Polaroids can still be useful for previewing exposures in large-format photography, which is still a film world. They simply don't make 4x5" digital sensors, period.
Please explain, in scientific terms, the advantage of a larger sensor. For the purposes of this explanation, do not assume that a larger sensor has more pixels.
The lens size is important (larger == better), and the number of pixels is important, but I suspect that packing those pixels into a smaller size will improve picture quality.
The drivers aren't written by Microsoft and aren't shipped with the OS, so blaming Microsoft and Vista because some 3rd party wrote a crap driver is just stupidity.
Using your argument, Windows is totally useless, since it ships with almost no applications. On the other hand, if I install Ubuntu, I get OpenOffice, etc..
Yes, it sucks that people blame MS for shitty drivers written by third parties, but using third party drivers is normal use of Windows and this represents problem with Windows. It may be a problem that MS can't solve -- but it is still a problem with Windows. The Linux world doesn't have this problem.
I can't be bothered. Windows works, it's stable, it's secure because I have a long background with computers. The only time I knew that I had a virus infection was in the above-mentioned 90s when I wrote my own virus and it accidentally spread to ".." (which happened to be the root of C partition) instead of "." (whoops).
I don't switch primarily because of look and feel issues. I know how to do everything on a Windows system, anything that works differently feels "broken", even if it's a valid alternative choice.
As one example, to install software, I can go on the web, find the primary site for it, make sure it passes malware tests, and install it. On Linux, there's a repository (as I understand, never figured that part out). That may be a technologically superior option, but that means I have to trust the repository buildier. And it's not as though Linux is somehow immmune to malware that lets me skip that step. Anytime I install software it can do something I didn't except, on any OS.
Your post displays a mix of FUD, lack of knowledge and lack of intellectual curiosity.
Firstly, for a huge variety of software that a user might install, the process is a single command in a terminal, for example:
sudo apt-get install <whatever>
Alternatively, applications can be selected for installation or removal through nice GUI programs such as Synaptic.
The system repositories are set up on installation and files in those repositories can be assumed to be secure. Contrast that with Windows, where the process often involves downloading a random exe file that may or may not be trusted.
There are some applications and libraries that may require adding repositories, but, in my experience, those repositories provide detailed instructions on how to add them. Your failure to grasp these simple steps shows a lack of effort on your part and not any difficulty with Linux.
Under Windows, after installing an application, can you be sure about what the installer did? Under Linux, I can query the package manager for the files installed and the scripts run. Under Windows -- no. So under Linux, I can feel more secure and trusting of the package that I just installed. It's Windows that should make you feel insecure.
I fully expect this post to be downmodded to hell by the Windows fanboys, but, fortunately, I have some karma to burn!
... the MP Expenses scandal which The Telegraph has been milking for a couple of weeks now. This is good old fashioned journalism at its best; a competent team of reporters going over a huge amount of data and expressing it clearly and succinctly in terms the public can understand.
In the US, people are concerned about how to pay for "investigative journalism". The only problem with this is that it is largely dead already in the US. The same person who tried to convince the SEC that Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme took his information to major newspapers also. Did they follow up? Another example: there was an interview in NPR with a reporter who, two to three years ago had been investigating and writing about how bad things were going to happen to the financial system -- so investigative journalism is still alive in the US? Nope, she wrote for the UK's Financial Times.
But the big problem with US newspapers is that, as an industry, it is massively overstaffed. There are far too many newspapers, each with its own newsroom and, more importantly, its own overhead. We don't need so many newspapers. Competition amongst newspapers is not required because real competition from other news sources exists.
But if it is valued, then why can't those that value it give something back in return?
And what did those artists give to the descendants of people who wrote the stories and music upon which just about all modern literature and music derives?
Those artists benefited from the public domain without paying for it. Why should artists in the future not be able to benefit from what is being produced now without having to pay for it just like today's artists?
In any case, payment is only one issue -- perhaps the bigger issue is art that is locked up and unavailable to be used because the copyright holder cannot be found or is unwilling to allow his art to be reused, recycled, improved, altered, etc.?
Cue jokes about chairs in 3..2..1....
on
Phoenix BIOSOS?
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· Score: 2, Funny
A "backup" would just be a copy, bit-for-bit of the DVD, which the MPAA and friends obviously don't want you to make, and you would probably get in trouble for distributing; but in no way violates the DMCA. (incidentally, this part is why DVD piracy started well before CSS was broken. Since anybody with a DVD player can decode CSS crippled disks, a pirate simply has to clone the disk, not break the crypto)
Except that currently available DVD burners don't burn the part of the disk where the keys are stored, so the (encrypted) backup won't play in a DVD player.
The blog posting does not show how Alienware made an accusation of theft. The "theft" meme is an invention by the poster. Alienware are quite within their rights to refuse to sell parts to anyone -- although this seems like a very stupid policy. As for the warranty, it is possible that the original warranty requires that the warranty number is provided by the customer, or even that the warranty is not transferable.
All of these actions seem like stupid policies by Alienware, but nowhere is there an accusation of theft from Alienware.
Neither was I. The first electric kettle that we were able to buy in the USA was from Webvan, however, in the last couple of years, we have found electric kettles at Target. Before Webvan, we had not found anywhere to buy these handy devices.
There is a problem however. In the UK, electric kettles are 240V/13A. In the USA they are 110V and probably only about 15A, so they take twice as long to boil water.
Seriously, has concept of a kettle (meaning a jug which holds about 3 pints of water and has a heating element built in which will boil the water and cut-out when there's sufficient steam to operate a cutout switch) not made it over there?
Such devices have recently become widely available. They were difficult to find only a few years ago.
how exactly do you switch out a software agreement?
What software agreement? I think that they are licensing patents. They have merely said that you don't have to pay to use the patents before 2010, but if you use the patents after that, you may need to pay (depending on volume). Yes, products that have shipped will be safe, but most companies want to continue shipping products, which will be affected by the royalty demands.
So far, though, damages are rather local. A few companies lost a few 10k bucks, but we're far from global meltdown.
But that's part of my point -- it doesn't take a global meltdown for viruses, etc. to cause a lot of damage. Also, since most malware is written to exploit PCs and the data they contain, a global meltdown is unlikely because it is not in the economic interests of the people who release malware.
The other day, I heard a discussion on BBC Radio 4 in which an expert basically suggested that the threat from viruses, worms, etc., was not so severe. He stated that it would be impossible to kill the Internet in the UK, because doing this would require cables to be cut.
It seems to me that he was ignoring many treats, such as corrupting the routes published by key routers and the fact that many threats don't involve a complete meltdown of the Internet. Lesser threats were mentioned earlier in the discussion, but the later statements would make people think that the threats form viruses, etc. was overblown -- especially since the later person commented that the former who mentioned these personal threats worked in the industry and hence had a reason to exaggerate them.
Many people would come away from that discussion thinking that there was nothing to worry about and that they probably don't need anti-virus software.
My guess is that Phorm promised the UK government that they would provide the Internet tracking data that the government wants. They will be able to track users in a way not possible by ISPs since Phorm's cookies will allow them to identify individual PCs behind NAT routers.
Microsoft knows the social security numbers, bank accounts, and in most cases close associates of all these people.
So what? China plays a long game, people could have been sent to immigrate to the US years ago. With travel to the China very common these days, could you be sure that China has not succeeded in planting spies?
I'm sure that were one to dig deep enough, you'd find that the xp kernel (like some central parts of the linux kernel) has been vetted by NSA experts.
Forget the kernel -- it's the compiler that is the key. Didn't someone show years ago how code could be inserted into a compiler and once it was there, there was no way to remove it -- apart from going back through the archives and finding a sufficiently old and uninfected compiler? If the compiler adds code to the kernel every time the kernel is built, you can spend forever vetting the kernel source code, but not find the vulnerability that the compiler inserted.
If you took any secure linux user and made him use a windows machine he'd never get a virus or hacked.
This is only because such a user would use Firefox instead of IE. But there are some websites that don't work with Firefox -- what if one of those websites is hacked and an exploit is put on it? Perhaps your anti-virus would prevent infection from the website and perhaps not -- show me an anti-virus software that guards against 100% of known viruses/trojans/etc? What about the unknown, more targeted trojans?
While I would agree that stupid users make the problem on Windows worse, I don't agree that an experienced user can give a 100% guarantee that he could keep a Windows box secure, short of disconnecting from the network and disabling USB ports.
How many chinese spies are working on the linux kernel. Improving it, yes, but also... Do you dare to bet your life on the answer being zero ?
How many Chinese spies are working on the Windows (XP, Vista, W7) kernel. Improving it, yes, but also... Do you dare to bet your life on the answer being zero?
What level of vetting is done for employees at Microsoft? With a large number of immigrants employed at West Coast high tech firms, I have no doubt that MS has been infiltrated to some degree.
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Err, no! The amount of light that enters the camera is determined by the size of the lens and is unrelated to the size of the sensor.
Please explain, in scientific terms, the advantage of a larger sensor. For the purposes of this explanation, do not assume that a larger sensor has more pixels.
The lens size is important (larger == better), and the number of pixels is important, but I suspect that packing those pixels into a smaller size will improve picture quality.
Using your argument, Windows is totally useless, since it ships with almost no applications. On the other hand, if I install Ubuntu, I get OpenOffice, etc..
Yes, it sucks that people blame MS for shitty drivers written by third parties, but using third party drivers is normal use of Windows and this represents problem with Windows. It may be a problem that MS can't solve -- but it is still a problem with Windows. The Linux world doesn't have this problem.
Fixed that for you.
Your post displays a mix of FUD, lack of knowledge and lack of intellectual curiosity.
Firstly, for a huge variety of software that a user might install, the process is a single command in a terminal, for example:
sudo apt-get install <whatever>
Alternatively, applications can be selected for installation or removal through nice GUI programs such as Synaptic.
The system repositories are set up on installation and files in those repositories can be assumed to be secure. Contrast that with Windows, where the process often involves downloading a random exe file that may or may not be trusted.
There are some applications and libraries that may require adding repositories, but, in my experience, those repositories provide detailed instructions on how to add them. Your failure to grasp these simple steps shows a lack of effort on your part and not any difficulty with Linux.
Under Windows, after installing an application, can you be sure about what the installer did? Under Linux, I can query the package manager for the files installed and the scripts run. Under Windows -- no. So under Linux, I can feel more secure and trusting of the package that I just installed. It's Windows that should make you feel insecure.
I fully expect this post to be downmodded to hell by the Windows fanboys, but, fortunately, I have some karma to burn!
How many people refer to the Clock Tower as "Big Ben", while Big Ben is actually one of the bells in the tower and hence seen by few people?
In the US, people are concerned about how to pay for "investigative journalism". The only problem with this is that it is largely dead already in the US. The same person who tried to convince the SEC that Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme took his information to major newspapers also. Did they follow up? Another example: there was an interview in NPR with a reporter who, two to three years ago had been investigating and writing about how bad things were going to happen to the financial system -- so investigative journalism is still alive in the US? Nope, she wrote for the UK's Financial Times.
But the big problem with US newspapers is that, as an industry, it is massively overstaffed. There are far too many newspapers, each with its own newsroom and, more importantly, its own overhead. We don't need so many newspapers. Competition amongst newspapers is not required because real competition from other news sources exists.
And what did those artists give to the descendants of people who wrote the stories and music upon which just about all modern literature and music derives?
Those artists benefited from the public domain without paying for it. Why should artists in the future not be able to benefit from what is being produced now without having to pay for it just like today's artists?
In any case, payment is only one issue -- perhaps the bigger issue is art that is locked up and unavailable to be used because the copyright holder cannot be found or is unwilling to allow his art to be reused, recycled, improved, altered, etc.?
Cue jokes about chairs in 3..2..1....
If there are no published policies, demand that hard drives from the bosses and other people in the office to show that such conduct is not unusual.
This guy has been blogigng his anti-Linux views since at least 2007. Most amusing from the blog is that a Lenovo VP comments on his blog that he is full of sh*t.
Except that currently available DVD burners don't burn the part of the disk where the keys are stored, so the (encrypted) backup won't play in a DVD player.
The blog posting does not show how Alienware made an accusation of theft. The "theft" meme is an invention by the poster. Alienware are quite within their rights to refuse to sell parts to anyone -- although this seems like a very stupid policy. As for the warranty, it is possible that the original warranty requires that the warranty number is provided by the customer, or even that the warranty is not transferable.
All of these actions seem like stupid policies by Alienware, but nowhere is there an accusation of theft from Alienware.
Neither was I. The first electric kettle that we were able to buy in the USA was from Webvan, however, in the last couple of years, we have found electric kettles at Target. Before Webvan, we had not found anywhere to buy these handy devices.
There is a problem however. In the UK, electric kettles are 240V/13A. In the USA they are 110V and probably only about 15A, so they take twice as long to boil water.
Such devices have recently become widely available. They were difficult to find only a few years ago.
What software agreement? I think that they are licensing patents. They have merely said that you don't have to pay to use the patents before 2010, but if you use the patents after that, you may need to pay (depending on volume). Yes, products that have shipped will be safe, but most companies want to continue shipping products, which will be affected by the royalty demands.
But that's part of my point -- it doesn't take a global meltdown for viruses, etc. to cause a lot of damage. Also, since most malware is written to exploit PCs and the data they contain, a global meltdown is unlikely because it is not in the economic interests of the people who release malware.
The other day, I heard a discussion on BBC Radio 4 in which an expert basically suggested that the threat from viruses, worms, etc., was not so severe. He stated that it would be impossible to kill the Internet in the UK, because doing this would require cables to be cut.
It seems to me that he was ignoring many treats, such as corrupting the routes published by key routers and the fact that many threats don't involve a complete meltdown of the Internet. Lesser threats were mentioned earlier in the discussion, but the later statements would make people think that the threats form viruses, etc. was overblown -- especially since the later person commented that the former who mentioned these personal threats worked in the industry and hence had a reason to exaggerate them.
Many people would come away from that discussion thinking that there was nothing to worry about and that they probably don't need anti-virus software.
Other's code? I have enough trouble reading my own code a couple of months after I wrote it.
The language with a "bless" command -- definitely one for cults!
My guess is that Phorm promised the UK government that they would provide the Internet tracking data that the government wants. They will be able to track users in a way not possible by ISPs since Phorm's cookies will allow them to identify individual PCs behind NAT routers.
XP's firewall doesn't monitor outbound traffic at all Vista's firewall only does so with difficulty.
So what? China plays a long game, people could have been sent to immigrate to the US years ago. With travel to the China very common these days, could you be sure that China has not succeeded in planting spies?
Forget the kernel -- it's the compiler that is the key. Didn't someone show years ago how code could be inserted into a compiler and once it was there, there was no way to remove it -- apart from going back through the archives and finding a sufficiently old and uninfected compiler? If the compiler adds code to the kernel every time the kernel is built, you can spend forever vetting the kernel source code, but not find the vulnerability that the compiler inserted.
This is only because such a user would use Firefox instead of IE. But there are some websites that don't work with Firefox -- what if one of those websites is hacked and an exploit is put on it? Perhaps your anti-virus would prevent infection from the website and perhaps not -- show me an anti-virus software that guards against 100% of known viruses/trojans/etc? What about the unknown, more targeted trojans?
While I would agree that stupid users make the problem on Windows worse, I don't agree that an experienced user can give a 100% guarantee that he could keep a Windows box secure, short of disconnecting from the network and disabling USB ports.
How many Chinese spies are working on the Windows (XP, Vista, W7) kernel. Improving it, yes, but also ... Do you dare to bet your life on the answer being zero?
What level of vetting is done for employees at Microsoft? With a large number of immigrants employed at West Coast high tech firms, I have no doubt that MS has been infiltrated to some degree.