The "new" is that you can download and watch these things at home as they're being shown at E3, instead of waiting for some advert laden webside to post a small 400x275 handheld recording off of a video screen that has the top of someone else's head in the middle of the picture.
To put things into perspective, the average number of games sold per PS2 averages about 8-9. I haven't seen any figures for the 360 yet, but if it's over 4 at this stage it is doing pretty well.
The breakup rememdy was discarded during the appeal process. There wasn't anything to take off of the table; the Justice department doesn't dictate the remedy -- the court does.
Seattle taxes on cars are nothing. I've never seen people bitch and moan so much about taxes that are so low.
If you live in Missouri, you pay over 8% income tax. If you work or live in the city of St. Louis, you can kiss another 1% of your income goodbye. You'll pay property taxes on your car (mine totaled $400/year) in ADDITION to tab fees ($85/year). Don't worry, when you go shopping you'll "only" pay a ~7.5% sales tax (including food) instead of 8.8% (not including food).
I haven't lived there for a few years though. How much do you want to bet taxes are higher?
will an average consumer buy a more expensive house even if he or she could afford it?
History shows: Yes.
Or even build an extension onto their house (which people don't do now because of property taxes)?
Actually you'll find that a lot of people are adding on to their existing structure because buying a new home is too expensive (property values have gone through the roof the last few years). I know of one person who is doing exactly that for those very reasons (ie: spend $250k adding on, or spend $500k purchasing a new home).
the GGP didn't note that based on income, the top 5% pay ~55% of federal income taxes, and the top 50% pay over 95% of federal income taxes.
Those figures are based on TAXABLE income (taxable income = total income - deductions).
Well, if they're not going to save money, they're going to spend it. If they spend it, one of two things happens: 1) they accumulate things (ie: they acquire wealth) 2) they acquire services (ie: someone else acquires wealth)
Hmmm... that's probably one of the more interesting proposals I've seen for narrowing the income disparity's between the classes...
I can classify the set of non-gamers to those over the age of 50 and under the age of 50 and reach the same conclusion. It still wouldn't be very relevent to the point that is being made, which is that you can appeal to non-hardcore gamers without requiring every portion of that audience to spend $400.
If they aren't likely to spend $60 on a game then they aren't likely to spend $400 to get a system that they can then use to download a few $5-10 games from the arcade to play.
You are making the incorrect assumption that every "gamer" owns the console they play on. It is possible that hardcore gamer A lives in the same house as non-hardcore gamer B...
Non FPS 360 games: - Amped 3 - Astropop - Bankshot Billiards - Bejeweled - Blazing Angels - Burnout Revenge - College Hoops 2k6 - Condemned - Crystal Quest - DOA4 - Fight Night 3 - Feeding Frenzy - FIFA 06 - Full Auto - Gauntlet - Geometry Wars - Hardwood Backgammon - Hardwood Hearts - Hardwood Spades - Hexic - Jewel Quest - Joust - Kameo - Tomb Raider - Madden 06 - MLB 06 - Marble Blast Ultra - Mutant Storm Reloaded - NBA 2k6 - NBA Live 06 - Need For Speed MW - Outpost Kaloki X - PGR3 - Ridge Racer 6 - Robotron: 2084 - Rumble Roses(TM) XX - SmashTV - Oblivion - Tiger Woods - Tony Hawk's American Wasteland - Top Spin 2 - Wik: Fable of Souls - Zuma
FPS (and a few that are technically 3rd person shooters) 360 games: - Battlefield 2 - Call of Duty 2 - Far Cry Instincts - GUN - Perfect Dark Zero - Quake 4 - The Outfit - Ghost Recon
That really depends on the code. x64 changes the size of a stardard pointer, but didn't change the size of a word. In the real world (assuming we're talking about an app which was always 32bit only), once you get something to build against x64, you're about 90% done (because coders are human, and people do stupid shit sometimes).
In my experience, most of the problems will center around using non-pointer types with pointer-types. Mostly around bounds checking, offsets into arrays, pointer arithmatic, etc. I've seen some really aweful code which actually stores pointer values in non pointer types... bleh. That intermittently breaks in wonderfully interesting ways.
The EC claims that the documents are not relevent to Microsoft's defense, so they don't need to be turned over. Ie: the prosecutor is deciding what evidence the defendent has available for it's defense.
I do believe that there is additional legal action occuring in Europe challenging that assertion, but frankly by the time that is settled the documents requested will no longer be needed (ie: the case will be closed).
At the time, I seem to recall everyone posting here thinking that Microsoft was going to get their ass kicked in the court trial because emails deleted due to corporate data retention rules were, well, deleted. Apparently Microsoft agreed because they settled.
Now, given that this is Slashdot afterall, the story you hear is "Microsoft gave Burst money so they could sue Apple."
Gotta love the twists and turns of the "everything Microsoft does or doesn't do is evil" reasoning.
Raising the bar to 0wn a system is never bad. Ever.
Currently, it is possible even without any intimate knowledge of DNS to take a look into your hosts file and find out if an attacker tampered with it. Because it is the simplest way of redirecting a user to a bogus page, this is usually the way it is done by attackers.
For you maybe. For 90% of the computer using population, it isn't. Tell me, how many people do you think KNOW where to find the host file on Windows, that it exists, or even what it does? Hell, I've been using Windows for over a decade and I didn't know where it lived until I read this article.
The problem with "simple attacks" is that "simple" people can perform them. A hard attack isn't something that can be done by a script kiddie. And that's exactly what this is transformed to -- from something that could be written in one minute via a BATCH FILE to something that probably requires, at minimum, a few months worth of effort.
Raising the security bar to exploit a system is always good. It reduces the percentage of people out there capable of understanding how to take advantage of a weakness.
If you now close this "security hole", it will not stop the attacker but it will force him to use more sophisticated means to redirect you, which are not so easily detectable by computer illiterates.
Yet it would still be rather simple to check for via anti-spyware and AV software (which most users depend on in the first place).
A password on your telnet daemon is a proven concept
So if someone has a new idea we shouldn't try it?
It's successful in keeping unwanted visitors out.
Actually, it isn't. Passwords are transmitted in cleartext (which is why you should always always ALWAYS use ssh).
"Securing" the hosts file, on the other hand, will serve no security purpose
It keeps some types of attacks from removing the ability of the machine to obtain an update that might disable said malware. Sounds like a pretty good security purpose to me.
All it will do is make it harder to detect if someone decides to send you to some page.
Just because you can "inspect" the hosts file does not mean there is not some other change hidden, lurking on your system that you couldn't find. Hell, it is entirely possible to write a file system filter driver that would return different versions of the file to different processes. You ability to inspect and "fix" the host file is useless in that case.
I hope this is easier to understand now.
I understand your perspective. I just don't agree with it.
I'm actually pretty sure its there for the half-assed posix compliance that ealier version of NT had. (do MS even try for this in their NT server products anymore?)
The posix OS "personality" still exists and they're still shipping SFU, so I would suspect the answer is "yes".
That's the most ass-backward dumbass statement I've ever read.
In summary: "Making a system harder to attack makes us more vulnerable to attack."
Using that logic, I would encourage you to place your box on a direct connection to the internet, enabling telnet access via the root account, and allowing the root account to login without a password.
After all, using a password would encourage a hacker to hack telnet which would be harder to observe. And if you didn't have telnet on they'd attack some other part of the system you didn't know about. And if you had a firewall, a hacker would have to get through that first, and you can't even check for that on your computer!
I'd be willing to bet Sears is still using token ring networks in their stores; they were about 5 years ago and I haven't seen their POS terminals change since then...
Well, given that China doesn't respect IP, I suspect Gates would indeed call his 'guest' a communist. Except in that company, such a comment wouldn't be seen as an insult...
For me, it's about making my life easier/more convenient and in general just more pleasant.
Did I forget to turn off a light somewhere before leaving on vacation? Who cares! [hits "all lights off button on keyfob"]
Turning on the lights in the kitchen is no longer a 4 step process (kitchen light, right under cabinet set of lights, left undercabinet set of lights, bar lights); rather, all I do is turn on the kitchen light.
In the middle of the night, if I go upstairs for a glass of water I can get the lights to turn on SLOWLY to a dim level (so I'm not blinded, yet can still see).
I can have the ceiling fan turn on automatically when certain conditions are met (temperature, time of day, etc).
My bathroom/closet lights are linked together in such a manner that a "sunrise/sunset" effect takes place when turning on/off the bathroom lights. (not terribly useful, just a soothing effect)
Lights that are "shared" between rooms are managed automatically. All I have to do is turn on the "master" switches; the other lights are always managed as you'd expect them to be.
I never have to wander around fumbling for a light switch in the dark.
This isn't a revolution by any means; in fact, you probably wouldn't even give it a second thought. However, you really do notice it when they're gone... to me those are the best kind of inventions. Working quietly in the background, staying out of your way making your day nicer...
Easy to install and configure for both new homes and retrofits
Install is about as easy as it will ever get (about as difficult as wiring any light switch). Configuration will never be simple for anything other than simple automation scenarios (switch linking; afaik, I'd consider that solved for Insteon).
Works like current technology - guests or prospective home buyers won't be left wondering what the extra buttons do, nor will they wonder how the light is supposed to go on.
This is possible with existing technology (see decora style switches from smarthome).
Handles all common types of electrical lighting and appliances correctly automatically - you won't have to worry about plugging a flourescent lamp or fan in where a dimmer module is - it detects it and controls it appropiately
This is not a case handled correctly by any non-home automation dimmer switch, so I don't think it is a relevant point.
Super-reliable - not controllable from other sources, no chance of interference, no chance of failure after power outages, brownouts, etc, can survive multiple lightning strikes and other destructive conditions, falls back to a simple, obvious control state when there's a problem
I can't speak for failure modes after lightning strikes (I suspect they'll fail open), but the x10 switches I have remember their states correctly after power outages. I don't have any problems with signals from outside sources, interference, or reliability.
That being said, I would never stick one of these switches on something like the garbage disposal...:)
Almost every single piece of information in your post is incorrect.
1) It works just fine, you just have to understand how the signal travels. Typically the signal doesn't have any problems reaching the signal on any device connected to the same phase. The signal has to travel much further distances (basically outside the house and back in) to connect to the second phase, resulting in a much weaker signal (in my house, it was 10% of the original "volume" -- that sounds bad, and it is, but modern switches are still pretty good at pulling commands out of that; I would "miss" about 1 command per week).
This can be corrected by a simple phase coupler (you can purchase a simple device you plug into your dryer outlet); if necessary, signal amplifiers can also be purchased.
The signal does not pass through to outlets that are "conditioned" (because that trashes any signal on the powerline). This typically isn't a problem as you aren't trying to automate devices you stick on surge suppressors.
There are also some devices which absorb the powerline signal (I've personally never encountered this problem); this too can be avoided by isolating the device through a filter.
2) This is absolutely incorrect, and honestly I've never seen an x10 wireless signal coupler. See notes about phase coupling for 1. There are RF tranceivers available that allow you to control lights wirelessly through a remote control.
3) This is 100% incorrect. Modern switches have configurable on levels, ramp rates, and scene support. These switches also support absolute adjustment of on-levels.
In your home theater example, you could create a scene which various lights in your room would be a member of. You would program the lights to turn on to set levels at set rates when the scene is turned on. When you send the "I'm watching movies" scene command, the lights would adjust from whatever level they are on at (including "off") to the levels they were programed to go to at the rate you specified.
Slashdot Mirror
The "new" is that you can download and watch these things at home as they're being shown at E3, instead of waiting for some advert laden webside to post a small 400x275 handheld recording off of a video screen that has the top of someone else's head in the middle of the picture.
To put things into perspective, the average number of games sold per PS2 averages about 8-9. I haven't seen any figures for the 360 yet, but if it's over 4 at this stage it is doing pretty well.
A lot of the content on live can be downloaded for free. (demos, trailers, etc)
The breakup rememdy was discarded during the appeal process. There wasn't anything to take off of the table; the Justice department doesn't dictate the remedy -- the court does.
The US case wasn't dropped. A large portion of the original decision was overturned on appeal.
Seattle taxes on cars are nothing. I've never seen people bitch and moan so much about taxes that are so low.
If you live in Missouri, you pay over 8% income tax. If you work or live in the city of St. Louis, you can kiss another 1% of your income goodbye. You'll pay property taxes on your car (mine totaled $400/year) in ADDITION to tab fees ($85/year). Don't worry, when you go shopping you'll "only" pay a ~7.5% sales tax (including food) instead of 8.8% (not including food).
I haven't lived there for a few years though. How much do you want to bet taxes are higher?
will an average consumer buy a more expensive house even if he or she could afford it?
History shows: Yes.
Or even build an extension onto their house (which people don't do now because of property taxes)?
Actually you'll find that a lot of people are adding on to their existing structure because buying a new home is too expensive (property values have gone through the roof the last few years). I know of one person who is doing exactly that for those very reasons (ie: spend $250k adding on, or spend $500k purchasing a new home).
the GGP didn't note that based on income, the top 5% pay ~55% of federal income taxes, and the top 50% pay over 95% of federal income taxes.
Those figures are based on TAXABLE income (taxable income = total income - deductions).
Well, if they're not going to save money, they're going to spend it. If they spend it, one of two things happens:
1) they accumulate things (ie: they acquire wealth)
2) they acquire services (ie: someone else acquires wealth)
Hmmm... that's probably one of the more interesting proposals I've seen for narrowing the income disparity's between the classes...
I can classify the set of non-gamers to those over the age of 50 and under the age of 50 and reach the same conclusion. It still wouldn't be very relevent to the point that is being made, which is that you can appeal to non-hardcore gamers without requiring every portion of that audience to spend $400.
If they aren't likely to spend $60 on a game then they aren't likely to spend $400 to get a system that they can then use to download a few $5-10 games from the arcade to play.
You are making the incorrect assumption that every "gamer" owns the console they play on. It is possible that hardcore gamer A lives in the same house as non-hardcore gamer B...
Nothing but FPS games eh?
Non FPS 360 games:
- Amped 3
- Astropop
- Bankshot Billiards
- Bejeweled
- Blazing Angels
- Burnout Revenge
- College Hoops 2k6
- Condemned
- Crystal Quest
- DOA4
- Fight Night 3
- Feeding Frenzy
- FIFA 06
- Full Auto
- Gauntlet
- Geometry Wars
- Hardwood Backgammon
- Hardwood Hearts
- Hardwood Spades
- Hexic
- Jewel Quest
- Joust
- Kameo
- Tomb Raider
- Madden 06
- MLB 06
- Marble Blast Ultra
- Mutant Storm Reloaded
- NBA 2k6
- NBA Live 06
- Need For Speed MW
- Outpost Kaloki X
- PGR3
- Ridge Racer 6
- Robotron: 2084
- Rumble Roses(TM) XX
- SmashTV
- Oblivion
- Tiger Woods
- Tony Hawk's American Wasteland
- Top Spin 2
- Wik: Fable of Souls
- Zuma
FPS (and a few that are technically 3rd person shooters) 360 games:
- Battlefield 2
- Call of Duty 2
- Far Cry Instincts
- GUN
- Perfect Dark Zero
- Quake 4
- The Outfit
- Ghost Recon
That really depends on the code. x64 changes the size of a stardard pointer, but didn't change the size of a word. In the real world (assuming we're talking about an app which was always 32bit only), once you get something to build against x64, you're about 90% done (because coders are human, and people do stupid shit sometimes).
... bleh. That intermittently breaks in wonderfully interesting ways.
In my experience, most of the problems will center around using non-pointer types with pointer-types. Mostly around bounds checking, offsets into arrays, pointer arithmatic, etc. I've seen some really aweful code which actually stores pointer values in non pointer types
The EC claims that the documents are not relevent to Microsoft's defense, so they don't need to be turned over. Ie: the prosecutor is deciding what evidence the defendent has available for it's defense.
I do believe that there is additional legal action occuring in Europe challenging that assertion, but frankly by the time that is settled the documents requested will no longer be needed (ie: the case will be closed).
Let's start with Vista. Fine, so it got delayed by a few months.
...
Gosh, that's the worst mispelling of six years I've ever seen!
Gee, I never realized Vista was originally scheduled to ship 3 months after XP was released
At the time, I seem to recall everyone posting here thinking that Microsoft was going to get their ass kicked in the court trial because emails deleted due to corporate data retention rules were, well, deleted. Apparently Microsoft agreed because they settled.
Now, given that this is Slashdot afterall, the story you hear is "Microsoft gave Burst money so they could sue Apple."
Gotta love the twists and turns of the "everything Microsoft does or doesn't do is evil" reasoning.
I deliberately fish tailed my car, and I was about a foot from her rear bumper. If I had ABS or anti-fishtailing, I would have been in an accident.
Yeah, that whole "turning" thing that ABS lets you do is right out.
Without it, they'd be far behind in their understanding of rootkits
...
If you believe that statement, I've got some prime real-estate in Florida with your name on it
Raising the bar to 0wn a system is never bad. Ever.
Currently, it is possible even without any intimate knowledge of DNS to take a look into your hosts file and find out if an attacker tampered with it. Because it is the simplest way of redirecting a user to a bogus page, this is usually the way it is done by attackers.
For you maybe. For 90% of the computer using population, it isn't. Tell me, how many people do you think KNOW where to find the host file on Windows, that it exists, or even what it does? Hell, I've been using Windows for over a decade and I didn't know where it lived until I read this article.
The problem with "simple attacks" is that "simple" people can perform them. A hard attack isn't something that can be done by a script kiddie. And that's exactly what this is transformed to -- from something that could be written in one minute via a BATCH FILE to something that probably requires, at minimum, a few months worth of effort.
Raising the security bar to exploit a system is always good. It reduces the percentage of people out there capable of understanding how to take advantage of a weakness.
If you now close this "security hole", it will not stop the attacker but it will force him to use more sophisticated means to redirect you, which are not so easily detectable by computer illiterates.
Yet it would still be rather simple to check for via anti-spyware and AV software (which most users depend on in the first place).
A password on your telnet daemon is a proven concept
So if someone has a new idea we shouldn't try it?
It's successful in keeping unwanted visitors out.
Actually, it isn't. Passwords are transmitted in cleartext (which is why you should always always ALWAYS use ssh).
"Securing" the hosts file, on the other hand, will serve no security purpose
It keeps some types of attacks from removing the ability of the machine to obtain an update that might disable said malware. Sounds like a pretty good security purpose to me.
All it will do is make it harder to detect if someone decides to send you to some page.
Just because you can "inspect" the hosts file does not mean there is not some other change hidden, lurking on your system that you couldn't find. Hell, it is entirely possible to write a file system filter driver that would return different versions of the file to different processes. You ability to inspect and "fix" the host file is useless in that case.
I hope this is easier to understand now.
I understand your perspective. I just don't agree with it.
It raises the bar. Appending text to a textfile is easy. Disabling file protection and patching a dll while it is being used is hard.
I'm actually pretty sure its there for the half-assed posix compliance that ealier version of NT had. (do MS even try for this in their NT server products anymore?)
The posix OS "personality" still exists and they're still shipping SFU, so I would suspect the answer is "yes".
That's the most ass-backward dumbass statement I've ever read.
In summary: "Making a system harder to attack makes us more vulnerable to attack."
Using that logic, I would encourage you to place your box on a direct connection to the internet, enabling telnet access via the root account, and allowing the root account to login without a password.
After all, using a password would encourage a hacker to hack telnet which would be harder to observe. And if you didn't have telnet on they'd attack some other part of the system you didn't know about. And if you had a firewall, a hacker would have to get through that first, and you can't even check for that on your computer!
</sarcasm>
I'd be willing to bet Sears is still using token ring networks in their stores; they were about 5 years ago and I haven't seen their POS terminals change since then...
Well, given that China doesn't respect IP, I suspect Gates would indeed call his 'guest' a communist. Except in that company, such a comment wouldn't be seen as an insult...
For me, it's about making my life easier/more convenient and in general just more pleasant.
... to me those are the best kind of inventions. Working quietly in the background, staying out of your way making your day nicer...
Did I forget to turn off a light somewhere before leaving on vacation? Who cares! [hits "all lights off button on keyfob"]
Turning on the lights in the kitchen is no longer a 4 step process (kitchen light, right under cabinet set of lights, left undercabinet set of lights, bar lights); rather, all I do is turn on the kitchen light.
In the middle of the night, if I go upstairs for a glass of water I can get the lights to turn on SLOWLY to a dim level (so I'm not blinded, yet can still see).
I can have the ceiling fan turn on automatically when certain conditions are met (temperature, time of day, etc).
My bathroom/closet lights are linked together in such a manner that a "sunrise/sunset" effect takes place when turning on/off the bathroom lights. (not terribly useful, just a soothing effect)
Lights that are "shared" between rooms are managed automatically. All I have to do is turn on the "master" switches; the other lights are always managed as you'd expect them to be.
I never have to wander around fumbling for a light switch in the dark.
This isn't a revolution by any means; in fact, you probably wouldn't even give it a second thought. However, you really do notice it when they're gone
A few things I'd like to point out:
Easy to install and configure for both new homes and retrofits
Install is about as easy as it will ever get (about as difficult as wiring any light switch). Configuration will never be simple for anything other than simple automation scenarios (switch linking; afaik, I'd consider that solved for Insteon).
Works like current technology - guests or prospective home buyers won't be left wondering what the extra buttons do, nor will they wonder how the light is supposed to go on.
This is possible with existing technology (see decora style switches from smarthome).
Handles all common types of electrical lighting and appliances correctly automatically - you won't have to worry about plugging a flourescent lamp or fan in where a dimmer module is - it detects it and controls it appropiately
This is not a case handled correctly by any non-home automation dimmer switch, so I don't think it is a relevant point.
Super-reliable - not controllable from other sources, no chance of interference, no chance of failure after power outages, brownouts, etc, can survive multiple lightning strikes and other destructive conditions, falls back to a simple, obvious control state when there's a problem
I can't speak for failure modes after lightning strikes (I suspect they'll fail open), but the x10 switches I have remember their states correctly after power outages. I don't have any problems with signals from outside sources, interference, or reliability.
That being said, I would never stick one of these switches on something like the garbage disposal...:)
Almost every single piece of information in your post is incorrect.
1) It works just fine, you just have to understand how the signal travels. Typically the signal doesn't have any problems reaching the signal on any device connected to the same phase. The signal has to travel much further distances (basically outside the house and back in) to connect to the second phase, resulting in a much weaker signal (in my house, it was 10% of the original "volume" -- that sounds bad, and it is, but modern switches are still pretty good at pulling commands out of that; I would "miss" about 1 command per week).
This can be corrected by a simple phase coupler (you can purchase a simple device you plug into your dryer outlet); if necessary, signal amplifiers can also be purchased.
The signal does not pass through to outlets that are "conditioned" (because that trashes any signal on the powerline). This typically isn't a problem as you aren't trying to automate devices you stick on surge suppressors.
There are also some devices which absorb the powerline signal (I've personally never encountered this problem); this too can be avoided by isolating the device through a filter.
2) This is absolutely incorrect, and honestly I've never seen an x10 wireless signal coupler. See notes about phase coupling for 1. There are RF tranceivers available that allow you to control lights wirelessly through a remote control.
3) This is 100% incorrect. Modern switches have configurable on levels, ramp rates, and scene support. These switches also support absolute adjustment of on-levels.
In your home theater example, you could create a scene which various lights in your room would be a member of. You would program the lights to turn on to set levels at set rates when the scene is turned on. When you send the "I'm watching movies" scene command, the lights would adjust from whatever level they are on at (including "off") to the levels they were programed to go to at the rate you specified.