasons. Personally, I don't see the need to disprove that which has NO evidence at all.
to be fair, a lot of those errors are by using the XHTML style closing "/>" in non-paired tags...not a huge offense (though, if they claim HTML 4.01, they should use it and not XHTML!).
Beyond that, the errors don't get much worse, a lot of things like using an ampersand instead of "& amp;" (space added so it shows here) and the like... easily fixed.
Well, just out of curiosity, what were the numbers before an after enabling compiz? For all I know your system is just bloated all the time and compiz just doesn't add much MORE bloat :-P. Unless you can supply metrics here I don't know if you metacity uses 30 MB or 3000 MB on average. Also what are you using for measuring? I'm not trying to say you are wrong, but such claims need backup.
the answer is simple, the value given does not directly equate to a percentage of conformance, it just means it screwed up earlier or later...but does not indicate how much it screwed up by (or more importantly what ELSE would screw up). So i would imagine that IE 5.5 probably has does some things simply "differently" from the later versions that make it fail at a different time, but that doesn't mean it failed less badly.
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The thing is, the supposed proof provided at this site is based on broken logic and pseudo science, but I'll appease your need for a logical rebutal:
point #1 proves nothing either way, it's more of a background on the issue. All it really says is "we thought one thing, then thought another thing." The issue of race really has no bearing on the issue of creation as far as I can say. If Adam/Eve were not white, so what, this neither confirms nor contradicts the idea of creation.
#2 is entirely ignoring that ocean levels are believed (with a LOT of evidence to have risen and fallen over the centuries, a classic example of this is that there is evidence of coral fossils in some places which are now more than 20 feet above sea level.
#3 is irrelevant, all it does is prove the age of the Niagara Falls, NOT the earth. I can agree that Niagara Falls is not billions of years old, in fact common geological theories is that the earths surface is constantly being reshaped by weather. There was a time when Niagara wasn't there, and there will be another time in the future too.
#4 is based on opinions, not facts at all. "precise distances that could not possibly be created by an explosion..." Says who? Is there ANY proof that order cannot arise from an explosion over enough time? Also as far as precise distances, well that's a matter of perspective. Perhaps the distance is so perfect because life evolved on earth and the creatures best suited for the local temperatures were the best at surviving. Also, back the explosion point, there have been repeated experiments by astronauts that demonstrate accretion of small particles. Basically there is a static cling bringing them together do to "rubbing" until they are big enough that gravity takes hold. The comet stuff is one again opinion, it doesn't account for many variables such as perhaps comets also collect particles in addition to losing them. As mentioned (on the page) the earth collects millions of tons of dust a year, why not comets too? You can't have it both ways.
#5 is based on science from a different era based on outdated knowledge. There is a difference between size, density and mass. For example, something can have bigger bounds but be less dense. A perfect example of this is gases. They can expand to large distances in fact a small amount of a gas can fill a space much larger than a large amount of gas given the opportunity.
#6 is just stupid, it opens with "The moon has always been an enigma, where did it come from? To this day there is no agreed answer except perhaps that God created it and placed it there on the fourth day of Creation." I didn't agree to that, so the "god put it there" is just as disputable as other theories. However, there is a theory which is gaining more and more acceptance in the scientific community. This is that the moon was created by a massive collision with another large "proto-planet." Collisions of this size could easily create enough heat to "meld" large bodies together in addition to tear large chunks out of bodies. I understand that this is not proof...but neither is "god put it there." Finally as far as dust collection on the moon, but the article doesn't account for the lack of atmosphere and FAR less gravity..so of course it would collect much less.
#7 is also not based on fact at all, but mis-informed speculation. An _obvious_ reason why the earth isn't cooling as fast as one might expect...is because well, it is being warmed up by the sun too! Also the radioactive decay claim that helium would fill the atmosphere, um, once again says who? Is there a measured volume leaching into the atmosphere per year that they could claim this is the case? If not, what about all that carbon dioxide, methane, oxygen and other gases that animals and plants like the continuously pump into the air? How does that volume compare? If you have nothing to compare, you can't make such claims.
#8 once again proves nothing but the geological age of a feature of the earth. Even if the math is correct (which
First of all, let me say I agree with you. Backwards compatibility while a noble goal, it is difficult to accomplish while making real worth while changes to a large system. However, I have a proposed solution... why not have an *optionally installed software compatibility layer, which would work similarly to wine? It could hypothetically have the same compatibility as Windows XP (so long as it's all user space, drivers are a whole other ball of wax). And not necessarily be needed. You could even have a special directory for legacy stuff and use something like syminks to keep things accessible to the user. Something like, "C:\CompatXP\" which all legacy apps would be "chrooted" to would work nicely, your regular file system could be present as a separate driver letter or something. Finally, if anyone is in a position to do this correctly, it's the people who wrote the APIs to begin with!
Heck, they could do this for each generation of windows too. Like "C:\Compat2K\", etc. In fact, I could see this as a very nice upgrade path as well. There are tons of opportunities here to keep the legacy optional and very functional. I just don't see why no-one at MS seems to have thought of this.
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I've seen several articles and such about CO2 capturing techniques, and it sounds like a great idea. Anything we can do to keep it out of the air seems like a win to me. But is there any effort towards looking into an efficient O2 extraction technique? I would imagine this would have some benefits. Primarily, it would be a direct way to replace CO2 in the are with O2. Also, it could be a key player in terraforming technologies in the future.
I kinda feel like it wasn't the Warner Bros. announcement that did it, but more the reaction by the geek community to it. After the announcement, pretty much everyone in the geek community who cared immediately declared Bluray the winner. To me, this had way more impact than the loss of Warner Bros. Because it causes a chain reaction of "information" being spread all over the internet how HD-DVD is dead. So now, when consumers try to do some research on HD-DVD they find blogs and articles all saying Bluray is the winner. I would also imagine that this also effected sales reps in places like BestBuy where you have pseudo geek employees repeating all stuff they read on the internet to there customers.
All in all, this is a formula for a runaway sales drop in HD-DVD. Which to be honest, I am happy about, I _want_ there to be a winner (though I wish Sony didn't benefit from it...). But now I am getting to the point where I don't feel a purchase would potentially be for the losing format.
So in the end, I think that enough people said it was happening to the point where it made it happen.
the crash is a null pointer dereference (on a read operation). Something like this:
mov ebx, dword [eax]
where eax == 0.
It's a crash, but fortunately, a non-exploitable one.
I've wondered this before. But then I read about the precautions they put in place to make sure this very thing doesn't happen. NASA actually does a very good job making sure to the best of there ability that we wouldn't bring anything with us (unintentionally) and more importantly, it puts even more effort into making sure nothing comes back ;).
:-P.
After the moon landing, the astronauts were in quarantine for several days just to make sure they didn't accidentally bring back some crazy microbe from the moon
All in all, I think that if something is found, it'll be pretty clear cut that it isn't from earth for several reasons.
The problem is that the application compatibility problem is really a double edged sword. Microsoft bit themselves in the ass by pretty much forcing the habit of always running as admin when using windows. This led to programmers doing things like writing to there install dir and using system wide registry keys when a local one is more appropriate.
The real problem is poorly written applications for the most part. The fact the microsoft had to add file system and registry virtualization to vista is just a demonstration of this.
So the question comes...do we make easier to write bad software and install malware as a normal user? or do we tighten up security and break backwards compatibility? In all fairness the answer isn't obvious, because it depends on your needs.
There are other issues as well for compatibility. Unfortunately there is no win-win here. If they make it more compatible, it will be just as much of a security cluster fuck as previous versions.
Oh, I agree that the switch from PPC to x86 had several non-engineering related factors. But the point of my statement was that Apple at one point said "PPC is better" and now either directly or indirectly says that the switch to x86 was an improvement (computing wise).
Whether the motivation to switch was lack of supply, lack of R&D dedicated to chips by suppliers, or simply politics of doing business, doesn't matter. The end result is the same, Apple now sells x86's and presents there new products as an improvement.
I do agree that PPC vs. x86 is a philosophical debate. I personally think that each architecture has its pros and cons. Like i said, if I were chief architect at Intel, I would have done things differently...but I'm not, so that doesn't really matter.
perhaps you are not familiar with the technologies used to harden Vista. Just off the top of my head:
UAC: designed to help prevent a successful exploit from having system wide impact. yea *nix has been doing this from the start, but being slow on the uptake doesn't make it any less of a good idea.
Non-Executable Stack: yea, XP had it, but it is still a good idea. Makes standard overflows just a little harder to write (unless you use return to libc techniques).
ASLR: this addresses 2 things. Almost eliminates return to libc techniques, making the No-Exec Stack much more effective. And makes finding viable "offsets" for your shellcode trampoline instructions much harder to do. This makes things a pain in the ass for exploit writers as well.
More Heap Hardening: XP/SP2 introduced safe unlinking which kills a certain class of heap overflow exploits. But there were still some attacks. Vista improves on this in several ways.
Newer Microsoft Apps are compiled with newer visual studio: This has several effects, the most prominent is auto-warning of dangerous function use. But even some more subtle things exists. For example, the printf family doesn't by default support "%n" anymore without a certain #define specified. This turns all format string vulns from a arbitrary code exec to a DoS. Not great but BETTER.
IE runs in a sandbox: self explanatory, not a fix for IE being insecure. But being realistic about the fact that a web browser will have holes and trying to mitigate that fact is a good thing.
PatchGuard: yea, there has been some whining over this, but the hard and fast fact of it is: Kernel mode rootkits are harder to make with this active. No way around it. At the very least all the existing ones will need to be modified to even have a chance at working. While it would ignorant to say "it stops rootkits." it certainly will be a thorn in a rootkit writers side (at least until well known work-arounds become common place).
The list goes on, and BTW, not one of these things is visible to the average joe user. If they bolted these things onto XP and called in SP3, would you still say they are bad? I think not. The fact is that Microsoft has taken security seriously in Vista. It's not perfect, and never will be. But from a security point of view Vista is better. No question.
You know, when Microsoft (or any company) makes a mistake, I'm usually first on the bandwagon trying to point out the stupidity. But times change. What was awesome last year may be crap this year. Especially in the computer world where technology moves very fast.
Think about it, there was a time when Apple said that the PPC arch was far superior to x86....they may have even been right, there are tons of things that I personally would have designed differently. But here we are today, using x86 Macs. No biggie, it was a big flip flop or anything, they just decided that switching to PPC made more sense on enough levels. In fact, now Apple is advertising that they are great because they can run Windows too (more that Windows is faster on a mac...but still). This implies that the switch to x86 was an improvement!
Bottom line is that they weren't lying when they said XP was better. By the time SP2 came out, this was very much the truth. Now they believe that Vista is an improvement, and antiquates XP. And you know what, in many ways this is the truth. Vista is FAR more secure than XP is, the technologies applied make it simply harder to weaponize vulnerabilities than it was with XP.
Technologies evolve, times change, perspectives get updated. No biggie.