But you are not a normal case (no offense:). I know a ton of regular users who have 40 gig hard drives and use a few gigabytes. Even if they were to rip all their music, they would still not fill up their drives. I don't even fill up my 80 gig hard drive and I have 2 operating systems on it.
Ok, I'll admit that just saying it's enough now so it's enough forever is not backing it up enough. But music files are only going to get smaller, and pretty much all an mp3 player does is play mp3s. Sure, people use it for other stuff too, but I doubt that a lot of people use it for transferring large files or large numbers of files. Most people just want it for listening to music. If new useful features are added, then sure, I can see needing more. But as of now, the only reason most people would need more space is for more music, and you can already fit a ridiculous amount of music on current mp3 players.
This obviously makes sense seeing as mini hard drives are dropping in price so it is becoming reasonable to carry around a large collection of music with you (thus making it better than just carrying around a CD player).
However, I wonder if its at all sustainable. I mean, once you have a 40 gig player, I can't imagine needing much more. Sure, there are a few people who want more, and maybe there is a market for video players, but I think the current line is all I would need for now. Sort of like how CD players have just sort of stagnated. There are no real improvements, they just get cheaper. The only reason to buy a new one after your first is if it breaks. Will there be any real innovation in the mp3 player market?
I'm not sure, but I'd guess that 4.0 is the place where major development is happening, where major changes/improvements are made, whereas 3.5 is where minor/incremental stuff is being done.
I think the variation in the size of the virus emails probably has to do both with variants (sometimes) and with the amount of trash the put in the body of the message besides the actual payload.
Re:Sounds like the moral of the story is....
on
Mambo Users Threatened
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· Score: 2, Insightful
How would they have known better? All they probably got is an email with a patch. How would they have known (a) that he was doing the work for hire and (b) that he was not supposed to distribute the code.
But I don't see how it matters anyway. From the story it seems he is still distributing the software on his website, which means he must be distributing those changes under the GPL. It seems to me he can either stop distributing and continue the threats or must stop threatening.
Its not always about performance. If you are removing range checks from all your code you are making it worse (imho). By your logic we shouldn't bother with std::vector or ArrayList or whatever and should just stick with plain old arrays because they are faster. There is a reason that range checking is in there - so that you catch the unexpected case.
This is certainly a victory for those of us who believe that the country is better off when alternative political voices aren't suppressed.
I don't think that not being on the ballot means your political voice is being suppressed. Plenty of people don't make it onto the ballot, but they are still free to express their ideas.
... but some of the more interesting stuff happened more recently (but still awhile ago). I have recently been looking at Fast Multiresolution Image Querying as a means to find similar images for f-spot. But it sounds like this patent is very broad and generalized, and systems like those described existed long before the patent. In fact, the paper linked above describes some of those systems.
I think it may also have to do with the variety of testing. I admit that you are probably right, a lot of OSS vendors don't do extensive testing, but for a lot of them they don't have to. If the vulnerability only affects one product on one hardware platform, you have to test various configurations, but you have at least 1 order of magnitude less testing to do than, say, Microsoft might have for a fix that crosses multiple versions of windows, and may affect PCs, PDAs, etc.
Also, if bugs are found by those in the community, the fix may have time to be tested before it is widely publicized. It seems (just from observing announcements, nothing scientific) that a lot of Microsoft vulnerabilities are discovered by third parties that cannot go and fix them while in OSS they tend to be discovered by people in the security sector, but often they may provide a fix at the time of announcement or not announce until a fix is in cvs.
Not to be negative, but I feel like this probably won't work.
I think a lot of spammers are out of the US, so it won't matter to them.
But even those that are in the US, are probably doing a fine job covering their tracks. They wouldn't put out the bounty if they could easily take care of the problem.
I think this could be a great thing, but it will be hard to get it right. For instance, it would be nearly impossible to use a game as a way to help something long term because after awhile most people will become disinterested in the game. They may continue to do it, but it wouldn't have the same appeal.
I realize that space flight is incredibly complex, but is it really that much more complex than regular flight? Why does it seem that space flight is constantly plagued with problems?
Is it simply that space flight isn't mature enough yet? If commercial space flight ever takes off, is that what will make it more reliable? How can it take off until it is more reliable?
"Now the suits are cutting checks and running the show."
But that really isn't true. They may have some influence on the direction development takes, but anybody can still contribute, and there are plenty of kernel hackers not being paid to do specific things. And besides, isn't Linus paid, but pretty much can do anything he wants?
That's one of the great things about free software - people can pretty much do with it as they please without necessarily taking control of it. Sure, companies may pay for certain features to be added, removed, fixed, whatever, but somebody is always free to just keep their own tree without those patches.
Well, I think there is more incentive in portable players, simply because you don't want to carry around all the different platforms. But to me, it doesn't make much difference whether I need to have 1 or 2 additional consoles next to my tv. However, I can see the incentive for really serious gamers who own all the consoles in different generations where necessary.
I hope now that png, mp3, and jpg decoders have had vulnerabilities people will be a little more careful in the future.
It isn't necessarily about being careful. If people were that careful about writing all their software, software would take ages to finish writing.
And even then there would still be security flaws. I think the saying about bugs goes something like "Any non-trivial program has at least one bug." I think the same could probably be said for security vulnerabilities.
Sure, we probably shouldn't be seeing buffer overflow exploits anymore considering the amount of attention they have gotten, but it isn't necessarily worth it to go back and review all your code just to find one type of vulnerability when others will be found eventually anyway.
I don't think MS has a chance of getting a stranglehold on this. I mean, in terms of email, they really need the cooperation of pretty much everyone for it to work anyway. There are far too many non-Microsoft free software mail servers run by large and small companies. Granted, Microsoft has a huge presence on the desktop, but they aren't dominant enough yet on servers to make it really work in their favor.
Maybe they are honestly trying to solve the spam problem and are willing to compromise for the good of users.
I also think they placed it under the wrong topic, but I think this is just as much a general technology issue as it is about politics. I figure politics.slashdot.org is for actual politics. This is really about technology's role in politics, so it makes sense as general news on this sight. Not sure why it would be under yro though. But a lot of stuff gets put under IT that seems entirely unrelated to IT, so who knows.
"Why make something for the rest of the world work for China, when they could develop something that works for China and not care what the rest of the world does?"
Because they might actually need to interact with the rest of the world at some point?
I'm not saying its impossible to come up with their own solution, but it may not necessarily make sense.
What about students who go largely on financial aid? If the amount of aid stays the same, yet the price increases by $500 (or whatever) for something which many would view as unnecessary, that could really affect the financials for some students, and could be a reason not to attend the university. I can see the iPod being handy, but not necessary (at least yet) in the way computers and network connections have become.
I don't notice any real speedups, but I do not really notice updatedb running anymore. Actually that's not entirely true, I just notice it a lot less. Many times it will run and I won't notice it. The mouse used to start getting all sticky when I had too much disk activity. Now it *mostly* runs smoothly.
I did say it would be benign, but within a certain context, that of executable code. I guess I didn't make it clear enough that when I said it could be as benign as regular media files I meant that it wouldn't have to let the distributor execute their own code. I said nothing regarding the micropayment system.
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But you are not a normal case (no offense :). I know a ton of regular users who have 40 gig hard drives and use a few gigabytes. Even if they were to rip all their music, they would still not fill up their drives. I don't even fill up my 80 gig hard drive and I have 2 operating systems on it.
Ok, I'll admit that just saying it's enough now so it's enough forever is not backing it up enough. But music files are only going to get smaller, and pretty much all an mp3 player does is play mp3s. Sure, people use it for other stuff too, but I doubt that a lot of people use it for transferring large files or large numbers of files. Most people just want it for listening to music. If new useful features are added, then sure, I can see needing more. But as of now, the only reason most people would need more space is for more music, and you can already fit a ridiculous amount of music on current mp3 players.
This obviously makes sense seeing as mini hard drives are dropping in price so it is becoming reasonable to carry around a large collection of music with you (thus making it better than just carrying around a CD player).
However, I wonder if its at all sustainable. I mean, once you have a 40 gig player, I can't imagine needing much more. Sure, there are a few people who want more, and maybe there is a market for video players, but I think the current line is all I would need for now. Sort of like how CD players have just sort of stagnated. There are no real improvements, they just get cheaper. The only reason to buy a new one after your first is if it breaks. Will there be any real innovation in the mp3 player market?
Star wars is very different. Sure, a lot of the stuff is CG or green-screened, but a lot of the stuff is done on sets with more than just a few props.
I'm not sure, but I'd guess that 4.0 is the place where major development is happening, where major changes/improvements are made, whereas 3.5 is where minor/incremental stuff is being done.
I think the variation in the size of the virus emails probably has to do both with variants (sometimes) and with the amount of trash the put in the body of the message besides the actual payload.
How would they have known better? All they probably got is an email with a patch. How would they have known (a) that he was doing the work for hire and (b) that he was not supposed to distribute the code.
But I don't see how it matters anyway. From the story it seems he is still distributing the software on his website, which means he must be distributing those changes under the GPL. It seems to me he can either stop distributing and continue the threats or must stop threatening.
Very similar to SCO...
Its not always about performance. If you are removing range checks from all your code you are making it worse (imho). By your logic we shouldn't bother with std::vector or ArrayList or whatever and should just stick with plain old arrays because they are faster. There is a reason that range checking is in there - so that you catch the unexpected case.
I don't think that not being on the ballot means your political voice is being suppressed. Plenty of people don't make it onto the ballot, but they are still free to express their ideas.
... but some of the more interesting stuff happened more recently (but still awhile ago). I have recently been looking at Fast Multiresolution Image Querying as a means to find similar images for f-spot. But it sounds like this patent is very broad and generalized, and systems like those described existed long before the patent. In fact, the paper linked above describes some of those systems.
I think it may also have to do with the variety of testing. I admit that you are probably right, a lot of OSS vendors don't do extensive testing, but for a lot of them they don't have to. If the vulnerability only affects one product on one hardware platform, you have to test various configurations, but you have at least 1 order of magnitude less testing to do than, say, Microsoft might have for a fix that crosses multiple versions of windows, and may affect PCs, PDAs, etc.
Also, if bugs are found by those in the community, the fix may have time to be tested before it is widely publicized. It seems (just from observing announcements, nothing scientific) that a lot of Microsoft vulnerabilities are discovered by third parties that cannot go and fix them while in OSS they tend to be discovered by people in the security sector, but often they may provide a fix at the time of announcement or not announce until a fix is in cvs.
Not to be negative, but I feel like this probably won't work.
I think a lot of spammers are out of the US, so it won't matter to them.
But even those that are in the US, are probably doing a fine job covering their tracks. They wouldn't put out the bounty if they could easily take care of the problem.
I think this could be a great thing, but it will be hard to get it right. For instance, it would be nearly impossible to use a game as a way to help something long term because after awhile most people will become disinterested in the game. They may continue to do it, but it wouldn't have the same appeal.
I realize that space flight is incredibly complex, but is it really that much more complex than regular flight? Why does it seem that space flight is constantly plagued with problems?
Is it simply that space flight isn't mature enough yet? If commercial space flight ever takes off, is that what will make it more reliable? How can it take off until it is more reliable?
"Now the suits are cutting checks and running the show."
But that really isn't true. They may have some influence on the direction development takes, but anybody can still contribute, and there are plenty of kernel hackers not being paid to do specific things. And besides, isn't Linus paid, but pretty much can do anything he wants?
That's one of the great things about free software - people can pretty much do with it as they please without necessarily taking control of it. Sure, companies may pay for certain features to be added, removed, fixed, whatever, but somebody is always free to just keep their own tree without those patches.
I don't see the suits ever taking over linux.
Well, I think there is more incentive in portable players, simply because you don't want to carry around all the different platforms. But to me, it doesn't make much difference whether I need to have 1 or 2 additional consoles next to my tv. However, I can see the incentive for really serious gamers who own all the consoles in different generations where necessary.
I hope now that png, mp3, and jpg decoders have had vulnerabilities people will be a little more careful in the future.
It isn't necessarily about being careful. If people were that careful about writing all their software, software would take ages to finish writing.
And even then there would still be security flaws. I think the saying about bugs goes something like "Any non-trivial program has at least one bug." I think the same could probably be said for security vulnerabilities.
Sure, we probably shouldn't be seeing buffer overflow exploits anymore considering the amount of attention they have gotten, but it isn't necessarily worth it to go back and review all your code just to find one type of vulnerability when others will be found eventually anyway.
I would think Microsoft benefits by significantly reducing spam.
I don't think MS has a chance of getting a stranglehold on this. I mean, in terms of email, they really need the cooperation of pretty much everyone for it to work anyway. There are far too many non-Microsoft free software mail servers run by large and small companies. Granted, Microsoft has a huge presence on the desktop, but they aren't dominant enough yet on servers to make it really work in their favor.
Maybe they are honestly trying to solve the spam problem and are willing to compromise for the good of users.
I know it was a joke, but most people have hair elsewhere.
I also think they placed it under the wrong topic, but I think this is just as much a general technology issue as it is about politics. I figure politics.slashdot.org is for actual politics. This is really about technology's role in politics, so it makes sense as general news on this sight. Not sure why it would be under yro though. But a lot of stuff gets put under IT that seems entirely unrelated to IT, so who knows.
"Why make something for the rest of the world work for China, when they could develop something that works for China and not care what the rest of the world does?"
Because they might actually need to interact with the rest of the world at some point?
I'm not saying its impossible to come up with their own solution, but it may not necessarily make sense.
What about students who go largely on financial aid? If the amount of aid stays the same, yet the price increases by $500 (or whatever) for something which many would view as unnecessary, that could really affect the financials for some students, and could be a reason not to attend the university. I can see the iPod being handy, but not necessary (at least yet) in the way computers and network connections have become.
I don't notice any real speedups, but I do not really notice updatedb running anymore. Actually that's not entirely true, I just notice it a lot less. Many times it will run and I won't notice it. The mouse used to start getting all sticky when I had too much disk activity. Now it *mostly* runs smoothly.
I did say it would be benign, but within a certain context, that of executable code. I guess I didn't make it clear enough that when I said it could be as benign as regular media files I meant that it wouldn't have to let the distributor execute their own code. I said nothing regarding the micropayment system.