Re:This is frightening...
on
The Eyes Have It
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't really think this is so frightening. Granted, it's record is not outstanding, but the technology is not going to be used to detain, charge, or convict anybody. If they determine somebody may be lying, they'll just be subject to additional search and scrutiny. For the 10% false positives, this will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
f anything C# takes some of the goofy aspects of Java, such as the interoperation with properties via methods, and cleans them up to make an abstract behind the scenes property handling system (ripped straight from Delphi's object pascal I would guess).
I, and apparently many others, would like you to elaborate on this. And I mean that sincerely. I am a Java programmer, and I am not familiar with either object pascal or C#. I'm not sure at all what you mean by "interoperation [sic] with properties via methods."
From the Register article, and from the patent filing that another reader posted, it sounds as if the speaker damage might have been a design goal, or at least a side-effect that they are using to pitch the technique as "punishment" for "pirates." "You copy our CD, will ya? Let's see how you enjoy it when you play it on your blown speakers?!?" Well, let's see how many CD I continue to purchase to play on my blown speakers.
Are you sure you didn't ship with that parcel company Ace Ventura was working for?
(Check this PDF for UPS's insurance policy; they do offer insurance on international shipments, and the only limitation I could find for international shipments that was different than for domestic shipments was for jewelry).
I seem to be trapped in some sort of reality distortion field, because I could have sworn Microsoft lost the original trial and the subsequent appeal. And yet in the settlement, the DOJ is acting like Microsoft won the case. I imagine this conversation between a judge and a convicted felon:
"You have been found guilty of the crime of murder, and will be sentenced to life in a maximum security prison."
"Um, yeah, maximum security...I don't think I'll like that very much. How 'bout Tahiti?"
"Oh, all right, but only if you promise to behave!"
I'm a software engineer, and I appreciate when bug report includes step-by-step instructions on how to reproduce a bug. Two reasons for this: One, so I can find the bug, and two, so I know if I have indeed fixed the bug. If I repeat the step, and the program no longer fails, it's likely that I've fixed the thing.
So, the step-by-step instructions for an exploit can be looked at as a bug report (I'd argue that is exactly what they are) that the responsible company can use to find and patch the bug, and that a sysadmin can use to verify that the patch was correctly installed (using due caution, naturally).
So, I took a look at the Microsoft link you and sent, but I think that I'm missing something here. It's simply and acknowledgment from Microsoft, saying basically, "This version of Word has been sanitized for protection." Which is the point of the original Slashdot posting. So, how did Microsoft address this issue? It doesn't look like they offered a work around of any sort.
Incidentally, if you look up "idiot" is my thesaurus, "Microsoft" is listed as a synonym.
Re:copulating mentally challenged individuals
on
Crashing Xbox Kiosks
·
· Score: 1
Actually, even before System 7, expandable Macs (The Mac II series) were shipping. If my memory serves me, the Mac II and IIx had 7 NuBus (developed by TI) slots, while the smaller Mac IIci and IIcx had 4 NuBus slots. The cases were very easy to open, though not as elegant as a G4 or G3 case. True, there were the SEs amd Classics, that were difficult to open, but your statement that "The Macintosh of that era was specifically designed to be impossible for the average person to open" is just plain wrong.
They aren't claiming it can transfer 650 MB in 10 seconds, they are claiming you can transfer a music CD, encoded in MP3 (likely 160 bps, since that's the rate they use else where) in 10 seconds. By my calculation, that's about 5-8MB/s. Still much faster than you'd get with USB, though significantly slower than the theoretical 50MB/s (400Mbit/s) transfer rate that Firewire is capable of.
Notice that MarketWatch has pulled that article, and put one in place about the real product, the iPod. (I too saw the MarketWatch iWalk article; it really was there at one point). Me thinks somebody at MarketWatch is pretty embarrassed about that little slip, but at least they are doing a good job of covering it up.
I know I'd be using a PPC machine today (with a licensed copy of MacOS)
No, you wouldn't, because if Apple hadn't killed the clones, Apple itself would likely be dead, and there'd be no licensed copy of Mac OS to find. Mac OS market share was not growing; people were buying Power Computing, UMAX, Motorola, etc. machines instead of Apple, not instead of PC clones.
And the clones were not superior, as anybody who owned a Motorola or UMAX clone would tell you.
Indeed, I can see the pictures on my TV now. Palestinians celebrating in the streets, tongues wagging, as they learn that another US web site has switched, in fear, to using Apache or iPlanet.
Sometimes, I wonder if even Microsoft can take themselves seriously. Then again, maybe they are smart by implying that sticking with IIS is our patriotic duty.
Every time I think Microsoft can't possibly be as evil as they are made out to be, they prove me wrong.
Re:Egg Troll Cannot Be Stopped!
on
LOTR Campout Begins
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Thanks for spreading the truth. I had no idea Jon Katz is a turdwhiff.
I apologize for the "off-topicness" of this post, but...
What's up with AOL x.0? Why don't they ever have a x.1 release? It's not like they are really releasing anything so ground breaking it deserves a major (x+1.0) release.
While I agree that net admins are responsible for keeping up with patches, etc., I can't understand how you can say, "Everyone knows that windows products are the most insecure money can buy and that it is the number one target for troublemakers" and yet believe "It's not Microsofts [sic] fault."
How can it not be Microsoft's fault for release what you call "the most insecure" products? Perhaps Microsoft's response could be, "Well, heck, you knew our products are insecure, it's your own fault for using them!"
The record companies don't "have good contacts". They *own* the contacts. The ones they don't own they bribe...
And there's my point. The record companies are as hard to fight as the publishers. If Stephen King had any financial success with his experiment, it's only because he had already established a name for himself, with the help of his publisher-Goliath. It wouldn't work for some unheard-of, albeit talented, local band or author first trying to make a name for themselves. And for the established artists who might, logistically, have a chance to succeed, their publisher would likely sue them for breach of contract if they tried to go it alone.
Self published authors, small labels, and indies will always be around, but the big publishers will continue to control, for better or for worse, what the majority of us see, hear, and read. It's a shame, because we are probably missing out on some really good stuff.
what wasteful protocols and designs people use now.
How true...take for instance, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). How does an inherently visual, non-textual subject such as graphics gain anything whatsoever from XML (other than buzzword compliance)? As a cow-orker described it, XML is "one thousand bytes of markup for 10 bytes of data."
Well, you mention one already: Stephen King tried it, and it didn't work (oh, the horror!).
The other problem I see is with your claim that it cuts out the middle man (which you never fully explained HOW it does that). The fact is, record companies exist, and are successful, for a reason. They have contacts with distributors, retailers, radio stations, booking agents, etc. that gets a band, a single, an album in front of an audience. The fact is, there already are artists who "cut out the middle man" and allow you to purchase an album directly from them online, through the mail, over the phone, or at your local bar. Would you like an example? Well, I can't think of one off the top of my head, and that's just the point. And if I did, you wouldn't have heard of them. And that's also the point. Record companies, as evil as they may, have the power to say who gets heard and who doesn't. Perhaps that's why they are viewed as so evil.
Distribution channels work, whether its for music, books, or rotisserie cookers at Walmart. If you can't get it in front of the customers, you can't sell it. The audience who does find out about a band who "cut out the middle man" will neither be large enough to launch a band to fame and fortune nor to change an industry.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really think this is so frightening. Granted, it's record is not outstanding, but the technology is not going to be used to detain, charge, or convict anybody. If they determine somebody may be lying, they'll just be subject to additional search and scrutiny. For the 10% false positives, this will be nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
I, and apparently many others, would like you to elaborate on this. And I mean that sincerely. I am a Java programmer, and I am not familiar with either object pascal or C#. I'm not sure at all what you mean by "interoperation [sic] with properties via methods."
From the Register article, and from the patent filing that another reader posted, it sounds as if the speaker damage might have been a design goal, or at least a side-effect that they are using to pitch the technique as "punishment" for "pirates." "You copy our CD, will ya? Let's see how you enjoy it when you play it on your blown speakers?!?" Well, let's see how many CD I continue to purchase to play on my blown speakers.
(Check this PDF for UPS's insurance policy; they do offer insurance on international shipments, and the only limitation I could find for international shipments that was different than for domestic shipments was for jewelry).
But the sysadmins who want to verify that they correctly applied that patch do need to know. And they fall into the public-at-large.
I seem to be trapped in some sort of reality distortion field, because I could have sworn Microsoft lost the original trial and the subsequent appeal. And yet in the settlement, the DOJ is acting like Microsoft won the case. I imagine this conversation between a judge and a convicted felon:
"You have been found guilty of the crime of murder, and will be sentenced to life in a maximum security prison."
"Um, yeah, maximum security...I don't think I'll like that very much. How 'bout Tahiti?"
"Oh, all right, but only if you promise to behave!"
So, the step-by-step instructions for an exploit can be looked at as a bug report (I'd argue that is exactly what they are) that the responsible company can use to find and patch the bug, and that a sysadmin can use to verify that the patch was correctly installed (using due caution, naturally).
'Twould go along nicely with .cum and .orgy.
Nope...it didn't work. I'm still Jones'in for a Canon E-20.
Incidentally, if you look up "idiot" is my thesaurus, "Microsoft" is listed as a synonym.
Actually, even before System 7, expandable Macs (The Mac II series) were shipping. If my memory serves me, the Mac II and IIx had 7 NuBus (developed by TI) slots, while the smaller Mac IIci and IIcx had 4 NuBus slots. The cases were very easy to open, though not as elegant as a G4 or G3 case. True, there were the SEs amd Classics, that were difficult to open, but your statement that "The Macintosh of that era was specifically designed to be impossible for the average person to open" is just plain wrong.
They aren't claiming it can transfer 650 MB in 10 seconds, they are claiming you can transfer a music CD, encoded in MP3 (likely 160 bps, since that's the rate they use else where) in 10 seconds. By my calculation, that's about 5-8MB/s. Still much faster than you'd get with USB, though significantly slower than the theoretical 50MB/s (400Mbit/s) transfer rate that Firewire is capable of.
Notice that MarketWatch has pulled that article, and put one in place about the real product, the iPod. (I too saw the MarketWatch iWalk article; it really was there at one point). Me thinks somebody at MarketWatch is pretty embarrassed about that little slip, but at least they are doing a good job of covering it up.
Well, what do you know? The product actually is an iPod, an MP3 jukebox. macminute.
No, you wouldn't, because if Apple hadn't killed the clones, Apple itself would likely be dead, and there'd be no licensed copy of Mac OS to find. Mac OS market share was not growing; people were buying Power Computing, UMAX, Motorola, etc. machines instead of Apple, not instead of PC clones.
And the clones were not superior, as anybody who owned a Motorola or UMAX clone would tell you.
Sometimes, I wonder if even Microsoft can take themselves seriously. Then again, maybe they are smart by implying that sticking with IIS is our patriotic duty.
Every time I think Microsoft can't possibly be as evil as they are made out to be, they prove me wrong.
Thanks for spreading the truth. I had no idea Jon Katz is a turdwhiff.
I apologize for the "off-topicness" of this post, but...
What's up with AOL x.0? Why don't they ever have a x.1 release? It's not like they are really releasing anything so ground breaking it deserves a major (x+1.0) release.
I guess it is better than AOL 2000 or AOL XP. (:
perhaps they could build on a microwave-powered Space Junk Zapper(TM).
How can it not be Microsoft's fault for release what you call "the most insecure" products? Perhaps Microsoft's response could be, "Well, heck, you knew our products are insecure, it's your own fault for using them!"
And there's my point. The record companies are as hard to fight as the publishers. If Stephen King had any financial success with his experiment, it's only because he had already established a name for himself, with the help of his publisher-Goliath. It wouldn't work for some unheard-of, albeit talented, local band or author first trying to make a name for themselves. And for the established artists who might, logistically, have a chance to succeed, their publisher would likely sue them for breach of contract if they tried to go it alone.
Self published authors, small labels, and indies will always be around, but the big publishers will continue to control, for better or for worse, what the majority of us see, hear, and read. It's a shame, because we are probably missing out on some really good stuff.
How true...take for instance, Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). How does an inherently visual, non-textual subject such as graphics gain anything whatsoever from XML (other than buzzword compliance)? As a cow-orker described it, XML is "one thousand bytes of markup for 10 bytes of data."
* Can you really say most come with digital audio outputs? I thought that was generally just the higher end models.
Well, you mention one already: Stephen King tried it, and it didn't work (oh, the horror!).
The other problem I see is with your claim that it cuts out the middle man (which you never fully explained HOW it does that). The fact is, record companies exist, and are successful, for a reason. They have contacts with distributors, retailers, radio stations, booking agents, etc. that gets a band, a single, an album in front of an audience. The fact is, there already are artists who "cut out the middle man" and allow you to purchase an album directly from them online, through the mail, over the phone, or at your local bar. Would you like an example? Well, I can't think of one off the top of my head, and that's just the point. And if I did, you wouldn't have heard of them. And that's also the point. Record companies, as evil as they may, have the power to say who gets heard and who doesn't. Perhaps that's why they are viewed as so evil.
Distribution channels work, whether its for music, books, or rotisserie cookers at Walmart. If you can't get it in front of the customers, you can't sell it. The audience who does find out about a band who "cut out the middle man" will neither be large enough to launch a band to fame and fortune nor to change an industry.
dyslexics untie!