Hey now... I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact there is some truth in what you're saying. However - you may want to reserve judgement on the people "filling the schools with that crap" - because I am one of those people. Our computer budget has been cut drastically this year, and in many, many cases we're forced to do the best we can by refurbishing 486's and low-end Pentiums. They're not as fast as the (two or three) P3s we have, but they're better than nothing.
Do you honestly think that they could force everyone to use their email addresses? What about people without computers and/or Internet connections? Doesn't seem too enforcable to me.
Why can't you just appreciate that they're actually doing this? So what it's something they "should have been doing in the first place?" Better late than never, I say. I think it does make a difference - although it's not as though I've never downloaded warez, I would much rather use a decent free version than an illegal full version. I realize that I don't speak for members of the "warez community," but in my eyes it makes them a more friendly company. Even if they are just trying to make a little more money, wouldn't you rather they do this than prosecute people with illegal copies?
D'oh, I misunderstood what you were saying about Windows 2000. No, it's not based on Win9x, but OpenWindows will be, and that's what we're talking about. So what if it's a free implementation? The architecture will be the same regardless.
No, think about it. IE for Macintosh is well-known for being standards-compliant and relatively stable. IE for Windows is well-known for the exact opposite. Netscape runs fine for me under Windows but crashes constantly in Linux. So you can't compare IE/Windows with IE/Solaris either because they have different teams and codebases (I think, I could be wrong on this point).
Also - Windows 2000 is not based on Win9x, it's based on Windows NT - which explains why it's more stable, and again, not a fair comparison.
Besides, since Internet Explorer is so integrated into the OS that it won't even run properly without it, you better believe that Windows stability problems are caused (in part) by IE bugs.
What's the point of improving Windows? I checked out their website (which was hilariously Microsoftesque, BTW) and they mentioned this. As someone mentioned above, the BSOD actually does come in different colors already. I use WindowBlinds and IconPackager to change the look of my Windows desktop. And as I mentioned in my earlier post, even rewriting the underlying code is practically useless because we would still be running Microsoft applications such as Office and IE (which have their own fair share of bugs and annoyances) on top of it all.
On the other hand, this is a hoax, isn't it? After reading everyone else's posts and considering the foolishness of attempting this, it really has to be. If it's not, may God have mercy on us all.
Yeah, what's up with that? I find that there are literally hundreds (if not more) tricks and shortcuts built into Windows, with no documentation whatsoever. On the one hand, it does impress the uninformed when I shift click on a Close box and a bunch of Explorer windows close all at once, but on the other hand, it would be nice to have a list of all these things that can be done. Maybe some of these "features" are just afterthoughts by some member of the Windows team: "Hey, I should add a/r to the VER command!" - what was the point of that, anyway? I could never figure it out. And last time I checked,/MBR wasn't even listed as an FDISK switch, though of course it is.
I think this sounds like a really cool idea - but my gut feeling is that eventually the group will realize that the job is just too monumental to complete. On the other hand, obviously these guys must know what they're doing, so I would imagine that other projects (such as Wine) could greatly benefit from their help. Perhaps their efforts would be better spent doing that, and here's why:
First - what is the point, really? Most "True Geeks (tm)" would rather run Linux, *BSD, or something along those lines instead of Windows. All that would be changed would be the underlying code. Okay, it would be free - but it would still be Windows on the surface.
On the other hand, perhaps their target audience is not geeks but your typical Joe user. Sure, he would rather use a free-beer version of Windows than the commercial version, but would he really have the option to do so? It would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) to convince OEMs to use a Windows clone - and that would really be the only way to get people to use it, since 99% of (okay, no idea of the exact percentage, but it should be high) PCs are shipped with Windows already on it - they're forced to pay for it anyways.
Third - (okay, my last point didn't have a number, but regardless...) - This goes back to "What is the point?" Let's assume that they manage to perfectly clone Windows and that the new code is squeaky-clean (or at least significantly cleaner than Microsoft's legacy code). What about the applications? If they aren't willing to clone Office and Internet Explorer as well, there will still be plenty of bugs, unexplained system crashes, system slowness, and all the other features we've come to love.
And finally - how can they create a perfect clone without access to Microsoft's APIs? Part of the requirements of making a clone are cloning all of the defects, too. Many applications probably depend on bugs in Windows libraries.
So I think that this sounds like a great idea on the surface, but in reality their efforts should probably be focused on something more worthy of their time. I would hate to see them realize that their project was irrelevant and give up after spending months, or years, on this behemoth of a project, and regret all the time they wasted.
I realize this is (only slightly) offtopic, but the article mentioned that in the original Diablo cheating was rampant. I've been playing Diablo II for a while and I don't believe I've encountered any cheaters. The CD key system and requiring Closed characters to be stored on their servers seems pretty secure to me, but I'm curious, anyone have thoughts/comments on how cheat-proof it actually is?
Indeed! Although I wouldn't be happy to discover that people were cheating in an online game I was playing, I have respect for the guys who actually have the skills to look at an executable in a hex editor or dissembler and change it to do their bidding. It's something I wish I could do myself (for the sake of doing it, not for the sake of cheating in a real game) but maybe I'll pick some knowledge up in my Assembler course this fall.
I almost metamodded someone down for marking this as Insightful but decided to reply to your message instead. Shouldn't this be redundant, as (just about) everything you suggested was mentioned in the article itself?
Because the original poster was an Anonymous Coward. All anonymous comments default to score zero, while logged in users' comments default to 1. You'll note though, it has now been moderated up to 1 (and yeah, I got a chuckle out of it too:)
I have a program that sorta does that called "TriplePlayPlus Japanese." I haven't played with it much but it does have voice recognition. So far it has proven to be good at teaching me to read kanji but I'm not sure how well the voice stuff actually works.
Your argument makes little sense. No one forces you to use the RBL. If you disagree with their policies don't use RBL on your system. If your ISP implements it on their server, call them up and tell them to opt you out.
If, as you implied, your provider does force you to use the RBL, I don't see what the big deal is anyway. Where is the evidence that MAPS is blocking sites they shouldn't be? If this happens how long does it take them to be unblocked? Show some examples of this and then I'll listen. Until then I don't see how the possible dangers of the RBL outweigh its benefits.
I dunno about you, but I wouldn't be happy if someone decided to put my email address down for "FREE XXX PIX TEN TIMES DAILY TO YOUR INBOX!!!!" and my box started getting flooded with the stuff. Granted that's an extreme case but any mailing list that doesn't require its users to confirm subscription is sketchy in my opinion - it wastes bandwith and could be potentiallly embarrassing to an unwitting receiver.
Moderators... informative? Hello? I thought the interview was a little interesting, and the exploit even moreso. I would've had no idea if this hadn't been posted (not that I use AOL anyways, but it is a pretty major flaw.)
They won't say anything, because remember, Linux is oh so stable (hah)
This is getting offtopic, but an Internal Server Error would have nothing to do with Linux being "unstable" - rather some sort of misconfiguration or munged up Perl script. Still, I agree that we should get some sort of explanation.
Definitely. I used to run a BBS, and was forced to shut it down when everyone kept asking why we didn't have Internet access (I wasn't bringing in enough money to justify a T1 at the time). The Net became a necessity, and we all scattered, to IRC, message boards, and the like. AOL tried to emulate a BBS, but it has grown too large - there is no real sense of community on AOL, except within message boards and chat rooms, which can be found on the Net anyways. Having a Napster-like client with builtin chat and file transfers sounds like a highspeed new-school BBS to me!
Windows is an extremely irritating bit of code, and in my case, anyway, I still have to deal with it at work. Hardly a day goes by without my having to deal with some unbeleivably stupid or downright malicious code surprise from our friends in Redmond.
Yeah. there's nothing more embarrassing (or frustrating) than trying to install some new piece of hardware or software on my girlfriend's Win98 box, only to witness Windows freeze on boot or throw up a bluescreen. It really makes me look like an idiot, mumbling something about "crazy bugs in Windows" and unable to get the system to work as it should.
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Hey now... I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact there is some truth in what you're saying. However - you may want to reserve judgement on the people "filling the schools with that crap" - because I am one of those people. Our computer budget has been cut drastically this year, and in many, many cases we're forced to do the best we can by refurbishing 486's and low-end Pentiums. They're not as fast as the (two or three) P3s we have, but they're better than nothing.
Do you honestly think that they could force everyone to use their email addresses? What about people without computers and/or Internet connections? Doesn't seem too enforcable to me.
Why can't you just appreciate that they're actually doing this? So what it's something they "should have been doing in the first place?" Better late than never, I say. I think it does make a difference - although it's not as though I've never downloaded warez, I would much rather use a decent free version than an illegal full version. I realize that I don't speak for members of the "warez community," but in my eyes it makes them a more friendly company. Even if they are just trying to make a little more money, wouldn't you rather they do this than prosecute people with illegal copies?
Did you even read the rest of my post? I specifically described why it would be useless both for "true geeks" and for the common user. Sheesh...
D'oh, I misunderstood what you were saying about Windows 2000. No, it's not based on Win9x, but OpenWindows will be, and that's what we're talking about. So what if it's a free implementation? The architecture will be the same regardless.
No, think about it. IE for Macintosh is well-known for being standards-compliant and relatively stable. IE for Windows is well-known for the exact opposite. Netscape runs fine for me under Windows but crashes constantly in Linux. So you can't compare IE/Windows with IE/Solaris either because they have different teams and codebases (I think, I could be wrong on this point).
Also - Windows 2000 is not based on Win9x, it's based on Windows NT - which explains why it's more stable, and again, not a fair comparison.
Besides, since Internet Explorer is so integrated into the OS that it won't even run properly without it, you better believe that Windows stability problems are caused (in part) by IE bugs.
What's the point of improving Windows? I checked out their website (which was hilariously Microsoftesque, BTW) and they mentioned this. As someone mentioned above, the BSOD actually does come in different colors already. I use WindowBlinds and IconPackager to change the look of my Windows desktop. And as I mentioned in my earlier post, even rewriting the underlying code is practically useless because we would still be running Microsoft applications such as Office and IE (which have their own fair share of bugs and annoyances) on top of it all.
On the other hand, this is a hoax, isn't it? After reading everyone else's posts and considering the foolishness of attempting this, it really has to be. If it's not, may God have mercy on us all.
Yeah, what's up with that? I find that there are literally hundreds (if not more) tricks and shortcuts built into Windows, with no documentation whatsoever. On the one hand, it does impress the uninformed when I shift click on a Close box and a bunch of Explorer windows close all at once, but on the other hand, it would be nice to have a list of all these things that can be done. Maybe some of these "features" are just afterthoughts by some member of the Windows team: "Hey, I should add a /r to the VER command!" - what was the point of that, anyway? I could never figure it out. And last time I checked, /MBR wasn't even listed as an FDISK switch, though of course it is.
I think this sounds like a really cool idea - but my gut feeling is that eventually the group will realize that the job is just too monumental to complete. On the other hand, obviously these guys must know what they're doing, so I would imagine that other projects (such as Wine) could greatly benefit from their help. Perhaps their efforts would be better spent doing that, and here's why:
First - what is the point, really? Most "True Geeks (tm)" would rather run Linux, *BSD, or something along those lines instead of Windows. All that would be changed would be the underlying code. Okay, it would be free - but it would still be Windows on the surface.
On the other hand, perhaps their target audience is not geeks but your typical Joe user. Sure, he would rather use a free-beer version of Windows than the commercial version, but would he really have the option to do so? It would be difficult (though perhaps not impossible) to convince OEMs to use a Windows clone - and that would really be the only way to get people to use it, since 99% of (okay, no idea of the exact percentage, but it should be high) PCs are shipped with Windows already on it - they're forced to pay for it anyways.
Third - (okay, my last point didn't have a number, but regardless...) - This goes back to "What is the point?" Let's assume that they manage to perfectly clone Windows and that the new code is squeaky-clean (or at least significantly cleaner than Microsoft's legacy code). What about the applications? If they aren't willing to clone Office and Internet Explorer as well, there will still be plenty of bugs, unexplained system crashes, system slowness, and all the other features we've come to love.
And finally - how can they create a perfect clone without access to Microsoft's APIs? Part of the requirements of making a clone are cloning all of the defects, too. Many applications probably depend on bugs in Windows libraries.
So I think that this sounds like a great idea on the surface, but in reality their efforts should probably be focused on something more worthy of their time. I would hate to see them realize that their project was irrelevant and give up after spending months, or years, on this behemoth of a project, and regret all the time they wasted.
I realize this is (only slightly) offtopic, but the article mentioned that in the original Diablo cheating was rampant. I've been playing Diablo II for a while and I don't believe I've encountered any cheaters. The CD key system and requiring Closed characters to be stored on their servers seems pretty secure to me, but I'm curious, anyone have thoughts/comments on how cheat-proof it actually is?
Indeed! Although I wouldn't be happy to discover that people were cheating in an online game I was playing, I have respect for the guys who actually have the skills to look at an executable in a hex editor or dissembler and change it to do their bidding. It's something I wish I could do myself (for the sake of doing it, not for the sake of cheating in a real game) but maybe I'll pick some knowledge up in my Assembler course this fall.
I almost metamodded someone down for marking this as Insightful but decided to reply to your message instead. Shouldn't this be redundant, as (just about) everything you suggested was mentioned in the article itself?
Because the original poster was an Anonymous Coward. All anonymous comments default to score zero, while logged in users' comments default to 1. You'll note though, it has now been moderated up to 1 (and yeah, I got a chuckle out of it too :)
I have a program that sorta does that called "TriplePlayPlus Japanese." I haven't played with it much but it does have voice recognition. So far it has proven to be good at teaching me to read kanji but I'm not sure how well the voice stuff actually works.
That link was great! That should be submitted to Slashdot as an article in itself.
Seriously, the fifteen minutes it took to read that were well spent and we could all benefit from taking the time to absorb it :-)
Your argument makes little sense. No one forces you to use the RBL. If you disagree with their policies don't use RBL on your system. If your ISP implements it on their server, call them up and tell them to opt you out.
If, as you implied, your provider does force you to use the RBL, I don't see what the big deal is anyway. Where is the evidence that MAPS is blocking sites they shouldn't be? If this happens how long does it take them to be unblocked? Show some examples of this and then I'll listen. Until then I don't see how the possible dangers of the RBL outweigh its benefits.
And the problem with this is...?
I dunno about you, but I wouldn't be happy if someone decided to put my email address down for "FREE XXX PIX TEN TIMES DAILY TO YOUR INBOX!!!!" and my box started getting flooded with the stuff. Granted that's an extreme case but any mailing list that doesn't require its users to confirm subscription is sketchy in my opinion - it wastes bandwith and could be potentiallly embarrassing to an unwitting receiver.
Moderators... informative? Hello? I thought the interview was a little interesting, and the exploit even moreso. I would've had no idea if this hadn't been posted (not that I use AOL anyways, but it is a pretty major flaw.)
Getting offtopic, but also, Compaq => stupid torx screws
No, it was definitely one point twenty-one gigawatts. Watch the video (what, you don't have it on video?)
Wouldn't do much good, as noone stores passwords in /etc/passwd anymore anyway.
That was a great episode, and so true... I mean, aren't free t-shirts what Linux expos are all about?
This is getting offtopic, but an Internal Server Error would have nothing to do with Linux being "unstable" - rather some sort of misconfiguration or munged up Perl script. Still, I agree that we should get some sort of explanation.
Definitely. I used to run a BBS, and was forced to shut it down when everyone kept asking why we didn't have Internet access (I wasn't bringing in enough money to justify a T1 at the time). The Net became a necessity, and we all scattered, to IRC, message boards, and the like. AOL tried to emulate a BBS, but it has grown too large - there is no real sense of community on AOL, except within message boards and chat rooms, which can be found on the Net anyways. Having a Napster-like client with builtin chat and file transfers sounds like a highspeed new-school BBS to me!
Windows is an extremely irritating bit of code, and in my case, anyway, I still have to deal with it at work. Hardly a day goes by without my having to deal with some unbeleivably stupid or downright malicious code surprise from our friends in Redmond.
Yeah. there's nothing more embarrassing (or frustrating) than trying to install some new piece of hardware or software on my girlfriend's Win98 box, only to witness Windows freeze on boot or throw up a bluescreen. It really makes me look like an idiot, mumbling something about "crazy bugs in Windows" and unable to get the system to work as it should.