Seriously, Apple was fully aware of what Amazon did to Barnes and Noble when they attempted to go forth with their own one-click plan. Now one could argue that Amazon was only aggressive because Barnes and Noble was also an online book retailer, but I doubt Apple's legal team advised whoever not to take any chances.
If Apple wanted 1-click shopping badly enough, yet didn't want any thorny legal issues to deal with, it was really the only way to go.
I don't like the fact that Amazon has the patent either, I think the USPTO needs to be looked over and reviewed, but hell, I don't blame Apple for making the move they did. I'd prolly would've done the same thing.
-----
Interesting, but I doubt a new computer would be necessary.
At worst I'd hope the most you'd have to do is clean out the MBR and low-level format the drive. Though IMHO, if it requires more than needing to reformat the filesystem, it may be going a bit too far.
The U.S. company says it runs more than 200 million accounts on-line, looking after more than £15bn of customers' money.
Wait a minute here... divide the number of users into the money that's only an average of $75 per user. Apparently no one trusted these guys BEFORE the hole was discovered, nevermind after.
-----
It's all a matter of the communication channels between the IT Department and Management. Better communication channels means less chance of this sort of security hole happening...or does it?
I've been at enough places to say that a lot of procedure indeed has to do with policy. If it isn't written down and enforced, more often than not it isn't executed.
Yes, things like this do happen, often because its not written in stone. You might think about changing the root password, but then you're just lazy, too comfortable typing it in during the blink of an eye, or too confident that since nothing has happened yet, nothing will happen.
Of course, we all know what happens when you do that - It leaves the potential for something to happen. This is why the manangerial staff that does know what they're doing gets on your case. Because unless you really care (and yes, plenty of IT staffers who give a damn, do), it might not get done.
-----
I think if this was passed the patent office and DE Technologies would feel the ultimate wrath. Every Global 2000 company would send out its army of legal professionals within 24 hours of the patent being issued.
I wonder if Pool has ever wondered how many assassins are employed by the Global 2000. Now there's something to think about.
-------
I'm mostly a software developer at work, but when sales has problems with their PCs, I'm the one that gets called.
Thing is, they always call it 'the computer' when its really all Windows' fault, or an application is munging up or whatnot when it has nothing to do with hardware.
The typical PC user is no different. This could lead to some very dicey situations. EWww...
---------
That would make crooks out of IBM, RedHat, Dell, Sun... oh wow... lots of major corporations. Thousands of people. God no. Quickly, lock 'em all up and throw away the key before this gets out of hand!
*sarcasm mode off*
I wonder if Hollywood realizes that this is bigger than they think.;)
I haul my friend's race car to the track every weekend, plus tools, tires, etc in the bed. This is a hyped up 5.4L V8 F-150 with some serious engine mods.
I envy SUV and muscle car owners. Compared to my weekend drives, they get EXCELLENT mileage. Hauling 2 tons in the rear, and another 1/2 ton in the bed, I'm lucky if I get 10mpg on the highway. It'll get about 8mpg in the city. And being a Ford (and on new struts) this thing is jacked up and merely laughs in aerodynamics' face. This thing hasn't heard the meaning of downforce.
And the ultimate slap in the face is I never thought to get the optinal 2nd tank. Sure the main holds 25 gallons, but when you're going across a state or two, you fill up pretty often. 50 gallon capacity would be a real timesaver.
Yes, riser boards weren't that great. Never heard of anyone complaining about the shape of their case though.
Monitor lost sync at anything better than 640x480x256
You were expecting much better in 1992? Seriously. Lotta machines used the long ISA or VLB boards mind you. It wasn't meant for performance. Coulda bought your own monitor too
Hard drive had an ever-increasing number of bad sectors
Not common, but happened. PB used Conner Peripherals for a while. I believe they've gone out of business (Conner that is) but not sure. Before Packard Bell was dead though they were using Seagate's in a lot of machine, which no one can complain about.
Single IDE port couldn't handle slave devices for some reason
This was IDE, not EIDE. Most controllers had only a single channel, and IDE could only handle 1 device per channel. So you'd have two channels, each which could handle one device. The CD-ROM you say? Lots of CD-ROMs in 1992 weren't IDE or EIDE so they'd have seperate controller cards, which were usually combined with the audio device. So you could have two hard disks and a CD-ROM in a box at most.
Packard Bell and the other low-end manufacturers weren't meant for power and an assload of upgrades. I call these things disposable. When people do buy OEM machines, I tell em that they're going to get what they pay for. I build custom machines and sell em, but I tell em before they gimme what they wanna spend. THe less you wanna spend, the more vanilla the parts, and the less performance and a worse upgrade path yer gonna get.
I can build total brand name Athlon 750 systems for about $1000 (without monitor) with everything being brand name and for the regular user and regular gamer, they're damn satisfying. Though I tell em that if they want a GeForce2 GTS and an Athlon 1GHz and Ultra160 SCSI disks, they're gonna hafta pay for em. And if they don't wanna spend much at all, I just give em a list of what goes in it. They never ask for the manufacturer, specs, or even warranty, because they could careless. If I try telling em, they don't care (which is their loss) --
What about the larger x86 servers from Unisys and Sequent which have DOZENS of PCI slots?
G4 500's are rated at around a GLFOP. So about 4 GFLOP per PCI slot? Some servers have like 32, 96, 100+ 64-bit 66MHz PCI slots... there's a thought. Heh.
I agree. What measures are in place in the event the Spanish Inquisition tries to take our friendly neighborhood data haven over and hold our precious information hostage?
Obviously now, most megacorps who-own-everything-including-your-nifty-taco-bell- cup would have their data mirrored and replicated eleswhere, but there's always some boy scout dropout that isn't prepapred, and would probably suffer and squirm around in the meantime. --
Now here's food for thought. What if, seriously now, the Spanish Inquisition decides to take over Sealand with a sizable group of grunts and some petty firearms or random blunt objects?
(sarcastic) Huzzah! Some poor perverts Natalie Portman JPEG's are being held at ransom at $10,000 per megabyte! Oh whatever shall we do to recover the precious pixels?
I don't know about you, but if this place opens up shop, its going to be an enticing hit indeed. Granted that most megacorporations-who-own-everything-including-your -worn-out-insoles would have the data mirrored elsewhere, there will always be some boy scout dropout that isn't prepared.
On the bright side it'd prolly make for an amusing Sunday color UF strip.;) --
Perfect Blue I've heard good things about, and Ninja Scroll is a classic. Good Taco! *pats rob on the head*.
Akira is a classic. Just classic. A must see. Pushed around teenage kid gets mixed up with escaped children from some military project, gets incredible powers and he struggles to control his power and emotions. If you don't seen Akira I'll have no choice but to demote you to LtTaco!
Ghost in the Shell. For its time it was arguably some of the best animation to date. Female cyborg with an identity crisis attempts to take down what she thinks is one of the most notorious criminal masterminds.
Only two I'd recommend without fear of reprimand or backlash from the rest of the Slashdot community. =D
If I remember right, doesn't the X-Box use the NV15 (GeForce2 GTS) chipset for its graphics goodness?
It certainly outpaces what is currently available in the U.S. (although questionable in comparison to the PS2, already available in Japan), but will it be enough to compete with what could be coming in the near future?
I am fortunate enough to have an NV15 based adapter (Guillemot 3D Prophet II to be exact) in my gaming machine and I'll say the chipsets performance is nothing shy of impressive. Maybe they'll raise the core clock to 250MHz? In addition, I guess working with DirectX or something similar could be easier than the APIs for other consoles, though truthfully, I wouldn't know.
I've seen the screens and movies, and yes, nice indeed. But we can't tell much of anything until we start bringing them home. =) --
I'm aware, but some of my friends have been having a bit of trouble with the AMD experience as well (though some have had success and are definitely enjoying their Athlons). In addition, I always like to make SMP an option.
I consider Alpha21x64s heavily as well, but until there's Alpha optimized compilers for Linux, the price for the hardware isn't yet justified.
I guess I could get an UltraSparc II and run Solaris, but once again, hardware nay cheap (even at MIT's flea show). Ah well, I can dream.
June 1999: I start saving up every cent I can so I can replace my Pentium 166 (replaced after the FDIV bug discovery) workstation. I'm looking forward to a Camino (i820) based motherboard.
June 1999: i820 pushed back again.
Dec 1999: I place an order with CDW for an Intel CC820 mobo and an Intel Pentium III 533EB processor.
Jan 2000: RAM, Case, cooling, power supply, and everything else I ordered arrived weeks ago. My products, which were supposed to arrive in 3-5 days are pushed back "until further notice". Calls to Intel provide no further information.
Feb 2000: It's been 10 weeks. I place a call to CDW to be told that I'm still on backorder. I place calls to Intel to no avail.
Feb 2000: It's been 13 weeks. I call Intel to merely be blown off. I file a report to the BBB in regard to their conduct and how poorly this situation is being handled.
Feb 2000: 3 days later I receieve a phone call from Intel, gravely apologizing for the ordeal. My motherboard arrives the same day after receiving an apology call from CDW in which they explained they were shipping CPUs and motherboards to 'higher priority' customers during the processor shortage.
Mar 2000: 2 weeks later the BIOS fails. I suspected it when PCI steering and DMA went awry initially, but I had gotten it to work.
Mar 2000: My new motherboard arrives, and works fine. News stories surface on yer more problems with the i820 chipset.
May 2000: My motherboard is under recall.
Now seriously, what am I supposed to do here? Send in my motherboard for a replacement that'll prolly take several weeks to ensure I won't have any problems? And what about the memory? Do I have to send them my 128M stick of PC100 from Crucial to get an RDRAM replacement? Even then, is the memory I'm going to get in return quality memory? Is it PC800, or am I going to be given PC700 or PC600 (which won't work!)?
I've been quite patient through this and I've put most of it behind me and just enjoyed my spiffy new hand-made workstation. But now something else? This is ridiculous, and Intel BETTER be kicking themselves in the ass right now over wht is arguably their biggest goof ever: i820
I plan on getting a 1.5GHz Williamette when they hit in the planned Q1 2001, and that better well not have a single problem in it, as the motherboard it'll sit on.
Sorry if this has a bit of that "fresh rant feeling" to it, but I'm just a tad irritable over this. >_<
Call Compaq about some of the discounts they have available. Through a reseller and with software developer discounts you can get the price REAL close to $2500.
Fortunately nVIDIA has moved to a unified driver architecture, which is going to find the right driver, and release drivers much easier. Hopefully this will help in getting drivers for other OSes out faster.
But keep in mind GeForce owners, that you can download the new drivers and get a considerable performance boost for your current GeForce card! =)
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, probably any large high-tech company will do Unix interns.
And at the white house, they do all kinds of interns.
Man am I asking for it this time... =)
-----
15,000? I think the smoke inhalation would kill you before the marijuana did...
-----
Can you really blame Apple on this one?
Seriously, Apple was fully aware of what Amazon did to Barnes and Noble when they attempted to go forth with their own one-click plan. Now one could argue that Amazon was only aggressive because Barnes and Noble was also an online book retailer, but I doubt Apple's legal team advised whoever not to take any chances.
If Apple wanted 1-click shopping badly enough, yet didn't want any thorny legal issues to deal with, it was really the only way to go.
I don't like the fact that Amazon has the patent either, I think the USPTO needs to be looked over and reviewed, but hell, I don't blame Apple for making the move they did. I'd prolly would've done the same thing.
-----
Interesting, but I doubt a new computer would be necessary.
At worst I'd hope the most you'd have to do is clean out the MBR and low-level format the drive. Though IMHO, if it requires more than needing to reformat the filesystem, it may be going a bit too far.
Just my thoughts.
-----
The U.S. company says it runs more than 200 million accounts on-line, looking after more than £15bn of customers' money.
Wait a minute here... divide the number of users into the money that's only an average of $75 per user. Apparently no one trusted these guys BEFORE the hole was discovered, nevermind after.
-----
It's all a matter of the communication channels between the IT Department and Management. Better communication channels means less chance of this sort of security hole happening...or does it?
I've been at enough places to say that a lot of procedure indeed has to do with policy. If it isn't written down and enforced, more often than not it isn't executed.
Yes, things like this do happen, often because its not written in stone. You might think about changing the root password, but then you're just lazy, too comfortable typing it in during the blink of an eye, or too confident that since nothing has happened yet, nothing will happen.
Of course, we all know what happens when you do that - It leaves the potential for something to happen. This is why the manangerial staff that does know what they're doing gets on your case. Because unless you really care (and yes, plenty of IT staffers who give a damn, do), it might not get done.
-----
Hanging recipes? Bah, that's nothing!
What do you do if your Windows box randomly plays classical music?
-----
I think if this was passed the patent office and DE Technologies would feel the ultimate wrath. Every Global 2000 company would send out its army of legal professionals within 24 hours of the patent being issued.
I wonder if Pool has ever wondered how many assassins are employed by the Global 2000. Now there's something to think about.
-------
I'm mostly a software developer at work, but when sales has problems with their PCs, I'm the one that gets called.
Thing is, they always call it 'the computer' when its really all Windows' fault, or an application is munging up or whatnot when it has nothing to do with hardware.
The typical PC user is no different. This could lead to some very dicey situations. EWww...
---------
That would make crooks out of IBM, RedHat, Dell, Sun... oh wow... lots of major corporations. Thousands of people. God no. Quickly, lock 'em all up and throw away the key before this gets out of hand!
;)
*sarcasm mode off*
I wonder if Hollywood realizes that this is bigger than they think.
------------------
Can a flock of birds take down a network by flying through the lasers?
;)
Well, if you increase the power of the lasers, you could then only need to pose this question:
Can a network take down a flock of birds flying through the lasers?
Problem solved.
Well, putting into consideration Apple's recent rash of lawsuits...
;)
I say if Slashdot receives a cease and desist order from Apple with threats to file suit, then we all know the G5 rumor is true.
--------
I haul my friend's race car to the track every weekend, plus tools, tires, etc in the bed. This is a hyped up 5.4L V8 F-150 with some serious engine mods.
I envy SUV and muscle car owners. Compared to my weekend drives, they get EXCELLENT mileage. Hauling 2 tons in the rear, and another 1/2 ton in the bed, I'm lucky if I get 10mpg on the highway. It'll get about 8mpg in the city. And being a Ford (and on new struts) this thing is jacked up and merely laughs in aerodynamics' face. This thing hasn't heard the meaning of downforce.
And the ultimate slap in the face is I never thought to get the optinal 2nd tank. Sure the main holds 25 gallons, but when you're going across a state or two, you fill up pretty often. 50 gallon capacity would be a real timesaver.
Just my random story.
--
Stupid motherboard/case shapes prevented meaningful upgrades
Yes, riser boards weren't that great. Never heard of anyone complaining about the shape of their case though.
Monitor lost sync at anything better than 640x480x256
You were expecting much better in 1992? Seriously. Lotta machines used the long ISA or VLB boards mind you. It wasn't meant for performance. Coulda bought your own monitor too
Hard drive had an ever-increasing number of bad sectors
Not common, but happened. PB used Conner Peripherals for a while. I believe they've gone out of business (Conner that is) but not sure. Before Packard Bell was dead though they were using Seagate's in a lot of machine, which no one can complain about.
Single IDE port couldn't handle slave devices for some reason
This was IDE, not EIDE. Most controllers had only a single channel, and IDE could only handle 1 device per channel. So you'd have two channels, each which could handle one device. The CD-ROM you say? Lots of CD-ROMs in 1992 weren't IDE or EIDE so they'd have seperate controller cards, which were usually combined with the audio device. So you could have two hard disks and a CD-ROM in a box at most.
Packard Bell and the other low-end manufacturers weren't meant for power and an assload of upgrades. I call these things disposable. When people do buy OEM machines, I tell em that they're going to get what they pay for. I build custom machines and sell em, but I tell em before they gimme what they wanna spend. THe less you wanna spend, the more vanilla the parts, and the less performance and a worse upgrade path yer gonna get.
I can build total brand name Athlon 750 systems for about $1000 (without monitor) with everything being brand name and for the regular user and regular gamer, they're damn satisfying. Though I tell em that if they want a GeForce2 GTS and an Athlon 1GHz and Ultra160 SCSI disks, they're gonna hafta pay for em. And if they don't wanna spend much at all, I just give em a list of what goes in it. They never ask for the manufacturer, specs, or even warranty, because they could careless. If I try telling em, they don't care (which is their loss)
--
What about the larger x86 servers from Unisys and Sequent which have DOZENS of PCI slots?
G4 500's are rated at around a GLFOP. So about 4 GFLOP per PCI slot? Some servers have like 32, 96, 100+ 64-bit 66MHz PCI slots... there's a thought. Heh.
--
I agree. What measures are in place in the event the Spanish Inquisition tries to take our friendly neighborhood data haven over and hold our precious information hostage?
- cup would have their data mirrored and replicated eleswhere, but there's always some boy scout dropout that isn't prepapred , and would probably suffer and squirm around in the meantime.
Obviously now, most megacorps who-own-everything-including-your-nifty-taco-bell
--
When the power dives, and the UPS runs out of juice to power the company what do we do?
We retreat to our office, lock the door, and the entire IT staff gathers in the corners and begins to cry!
--
Now here's food for thought. What if, seriously now, the Spanish Inquisition decides to take over Sealand with a sizable group of grunts and some petty firearms or random blunt objects?
r -worn-out-insoles would have the data mirrored elsewhere, there will always be some boy scout dropout that isn't prepared.
;)
(sarcastic) Huzzah! Some poor perverts Natalie Portman JPEG's are being held at ransom at $10,000 per megabyte! Oh whatever shall we do to recover the precious pixels?
I don't know about you, but if this place opens up shop, its going to be an enticing hit indeed. Granted that most megacorporations-who-own-everything-including-you
On the bright side it'd prolly make for an amusing Sunday color UF strip.
--
Perfect Blue I've heard good things about, and Ninja Scroll is a classic. Good Taco! *pats rob on the head*.
Akira is a classic. Just classic. A must see. Pushed around teenage kid gets mixed up with escaped children from some military project, gets incredible powers and he struggles to control his power and emotions. If you don't seen Akira I'll have no choice but to demote you to LtTaco!
Ghost in the Shell. For its time it was arguably some of the best animation to date. Female cyborg with an identity crisis attempts to take down what she thinks is one of the most notorious criminal masterminds.
Only two I'd recommend without fear of reprimand or backlash from the rest of the Slashdot community. =D
--
If I remember right, doesn't the X-Box use the NV15 (GeForce2 GTS) chipset for its graphics goodness?
It certainly outpaces what is currently available in the U.S. (although questionable in comparison to the PS2, already available in Japan), but will it be enough to compete with what could be coming in the near future?
I am fortunate enough to have an NV15 based adapter (Guillemot 3D Prophet II to be exact) in my gaming machine and I'll say the chipsets performance is nothing shy of impressive. Maybe they'll raise the core clock to 250MHz? In addition, I guess working with DirectX or something similar could be easier than the APIs for other consoles, though truthfully, I wouldn't know.
I've seen the screens and movies, and yes, nice indeed. But we can't tell much of anything until we start bringing them home. =)
--
I'm aware, but some of my friends have been having a bit of trouble with the AMD experience as well (though some have had success and are definitely enjoying their Athlons). In addition, I always like to make SMP an option.
I consider Alpha21x64s heavily as well, but until there's Alpha optimized compilers for Linux, the price for the hardware isn't yet justified.
I guess I could get an UltraSparc II and run Solaris, but once again, hardware nay cheap (even at MIT's flea show). Ah well, I can dream.
June 1999: I start saving up every cent I can so I can replace my Pentium 166 (replaced after the FDIV bug discovery) workstation. I'm looking forward to a Camino (i820) based motherboard.
June 1999: i820 pushed back again.
Dec 1999: I place an order with CDW for an Intel CC820 mobo and an Intel Pentium III 533EB processor.
Jan 2000: RAM, Case, cooling, power supply, and everything else I ordered arrived weeks ago. My products, which were supposed to arrive in 3-5 days are pushed back "until further notice". Calls to Intel provide no further information.
Feb 2000: It's been 10 weeks. I place a call to CDW to be told that I'm still on backorder. I place calls to Intel to no avail.
Feb 2000: It's been 13 weeks. I call Intel to merely be blown off. I file a report to the BBB in regard to their conduct and how poorly this situation is being handled.
Feb 2000: 3 days later I receieve a phone call from Intel, gravely apologizing for the ordeal. My motherboard arrives the same day after receiving an apology call from CDW in which they explained they were shipping CPUs and motherboards to 'higher priority' customers during the processor shortage.
Mar 2000: 2 weeks later the BIOS fails. I suspected it when PCI steering and DMA went awry initially, but I had gotten it to work.
Mar 2000: My new motherboard arrives, and works fine. News stories surface on yer more problems with the i820 chipset.
May 2000: My motherboard is under recall.
Now seriously, what am I supposed to do here? Send in my motherboard for a replacement that'll prolly take several weeks to ensure I won't have any problems? And what about the memory? Do I have to send them my 128M stick of PC100 from Crucial to get an RDRAM replacement? Even then, is the memory I'm going to get in return quality memory? Is it PC800, or am I going to be given PC700 or PC600 (which won't work!)?
I've been quite patient through this and I've put most of it behind me and just enjoyed my spiffy new hand-made workstation. But now something else? This is ridiculous, and Intel BETTER be kicking themselves in the ass right now over wht is arguably their biggest goof ever: i820
I plan on getting a 1.5GHz Williamette when they hit in the planned Q1 2001, and that better well not have a single problem in it, as the motherboard it'll sit on.
Sorry if this has a bit of that "fresh rant feeling" to it, but I'm just a tad irritable over this. >_<
--
Call Compaq about some of the discounts they have available. Through a reseller and with software developer discounts you can get the price REAL close to $2500.
Fortunately nVIDIA has moved to a unified driver architecture, which is going to find the right driver, and release drivers much easier. Hopefully this will help in getting drivers for other OSes out faster.
But keep in mind GeForce owners, that you can download the new drivers and get a considerable performance boost for your current GeForce card! =)
Some brave soul is mirroring the image.
http://reltheon.yi.org/~rgomes/unixad.htm