Seriously, anywhere else a moneypit like the XBox would have been put down for the greater good.
I am not saying it is a crap piece of hardware, on the contrary I enjoy it, there are some sweet titles for XBox and the extras you get even on an unmodded XBox vs. the PS2 are great......but it bled money, it was always sold at a loss. That doesn't strike me as a stellar business model.
The real story is: how is MS going to make it profitable? There is money to be made in the console market... what's their angle?
Prehistoric microbes? Amoebic life? Antarctica? It's all fun and games until we dredge up some star shaped vegetable radiates and their pet shoggoths...
If you are Akamai, your uptime isn't everything, it is the only thing.
In their case maintaining a hybrid infrastructure makes perfect sense. Remote exploit in IOS? No problem, the Juniper/Extreme/Linux/OpenBSD router in failover config takes over while patching goes on.
And if you are maintaining a massive hybrid infrastructure like that you will likely have the people and processes to handle security issues/patches.
The NT Bugtraq list has been discussing this patch today, focussing on it's poor timing of release (there are indications that it could have been pushed earlier than the Friday before a major US holiday). Russ Cooper, owner and maintainer of the list had some good points, about the patch itself. Definitely worth a read if you have to maintain Windows systems.
Silent installs eh? Isn't that contrary to a few computer crime statutes currently in effect in the USA? Or do they not apply to good corporate citizens like the RIAA membership (who, after all, are just saving us from ourselves)?
And yes, 11 minutes after posting on Saturday night, the referenced discussion link is/.'ed....
Hmmm... get enrolled into some gene therapy sessions for a one way trip to live on a world with what would otherwise be a hostile environment?
Interesting concept.
I also like Clarke's point... what do we really know about managing and altering an ecosystem on Mars that may exist (or have existed)? We cannot even manage our own.
Yes, some of them do it very very badly. Horribly in fact.
I wouldn't attribute that to the splitting of the services though, rather Iwould blame bad process and worse management. This really shouldn't be surprising in the face of what has happened to the cable industry in the last couple of years. As a rule, good management does not run you into the ground (vide Adelphia and Charter Communications).
Not all are like that though. Unfortunately, many are...
Frankly, I am envious of the California decision. I really really don't want to have a voice line in my apartment, but I have a need for internet access and due to a number of circumstances cannot get my local cable provider's (Cogeco) internet only service, so I am forced to go through Bell Canada. Yes, I know, I could have got a 3rd party DSL in, but I would still have to go through the Telco to get voice service. I just want to have the choice of a DSL only line coming in. And as for the issues of cable providers splitting their internet service away from their other offerings... Yes, some of them do it very very badly. Horribly in fact. This really shouldn't be surprising in the face of what has happened to the cable industry in the last couple of years. As a rule, good management does not run you into the ground (vide Adelphia and Charter Communications).
Not all are like that though. Unfortunately, many are...
I can see the logic that went into this plan: "Well, Akamai has a few million DNS boxes, if we put everything there we'll be fine! That's not a single point of failure!" Yeah, about that... multiple vendors may have been a good idea in retrospect instead of just one monolithic provider. Time to re-examine the definition of Single Point of Failure.
...I wouldn't want to try to sell it as an authentication mechanism to my executive masters.
Granted it does make it harder for the creds to be acquired via social engineering, but... there are easier ways to protect authentication credentials using existing methods, IMO.
For instance, what about the use of passphrases vs. passwords?
I.E. choose a sentence, including some punctuation, a lot harder to defeat with a basic dictionary attack, will likely take a lot longer for a brute force crack and users should (in theory) be able to remember a phrase like, say "Highlander 2 was utter crap!" much more easily than, say, xXzQwtY@#153.
Not as glamourous as the method descibed, but a much easier sell to users.
Combine with a physical token (RSA ID, smart card, whatever) and things get a little harder to break technologically.
I disagree. I have a first name that is rare, a spelling that is even rarer, and I can honestly say the biggest beef I have ever had is that no one ever spells it right. Quite frankly, mom and dad did me a favour with an unusual name.
Cold turkey is definitely the way to go. I went from a 2x 12 cup pot a day habit (and that was just at the office!) to nothing when I left a job 3 years ago... Mind you, I was living pretty close to the edge of not having a pot to piss in, and cut a lot of luxuries (like coffee, beer, meat) out of the budget early in case I was out of work for a long stretch. It worked, but I don't necessarily recommend extreme measures for everyone. I am not caffeine free today, but I am a hell of a lot more moderate in my consumption (when you class a $1.25 medium black from Tim Horton's as a luxury expense, you get a much better appreciation for the stuff when you have an income again) than I was in the old days.
Yeah... Pimp Wars, Monty Python scripts and being given admin priveleges I so did not merit on a buddy's BBS he ran out of his basement. Those halcyon days of being a geek in incubation...
Indeed. This logic tends to be better employed outside the US (witness the more prevalent use of ccTLDs in Europe than in North America). The original gTLDs were short sweet and to the point... and made sense in the context of most european languages, witht he exception of.gov and.mil, which are unabashedly US centric, but what the hell it was a DARPA project after all. The ccTLDs make perfectly good sense in the context of the countries concerned (albeit rendered at times into a different alphabet). I have to say that even the new TLDs that have appeared (.info,.museum) are a) too english-centric for a lot of the world and b) cover ground that should probably be accounted for under an existing ccTLD or gTLD.
/*Sarcasm begins*/ What? And make people think? That's crazy talk. Next you'll be expecting them to start reading books again. And that could lead to thinking, and no one wants that.../*Sarcasm ends*//*Comments added for the humour-challenged*/
...this decision bothers me. A lot. Back in the late 1990s I may have worked in a technical department at an unnamed university, and during exams, the admins and I may have ground the ISDN line we may have had to a halt by downloading music in this nifty new format called "MP3". Hypothetically, we could have downloaded about a gigabyte or two in a barbeque and beer fuelled session (and we didn't have Napster kids, oh no... we had to hunt through search engines for.mp3 extensions). In theory it would have been possible for my administrative amigos to open up the directory on the RAID array to certain other parties of similar muscial taste. Having a (then) mammoth MP3 collection could have made studying in the "multimedia enabled" lab a lot better. So, theoretically still, had we undertaken this diversion back then, and been pinched (for downloading music of artists that we either: A) Were interested in checking out, and whose CDs we later purchased (we would have, really) or B) We already owned a copy of the material and just wanted to have it on hand when working the help desk / studying / goofing off in the CS offices; then We would suddenly owe the RIAA mad cash? Damn. Good thing that was just a hypothetical situation when I was a a student. After reading that decision I am now I'm afraid to make tapes for the car...
...and kind of ridiculous. Having been a fulltime student, I had to work 40-60 hour weeks in the summer and part time during the academic year to make the cash for tution books and rent. And that was with help from the bank of mom and dad. What is the logic behind these damages? Were the students in question getting rich of sharing files? Even if they were before (doubt it) they certainly aren't now.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Sega has bailed out of the console hardware game, so I would definitely say they won't be keeping Sony honest.
But man, the Dreamcast is still a glorious piece of hardware...
The Dreamcast also proved that it didn't matter who was first to market with the sweet next gen console.
It also raised the bar for console gamers, but it wasn't hot enough to keep Sega in the market.
Seriously, anywhere else a moneypit like the XBox would have been put down for the greater good.
...but it bled money, it was always sold at a loss. That doesn't strike me as a stellar business model.
I am not saying it is a crap piece of hardware, on the contrary I enjoy it, there are some sweet titles for XBox and the extras you get even on an unmodded XBox vs. the PS2 are great...
The real story is: how is MS going to make it profitable? There is money to be made in the console market... what's their angle?
Prehistoric microbes? Amoebic life?
Antarctica?
It's all fun and games until we dredge up some star shaped vegetable radiates and their pet shoggoths...
Prehistoric microbes? Amoebic life?
Lets dredge up some shoggoths...
If you are Akamai, your uptime isn't everything, it is the only thing.
In their case maintaining a hybrid infrastructure makes perfect sense.
Remote exploit in IOS? No problem, the Juniper/Extreme/Linux/OpenBSD router in failover config takes over while patching goes on.
And if you are maintaining a massive hybrid infrastructure like that you will likely have the people and processes to handle security issues/patches.
The NT Bugtraq list has been discussing this patch today, focussing on it's poor timing of release (there are indications that it could have been pushed earlier than the Friday before a major US holiday). Russ Cooper, owner and maintainer of the list had some good points, about the patch itself. Definitely worth a read if you have to maintain Windows systems.
So, would Great Cthulhu constitute a new speices of squid, and shoggoths a new breed of jellyfish?
***See the wonders of Y'ha-nthlei from $449 inclusive!***
I would have gone more in the line of "At The Mountains of Madness", given the polar clime.
Do Shoggoths qualify as a new species of jellyfish?
Obligatory quote:
Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!
Ah, tricky, tricky, tricky.
Now, do you suppose they actually researched the laws in the non-US jurisdictions?
Bets, anyone, anyone?
I thought not.
Silent installs eh?
/.'ed....
Isn't that contrary to a few computer crime statutes currently in effect in the USA?
Or do they not apply to good corporate citizens like the RIAA membership (who, after all, are just saving us from ourselves)?
And yes, 11 minutes after posting on Saturday night, the referenced discussion link is
Hmmm... get enrolled into some gene therapy sessions for a one way trip to live on a world with what would otherwise be a hostile environment?
Interesting concept.
I also like Clarke's point... what do we really know about managing and altering an ecosystem on Mars that may exist (or have existed)?
We cannot even manage our own.
Yes, some of them do it very very badly. Horribly in fact.
I wouldn't attribute that to the splitting of the services though, rather Iwould blame bad process and worse management.
This really shouldn't be surprising in the face of what has happened to the cable industry in the last couple of years. As a rule, good management does not run you into the ground (vide Adelphia and Charter Communications).
Not all are like that though. Unfortunately, many are...
Frankly, I am envious of the California decision.
I really really don't want to have a voice line in my apartment, but I have a need for internet access and due to a number of circumstances cannot get my local cable provider's (Cogeco) internet only service, so I am forced to go through Bell Canada.
Yes, I know, I could have got a 3rd party DSL in, but I would still have to go through the Telco to get voice service.
I just want to have the choice of a DSL only line coming in.
And as for the issues of cable providers splitting their internet service away from their other offerings...
Yes, some of them do it very very badly. Horribly in fact. This really shouldn't be surprising in the face of what has happened to the cable industry in the last couple of years.
As a rule, good management does not run you into the ground (vide Adelphia and Charter Communications).
Not all are like that though. Unfortunately, many are...
I can see the logic that went into this plan:
"Well, Akamai has a few million DNS boxes, if we put everything there we'll be fine! That's not a single point of failure!"
Yeah, about that... multiple vendors may have been a good idea in retrospect instead of just one monolithic provider.
Time to re-examine the definition of Single Point of Failure.
The only way they are getting my fingerprints is when the ink them from my cold, dead fingers.
...I wouldn't want to try to sell it as an authentication mechanism to my executive masters.
Granted it does make it harder for the creds to be acquired via social engineering, but... there are easier ways to protect authentication credentials using existing methods, IMO.
For instance, what about the use of passphrases vs. passwords?
I.E. choose a sentence, including some punctuation, a lot harder to defeat with a basic dictionary attack, will likely take a lot longer for a brute force crack and users should (in theory) be able to remember a phrase like, say "Highlander 2 was utter crap!" much more easily than, say, xXzQwtY@#153.
Not as glamourous as the method descibed, but a much easier sell to users.
Combine with a physical token (RSA ID, smart card, whatever) and things get a little harder to break technologically.
Anyway, that's my $0.02.
Yeah right.
I disagree. I have a first name that is rare, a spelling that is even rarer, and I can honestly say the biggest beef I have ever had is that no one ever spells it right. Quite frankly, mom and dad did me a favour with an unusual name.
Oh yeah, I also switched to smoking Drum handrolling tobacco (to cut costs) and ended up smoking a bag and a half a week.
And that stuff ain't weak.
Cold turkey is definitely the way to go.
I went from a 2x 12 cup pot a day habit (and that was just at the office!) to nothing when I left a job 3 years ago...
Mind you, I was living pretty close to the edge of not having a pot to piss in, and cut a lot of luxuries (like coffee, beer, meat) out of the budget early in case I was out of work for a long stretch.
It worked, but I don't necessarily recommend extreme measures for everyone.
I am not caffeine free today, but I am a hell of a lot more moderate in my consumption (when you class a $1.25 medium black from Tim Horton's as a luxury expense, you get a much better appreciation for the stuff when you have an income again) than I was in the old days.
Yeah... Pimp Wars, Monty Python scripts and being given admin priveleges I so did not merit on a buddy's BBS he ran out of his basement.
Those halcyon days of being a geek in incubation...
Indeed. .gov and .mil, which are unabashedly US centric, but what the hell it was a DARPA project after all. The ccTLDs make perfectly good sense in the context of the countries concerned (albeit rendered at times into a different alphabet). .museum) are a) too english-centric for a lot of the world and b) cover ground that should probably be accounted for under an existing ccTLD or gTLD.
This logic tends to be better employed outside the US (witness the more prevalent use of ccTLDs in Europe than in North America).
The original gTLDs were short sweet and to the point... and made sense in the context of most european languages, witht he exception of
I have to say that even the new TLDs that have appeared (.info,
But that's just my $0.02.
It's not only not worthy of an article, it isn't even news. People in and around Toronto have been doing this with .to (Tonga) since 1997.
/*Sarcasm begins*/ /*Sarcasm ends*/ /*Comments added for the humour-challenged*/
What? And make people think?
That's crazy talk. Next you'll be expecting them to start reading books again. And that could lead to thinking, and no one wants that...
...this decision bothers me. A lot. Back in the late 1990s I may have worked in a technical department at an unnamed university, and during exams, the admins and I may have ground the ISDN line we may have had to a halt by downloading music in this nifty new format called "MP3". Hypothetically, we could have downloaded about a gigabyte or two in a barbeque and beer fuelled session (and we didn't have Napster kids, oh no... we had to hunt through search engines for .mp3 extensions). In theory it would have been possible for my administrative amigos to open up the directory on the RAID array to certain other parties of similar muscial taste. Having a (then) mammoth MP3 collection could have made studying in the "multimedia enabled" lab a lot better.
So, theoretically still, had we undertaken this diversion back then, and been pinched (for downloading music of artists that we either:
A) Were interested in checking out, and whose CDs we later purchased (we would have, really) or
B) We already owned a copy of the material and just wanted to have it on hand when working the help desk / studying / goofing off in the CS offices; then
We would suddenly owe the RIAA mad cash?
Damn. Good thing that was just a hypothetical situation when I was a a student. After reading that decision I am now I'm afraid to make tapes for the car...
...and kind of ridiculous. Having been a fulltime student, I had to work 40-60 hour weeks in the summer and part time during the academic year to make the cash for tution books and rent. And that was with help from the bank of mom and dad.
What is the logic behind these damages? Were the students in question getting rich of sharing files? Even if they were before (doubt it) they certainly aren't now.