Merely unplugging or turning off the computer's microphone does not correct the random-character problem, according to several user reports.
It is added as an aside and it isn't very scientific. Was anybody able to recreate that problem? And what is turning off the microphone? Do they mean muting it?
Also, they say random characters not text. There is a big distinction there. Text is words. Nowhere does it say that words are being written. If some internal static is picked up and some weird character appears that is something different entirely.
The problem here is that this should not be running by default and when it is running it should be obvious to the user by the use of a blinking icon or something to that effect.
Why would you need voice recognition if you are streaming audio?
Re:Active/Passive voice, and ambiguous pronouns
on
Windows XP is Listening
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"XP's speech recognition system causes the problem, because most manufacturers turn it on by default."
That may be better gramatically but it isn't correct. XP's speech recognition system does not cause the problem. It is doing its job. The problem is that the manufacturers cause the problem by leaving it on by default. The correct phrase should be:
"The manufacturers cause the problem because they leave XP's speech recognition system on by default." There is also no need for a comma before "because."
Voice recognition is cool when you are playing a game and can give voice commands. There are also real life uses for voice recognition - such as dictation (instead of to an assistant), recording random thoughts or ideas that may be hard to put into words, transcribing a pre-recorded meeting into minutes, etc.
I also should note that not everybody works in cubicles. People in cubicles get to talk to themselves all they want (I know I do).
It doesn't "route" through MSN. It uses the MSN search engine by default but you can switch that off. If you read the article you would know that they did not find this happening with IE. Nice bit of flamebaiting though. Glad to see that a moderator decided to reward you for your stupidity.
There is a lot more than that wrong with the "article." He also suggests that the Government should buy Gates out - some $50B in stock in his estimate. That would make the government a very large % owner of Microsoft. Do you really think they would want to see Microsoft fail at that point? And if they just sold off all of that stock they would crash the market.
What's even worse is that he thinks removing Gates will actually fix anything. Gates may have got them to this point but that train has gathered enough steam that it doesn't need the engineer anymore.
Cringley continually shows that he knows nothing of what he speaks and just continues yapping because he likes to hear himself speak.
So basically, you're saying that instead of going after the people that are breaking the law, we should go after the people that are facilitating it?
Why can't you go after both? In a way he is an accomplice. He knows that illegal activity is being committed through his server and there is an easy way to prevent it and yet he doesn't. It is like owning a gun, knowing that somebody is using it to kill people, and not putting it under lock and key.
A) The problem is not getting the information. It is that the intelligence agencies are not using the information that is readily and freely available either over the internet or through other sources.
B) Do the intelligence agencies really need to have every Danielle Steele novel available in data form?
That was definitely out there but there were plenty of "tame" reflectors also. The best part of CuSeeMe was that most of the quality reflectors didn't allow lurking so you had to show your video to participate.
This really is a great comment. It reminds me of back when I used to use CuSeeMe. When it was popular there were lots of people and reflectors. Then Mplayer came along and a lot of the CuSeeMe community left. CuSeeMe became a ghost town. After Mplayer went games only everybody split between Paltalk and SeeSaw. Online communities are very fickle. All it takes is for something better (cheaper, easier, faster) to come along and there will be a mass exodus.
I did admitted above that I last worked on a G3 with OS 8. I don't remember anything being that clean back then. I remember there being more than just preferences floating around.
And as for sounding like a Microsoft apologist, I am far from it. I despise having to apply patches every week and I hate that Messenger and Passport seemed to be tied into everything. But nothing compares to my hatred of Apple. For years they put out crap OS's and even crappier hardware. I worked on a Powerbook 3500c that went in for repairs the day after getting it and was eventually recalled. I worked on a 6100 that was slower than the 286 I worked on in college. I worked on a 7600 that had to be restarted every time I closed one app and opened another.
All along there were Mac apologists. The constant promise of Rhapsody or Gershwin or whatever. I use to get MacAddict magazine. I even played the original Warcraft on the Mac. I tried hard to believe that things would get better. And then we upgraded to PC's at work. NT4 at first and we got occasional blue screens but they were far and few between. Finally, we went to 2000. No more blue screens, no more restarting, no more problems (except for the damn security issues I mentioned above).
Now at home, I am taking the next logical step and moving towards Linux. My slackware qmail server has not been touched except to shut it down because of the problems I have been having with my UPS. It is rock solid. I love that machine. And slowly but surely I will move more and more to Linux. But I will never send another dollar to that shithole, evil company that made my worklife miserable for several years and that company isn't Microsoft.
Guess what. In this day and age you don't have to guess about things. You can look it up. Here is the link to US Copyright Office (part of Library of Congress). Here is a summary of the pertinent info:
Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author
I admit it has been a few years since I last worked on a mac (G3 with OS 8). I guess they have cleaned the process up a lot since then.
As for the Windows uninstall, I haven't had any problems since I started using 2000. I also like having everything in one spot (add/remove programs). It is like a software inventory system.
It is nice for easy installs but it is a pain for uninstalling. When you uninstall an app properly in Windows it usually gets all of the pieces (there are of course exceptions). With the drag and drop installation you never are really sure whether you got everything that was created by the apps once you started using them (prefs, etc.).
I also like the fact that when I uninstall an app it usually leaves any files I created behind. In other words word documents, save files, etc. If I delete a drag and drop app by dragging the whole folder to the trashbin then I lose everything in that folder.
Actually, if he really was a kid and a student then he could get the academic pricing. On needforsoftware he could get Office for OSX for $225. Still a good amount of money but I am sure that this wouldn't have spent $25 for it.
Even the article noted that this letter is rarely aimed at Hollings. It's sorta like sending a letter to a co-worker about their behavior and cc-ing our boss. Everybody knows it is just going to piss off the co-worker but hopefully the boss gets the point.
While aiding and abetting does have a specific legal definition, it also has a real English definition that basically means encouraging and providing the means to circumventing piracy which violates the DMCA.
That may be true but it only matters if they come after you and I don't see that happening. Coming after so-called "pirates" is not too bad but coming after legitimate customers would not be very popular.
Has Blizzard come to you and said to stop using BNetD servers? Unless they come to you specifically and say "you are violating the terms of the EULA" then your point, while it may be valid, does not apply here.
BNetD is not being shut down because they violated the EULA. They are being shut down because Blizzard feels that they are aiding and abetting piracy.
Slashdot Mirror
they could write a secretly installed program or virus that would take advantage of this little quirk and stream audio from someones computer.
This is what I am responding to.
That just proves my point. It is the manufacturers leaving this thing on by default that is the problem.
The comment added at the end of the article is:
Merely unplugging or turning off the computer's microphone does not correct the random-character problem, according to several user reports.
It is added as an aside and it isn't very scientific. Was anybody able to recreate that problem? And what is turning off the microphone? Do they mean muting it?
Also, they say random characters not text. There is a big distinction there. Text is words. Nowhere does it say that words are being written. If some internal static is picked up and some weird character appears that is something different entirely.
The problem here is that this should not be running by default and when it is running it should be obvious to the user by the use of a blinking icon or something to that effect.
Why would you need voice recognition if you are streaming audio?
"XP's speech recognition system causes the problem, because most manufacturers turn it on by default."
That may be better gramatically but it isn't correct. XP's speech recognition system does not cause the problem. It is doing its job. The problem is that the manufacturers cause the problem by leaving it on by default. The correct phrase should be:
"The manufacturers cause the problem because they leave XP's speech recognition system on by default." There is also no need for a comma before "because."
The rest of your post is fine.
Oh man. I really should have proof-read. I meant to say ideas that are hard to write down. Also people in offices can talk to themselves not cubicles.
Sorry for having to post a correction.
Voice recognition is cool when you are playing a game and can give voice commands. There are also real life uses for voice recognition - such as dictation (instead of to an assistant), recording random thoughts or ideas that may be hard to put into words, transcribing a pre-recorded meeting into minutes, etc.
I also should note that not everybody works in cubicles. People in cubicles get to talk to themselves all they want (I know I do).
I find this very suspicious considering AOL's relationahip with Sun Microsystems - namely the iPlanet joint venture.
It doesn't "route" through MSN. It uses the MSN search engine by default but you can switch that off. If you read the article you would know that they did not find this happening with IE. Nice bit of flamebaiting though. Glad to see that a moderator decided to reward you for your stupidity.
There is a lot more than that wrong with the "article." He also suggests that the Government should buy Gates out - some $50B in stock in his estimate. That would make the government a very large % owner of Microsoft. Do you really think they would want to see Microsoft fail at that point? And if they just sold off all of that stock they would crash the market.
What's even worse is that he thinks removing Gates will actually fix anything. Gates may have got them to this point but that train has gathered enough steam that it doesn't need the engineer anymore.
Cringley continually shows that he knows nothing of what he speaks and just continues yapping because he likes to hear himself speak.
So basically, you're saying that instead of going after the people that are breaking the law, we should go after the people that are facilitating it?
Why can't you go after both? In a way he is an accomplice. He knows that illegal activity is being committed through his server and there is an easy way to prevent it and yet he doesn't. It is like owning a gun, knowing that somebody is using it to kill people, and not putting it under lock and key.
A) The problem is not getting the information. It is that the intelligence agencies are not using the information that is readily and freely available either over the internet or through other sources.
B) Do the intelligence agencies really need to have every Danielle Steele novel available in data form?
That was definitely out there but there were plenty of "tame" reflectors also. The best part of CuSeeMe was that most of the quality reflectors didn't allow lurking so you had to show your video to participate.
This really is a great comment. It reminds me of back when I used to use CuSeeMe. When it was popular there were lots of people and reflectors. Then Mplayer came along and a lot of the CuSeeMe community left. CuSeeMe became a ghost town. After Mplayer went games only everybody split between Paltalk and SeeSaw. Online communities are very fickle. All it takes is for something better (cheaper, easier, faster) to come along and there will be a mass exodus.
I did admitted above that I last worked on a G3 with OS 8. I don't remember anything being that clean back then. I remember there being more than just preferences floating around.
And as for sounding like a Microsoft apologist, I am far from it. I despise having to apply patches every week and I hate that Messenger and Passport seemed to be tied into everything. But nothing compares to my hatred of Apple. For years they put out crap OS's and even crappier hardware. I worked on a Powerbook 3500c that went in for repairs the day after getting it and was eventually recalled. I worked on a 6100 that was slower than the 286 I worked on in college. I worked on a 7600 that had to be restarted every time I closed one app and opened another.
All along there were Mac apologists. The constant promise of Rhapsody or Gershwin or whatever. I use to get MacAddict magazine. I even played the original Warcraft on the Mac. I tried hard to believe that things would get better. And then we upgraded to PC's at work. NT4 at first and we got occasional blue screens but they were far and few between. Finally, we went to 2000. No more blue screens, no more restarting, no more problems (except for the damn security issues I mentioned above).
Now at home, I am taking the next logical step and moving towards Linux. My slackware qmail server has not been touched except to shut it down because of the problems I have been having with my UPS. It is rock solid. I love that machine. And slowly but surely I will move more and more to Linux. But I will never send another dollar to that shithole, evil company that made my worklife miserable for several years and that company isn't Microsoft.
Guess what. In this day and age you don't have to guess about things. You can look it up. Here is the link to US Copyright Office (part of Library of Congress). Here is a summary of the pertinent info:
Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright. In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author
I admit it has been a few years since I last worked on a mac (G3 with OS 8). I guess they have cleaned the process up a lot since then.
As for the Windows uninstall, I haven't had any problems since I started using 2000. I also like having everything in one spot (add/remove programs). It is like a software inventory system.
It is nice for easy installs but it is a pain for uninstalling. When you uninstall an app properly in Windows it usually gets all of the pieces (there are of course exceptions). With the drag and drop installation you never are really sure whether you got everything that was created by the apps once you started using them (prefs, etc.).
I also like the fact that when I uninstall an app it usually leaves any files I created behind. In other words word documents, save files, etc. If I delete a drag and drop app by dragging the whole folder to the trashbin then I lose everything in that folder.
Actually, if he really was a kid and a student then he could get the academic pricing. On needforsoftware he could get Office for OSX for $225. Still a good amount of money but I am sure that this wouldn't have spent $25 for it.
Actually it was just Office for OSX and I am not sure how much easier it could get than dragging the Office folder onto the iPod icon on the desktop.
switch rarely to really. First post of the morning. Should have previewed.
Even the article noted that this letter is rarely aimed at Hollings. It's sorta like sending a letter to a co-worker about their behavior and cc-ing our boss. Everybody knows it is just going to piss off the co-worker but hopefully the boss gets the point.
While aiding and abetting does have a specific legal definition, it also has a real English definition that basically means encouraging and providing the means to circumventing piracy which violates the DMCA.
That may be true but it only matters if they come after you and I don't see that happening. Coming after so-called "pirates" is not too bad but coming after legitimate customers would not be very popular.
Has Blizzard come to you and said to stop using BNetD servers? Unless they come to you specifically and say "you are violating the terms of the EULA" then your point, while it may be valid, does not apply here.
BNetD is not being shut down because they violated the EULA. They are being shut down because Blizzard feels that they are aiding and abetting piracy.