That's to say Microsoft would make lots of apps [as well as system-things like, ahem, MS's own coffee-like language] that ONLY run on the MS distro. I'm not familiar with what you have to do to make a "legal" Linux distro, or how compatible it has to be, but MS has lots of lawyers, and whether they do things like this is based solely on a cost-benefit analysis.
Microsoft has to be careful about what kind of application software it ships with Windows.
That's because they used such hard-ass tactics with retailers (such as "ALL the machines you sell will be loaded with Microsoft OS and apps, or we will remove your authorization to sell any Microsoft prodcts") to increase their market share, both OS and apps, from 85 percent to 98 percent [SWAG numbers], until the US Government finally said "No, that's monopolizing, you can't do that." Minority players will never have to worry about the Government complaining of "bundling" apps with the OS, and they don't have the clout to have retailers agree with a "You'll sell us only, or you won't sell us at all" policy.
as luddite couch potatoes upgrade to digital TV and such. But more and more shows will be net-downloadable, either from those who produce the shows (like PPV, but it'll be "pay per stream" as well as selling DVD's of the show), or as pirated editions, much like mp3's have been in recent years. Such shows won't need traditional broadcast or cable "channels" because the Internet is becoming more and more of a content distribution channel.
TV, computers and the Internet may well merge soon, when you can schedule Tivo to record a show with the remote and you don't have to know whether it's delivered over cable TV or DSL.
Our whole terminology is going to change. What was debugging is going to be called shaving, and instead of running DDT I'll be running Gilette to trace through and eliminate whiskers from my code. I guess it's finally time to learn FORTRAN++.
There have already been many "joe jobs" over the years (so called because an early one was against joes.com), and certainly an adequate and fair investigation should be done.
From what I've read on newsgroups, it appears to be standard operating procedure for UPS to resist paying insurance claims until you absolutely force them by going to small claims court or some crap. That way a lot of people give up and they don't have to pay the claim.
I agree about the junk fax law (when was the Smith antispam bill, 1977? We've been piddling around with fighting spam too long), I'd love to get judgements for $500 to $1500 per spam, and if I could actually hunt them down and make them pay I'd make lots of money at it until spam went away.
When the Junk Fax law was passed (circa 1993), fax machines were becoming popular and affordable for small businesses, and junk faxing was an "explosive" business that virtually went away after the law passed. It exists today because so few people know about the junk fax law.
I've seriously considered getting a fax machine just to get junk faxes.
It seems there's still some areas where the US Government hasn't passed regulations to "protect" the public/people from themselves. One is the requirement to brush our teeth (I remember when this was compared to then-proposed laws requiring wearing of seat belts in cars). Here's another:
http://www.houseofscience.com/ouch/ouch.html
With stories like this: "11-Pound Model Plane Vs. The Atlantic, Again" I bet they (government entities such as Homeland Security) are worried, and ISTR the thing flew at well under 400 feet the whole way.
One common way to send spam is through open servers (avoiding the ISP's server altogether) that are located throughout the world. This will only stop the rank amateur spammers (pasting hundreds of addresses into their email clien't BCC: field then hitting send), who have always been easy to catch anyway.
... I keep remembering (well, almost, I was only about 2 years old at the time) John Glenn being wished Godspeed (specifically on his first specaflight).
And how does Godspeed compare to lightspeed?
If nanotechnology allows us to check material integrity in both in the assembly line and in the periodic revisions as someone here has stated what are we waiting for?
"If Fusion Reactor Electric Power Generation will make electricity so plentiful that we won't need to meter electricity, what are we waiting for?" [Sentiment expressed sometime in the 1960's, when fusion power was supposed to provide free electricity by 1970]
Quite frankly, we're waiting for it to work. There have been billions spend on controlled fusion, but a commercial facility is still far from being built.
I think molecular nanotechnology (building things atom by atom) is a "hard problem" similar to controller nuclear fusion, and it will take decades to make substantial progress.
With modern semiconductors (such as power mosfests used as synchronous rectifiers) it's easy enough to make a more efficient supply, but of course the parts are more expensive. Power supply makers want to make the cheapest things that pass UL/CSA/whatever standards (or go even cheapers and not even bother with safety standards).
And from a buyer standpoint, it may or may not make economic sense to have more efficient power supplies. If using ten dollars more in parts makes a computer that usees one dollar less electricity per year, then why would anyone buy it, other than government regulations require it to be made that way?
Highly efficient switching supplies are indeed being made - these are often DC-to-DC converters for for internal use in various products. I've seen a device that takes 15 to 30VDC and outputs 5V at 20A (that's 100 watts, enough for a really hot light bulb), and it's the size of a book of matches (this was six years ago, I'm sure things are even better now). It has to be 95 percent efficient just so it can be made so small without burning up from its own waste heat.
A more substantial savings in electric power consumption can be made by replacing CRT monitors with the latest thin/flat monitors (using TFT/liquid crystal/whatever-it-is technology). I'll be the first in line to trade in my 17" and 21" CRT monitors for lower-power current-technology replacements if someone (The Government, for example) wants to pay for it.
I don't know what the real agenda might be of the entitiy that came up with this idea, but if they really want to reduce overall power consumtion, they can surely find other things with better cost/benefit ratios.
Wouldn't it be a much more efficient use of tax dollars to create a Federal PLEASE SPAM ME registration list?
Ironically enough, if you ask for it, it's no longer SPAM (UNSOLICITED bulk email). But then when those on it start getting thousands of these "solicited" emails every day, they may change their mind, and change their email address.
I'm reminded of something from centuries (okay, 20 years) ago: An email address on a spammer's list is like a phone number on a BBS list (such a list did not have the same intent as spamming, but once it had been on a BBS list, a phone number was 'ruined' for a few years - sorry if I didn't have to explain it).
It's easier to trace a phone call than most spams nowadays. And telemarketers only skirt the edge of the law, whereas spammers have managed to hide themselves well enough that they don't care about the law.
It'll be far too cost prohibitive for spammers to register one domain name for each new batch of spam that they send out.
Back in dialup days they repeatedly signed up with every local provider using stolen credit cards, so they can just as easily register a few hundred "mail.h0tstuff001.com" through "mail.h0tstuff999.com" domains with a stolen credit card.
Yes, the card will eventually be discovered stolen, and aometime after that the register will be contacted and then they'll get around to deleting all the domains, but the spammer has done lots of spamming and take lots of orders/chain letter "list requests"/whatnot.
I shouldn't feed you (what we have here is the pot calling the kettle a troll), but anyway...
I've installed Linux on an old machine, and barely know enough to be dangerous. I should learn more about it. I've had all too much experience with MS products (I suppose I could be an IT person, but I'd rather clean toilets), and I've seen Windows machines things fail by themselves, and then there's the extra burden of back doors that crackers and spammers regularly exploit, at least until it crashes.
... usually with running hard drives. I've bought $2 pentiums, one of the latest is 400MHz. A 486 machine I bought solely for its tall case has Autocad R13 and a bunch of drawings on it. It just happens to be configured for a graphics tablet I have (a separate thrift store purchase).
I never "dispose" of old drives, I like taking them apart. They have excellent Neodynm {sp} magnets in them, and other fun parts. Hang the platters outside to make a wind chime - I doubt the data would be recoverable for very long out in the weather.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of them are, here's just one maker:
http://www.manleylabs.com/
Can't they just use a DVD recorder and DVD-RW's?
That's to say Microsoft would make lots of apps [as well as system-things like, ahem, MS's own coffee-like language] that ONLY run on the MS distro. I'm not familiar with what you have to do to make a "legal" Linux distro, or how compatible it has to be, but MS has lots of lawyers, and whether they do things like this is based solely on a cost-benefit analysis.
Microsoft has to be careful about what kind of application software it ships with Windows.
That's because they used such hard-ass tactics with retailers (such as "ALL the machines you sell will be loaded with Microsoft OS and apps, or we will remove your authorization to sell any Microsoft prodcts") to increase their market share, both OS and apps, from 85 percent to 98 percent [SWAG numbers], until the US Government finally said "No, that's monopolizing, you can't do that." Minority players will never have to worry about the Government complaining of "bundling" apps with the OS, and they don't have the clout to have retailers agree with a "You'll sell us only, or you won't sell us at all" policy.
as luddite couch potatoes upgrade to digital TV and such. But more and more shows will be net-downloadable, either from those who produce the shows (like PPV, but it'll be "pay per stream" as well as selling DVD's of the show), or as pirated editions, much like mp3's have been in recent years. Such shows won't need traditional broadcast or cable "channels" because the Internet is becoming more and more of a content distribution channel.
TV, computers and the Internet may well merge soon, when you can schedule Tivo to record a show with the remote and you don't have to know whether it's delivered over cable TV or DSL.
Our whole terminology is going to change. What was debugging is going to be called shaving, and instead of running DDT I'll be running Gilette to trace through and eliminate whiskers from my code. I guess it's finally time to learn FORTRAN++.
There have already been many "joe jobs" over the years (so called because an early one was against joes.com), and certainly an adequate and fair investigation should be done.
From what I've read on newsgroups, it appears to be standard operating procedure for UPS to resist paying insurance claims until you absolutely force them by going to small claims court or some crap. That way a lot of people give up and they don't have to pay the claim.
I agree about the junk fax law (when was the Smith antispam bill, 1977? We've been piddling around with fighting spam too long), I'd love to get judgements for $500 to $1500 per spam, and if I could actually hunt them down and make them pay I'd make lots of money at it until spam went away. When the Junk Fax law was passed (circa 1993), fax machines were becoming popular and affordable for small businesses, and junk faxing was an "explosive" business that virtually went away after the law passed. It exists today because so few people know about the junk fax law. I've seriously considered getting a fax machine just to get junk faxes.
(posting rather than modding)
/.ed]
Got a good deal on Circuit Cellar online sub (I do embedded stuff so it's "career-related"), so I DL and read that.
Magazines I read when at the newsstand, library or doctor's office, but generally won't buy:
Popular Science
Scientific American (I think it was substantially better many years/decades ago)
Newsmagazines (Time/Newsweek/US News/world report, whatever)
When I've exausted those, I'll read almost anything that's there. Why waste time when I can become even more misinformed?
Mag I actually do read and need to resubscrbe to:
http://www.audioxpress.com/
Audioxpress and many other mags now have back issues on CD as well as putting many articles online. I read a lot that way too.
Also career-related, that for years I've been reading exclusively online:
Electronic Design [especially Bob Pease's column]
EE Times
Oh, and a little anti-literary thing called:
Sic, The Book Humor Magazine
[poor Joyce will be
It seems there's still some areas where the US Government hasn't passed regulations to "protect" the public/people from themselves. One is the requirement to brush our teeth (I remember when this was compared to then-proposed laws requiring wearing of seat belts in cars). Here's another: http://www.houseofscience.com/ouch/ouch.html
With stories like this: "11-Pound Model Plane Vs. The Atlantic, Again" I bet they (government entities such as Homeland Security) are worried, and ISTR the thing flew at well under 400 feet the whole way.
Read this article from The Register, almost three years old: Verified: you can get anybody you want kicked off Hotmail
One common way to send spam is through open servers (avoiding the ISP's server altogether) that are located throughout the world. This will only stop the rank amateur spammers (pasting hundreds of addresses into their email clien't BCC: field then hitting send), who have always been easy to catch anyway.
... I keep remembering (well, almost, I was only about 2 years old at the time) John Glenn being wished Godspeed (specifically on his first specaflight). And how does Godspeed compare to lightspeed?
i didn't realize test pilots even lived that long.
They too often didn't, back in the '50's, before automobiles had seat belts.
http://technomom.com/writing/press.html
If nanotechnology allows us to check material integrity in both in the assembly line and in the periodic revisions as someone here has stated what are we waiting for?
"If Fusion Reactor Electric Power Generation will make electricity so plentiful that we won't need to meter electricity, what are we waiting for?" [Sentiment expressed sometime in the 1960's, when fusion power was supposed to provide free electricity by 1970]
Quite frankly, we're waiting for it to work. There have been billions spend on controlled fusion, but a commercial facility is still far from being built.
I think molecular nanotechnology (building things atom by atom) is a "hard problem" similar to controller nuclear fusion, and it will take decades to make substantial progress.
With modern semiconductors (such as power mosfests used as synchronous rectifiers) it's easy enough to make a more efficient supply, but of course the parts are more expensive. Power supply makers want to make the cheapest things that pass UL/CSA/whatever standards (or go even cheapers and not even bother with safety standards).
And from a buyer standpoint, it may or may not make economic sense to have more efficient power supplies. If using ten dollars more in parts makes a computer that usees one dollar less electricity per year, then why would anyone buy it, other than government regulations require it to be made that way?
Highly efficient switching supplies are indeed being made - these are often DC-to-DC converters for for internal use in various products. I've seen a device that takes 15 to 30VDC and outputs 5V at 20A (that's 100 watts, enough for a really hot light bulb), and it's the size of a book of matches (this was six years ago, I'm sure things are even better now). It has to be 95 percent efficient just so it can be made so small without burning up from its own waste heat.
A more substantial savings in electric power consumption can be made by replacing CRT monitors with the latest thin/flat monitors (using TFT/liquid crystal/whatever-it-is technology). I'll be the first in line to trade in my 17" and 21" CRT monitors for lower-power current-technology replacements if someone (The Government, for example) wants to pay for it.
I don't know what the real agenda might be of the entitiy that came up with this idea, but if they really want to reduce overall power consumtion, they can surely find other things with better cost/benefit ratios.
Wouldn't it be a much more efficient use of tax dollars to create a Federal PLEASE SPAM ME registration list?
Ironically enough, if you ask for it, it's no longer SPAM (UNSOLICITED bulk email). But then when those on it start getting thousands of these "solicited" emails every day, they may change their mind, and change their email address.
I'm reminded of something from centuries (okay, 20 years) ago: An email address on a spammer's list is like a phone number on a BBS list (such a list did not have the same intent as spamming, but once it had been on a BBS list, a phone number was 'ruined' for a few years - sorry if I didn't have to explain it).
It's easier to trace a phone call than most spams nowadays. And telemarketers only skirt the edge of the law, whereas spammers have managed to hide themselves well enough that they don't care about the law.
It'll be far too cost prohibitive for spammers to register one domain name for each new batch of spam that they send out.
Back in dialup days they repeatedly signed up with every local provider using stolen credit cards, so they can just as easily register a few hundred "mail.h0tstuff001.com" through "mail.h0tstuff999.com" domains with a stolen credit card.
Yes, the card will eventually be discovered stolen, and aometime after that the register will be contacted and then they'll get around to deleting all the domains, but the spammer has done lots of spamming and take lots of orders/chain letter "list requests"/whatnot.
I subscribed to SPAM-L for WAY too long...
I shouldn't feed you (what we have here is the pot calling the kettle a troll), but anyway...
I've installed Linux on an old machine, and barely know enough to be dangerous. I should learn more about it. I've had all too much experience with MS products (I suppose I could be an IT person, but I'd rather clean toilets), and I've seen Windows machines things fail by themselves, and then there's the extra burden of back doors that crackers and spammers regularly exploit, at least until it crashes.
Sure, with that many processors, I can see Mars itself becoming an itelligent bacterium. It will be the Universe's first (AFAWK) "Rover Colony."
... usually with running hard drives. I've bought $2 pentiums, one of the latest is 400MHz. A 486 machine I bought solely for its tall case has Autocad R13 and a bunch of drawings on it. It just happens to be configured for a graphics tablet I have (a separate thrift store purchase).
I never "dispose" of old drives, I like taking them apart. They have excellent Neodynm {sp} magnets in them, and other fun parts. Hang the platters outside to make a wind chime - I doubt the data would be recoverable for very long out in the weather.