You're talking about completely different cultures. Americans are afraid that the nanny state will take over in the future. Nordic people are afraid that their nanny states won't be sufficiently good at nannying in the future.
True. But it's not the nannying that worries me. Well, it does, only because nannying is so damned expensive and I'm a taxpayer. I'm more worried about further loss of civil liberties which, sadly, is a concern for me as an American.
Since then, an automatic system has been in place to which you report whenever you move, get married, have kids etc
Darth Vader: "I wouldn't be too proud of this technological monstrosity you've created."
Really, I wouldn't. I'm perfectly happy with our government counting us by hand every so often, rather than having to report my movements to them. Frankly, I don't trust our leaders nor our bureaucracy that much. Not that our various Governments (Federal, State and local) can't figure where I am and where I've been easily enough with the existing privacy-robbing databases that are popping up like weeds everywhere, but I prefer to make them work for it.
Besides the obvious jokes about Microsoft and security, the very serious question is what patents of theirs you could infringe by following their process and when they will sue you for it?
Probably never. Other operating system vendors could maybe learn from this, sure, but since most of them are already much farther along the security curve than Redmond has ever been, it won't matter. What this might do (assuming that it's sensible, and I've not read it so I don't know) is help Windows application developers write more-secure code, better avail themselves of Windows' existing security features. That's the real benefit to Microsoft, and there's no point in suing people coding for your platform.
That attitude will also have to change for things to get better.
It won't. Security is a process, not a condition, but people don't think naturally in those terms because it requires continuous effort (and ongoing expense.) Most people prefer to just make an initial investment in security and forget about it. Now, that works when you're talking about a bank vault, maybe, but not computer security.
The low quality of Skype video means that the bandwidth used isn't all that high, and it seems likely that when not actively being used, and thus the scene mostly being static, the bandwidth used when idle would be even lesser, esp. if the camera's pointed at blank wall.
Well, even if you're looking at an otherwise static scene, pixels are still changing (even if you can't see them) due to noise, variations in lighting, etc. Skype's programmers might have put in threshold detection of some kind... or they might not. You'd have to test that with a bandwidth monitor and see what's going on.
Oh i agree, but look at any steam story and a lot of post here are backing up how awesome steam is.
Well, Steam is pretty awesome from a functional point of view. On the other hand, when Steam makes the inevitable misstep, you'll find those same users screaming bloody murder. What I think you're saying (and if so, I agree) is that users are glossing over the underlying reality of Valve's content distribution system in favor of its "coolness". Much the same as Apple users do with iTunes and Fairplay, I'd say... yeah, they're cool, but you should think about who and what you have to thank for them.
What kind of person, other than Microsoft astroturfer or complete moron would do such a thing?
A sane person. Too bad you'll never get to feel like one. Continue your anti-ms trolling...
You're the fruitcake. He wasn't trolling against Microsoft per se (although it's kind of hard to troll when discussing a company that has such a history unethical and criminal behavior) he was making a statement to the effect that "certain software vendors have their collective crania firmly planted on the far side of their anal sphincters." And that's true. Stay the hell out of the boot area. It's bad enough that apps have to phone home just to be permitted to run: now they have to write to the boot sectors too?
Which sucks for the warranty tech (sub contractor) who was not provided any diagnostic disks because the manufacturer expects the utility partition to still be there.
And that is just patently ridiculous. I simply cannot believe that users have accepted manufacturers saving a few pennies by not shipping a CD or DVD of the operating system.
That contractor either a. has a copy of the requisite media, or can get it or b. can't replace a defective hard drive. Lose the drive, lose the recovery data.
When you buy HP, you're buying from SATAN. It's really sad because there are so many "good" deals on HP hardware out there... ever wonder why their year-old refurb laptops are 50% cheaper than everyone else's? Don't wonder. They are all shit.
No shit. Although, truth be told (having been inside a lot of laptops over the years) about the only laptops that aren't shit are the older Thinkpads, those from the IBM days. Build quality was truly remarkable. Oh, Toughbooks are pretty damn solid too, although you in both cases you pay a substantial premium.
I think it's entirely appropriate that DRM interferes with the Linux bootloader. Linux promotes the dangerous idea that it is possible to obtain software for free, and this may lead to piracy.
Obviously no software that is legally free is available on Windows as well, right? How much did you pay for Firefox again?
Quickly, DB, activate your humor/satire detection subsystem. That applies to the mods as well.
We can't that here now./. group think likes steam, but since its also DRM, we now have to modify the statement to "badly designed DRM".;)
I don't know as we "like" Steam: DRM is DRM and DRM sucks, period. It's just that Valve is pretty up front about what Steam is... and isn't. Frankly, I'd say Steam is more "well-designed DRM", so far as such a thing is possible. To date they've been running things about as well as can be expected from such a system. That may change if there's ever a change of heart at Valve, in which case their customer base will rise as one and slay them with virtual pitchforks..
This looks like an intentional, if misguided feature of these programs. It's not like they run as Administrator by default and mess up your stuff without any input from you.
It sounds like they just want to get rid of any code that they don't recognize as being part of the MBR. Not unreasonable if you're just running a pure Windows system, I suppose. The misguided part is assuming that anything there must be a boot-sector infector and not asking if the user is in a multiboot configuration (or better yet, checking first for legitimate alternate boot loaders.) I can't believe the developers didn't realize that something like Grub exists, but I imagine the higher-ups figured it wasn't worth the development time to do anything more sophisticated.
This is the reason why I generally multiboot from different physical drives (usually removable: you don't have to worry about anything being overwritten if you simply swap the boot drive.) It's not like hard disks are particularly expensive anymore, and if all you need is enough space to boot the OS it's not a big deal.
That's true. I was very angry and did not think through the consequences of this idea.
Oh, make no mistake... it irritates the Hell out of me too. Let's face it: power can be an intoxicant just as powerful as any psychotropic chemical compound, and is just as ripe for abuse. Personally, I believe the Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts would be better directed at politicians than drug users. Find the ones who are abusing the power to which they've become addicted and are abusing, and get rid of them.
As technical people, when we instil fear about something, people will listen.
Sure, right up until they figure out that we, like everyone else whom they thought they trust, have also been lying through our teeth. At that point they bring out the pitchforks, and rightfully so. Remember that old saw "we have seen the enemy, and he is us?" We have to be careful not to adopt too many of the tactics of those currently in power or we, in the end, are no better. The ends do not justify the means
The reason that lay people tend to trust those with knowledge is because they don't have the ability to tell if that educated person is lying or incompetent, and because of that have no choice but to hope the expert knows what the Hell he's talking about. We've all been in that position at one time or another in our lives: having to trust someone that knows substantially more than we do about something important to us. It's rarely a pleasant position to be in.
Are you really telling me that it's okay to deliberately lie to people, abuse their trust in a big way, simply because it's for their own good? Because we assume that it's for their own good? That's precisely what our government and our corporate leaders have been doing to us for years. So far as I'm concerned, if we're so far gone as a society that we can't fight this with reality, with facts, with what is, then We the People don't deserve to survive anyway. In any event, that's not a campaign of which I would choose to play a part. Furthermore, you will have to accept that there will be some deaths involved should you be successful in this, as people who might otherwise have received a medical X-ray or CT scan refuse them out of fear. There are always consequences to fearmongering and ignorance peddling.
With Skype for...TVs it even begins to look like the old scifi dream...
Might be interesting if TVs/large displays on both sides are at the ends of tables.
Yes, I've used Skype and other video conferencing apps on a 56" HD TV. It really is cool to see larger-than-life representations of people on the other end. Kinda like being on the bridge of a typical Federation starship, where everyone you interact on-screen with is bigger than you are. Well, okay, like that minus all the nifty consoles, pointed ears, warp drives and hot Bantu women in miniskirts. But other than that.
Unless he's has a corporate-level Internet connection, he'll probably not want the thing transmitting continuously, just when someone is in the room. Might make sense, in that case, to interface the system with a motion sensor and only load the video conferencing application when the sensor picks someone up (or if you're using an open-source app, modify it to monitor the sensor directly.) I know some security programs that I've worked with (well, okay, pretty much all of them) for monitoring remote cameras have motion detect in software, but that's a different application entirely.
People that have not worked in places where millions are handled by the hour should keep their opinions about coporate grade technologies to their good old selves.
Not at all. The promise of Java is that it would be useful in everything from cell phones to set-top boxes to mainframes, and to an extent that has happened (Android runs a form of Java, and so do some set-top-boxes.) But, in the same way the Cobol is dead outside of a few specific (if important) market sectors, Java is likewise being marginalized. That's what usually happens to anyone or anything espousing the mantra of "one-size-fits-all". Now, I don't understand what Oracle's game is, just yet, but I'm guessing it doesn't have much to do with Java running outside their own playpen. In any event, Oracle isn't a particularly nice corporate citizen, so I suspect that whichever way Ellison decides to jump, a lot of people aren't going to like it.
It's kinda hard to power things with helium, since it is non-reactive and non-combustable.
One could keep it under pressure and have the pressure itself be the energy storage, but regular air or nitrogen would be better for that (cheaper and not a finite supply).
Slashdot Mirror
geek humour is fucking retarded
And this is a geek site, and you're reading it. Who's the retarded one again?
You're talking about completely different cultures. Americans are afraid that the nanny state will take over in the future. Nordic people are afraid that their nanny states won't be sufficiently good at nannying in the future.
True. But it's not the nannying that worries me. Well, it does, only because nannying is so damned expensive and I'm a taxpayer. I'm more worried about further loss of civil liberties which, sadly, is a concern for me as an American.
'Conversative' has lost it's meaning an US politics
I'm not sure "conversative" really ever had much meaning in U.S. politics. On Slashdot, maybe.
Since then, an automatic system has been in place to which you report whenever you move, get married, have kids etc
Darth Vader: "I wouldn't be too proud of this technological monstrosity you've created."
Really, I wouldn't. I'm perfectly happy with our government counting us by hand every so often, rather than having to report my movements to them. Frankly, I don't trust our leaders nor our bureaucracy that much. Not that our various Governments (Federal, State and local) can't figure where I am and where I've been easily enough with the existing privacy-robbing databases that are popping up like weeds everywhere, but I prefer to make them work for it.
Dude, that was awesome! I want some of that stuff you're smoking
I don't. Whatever it it is, it's obviously caused severe brain damage. Or perhaps he was dropped on his head at birth, hard to tell.
That bit about sending FEMA to kill us was precious. If anything, FEMA will just ignore us to death.
Besides the obvious jokes about Microsoft and security, the very serious question is what patents of theirs you could infringe by following their process and when they will sue you for it?
Probably never. Other operating system vendors could maybe learn from this, sure, but since most of them are already much farther along the security curve than Redmond has ever been, it won't matter. What this might do (assuming that it's sensible, and I've not read it so I don't know) is help Windows application developers write more-secure code, better avail themselves of Windows' existing security features. That's the real benefit to Microsoft, and there's no point in suing people coding for your platform.
That attitude will also have to change for things to get better.
It won't. Security is a process, not a condition, but people don't think naturally in those terms because it requires continuous effort (and ongoing expense.) Most people prefer to just make an initial investment in security and forget about it. Now, that works when you're talking about a bank vault, maybe, but not computer security.
The low quality of Skype video means that the bandwidth used isn't all that high, and it seems likely that when not actively being used, and thus the scene mostly being static, the bandwidth used when idle would be even lesser, esp. if the camera's pointed at blank wall.
Well, even if you're looking at an otherwise static scene, pixels are still changing (even if you can't see them) due to noise, variations in lighting, etc. Skype's programmers might have put in threshold detection of some kind ... or they might not. You'd have to test that with a bandwidth monitor and see what's going on.
Oh i agree, but look at any steam story and a lot of post here are backing up how awesome steam is.
Well, Steam is pretty awesome from a functional point of view. On the other hand, when Steam makes the inevitable misstep, you'll find those same users screaming bloody murder. What I think you're saying (and if so, I agree) is that users are glossing over the underlying reality of Valve's content distribution system in favor of its "coolness". Much the same as Apple users do with iTunes and Fairplay, I'd say ... yeah, they're cool, but you should think about who and what you have to thank for them.
What kind of person, other than Microsoft astroturfer or complete moron would do such a thing?
A sane person. Too bad you'll never get to feel like one. Continue your anti-ms trolling...
You're the fruitcake. He wasn't trolling against Microsoft per se (although it's kind of hard to troll when discussing a company that has such a history unethical and criminal behavior) he was making a statement to the effect that "certain software vendors have their collective crania firmly planted on the far side of their anal sphincters." And that's true. Stay the hell out of the boot area. It's bad enough that apps have to phone home just to be permitted to run: now they have to write to the boot sectors too?
What the hell.
"Yeah, feature-foo is hard to learn, but if you put the time in you'll come to love it"
Oh, I don't know ... other vendors get away with that too.
Which sucks for the warranty tech (sub contractor) who was not provided any diagnostic disks because the manufacturer expects the utility partition to still be there.
And that is just patently ridiculous. I simply cannot believe that users have accepted manufacturers saving a few pennies by not shipping a CD or DVD of the operating system.
That contractor either a. has a copy of the requisite media, or can get it or b. can't replace a defective hard drive. Lose the drive, lose the recovery data.
When you buy HP, you're buying from SATAN. It's really sad because there are so many "good" deals on HP hardware out there... ever wonder why their year-old refurb laptops are 50% cheaper than everyone else's? Don't wonder. They are all shit.
No shit. Although, truth be told (having been inside a lot of laptops over the years) about the only laptops that aren't shit are the older Thinkpads, those from the IBM days. Build quality was truly remarkable. Oh, Toughbooks are pretty damn solid too, although you in both cases you pay a substantial premium.
No CMYK, no replacement for Photoshop. Unfortunately.
Never fear, he was trying to be funny.
Although I disagree with them -- another interface is a big hit to productivity.
I agree.
Remember New Ribbon. :)
Trying not to.
I think it's entirely appropriate that DRM interferes with the Linux bootloader. Linux promotes the dangerous idea that it is possible to obtain software for free, and this may lead to piracy.
Obviously no software that is legally free is available on Windows as well, right? How much did you pay for Firefox again?
Quickly, DB, activate your humor/satire detection subsystem. That applies to the mods as well.
We can't that here now. /. group think likes steam, but since its also DRM, we now have to modify the statement to "badly designed DRM". ;)
I don't know as we "like" Steam: DRM is DRM and DRM sucks, period. It's just that Valve is pretty up front about what Steam is ... and isn't. Frankly, I'd say Steam is more "well-designed DRM", so far as such a thing is possible. To date they've been running things about as well as can be expected from such a system. That may change if there's ever a change of heart at Valve, in which case their customer base will rise as one and slay them with virtual pitchforks..
This looks like an intentional, if misguided feature of these programs. It's not like they run as Administrator by default and mess up your stuff without any input from you.
It sounds like they just want to get rid of any code that they don't recognize as being part of the MBR. Not unreasonable if you're just running a pure Windows system, I suppose. The misguided part is assuming that anything there must be a boot-sector infector and not asking if the user is in a multiboot configuration (or better yet, checking first for legitimate alternate boot loaders.) I can't believe the developers didn't realize that something like Grub exists, but I imagine the higher-ups figured it wasn't worth the development time to do anything more sophisticated.
This is the reason why I generally multiboot from different physical drives (usually removable: you don't have to worry about anything being overwritten if you simply swap the boot drive.) It's not like hard disks are particularly expensive anymore, and if all you need is enough space to boot the OS it's not a big deal.
There is no such thing as a paid MS shill. If there was, which there isn't, they certainly wouldn't care about Slashdot.
Of course, if there were, that's exactly what they would say.
Do you believe the moon landings were faked?
No. Now shut up.
My sentiments exactly.
That's true. I was very angry and did not think through the consequences of this idea.
Oh, make no mistake ... it irritates the Hell out of me too. Let's face it: power can be an intoxicant just as powerful as any psychotropic chemical compound, and is just as ripe for abuse. Personally, I believe the Drug Enforcement Agency's efforts would be better directed at politicians than drug users. Find the ones who are abusing the power to which they've become addicted and are abusing, and get rid of them.
As technical people, when we instil fear about something, people will listen.
Sure, right up until they figure out that we, like everyone else whom they thought they trust, have also been lying through our teeth. At that point they bring out the pitchforks, and rightfully so. Remember that old saw "we have seen the enemy, and he is us?" We have to be careful not to adopt too many of the tactics of those currently in power or we, in the end, are no better. The ends do not justify the means
The reason that lay people tend to trust those with knowledge is because they don't have the ability to tell if that educated person is lying or incompetent, and because of that have no choice but to hope the expert knows what the Hell he's talking about. We've all been in that position at one time or another in our lives: having to trust someone that knows substantially more than we do about something important to us. It's rarely a pleasant position to be in.
Are you really telling me that it's okay to deliberately lie to people, abuse their trust in a big way, simply because it's for their own good? Because we assume that it's for their own good? That's precisely what our government and our corporate leaders have been doing to us for years. So far as I'm concerned, if we're so far gone as a society that we can't fight this with reality, with facts, with what is, then We the People don't deserve to survive anyway. In any event, that's not a campaign of which I would choose to play a part. Furthermore, you will have to accept that there will be some deaths involved should you be successful in this, as people who might otherwise have received a medical X-ray or CT scan refuse them out of fear. There are always consequences to fearmongering and ignorance peddling.
With Skype for...TVs it even begins to look like the old scifi dream...
Might be interesting if TVs/large displays on both sides are at the ends of tables.
Yes, I've used Skype and other video conferencing apps on a 56" HD TV. It really is cool to see larger-than-life representations of people on the other end. Kinda like being on the bridge of a typical Federation starship, where everyone you interact on-screen with is bigger than you are. Well, okay, like that minus all the nifty consoles, pointed ears, warp drives and hot Bantu women in miniskirts. But other than that.
Unless he's has a corporate-level Internet connection, he'll probably not want the thing transmitting continuously, just when someone is in the room. Might make sense, in that case, to interface the system with a motion sensor and only load the video conferencing application when the sensor picks someone up (or if you're using an open-source app, modify it to monitor the sensor directly.) I know some security programs that I've worked with (well, okay, pretty much all of them) for monitoring remote cameras have motion detect in software, but that's a different application entirely.
Rush Limbaugh only uses Apple products, iPhone included.
Hell, I'm a Republican and I have an iPhone, iPhones, Macbooks, iPads, Mac Pros aren't exclusive to liberals.
Between work and home I've got a Mac Pro tower, Macbook Pro, iPad, iPhone, iMac, Macbook and an Asus G71
I'm Republican too, but I'd never have admitted to that in a public forum. Kinda like advertising that you have herpes to a live television audience.
Don't get me started on the platform.
Okay, I'm game. What's wrong with the platform?
... keep saying that Java is dying.
People that have not worked in places where millions are handled by the hour should keep their opinions about coporate grade technologies to their good old selves.
Not at all. The promise of Java is that it would be useful in everything from cell phones to set-top boxes to mainframes, and to an extent that has happened (Android runs a form of Java, and so do some set-top-boxes.) But, in the same way the Cobol is dead outside of a few specific (if important) market sectors, Java is likewise being marginalized. That's what usually happens to anyone or anything espousing the mantra of "one-size-fits-all". Now, I don't understand what Oracle's game is, just yet, but I'm guessing it doesn't have much to do with Java running outside their own playpen. In any event, Oracle isn't a particularly nice corporate citizen, so I suspect that whichever way Ellison decides to jump, a lot of people aren't going to like it.
It's kinda hard to power things with helium, since it is non-reactive and non-combustable.
One could keep it under pressure and have the pressure itself be the energy storage, but regular air or nitrogen would be better for that (cheaper and not a finite supply).
Yeah. You'd be better off with a flywheel.