I think I woudl have to agree with you here. Now what I WOULD like to see, is a slot where you can put a firmware OS in. Granted this may be a simple boot/limited functionality OS, but it would allow for a distinction between where the BIOS should be and the OS starts. This chip could do what the Phoenix is stated to do without the fea of corss-corruption.
This is a very good point. I have a feeling this will be struck down under the commerce clause, not to mention that it seems silly to begin with. This would be an unduly burden to filter an unknown. Are we to let the ISPs begin being judge? In most cases they will block anything and everything to avoid the possibility of noncompliance. ISPs are not part of the judiciary branch, and should not be made to decide what is acceptable and what is not. Do we now ask the phone company to block numbers of anyone who might trade child porn? If you know where the child porn is, just shut down the site using legal means available today.
This doesn't even begin to address the fact that many web sites often use the same IP (not much other way of blocking sites), you would have to block anonymous proxy sites and caching sites like google in case they cache it.
This reminds me of the library filtering case where filtering software will block out more legitimate content that that it was designed to block.
Check out http://sethf.com/anticensorware/ for more info on the "filtering" software.
While I agree on some level with this, it is important to not even offer the appearance of close-mindedness here. This can be a big win or loose for open source. Arrogant attacks not only look bad, they can make MS look better in comparison. Remember, companies are often in the middle of choosing between the lesser of two evils. If the community acts like a bunch of 5 year olds attacking an institution, they will be dismissed as a "hobby" group. However, if the rebuttals are rational and level-headed, you have chance to show that open source is a valid choice.
Keep in mind that you do not have to show that open source is vastly superior to MS, just that it is stable, dependable, flexible and (best of all) low cost. Companies just want to know that they can depend on the software to perform as they expect, even if the expectation is a reboot every week and patches 3 times a month.
Show the industry that open source has a plan and the backing of a rational and professional community and you gain market by leaps and bounds. With the economy as it is, the free notion has quite a bit of merit if they can depend on it. This is the perfect time to strike and make your mark.
Yes! This is the perfect place for it. There are several reasons 1) The inability for the open source to have an open mind will only prove to many industries that the opensource is not the way to go because they are too set in their ways to be adaptable to their needs 2) If Ms really has such a bad argument, it will be out in the open in such a way they cannot cover it up 3) If they do have valid points, it allows those who have the ability to change the opensource to understand and change the progress of the movement or counter the propaganda before it sets into the corporate culture.
If you refuse to listen to those who have differeing opinions then you will be seen as intolerant and unworthy of attention, regardless if you are right or not. It is in the best interest of the community to allow them into the conference.
I just posted this above, but it has bearing on this thread. There is a case in court right now about this with several companies, including MS.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983988.html
There have been a few cases of this where the agreemnt came before any chance to read the license agreement. As far as I know, the courts have thorwn out each of these.
While the store does not have to take the softare back once you open it, the software vendor needs to make you aware of the license agreement before you install it. If you dod not agree, and the store will not take it back, the vendor is supposed to refund the money.
Here is a current suit against MS, Symantec and other vendors about "hiding" the EULA until you install it.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983988.html
I understand that you can have both, but most companies are often time and resource constrained. I also wasn't defending Ms, I was just pointing out facts.
Very interesting article. While it is easy to jump on the bandwagon and yell "MS should never of had the bugs in the first place!" I would like to point out that MS actually admitted that they originally designed the OS for the feature starved general population, pushing security aside for marketing. The general public is partially to blame here. If more people had worried about security then, they would have made the systems more secure. Of course most geeks here knew that then, which makes it hard to swallow.
I have never been a MS fan, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. What troubles me is the application breaking. If they devote resources to vendors who apps they broke, I am all in favor of this. What I fear is that by forcing updates they will also try to force new EULAs (Media player and SP 3 update anyone?) or use this as a tool to disable competitors because they cannot do it directly in light of the antitrust ruling.
How they handle this will really be what makes me decide if they have really decided to do what is right or if this is a clever ploy to once again dominate the market through unethical behavior. Let the tomes of history tell!
Your boss has EVERY *right* to turn you down.
He has NO *reason*.
Oh, he has many reasons. While I like the idea, if it were up to me, they would not run at my company. Why? Well, you see you maintain a standard infrastructure, right down to the desktop. With 20,000 desktops that is quite a bit of work! To minimize the costs and lower the TCO we package applications and deploy them to the workstation. And since we have government regulations we have to meet, we test applications against each other. Small applications may not seem like much, but the unknown factor of such applications, in some environments, can cause conflicts that were not detected before, and worse, it could lead to data corruption. Even the possibility of corrupted data can cost our company billions of dollars.
Sometimes you just need to know the difference between work and home and leave it at that. Will I run it at home? I don't know. I'll see how it runs with Seti@home;)
I knew it! They've got neural Beowolf clusters in their heads, and they use it to produce PUSH MEDIA into our ears! And the reason why they change their minds so often, it's feedback fed dynamic modification of the cluster quota!
Leave it to a Slashdoter to turn an analogy into a technobabble session;)
This article is a complete waste of time. Thsi puts down some data and loosly corrilates it to intelligence, but I didn't se one shred of solid fact there. One thing the article did not mention is how the brains of the genders work. Several studies have shown that women use their brain differently. Women tend to distribute the processing over smaller segments around the brain. It is unknown at this point, from the studies I read, if this is biological or enviromental. Such distribution would show up as usuing the entrie brain for a single task, whereas men tend to concentrate processing in localized areas. This would also explain why women tend to recover from strokes faster.
Imagine a linux cluster where processing was devided into physical groups. Once group would handle memory mangement, while another graphics output, and another would handle IO. If you drop just one machine out of any subsetted group, you see a larger impact than if you evenly distribute the processing.
Going back to the idea of intelligence, one must first define intelligence before one can measure it. The fact that I.Q. testing was originally developed for men would tend to taint the articles assumed results. I have seen people that supposedly have high I.Q.s but are complete idiots in most areas of life. I have also seen some people noted as "idiots" who have risen up in the world and become big successes. I will note that the assessment of these people changes when they do succeed, so intelligence tends to be relative.
I think you are right here. As with RAM, power loss would revert the screen back to a defualt state. I guess you could add capacitance to the monitor so it retains a charge for a bit, but I think this would be a negative. Sometimes when you want the screen off, you want it off!;)
I think this will make the concept of framerat obsolete. Framerate occurs when the screen is updated. Because normal screens need to refresh the entire screen on a regular basis, the act like flipbooks (image changes slightly on each page). With this technology you don't need a framerate because you almost never change everything on the screen at once. I would assume it would draw more power since games typically change much more of the screen than office programs, but even so, you are still only updating what changes (at least I hope that is how these will work).
Monopolies such as the phone company and cable company are because they have to create the infrastructure and multiple onfrstructures would be counterproductive. The seems to scale well for the phoen company because of the interconnectivity needed. However, most cable companies are localized by office. When cable companies first started out, towns next to each other may have different cable providers depending on what deals were created. Now we are stuck with regional cable companies having a monopoly in the area, reducing the localized choice we once had (yes, it was difficult to get over the township kickbacks, but possible to switch companies). This deal was nixed, but the Comcast/AT&T deal would have the same numebr of subscribers but seems to be acceptable.
Ironicly, the satellite service is a direct competition. If I wanted to switch satellite providers, I could do it in a day. I don't have a choice about this with cable.
I guess potentially, by denying the satellite merger, you provide more options; whereas, you only get one option for cable, no matter who owns it.
The real potential comes when they can isolate sections of the screen to update. Since most screens remain, I would say, 80% the same, this could greatly increase the battery life of laptops since the screen is one of the largest power consumers. Isolating sections would allow only a small section to draw power when changed. The key would to make the sections as small as possible (pixel?) so that mouse movements don't cause un update to 1/4 the screen.
What is interesting about this is that the chip simply allowed the game to bypass regional restrictions. MS has said they get a kickback (I call 'em like I see 'em) for every game that is sold so they can afford to reduce the cost of the console. Now, if you look at it, they actually sell MORE games this way since you can now order games from overseas. The problem is that they no longer have control of how the game is marketed. This is the real crux of the issue. Without such minute detail over marketing MS feels that game makers could bypass them, which may or may not be true.
Bottom line? If they didn't add all these restrictions in the first place the damn machine wouldn't cost $700!
It's very odd that first sale seems to be overshadowed by the EULA. Granted we have a license, but the same could be said for a book. I bought a physical copy of the book and therefore I can sell _that_ copy. I should be able to sell the copy of software I purchased.
If I recall, there was a case where a company was breaking up bundles of Adobe software and reselling them. This was deemd legal under the first sale doctrine. This may be because the company never installed, and thus agreed to the EULA (if someone has the case, please post), but it should not matter.
EULA became a big item in the 80s when the idea of software being copyrightable was untested. Now the courts ahve ruled that it is copyrightable, so why should they be able to trump copyright, fair use and first sale doctrine by the EULA?
Ye of little faith. Learn how to us ethe dark side and you too shall prevail! Translation: Politians for the most part lack a backbone. Enough intimitating "geeks" come knocking and yelling about some damn "root servers" and "public officials" being elimiates (hey.. aren't they public officials?) and they will scurry away to Washington in an effort to secure your vote so they can keep th enice comfy job they have.
Slashdot Mirror
I think I woudl have to agree with you here. Now what I WOULD like to see, is a slot where you can put a firmware OS in. Granted this may be a simple boot/limited functionality OS, but it would allow for a distinction between where the BIOS should be and the OS starts. This chip could do what the Phoenix is stated to do without the fea of corss-corruption.
This is a very good point. I have a feeling this will be struck down under the commerce clause, not to mention that it seems silly to begin with. This would be an unduly burden to filter an unknown. Are we to let the ISPs begin being judge? In most cases they will block anything and everything to avoid the possibility of noncompliance. ISPs are not part of the judiciary branch, and should not be made to decide what is acceptable and what is not. Do we now ask the phone company to block numbers of anyone who might trade child porn? If you know where the child porn is, just shut down the site using legal means available today. This doesn't even begin to address the fact that many web sites often use the same IP (not much other way of blocking sites), you would have to block anonymous proxy sites and caching sites like google in case they cache it. This reminds me of the library filtering case where filtering software will block out more legitimate content that that it was designed to block. Check out http://sethf.com/anticensorware/ for more info on the "filtering" software.
While I agree on some level with this, it is important to not even offer the appearance of close-mindedness here. This can be a big win or loose for open source. Arrogant attacks not only look bad, they can make MS look better in comparison. Remember, companies are often in the middle of choosing between the lesser of two evils. If the community acts like a bunch of 5 year olds attacking an institution, they will be dismissed as a "hobby" group. However, if the rebuttals are rational and level-headed, you have chance to show that open source is a valid choice. Keep in mind that you do not have to show that open source is vastly superior to MS, just that it is stable, dependable, flexible and (best of all) low cost. Companies just want to know that they can depend on the software to perform as they expect, even if the expectation is a reboot every week and patches 3 times a month. Show the industry that open source has a plan and the backing of a rational and professional community and you gain market by leaps and bounds. With the economy as it is, the free notion has quite a bit of merit if they can depend on it. This is the perfect time to strike and make your mark.
Yes! This is the perfect place for it. There are several reasons 1) The inability for the open source to have an open mind will only prove to many industries that the opensource is not the way to go because they are too set in their ways to be adaptable to their needs 2) If Ms really has such a bad argument, it will be out in the open in such a way they cannot cover it up 3) If they do have valid points, it allows those who have the ability to change the opensource to understand and change the progress of the movement or counter the propaganda before it sets into the corporate culture. If you refuse to listen to those who have differeing opinions then you will be seen as intolerant and unworthy of attention, regardless if you are right or not. It is in the best interest of the community to allow them into the conference.
I just posted this above, but it has bearing on this thread. There is a case in court right now about this with several companies, including MS. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983988.html
There have been a few cases of this where the agreemnt came before any chance to read the license agreement. As far as I know, the courts have thorwn out each of these. While the store does not have to take the softare back once you open it, the software vendor needs to make you aware of the license agreement before you install it. If you dod not agree, and the store will not take it back, the vendor is supposed to refund the money. Here is a current suit against MS, Symantec and other vendors about "hiding" the EULA until you install it. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983988.html
I understand that you can have both, but most companies are often time and resource constrained. I also wasn't defending Ms, I was just pointing out facts.
Very interesting article. While it is easy to jump on the bandwagon and yell "MS should never of had the bugs in the first place!" I would like to point out that MS actually admitted that they originally designed the OS for the feature starved general population, pushing security aside for marketing. The general public is partially to blame here. If more people had worried about security then, they would have made the systems more secure. Of course most geeks here knew that then, which makes it hard to swallow. I have never been a MS fan, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. What troubles me is the application breaking. If they devote resources to vendors who apps they broke, I am all in favor of this. What I fear is that by forcing updates they will also try to force new EULAs (Media player and SP 3 update anyone?) or use this as a tool to disable competitors because they cannot do it directly in light of the antitrust ruling. How they handle this will really be what makes me decide if they have really decided to do what is right or if this is a clever ploy to once again dominate the market through unethical behavior. Let the tomes of history tell!
Your boss has EVERY *right* to turn you down. He has NO *reason*.
Oh, he has many reasons. While I like the idea, if it were up to me, they would not run at my company. Why? Well, you see you maintain a standard infrastructure, right down to the desktop. With 20,000 desktops that is quite a bit of work! To minimize the costs and lower the TCO we package applications and deploy them to the workstation. And since we have government regulations we have to meet, we test applications against each other. Small applications may not seem like much, but the unknown factor of such applications, in some environments, can cause conflicts that were not detected before, and worse, it could lead to data corruption. Even the possibility of corrupted data can cost our company billions of dollars. Sometimes you just need to know the difference between work and home and leave it at that. Will I run it at home? I don't know. I'll see how it runs with Seti@homeLeave it to a Slashdoter to turn an analogy into a technobabble session ;)
This article is a complete waste of time. Thsi puts down some data and loosly corrilates it to intelligence, but I didn't se one shred of solid fact there. One thing the article did not mention is how the brains of the genders work. Several studies have shown that women use their brain differently. Women tend to distribute the processing over smaller segments around the brain. It is unknown at this point, from the studies I read, if this is biological or enviromental. Such distribution would show up as usuing the entrie brain for a single task, whereas men tend to concentrate processing in localized areas. This would also explain why women tend to recover from strokes faster. Imagine a linux cluster where processing was devided into physical groups. Once group would handle memory mangement, while another graphics output, and another would handle IO. If you drop just one machine out of any subsetted group, you see a larger impact than if you evenly distribute the processing. Going back to the idea of intelligence, one must first define intelligence before one can measure it. The fact that I.Q. testing was originally developed for men would tend to taint the articles assumed results. I have seen people that supposedly have high I.Q.s but are complete idiots in most areas of life. I have also seen some people noted as "idiots" who have risen up in the world and become big successes. I will note that the assessment of these people changes when they do succeed, so intelligence tends to be relative.
I think you are right here. As with RAM, power loss would revert the screen back to a defualt state. I guess you could add capacitance to the monitor so it retains a charge for a bit, but I think this would be a negative. Sometimes when you want the screen off, you want it off! ;)
I think this will make the concept of framerat obsolete. Framerate occurs when the screen is updated. Because normal screens need to refresh the entire screen on a regular basis, the act like flipbooks (image changes slightly on each page). With this technology you don't need a framerate because you almost never change everything on the screen at once. I would assume it would draw more power since games typically change much more of the screen than office programs, but even so, you are still only updating what changes (at least I hope that is how these will work).
Monopolies such as the phone company and cable company are because they have to create the infrastructure and multiple onfrstructures would be counterproductive. The seems to scale well for the phoen company because of the interconnectivity needed. However, most cable companies are localized by office. When cable companies first started out, towns next to each other may have different cable providers depending on what deals were created. Now we are stuck with regional cable companies having a monopoly in the area, reducing the localized choice we once had (yes, it was difficult to get over the township kickbacks, but possible to switch companies). This deal was nixed, but the Comcast/AT&T deal would have the same numebr of subscribers but seems to be acceptable. Ironicly, the satellite service is a direct competition. If I wanted to switch satellite providers, I could do it in a day. I don't have a choice about this with cable. I guess potentially, by denying the satellite merger, you provide more options; whereas, you only get one option for cable, no matter who owns it.
The real potential comes when they can isolate sections of the screen to update. Since most screens remain, I would say, 80% the same, this could greatly increase the battery life of laptops since the screen is one of the largest power consumers. Isolating sections would allow only a small section to draw power when changed. The key would to make the sections as small as possible (pixel?) so that mouse movements don't cause un update to 1/4 the screen.
What is interesting about this is that the chip simply allowed the game to bypass regional restrictions. MS has said they get a kickback (I call 'em like I see 'em) for every game that is sold so they can afford to reduce the cost of the console. Now, if you look at it, they actually sell MORE games this way since you can now order games from overseas. The problem is that they no longer have control of how the game is marketed. This is the real crux of the issue. Without such minute detail over marketing MS feels that game makers could bypass them, which may or may not be true. Bottom line? If they didn't add all these restrictions in the first place the damn machine wouldn't cost $700!
Giving away the machine is no problem, just remove Windows. The problem is transfering the license that allows you to install the software.
It's very odd that first sale seems to be overshadowed by the EULA. Granted we have a license, but the same could be said for a book. I bought a physical copy of the book and therefore I can sell _that_ copy. I should be able to sell the copy of software I purchased. If I recall, there was a case where a company was breaking up bundles of Adobe software and reselling them. This was deemd legal under the first sale doctrine. This may be because the company never installed, and thus agreed to the EULA (if someone has the case, please post), but it should not matter. EULA became a big item in the 80s when the idea of software being copyrightable was untested. Now the courts ahve ruled that it is copyrightable, so why should they be able to trump copyright, fair use and first sale doctrine by the EULA?
Ye of little faith. Learn how to us ethe dark side and you too shall prevail! Translation: Politians for the most part lack a backbone. Enough intimitating "geeks" come knocking and yelling about some damn "root servers" and "public officials" being elimiates (hey.. aren't they public officials?) and they will scurry away to Washington in an effort to secure your vote so they can keep th enice comfy job they have.