All this person did on his Apple ][e was write software.
Not so: many people put home made hardware into the expansion slots, and interfaced to various bits of hardware.
I personally built an interface for 1/2" reel to reel tape drives (like you see in sci-fi movies.. I used to dump usenet newsgroups onto 1/2 tapes at work, take them home and read them!
Plenty of people used to use the PC's printer port for hardware interfacing too, but that has gone! If you want to drive home made hardware today, how do you do it? (other than using an old P4?)
If you consider ~20% of people to be "almost nobody" then we might agree.
Maybe in your country. I very much doubt 20% of the UK population has even seen Vista or Win7.
In all probability IE6 usage in the UK exceeds Vista usage, and in Government institutions,
IE6 usage probably exceeds all other browsers. Win2k is still widely used, and XP still being
installed.
In Europe, we have diesel. 50MPG at 70MPH is normal. 70MPH is the speed limit here, so I have no data on going faster. My tank holds 80 litres (roughly 16 galls).
Here in London, 7MPH is a great achievement - traffic was faster when horse drawn. There is no real need for > 100MPH vehicles. Parking spaces would be more use!
(x) Some people are stupid
(x) Some parents are stupid
(x) Some children are stupid
(x) Some people with access to guns are intoxicated
Loads of other reasons too numerous to mention.
I accept that the proposed technology is about as useful as the official British response to nuclear attack: put a brown paper bag over your head - sure it wont help, but you probably wont know!
Like most engineering issues there is a trade-off between security and other factors like ease of use
VbV has traded both of them away completely. It never works for me, and there is plenty of evidence that it
encourages users to give away security information to sites they cant verify. (See above)
I suspect they keep changing their mind about whether the first character in the password is numbered 0 or 1.
either that, or it forgets a lot. It gets worse: if you have more than one card: there is no way for you to know
which ID goes with which card!
As long as there is money to be made in spam, spammers will continue to send spam.
But if the US government was to threaten the US based credit card companies that process every single one of these transactions there would be no more money, and no more spam.
Obama may not be able to win the war in Afganistan, but he could stop spam tonite by threatening Visa and Mastercard, and it would not even need a single water board or nuke. Though I personally would vote for bankers (and spammers) to be waterboarded. Preferably on prime time TV.
. Don't receive live TV broadcasts and you won't ever have to pay it.
Not true - you have to not have the ability to recieve said broadcasts if you dont want to pay. Even if you only use your widescreen TV to watch Mapouka on youtube, and its not connected to an aerial, you still have to pay for a licence.
Good luck getting a job when all you know is Linux
???
As someone who has to "get the job done" there is no way I would touch MS products. I want
to know that the APIs will last as long as my product/service, not need to be replaced next time Balmer throws a chair.
I am supporting business critical software I wrote in 2004 for my clients. I would not want to do that with Windows software.
Disclaimer: I was a programmer long DOS was invented, and have a ship-load of 10ft barge-poles.
I live in the UK, and here the standard of obviousness is "one who is sufficiently skilled in the art" - which I would expect to be interpreted as someone who designs this type of stuff for a living - eg me.
Yes, I would consider this "all in a days work" if I was working on STBs or similar. It is far and away more obvious than stuff I have been refused pantents on.
I fully support the idea of patents, although I have opposed "software" patents for over 30 years. I also do not accept that "business methods" should be patentable (they are not outside of the USA). A patent is a contract with society that the inventor can reveal his methods without losing his monopoly so that society can improve on it this does not appear to be what happens in America. I consider the US patent system to be a crime against civilisation.
Slashdot Mirror
Not so: many people put home made hardware into the expansion slots, and interfaced to various bits of hardware.
I personally built an interface for 1/2" reel to reel tape drives (like you see in sci-fi movies.. I used to dump usenet newsgroups onto 1/2 tapes at work, take them home and read them!
Plenty of people used to use the PC's printer port for hardware interfacing too, but that has gone! If you want to drive home made hardware today, how do you do it? (other than using an old P4?)
Some of us started in the 1950's!
That's MY Lawn!
and few alternatives were needed, because we had the APPLE }{.
Hopefully, NetBSD and Linux/Maemo will be on the iThing before I can afford one anyway.
I wrote assembler for near on 20 years. I am rather fond of PHP. It can P*ss futher than Fortran4, and its significantly faster than a dead slug.
Maybe in your country. I very much doubt 20% of the UK population has even seen Vista or Win7.
In all probability IE6 usage in the UK exceeds Vista usage, and in Government institutions, IE6 usage probably exceeds all other browsers. Win2k is still widely used, and XP still being installed.
You cant
I cant
The British government can!
Here in London, 7MPH is a great achievement - traffic was faster when horse drawn. There is no real need for > 100MPH vehicles. Parking spaces would be more use!
(x) Some people are stupid
(x) Some parents are stupid
(x) Some children are stupid
(x) Some people with access to guns are intoxicated
Loads of other reasons too numerous to mention.
I accept that the proposed technology is about as useful as the official British response to nuclear attack: put a brown paper bag over your head - sure it wont help, but you probably wont know!
Guns dont kill people, Americans kill people!
VbV has traded both of them away completely. It never works for me, and there is plenty of evidence that it encourages users to give away security information to sites they cant verify. (See above)
I suspect they keep changing their mind about whether the first character in the password is numbered 0 or 1. either that, or it forgets a lot. It gets worse: if you have more than one card: there is no way for you to know which ID goes with which card!
Yay - send aircraft carriers with 105mm gus to attack spammers - gets my vote!
??? prophet!
The "Gulf of Misunderstanding" has definitely been there as long as I can remember.
But if the US government was to threaten the US based credit card companies that process every single one of these transactions there would be no more money, and no more spam.
Obama may not be able to win the war in Afganistan, but he could stop spam tonite by threatening Visa and Mastercard, and it would not even need a single water board or nuke. Though I personally would vote for bankers (and spammers) to be waterboarded. Preferably on prime time TV.
If you have the botnet's source, Nuke them from high orbit
Not true - you have to not have the ability to recieve said broadcasts if you dont want to pay. Even if you only use your widescreen TV to watch Mapouka on youtube, and its not connected to an aerial, you still have to pay for a licence.
I thought I was the only one that loves chillied coax with my barbecued BNCs!
Loads of Money (according to MS)
For years I have been asking for a softwsare development tool that allows me to write PHP code by throwing cow-pats at the screem with the Wiimote.
And my colleagues wat a tool that allows dispatching my bugs with the Wii gun attachment they use in "Quantum of Solace".
???
As someone who has to "get the job done" there is no way I would touch MS products. I want to know that the APIs will last as long as my product/service, not need to be replaced next time Balmer throws a chair. I am supporting business critical software I wrote in 2004 for my clients. I would not want to do that with Windows software.
Disclaimer: I was a programmer long DOS was invented, and have a ship-load of 10ft barge-poles.
D'oh
To the rest of the world The US IS the villain
I write Fortran4 you insensitive clod.
No wonder you ended up posting on /. If you were a Ninja, you could
have demolished two blocks quite easily without even sharpening the pencil!
I tooki the vaccine and my symptoms were the same as yours. It was a scam from day 1.
Nor will it admit how much Peter mandleson got in back-handers.
Yes, I would consider this "all in a days work" if I was working on STBs or similar. It is far and away more obvious than stuff I have been refused pantents on.
I fully support the idea of patents, although I have opposed "software" patents for over 30 years. I also do not accept that "business methods" should be patentable (they are not outside of the USA). A patent is a contract with society that the inventor can reveal his methods without losing his monopoly so that society can improve on it this does not appear to be what happens in America. I consider the US patent system to be a crime against civilisation.