My company deploys an Activex control with a VBScript API as part of one of our products. Last February MS released a critical patch to fix a VBScript based security flaw, and it caused our app to stop working. The fix turned off some of the features that were in the Microsoft published VBScript API. We had to beg and plead with them to stop distributing the patch, and it took a month for them to solve the problem. Thankfully only a handful of users patched their machines, or our entire user base would have been out of the water.
So, I think for the most part the patches don't cause problems, but MS is not known for their quality assurance, so I wouldn't bet money that a patch won't break anything.
Fair enough, but what do you refer to the case+CPU+mobo+power supply+drives+??? I don't like the term CPU to refer to that, but usually it's pretty clear form the context, and I can't think of a better term. Does anyone have any suggestions? Desktop doesn't seem to fit, because to me that implies a monitor+keyboard+mouse+???
While I agree with much of what you said, I'd like to point out one thing: you mention that Microsoft has 'failed' by having a lack of focus. I think it depends on what you mean by 'fail'. Word makes them tons of money and is used by tens of millions of people. While it is bloated and unfocused, the projects that you mentioned as focused tend to be hard to use, and only used by a small user group (outside of the slashdot crowd how many people use Ruby, or administrate Apache?). Personally, I like the smaller, focused projects, but maybe if you want OSS to become ubiquitous, or at least as ubiquitous as Microsoft software, it should try to be all things to all people. It will never get there, but unfortunately this *may* be the only way to really get OSS to the masses.
I have been wondering for a while how sustainable open source is. It seems like there is a great open source solution for every possible need: OS, Web Server, database, etc. If these tools get widely adopted, and push the commercial products out of the market, will they be shooting themselves in the foot by making many, many developers unemployed, thereby destroying their own developer base? Or do you see a situation where open and closed (ie free and for-profit) software exist in equilibrium?
Maybe this is offtopic, but if you want really elegant language processing you should check this out. Basically, you look at the compressiblity of given text and can determine what language it's in, or even what author produced it. This works with as few as 20 words.
I realize this isn't translation, but cool nonetheless. For further reading see here and here.
It is conceivable that InterTrust would be a viable company today if Microsoft had licenced their products and paid them a fair price for them (assuming of course that MS *did* use technology that infringed on the patents, etc, etc...).
Tank, I need to know how to fix a Lexus IS300, now!!!
Re:Red Queen is a much earlier book than Genome
on
The Red Queen
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While I've read none of the books mentioned in the parent, if you're interested in this topic you should try The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. Wright attempts to explain human nature including sexual behaviour, monagomy, polygamy, friendship, altruism, jealousy, etc, from an evolutionary psychological perspecitive. Essential his thesis is that there is a fundamental human nature driven by our genes, and he uses this to try to explain day-to-day human experience.
All in all, it's a balanced, very interesting read.
It seems that pool.com's business model was based on something that is pretty tenuous. If ICANN wants to change their rules for letting people reserve domain names, isn't that their right? (again, IANAL, that's a question, not a statement.)
I realize this is a big kick in the pants for pool.com, I don't see that they have much of a case here. They should consider themselves lucky that only one reservation can be put on one domain name.
USS Bill Clinton seems kind of appropriate: they're both big, grey and full of seaman.
Sorry, but someone had to say it.
Re:1 foot accuracy of lat-long+altitude required.
on
Worlds Largest Telescope?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I'm really not an expert on this, but as I understand it getting *very* accurate lat/long/alt measurements with a GPS is just a matter of waiting. Each measurement is out +/- 10 meters (approx.), but if you average a large number of these measurements you can get a very precise position. This takes several weeks, but it shouldn't be a problem in this case.
Again, I could just be talking out of my ass here, so if anyone has more experience feel free to correct me.
he references Slashdot for more info ('itself a demonstration of the power of dispersed individuals working together').
I though slashdot was a 'demonstration of dispersed individuals procrastinating together'.
Who knew I was demonstrating power all this time?
Is this really that bad? More importantly, are any rights really being trampled on? You have the right to say and read anything you want, but that doesn't mean that the goverment has to provide the means to do it. You don't have a constitutional right to access the internet from a library. It makes sense given the mandate of a library, but there are other concerns here. The internet is full of things that would be completely inappropriate for public libraries, so they block it. The fact that other legitimate information is also blocked is too bad, but if you want to read about reproductive health, or whatever, pickup a book, or surf from home, or an internet cafe. It's not the govenment's responsibility to provide this information to you, and it is their responsibility to protect kids.
Everything you said was clear from the article. The system seems to base not getting false positives on the fact that friendly email servers will *always* resend email that was bounced on the first attempt. What happens if it doesn't. I realize that this would be a rare occurence, and that the sender's MTA would be violating the RFC, but for spam filtering how false positives are handlded is a big deal. If everything precieved as spam is just dropped, then there is no recourse for manual intervention.
Question about this system: if it sends a temporary unavailable message or whatever it does, does it log the original message? Where I'm going with this is what happens if a legitimate message is blocked but never resent? Most anti-spam software allows you to view the spam folder, or something equivalet, to check for false positives. How are false positives handled here?
Slashdot Mirror
Shouldn't that be:
Begun, this flame war has.
"Collecting data is only the first step toward wisdom, but sharing data is the first step toward community"
And knowing is half the battle.
Man I miss that show.
My company deploys an Activex control with a VBScript API as part of one of our products. Last February MS released a critical patch to fix a VBScript based security flaw, and it caused our app to stop working. The fix turned off some of the features that were in the Microsoft published VBScript API. We had to beg and plead with them to stop distributing the patch, and it took a month for them to solve the problem. Thankfully only a handful of users patched their machines, or our entire user base would have been out of the water.
So, I think for the most part the patches don't cause problems, but MS is not known for their quality assurance, so I wouldn't bet money that a patch won't break anything.
Hey, it was a honest mistake.
Bill G should get Magnum P.I. or Simon and Simon to do this investigation.
If MS gets Magnum PI, can the OSS community have the A-Team to help us in our fight against evil corrporations?
Ahhh... I love it when a plan comes together
From the link: ... Overall, their risk of death was 42 percent higher than the medical students.
Liberal Arts and Social Sciences:
Sweet, a liberal arts major has a 42% higher chance of dying than I do. I'm glad I did all that work in school now.
Fair enough, but what do you refer to the case+CPU+mobo+power supply+drives+??? I don't like the term CPU to refer to that, but usually it's pretty clear form the context, and I can't think of a better term. Does anyone have any suggestions? Desktop doesn't seem to fit, because to me that implies a monitor+keyboard+mouse+???
Any ideas?
Why can't I just turn my mouse 90 degrees and use the wheel?
While I agree with much of what you said, I'd like to point out one thing: you mention that Microsoft has 'failed' by having a lack of focus. I think it depends on what you mean by 'fail'. Word makes them tons of money and is used by tens of millions of people. While it is bloated and unfocused, the projects that you mentioned as focused tend to be hard to use, and only used by a small user group (outside of the slashdot crowd how many people use Ruby, or administrate Apache?). Personally, I like the smaller, focused projects, but maybe if you want OSS to become ubiquitous, or at least as ubiquitous as Microsoft software, it should try to be all things to all people. It will never get there, but unfortunately this *may* be the only way to really get OSS to the masses.
Right on.
I have been wondering for a while how sustainable open source is. It seems like there is a great open source solution for every possible need: OS, Web Server, database, etc. If these tools get widely adopted, and push the commercial products out of the market, will they be shooting themselves in the foot by making many, many developers unemployed, thereby destroying their own developer base? Or do you see a situation where open and closed (ie free and for-profit) software exist in equilibrium?
Maybe this is offtopic, but if you want really elegant language processing you should check this out. Basically, you look at the compressiblity of given text and can determine what language it's in, or even what author produced it. This works with as few as 20 words.
I realize this isn't translation, but cool nonetheless. For further reading see here and here.
It is conceivable that InterTrust would be a viable company today if Microsoft had licenced their products and paid them a fair price for them (assuming of course that MS *did* use technology that infringed on the patents, etc, etc...).
Just a thought.
If you're in Toronto try the Ontario Science Centre if you want geeky. It's one of the better science museums I've been to.
Tank, I need to know how to fix a Lexus IS300, now!!!
While I've read none of the books mentioned in the parent, if you're interested in this topic you should try The Moral Animal by Robert Wright. Wright attempts to explain human nature including sexual behaviour, monagomy, polygamy, friendship, altruism, jealousy, etc, from an evolutionary psychological perspecitive. Essential his thesis is that there is a fundamental human nature driven by our genes, and he uses this to try to explain day-to-day human experience.
All in all, it's a balanced, very interesting read.
It seems that pool.com's business model was based on something that is pretty tenuous. If ICANN wants to change their rules for letting people reserve domain names, isn't that their right? (again, IANAL, that's a question, not a statement.)
I realize this is a big kick in the pants for pool.com, I don't see that they have much of a case here. They should consider themselves lucky that only one reservation can be put on one domain name.
USS Bill Clinton seems kind of appropriate: they're both big, grey and full of seaman.
Sorry, but someone had to say it.
I'm really not an expert on this, but as I understand it getting *very* accurate lat/long/alt measurements with a GPS is just a matter of waiting. Each measurement is out +/- 10 meters (approx.), but if you average a large number of these measurements you can get a very precise position. This takes several weeks, but it shouldn't be a problem in this case.
Again, I could just be talking out of my ass here, so if anyone has more experience feel free to correct me.
No, no, no. Not methane micro-lasers.
Nitro-powered, monkey navigated rocket sleds, there's the future.
he references Slashdot for more info ('itself a demonstration of the power of dispersed individuals working together').
I though slashdot was a 'demonstration of dispersed individuals procrastinating together'.
Who knew I was demonstrating power all this time?
Is this really that bad? More importantly, are any rights really being trampled on? You have the right to say and read anything you want, but that doesn't mean that the goverment has to provide the means to do it. You don't have a constitutional right to access the internet from a library. It makes sense given the mandate of a library, but there are other concerns here. The internet is full of things that would be completely inappropriate for public libraries, so they block it. The fact that other legitimate information is also blocked is too bad, but if you want to read about reproductive health, or whatever, pickup a book, or surf from home, or an internet cafe. It's not the govenment's responsibility to provide this information to you, and it is their responsibility to protect kids.
Everything you said was clear from the article. The system seems to base not getting false positives on the fact that friendly email servers will *always* resend email that was bounced on the first attempt. What happens if it doesn't. I realize that this would be a rare occurence, and that the sender's MTA would be violating the RFC, but for spam filtering how false positives are handlded is a big deal. If everything precieved as spam is just dropped, then there is no recourse for manual intervention.
Question about this system: if it sends a temporary unavailable message or whatever it does, does it log the original message? Where I'm going with this is what happens if a legitimate message is blocked but never resent? Most anti-spam software allows you to view the spam folder, or something equivalet, to check for false positives. How are false positives handled here?