Microsoft, Mozilla, Google, and Apple should all be seriously considering enacting the death penalty after this latest exploit. These browsers should be actively blocking the Java plugin by default. Java applets have outlived their usefulness and now are good for little else besides drive-by exploits.
With Linux traditionally installed on about 1% of desktops, I would think that Windows is the big loser here. If OS X is nowadays installed on 6 -7% of desktops (see: TFA), then it's Windows that lost marketshare.
On that you are correct. It's not that Linux has lost much in the way of market share - it's kind of difficult to lose what you don't have much of in the first place - but rather it's Mac OS X that has been eating up Microsoft's market share.
However the story isn't really about who lost market share, but rather who gained it and why. Linux could have been; it could have been right up to the point in time where Apple introduced the x86 version of Mac OS X. Once they did that many geeks lost their desire to run Linux. Mac OS X could bring all the wonderful things about *nix to the desktop in a far more refined form while offering the kind of retail software and media ecosystem that most desktop users take for granted.
Desktop Linux is still important as a new technology testbed, and of course as the only true free OS (both as in speech and as in beer), but that's about all it has going for it. I for one stopped keeping a desktop Linux installation around after 2008 once I realized that Mac OS X did all of the things I needed (or liked) Linux for. And that's the story TFA is telling: why Mac OS X has drawn away many desktop *nix users, and how the rise of OS-agnostic Web applications has drawn away a lot of the rest.
Frankly I've never had any luck refilling ink cartridges. In theory it's a good idea; in practice those ink refills gum up the print heads in no time flat.
The best decision I ever made was to replace my inkjet with a monochrome laser printer. What I lost in color I more than gained in reliability.
I have never had one of those reps refuse to help.
There is a blacklist, but it's very, very hard to get on. You basically have to be installing Windows onto different motherboards on a weekly basis. For that reason the only person I know to ever end up on that list did motherboard evaluations for a living.
Retail: This license is portable; users can upgrade/replace their hardware and take their copy of Windows with them. Furthermore Microsoft provides support, and you can even use a retail version to perform an upgrade (though MS sells cheaper upgrade editions for that). For those reasons however it's the most expensive (i.e. full price) version.
OEM/System Builder: The license is non-portable and becomes locked to the motherboard. Microsoft does not provide any support (that's the OEM's job), and OEM copies can only be used to do a fresh install. Because of this it's cheaper than retail.
It's not new; it's basically a pack of OEM licenses for small volume builders. The only real difference is that Microsoft is now technically allowing individuals to use System Builder packs for their own personal machines. I say "technically" because as you note we've been able to do this for years and years.
Microsoft has never given a hoot over this since there's always been a clear distinction between what can be done with OEM licenses (locked to the mobo) and what can be done with retail licenses (can be moved). This appears to just be Legal cleaning up the EULA since individual use of OEM licenses was ambiguous before.
my wife had a contraceptive insertion. one UID in the uterus,
Now I love Slashdot has much as the next geekette, but your wife is a far braver soul than I. There's no way I'd let a UID be tattooed on my uterus! Especially since they're up to 7 digits these days!
Coming from a woman's perspective: agreed, to an extent.
It's not that most of these guys are necessarily bad people, but hackers (in the DEFCON sense) do tend to follow alpha male mentality. Now mix that up with copious amounts of alcohol, the poor social adjustment that many geeks have, and the "anything goes" attitude of Sin City, and yeah you'll have problems.
On that note, the single biggest improvement in that respect would actually be to move DEFCON from Las Vegas. People just behave badly there - for better or worse this isn't just a geek thing or a DEFCON thing.
As someone who actually has a copy of Windows 8, TFA and TFS are correct and the OP is wrong. Microsoft has removed the previous methods of booting straight to the desktop.
Pretty much. Short of government regulation we as a community can't actually compel advertisers to do anything (just getting them to acknowledge DNT in the first place was a small miracle), so if we actually make it hard for them to do their thing they'll just ignore DNT entirely.
The de facto standard for smartphones and tablets seems to be OpenGL ES 2.0. Why can this not be a de facto standard for desktop and console gaming as well?
It's too feature limited. It's not even up to par with Direct3D 9.0c/9_3, let alone D3D10+. No MRTs, no compute shaders, no geometry features (tessellation, instancing, etc), no standard texture compression format, etc.
I'm not quite sure how to respond to this. This is good for Joss Whedon, I guess?
It just seems odd to air a 4 year old one-off production like this. Especially since the CW's primary demographics are essentially the under-18 female crowd. I don't see how the CW is a good fit for Dr. Horrible, especially since they're having to edit it.
It's a bit confusing. There were two MSNBCs: MSNBC the cable channel, and MSNBC the website.
Microsoft divested itself of MSNBC the cable channel in 2005, which is what TFS refers to. MSNBC the cable channel has been owned and operated solely by NBC since then.
MSNBC the website is what today's news is about. Microsoft has sold off their 50% share of MSNBC the website to Comcast/NBC. As a result NBC now has full control over MSNBC the website - content, technology, and (most importantly) advertising.
NBC now owns both MSNBCs. Ultimately in 2013 there will be a single TV/web MSNBC entity just like CNN and FoxNews today. Meanwhile the current MSNBC the website will become NBC's news website.
That's a pretty serious "fact". And not to sound like a smart-ass Wikipedia editor, but some kind of citation would be great.
One can certainly believe there are moles at Microsoft/Apple. One can even reasonably assume that the United States Government has the power to compel Microsoft/Apple to do things that are in the U.S.'s best interests. However for a foreign mole to be able to insert back doors into the Windows source code - which I would add is fairly well vetted since most governments and educational institutions have read access to the source - would be quite remarkable to the point of being unbelievable.
If you're not paranoid of the average person, you either live in a bubble or haven't been paying attention to the rest of the world.
The average person will gladly lie, cheat, and steal (or worse), and is only stopped by immediate negative consequences for those actions. The average person should not be trusted - they'd take everything you had if they reasonably believed they could get away with it forever.
Anyhow, when did "don't stand up in front of a crowd telling the world you're stealing things" become bad advice? With BitTorrent you indeed have nothing to hide, because at a technical level there's no privacy for the clients making it obvious who the members of a swarm are.
So I'll say it again: either don't commit copyright infringement, or don't use BitTorrent to commit copyright infringement. Either one of those will keep you from getting caught. This is much ado about nothing; only clueless pirates are at risk.
There are no technical facets to six strikes - the ISPs aren't doing deep packet inspection or the like. This is just copyright holders monitoring torrents to compile a list of infringers, which they then use to complain to the appropriate ISPs. The ability to use BitTorrent hasn't changed, and if it's a legal torrent then no one will be complaining.
Let's be frank here, guys. The only people this is going to affect are those users who are using BitTorrent to commit copyright infringement. Use your brain and don't use BitTorrent to commit piracy, and you'll be fine.
Ditto. Cable + TiVo here. I get to watch things live, bounce things to the other TiVo in the house, and if there's not something on cable TV then it's easy enough to find something through Netflix or Amazon Instant Video.
Now if there was just a way to watch iTunes movies on a TiVo, I'd be set.
To be honest I'm surprised we don't see this kind of thing more often. Not just on travel sites, but on any kind of site that doesn't have strict MSRP pricing such as Amazon. Certain platforms absolutely attract certain demographics, and unlike tracking/profiling you don't have to spend time building as profile as all of this data is conveniently offered up by the browser with page requests.
Yes, the same exact crappy battery life. Which is reason #3 why smartphones make for poor handheld gaming devices, right behind the lack of control options and the limited quality afforded by $0.99 games.
They've been pimping Mario harder than usual lately, but really they have done a fine job of keeping it fresh until the last year. Even SMG2 (the most direct Mario sequel in years) did a great job improving on SMG1's concepts and exploiting what worked well. Rather than feeling like a rehash Nintendo made it feel like the game SMG1 should have been from the start, and consequently it's still the gold standard for 3D platformers.
Now the new renditions of New Super Mario Bros. on the other hand may be where the wheels start to come off. So far Nintendo hasn't shown that the new games are a great deal different than their predecessors; they don't do a good job showing off the capabilities of their new hardware, and if anything it looks like both games will be easier than NSMB Wii. At the same time Ubisoft has shown a shocking knack for 2D platformers with Rayman: Origins, which means for the first time in a long while a good platformer is available on a non-Nintendo console.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed.
Microsoft, Mozilla, Google, and Apple should all be seriously considering enacting the death penalty after this latest exploit. These browsers should be actively blocking the Java plugin by default. Java applets have outlived their usefulness and now are good for little else besides drive-by exploits.
On that you are correct. It's not that Linux has lost much in the way of market share - it's kind of difficult to lose what you don't have much of in the first place - but rather it's Mac OS X that has been eating up Microsoft's market share.
However the story isn't really about who lost market share, but rather who gained it and why. Linux could have been; it could have been right up to the point in time where Apple introduced the x86 version of Mac OS X. Once they did that many geeks lost their desire to run Linux. Mac OS X could bring all the wonderful things about *nix to the desktop in a far more refined form while offering the kind of retail software and media ecosystem that most desktop users take for granted.
Desktop Linux is still important as a new technology testbed, and of course as the only true free OS (both as in speech and as in beer), but that's about all it has going for it. I for one stopped keeping a desktop Linux installation around after 2008 once I realized that Mac OS X did all of the things I needed (or liked) Linux for. And that's the story TFA is telling: why Mac OS X has drawn away many desktop *nix users, and how the rise of OS-agnostic Web applications has drawn away a lot of the rest.
Frankly I've never had any luck refilling ink cartridges. In theory it's a good idea; in practice those ink refills gum up the print heads in no time flat.
The best decision I ever made was to replace my inkjet with a monochrome laser printer. What I lost in color I more than gained in reliability.
Bollocks. Any scientific testing is better than none.
http://xkcd.com/397/
There is a blacklist, but it's very, very hard to get on. You basically have to be installing Windows onto different motherboards on a weekly basis. For that reason the only person I know to ever end up on that list did motherboard evaluations for a living.
Retail: This license is portable; users can upgrade/replace their hardware and take their copy of Windows with them. Furthermore Microsoft provides support, and you can even use a retail version to perform an upgrade (though MS sells cheaper upgrade editions for that). For those reasons however it's the most expensive (i.e. full price) version.
OEM/System Builder: The license is non-portable and becomes locked to the motherboard. Microsoft does not provide any support (that's the OEM's job), and OEM copies can only be used to do a fresh install. Because of this it's cheaper than retail.
It's not new; it's basically a pack of OEM licenses for small volume builders. The only real difference is that Microsoft is now technically allowing individuals to use System Builder packs for their own personal machines. I say "technically" because as you note we've been able to do this for years and years.
Microsoft has never given a hoot over this since there's always been a clear distinction between what can be done with OEM licenses (locked to the mobo) and what can be done with retail licenses (can be moved). This appears to just be Legal cleaning up the EULA since individual use of OEM licenses was ambiguous before.
Now I love Slashdot has much as the next geekette, but your wife is a far braver soul than I. There's no way I'd let a UID be tattooed on my uterus! Especially since they're up to 7 digits these days!
Coming from a woman's perspective: agreed, to an extent.
It's not that most of these guys are necessarily bad people, but hackers (in the DEFCON sense) do tend to follow alpha male mentality. Now mix that up with copious amounts of alcohol, the poor social adjustment that many geeks have, and the "anything goes" attitude of Sin City, and yeah you'll have problems.
On that note, the single biggest improvement in that respect would actually be to move DEFCON from Las Vegas. People just behave badly there - for better or worse this isn't just a geek thing or a DEFCON thing.
As someone who actually has a copy of Windows 8, TFA and TFS are correct and the OP is wrong. Microsoft has removed the previous methods of booting straight to the desktop.
Huh? July's rainfall wasn't a record. In fact it was far below average.
http://www.brucesussman.com/portland-weather/july-2012-portland-salem-astoria/
Now June on the other hand was above average, but that wasn't a record.
Pretty much. Short of government regulation we as a community can't actually compel advertisers to do anything (just getting them to acknowledge DNT in the first place was a small miracle), so if we actually make it hard for them to do their thing they'll just ignore DNT entirely.
And the gold medal for the all-species 350M KM space landing goes to NASA, who scored a perfect 10 for landing on the surface of Mars!
Congratulations to NASA and the JPL. Dare Mighty Things indeed.
It's too feature limited. It's not even up to par with Direct3D 9.0c/9_3, let alone D3D10+. No MRTs, no compute shaders, no geometry features (tessellation, instancing, etc), no standard texture compression format, etc.
I'm not quite sure how to respond to this. This is good for Joss Whedon, I guess?
It just seems odd to air a 4 year old one-off production like this. Especially since the CW's primary demographics are essentially the under-18 female crowd. I don't see how the CW is a good fit for Dr. Horrible, especially since they're having to edit it.
It's a bit confusing. There were two MSNBCs: MSNBC the cable channel, and MSNBC the website.
Microsoft divested itself of MSNBC the cable channel in 2005, which is what TFS refers to. MSNBC the cable channel has been owned and operated solely by NBC since then.
MSNBC the website is what today's news is about. Microsoft has sold off their 50% share of MSNBC the website to Comcast/NBC. As a result NBC now has full control over MSNBC the website - content, technology, and (most importantly) advertising.
NBC now owns both MSNBCs. Ultimately in 2013 there will be a single TV/web MSNBC entity just like CNN and FoxNews today. Meanwhile the current MSNBC the website will become NBC's news website.
That's a pretty serious "fact". And not to sound like a smart-ass Wikipedia editor, but some kind of citation would be great.
One can certainly believe there are moles at Microsoft/Apple. One can even reasonably assume that the United States Government has the power to compel Microsoft/Apple to do things that are in the U.S.'s best interests. However for a foreign mole to be able to insert back doors into the Windows source code - which I would add is fairly well vetted since most governments and educational institutions have read access to the source - would be quite remarkable to the point of being unbelievable.
If you're not paranoid of the average person, you either live in a bubble or haven't been paying attention to the rest of the world.
The average person will gladly lie, cheat, and steal (or worse), and is only stopped by immediate negative consequences for those actions. The average person should not be trusted - they'd take everything you had if they reasonably believed they could get away with it forever.
I think your tinfoil is on just a bit tight.
Anyhow, when did "don't stand up in front of a crowd telling the world you're stealing things" become bad advice? With BitTorrent you indeed have nothing to hide, because at a technical level there's no privacy for the clients making it obvious who the members of a swarm are.
So I'll say it again: either don't commit copyright infringement, or don't use BitTorrent to commit copyright infringement. Either one of those will keep you from getting caught. This is much ado about nothing; only clueless pirates are at risk.
A pessimistic view, but technically correct.
There are no technical facets to six strikes - the ISPs aren't doing deep packet inspection or the like. This is just copyright holders monitoring torrents to compile a list of infringers, which they then use to complain to the appropriate ISPs. The ability to use BitTorrent hasn't changed, and if it's a legal torrent then no one will be complaining.
Let's be frank here, guys. The only people this is going to affect are those users who are using BitTorrent to commit copyright infringement. Use your brain and don't use BitTorrent to commit piracy, and you'll be fine.
Ditto. Cable + TiVo here. I get to watch things live, bounce things to the other TiVo in the house, and if there's not something on cable TV then it's easy enough to find something through Netflix or Amazon Instant Video.
Now if there was just a way to watch iTunes movies on a TiVo, I'd be set.
To be honest I'm surprised we don't see this kind of thing more often. Not just on travel sites, but on any kind of site that doesn't have strict MSRP pricing such as Amazon. Certain platforms absolutely attract certain demographics, and unlike tracking/profiling you don't have to spend time building as profile as all of this data is conveniently offered up by the browser with page requests.
Yes, the same exact crappy battery life. Which is reason #3 why smartphones make for poor handheld gaming devices, right behind the lack of control options and the limited quality afforded by $0.99 games.
They've been pimping Mario harder than usual lately, but really they have done a fine job of keeping it fresh until the last year. Even SMG2 (the most direct Mario sequel in years) did a great job improving on SMG1's concepts and exploiting what worked well. Rather than feeling like a rehash Nintendo made it feel like the game SMG1 should have been from the start, and consequently it's still the gold standard for 3D platformers.
Now the new renditions of New Super Mario Bros. on the other hand may be where the wheels start to come off. So far Nintendo hasn't shown that the new games are a great deal different than their predecessors; they don't do a good job showing off the capabilities of their new hardware, and if anything it looks like both games will be easier than NSMB Wii. At the same time Ubisoft has shown a shocking knack for 2D platformers with Rayman: Origins, which means for the first time in a long while a good platformer is available on a non-Nintendo console.