In fact, the MCM/70 could be described as the Avro Arrow of computing history. It was truly ahead of its time and showed lots of promise, but never quite took off because, at least in part, it was made in Canada
The computer, brought to you by the same country that brought you Hockey, beer, and cheap healthcare, the staples of American life!
Not necessarily #1, but definately #2. Its a fact of life- the code is in flux. Granted, at this late state of code development, changes to the function of the code should not be occuring, only bug fixes to previously coded functionality. That said, I'm sure it still occurs.
I know I'm throwing gasoline on a fire here, but it makes the point: Anyone that has ever tried coding something big in Java knows this firsthand. Sun changes the way Java behaves in every release, including point releases. Hopefully, Linux (and everything else) behaves better between releases, but I'm sure the code functionality still fluxes occasionally, just to show everyone who's the boss!
Seriously, its great and all, but when will it be ready for the masses? I.e. the holy 2.6 release? For us, loading a beta (or even alpha) kernel is something that we can do in our sleep, but look at it from this perspective: all of these improvements will only really make an impact once developers can write applications specific for this environment, which requires, at a minimum, an official release.
The article seems to imply that this came as a complete surprise to the RIAA. Talk about an organization that can dish it out, but not take it. They were (allegedly) using unlicensed software. Oh jeez, I'm shocked!
Then again, its kinda like those "stupid news" stories about the burgler sueing the owners of the house he broke into, because the stairs weren't up to code, causing him to trip and break an arm.
I partially agree. Without starting the world's largest flamefest, there have been very successful closed source OSs. Notably OS390 & 400. Granted, you paid an arm, leg, and reproductive organ for the privledge, and therefore they were never designed for the masses, but for their market they are very well designed, traditionally (although this is changing) closed source software.
Oranges-to-oranges I do agree though, for the same machine, Open Source OSs do have security advantages.
the most important line in the article: "And simply patching the vulnerability--as Microsoft has increasingly had to do on the fly as vulnerabilities are disclosed--only exacerbates the problem."
Finally someone realizes its not enough to just fix the problem, problems should be avoided in the first place! (I know, I know, easier said than done, {insert OS here} isn't perfect either).
...on how long it will be before this new copy proof cd has been cracked. I give it until Monday.
Ok, seriously, as fancy as the disc sounds, the recording industry doesn't have the best track record of producing strong piracy controls. IIRC, the last scheme they tried was defeated with a magic marker.
It sounds to me like the Marketing dept. of HP jumped the gun on this one.
1. Guarantee customers will not have to pay license fees.
2. Free press
?
4. Profit.
Unfortunately, by guaranteeing against SCO's claim, they didn't realize that they might be guaranteeing against some other companies not-yet-filed claim (the ? above), and hence might not get to 4.
This may be delayed, but it will happen. Assuming that it is really 50 million people, and not 50 million numbers (big difference, I myself registered 3 numbers), Washington politicians can not ignore that large of a group. 1/6 of the US population is large enough to push through legislation no matter now much money the DMA puts toward lobbying.
I couldn't find this info anywhere on the link from the college article, but does anyone know how much the hardware for these free calls costs? If it is much more than a typical phone, considering the low cost of long distance / wireless, it could very well never pay off to use the service.
I'm not trying to be a tool here, but seriously, does anyone ever expect any piece of software to be 100% foolproof? Software is complex, and in its complexity lies opportunity for problems to arise. Sometimes they are simple coding mistakes, sometimes they are problems that arise when the software isn't used as its developers envisioned.
As users of software though, it is irresponsible to assume that just because it is commercial, open source, MS, non-MS, or whoever is the messiah of the day's product that it will never have unexpected problems. Admittedly, some companies software appears to be worse than others, but that is the gamble we take when we build complex systems.
I fondly do remember WordPerfect's Reveal Codes feature. While this is more a reflection on the simplistic nature of WordPerfect (and other word processors of the day), being able to see all of the formatting codes as they appeared in a document was great help when trying to format a document to look a certain way, but have it turn out completely different. Also, if I remember correctly, you could even type in the codes exactly where you wanted them to appear.
Its unfortunate the power that PR and Marketing departments have in a company these days. I'm not saying anyone should talk down about their own products, but statements like this are just a regurgitation of some form-letter-like marketing material. It used to be that you could get frank conversation from most companies. Honest "Yes we would like you to buy our product. Its strong suits are A, B, and C, while it isn't necessarily comparable to Co. X's product in circumstances 1, 2, and 3, we think that in your situation this isn't too significant of an issue because of... etc." rhetoric. It truely allows customers to debate the value of various products, and, IMHO, builds trust and faith in the vendor. Unfortunately, as many of us are aware, product shortcomings are discovered either through external sources, or, even worse, after the ink is dry.
Oh well, maybe I'm just being a little too altruistic.
RTFA... old technology
on
RFID Hell
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Its really about the UK employing technology to track pedophiles that has been used for some time in the US. Granted the parallels to RFID are there, but the bigger issue is whether one can be tagged after being convicted and serving a sentence. The laws in the US have flip-flopped on this one several times, generally the only time this sort of monitoring holds up is when it is a part of the original conviction of the criminal. Therefore, there are some precedents for electronic monitoring, the real question is whether they will apply once the private sector faces legal challenges regarding the use of RFID to track innocent people.
Honestly I've never tried. I only use Wine when I absolutely have to run a Windows app in Linux. Generally, I keep an old junker under my desk for apps that really only run on Windows (I.e. Yahoo IM w/ voice, etc), and use VNC from my Linux machine.
Don't knock this too hard... it has been used in the past. Back in college when I designed web pages I used to use a Wacom tablet, which for those of you that have never used one, is a large tablet that lets you control the mouse with a pen. The pens had magnets built into them, and the tablet sensed the position, orientation, and button presses by a change in the magnetic field. The biggest advantage of this was a pen that was lightweight and didn't need either a cord or batteries to operate.
Unfortunately (or possibly, by design), the pens only functioned up to about 1 inch above the surface of the tablet, however considering how well it functioned, it would not surprise me if this technology could be improved to the point where accurate communication could take place over several feet, i.e. Bluetooth range.
I used this software several years ago. While it does exactly what it does, the biggest problem was the sever lack of an installed base. Once Yahoo started integrating voice chat into their IM client, I really had no use for it. Its unfortunate though, since I always felt the sound quality was inferior on Yahoo (and the others that have since come along), but I'd imagine that was due to those clients compressing more to save bandwidth.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, the reality is it is not cost effective to implement multi-vendor solutions for most applications, not to mention my company does significant business with customer's systems, where we have minimal (if any) actual say in what is implemented. Midsized companies just can't afford to spend significant $$$ on software. Hindsight is always better than 20-20, and in retrospect we definately would have implemented less customized applications that were more platform neutral, but we're a 27 year old company, back in 1977 these problems didn't exist. Today it is difficult, expensive, and slow to migrate to more flexible software (or migrate to _anything_). As my boss says, unfortunately, sometimes it just isn't worth the trouble.
As much as I'd love to use SO (or, insert other non-MS product here), the unfortunate reality is most business applications my company uses (and our clients as well) that sit on the desktop require Office. It simply isn't enough to say "This can open & save Word / Excel / etc. documents." A true replacement needs to support MS plugins, VBA (ugh, but sorry, its needed), and so on before we can even consider it. Unfortunately, as absurd as MS pricing is, its an all-or-nothing battle too, the cost to support each additional Office Suite is just too high for a midsized (500-1000 user) shop. We've tried talking to dozens of vendors just to get a timeline on this sort of thing, and with the occasional exception of a few that are porting apps to Java, most aren't even considering it, simply because of the costs they would incur for what appears to be a small market.
Unfortunately, I know its a chicken & egg situation: My company can't switch until a good number of our business apps support non-MS software, but... well, this is slashdot, you know the rest.
Slashdot Mirror
The computer, brought to you by the same country that brought you Hockey, beer, and cheap healthcare, the staples of American life!
Not necessarily #1, but definately #2. Its a fact of life- the code is in flux. Granted, at this late state of code development, changes to the function of the code should not be occuring, only bug fixes to previously coded functionality. That said, I'm sure it still occurs.
I know I'm throwing gasoline on a fire here, but it makes the point: Anyone that has ever tried coding something big in Java knows this firsthand. Sun changes the way Java behaves in every release, including point releases. Hopefully, Linux (and everything else) behaves better between releases, but I'm sure the code functionality still fluxes occasionally, just to show everyone who's the boss!
Seriously, its great and all, but when will it be ready for the masses? I.e. the holy 2.6 release? For us, loading a beta (or even alpha) kernel is something that we can do in our sleep, but look at it from this perspective: all of these improvements will only really make an impact once developers can write applications specific for this environment, which requires, at a minimum, an official release.
The article seems to imply that this came as a complete surprise to the RIAA. Talk about an organization that can dish it out, but not take it. They were (allegedly) using unlicensed software. Oh jeez, I'm shocked!
Then again, its kinda like those "stupid news" stories about the burgler sueing the owners of the house he broke into, because the stairs weren't up to code, causing him to trip and break an arm.
I partially agree. Without starting the world's largest flamefest, there have been very successful closed source OSs. Notably OS390 & 400. Granted, you paid an arm, leg, and reproductive organ for the privledge, and therefore they were never designed for the masses, but for their market they are very well designed, traditionally (although this is changing) closed source software.
Oranges-to-oranges I do agree though, for the same machine, Open Source OSs do have security advantages.
the most important line in the article:
"And simply patching the vulnerability--as Microsoft has increasingly had to do on the fly as vulnerabilities are disclosed--only exacerbates the problem."
Finally someone realizes its not enough to just fix the problem, problems should be avoided in the first place! (I know, I know, easier said than done, {insert OS here} isn't perfect either).
...on how long it will be before this new copy proof cd has been cracked. I give it until Monday.
Ok, seriously, as fancy as the disc sounds, the recording industry doesn't have the best track record of producing strong piracy controls. IIRC, the last scheme they tried was defeated with a magic marker.
It sounds to me like the Marketing dept. of HP jumped the gun on this one. 1. Guarantee customers will not have to pay license fees. 2. Free press ? 4. Profit. Unfortunately, by guaranteeing against SCO's claim, they didn't realize that they might be guaranteeing against some other companies not-yet-filed claim (the ? above), and hence might not get to 4.
This may be delayed, but it will happen. Assuming that it is really 50 million people, and not 50 million numbers (big difference, I myself registered 3 numbers), Washington politicians can not ignore that large of a group. 1/6 of the US population is large enough to push through legislation no matter now much money the DMA puts toward lobbying.
...for all the lip service various Federal agencies spew regarding reporting incidents like this, they sure don't seem to be acting.
Thanks for the info. I guess that really isn't too unreasonable, considering any decent cell / wireless phone is going to cost at least that.
I couldn't find this info anywhere on the link from the college article, but does anyone know how much the hardware for these free calls costs? If it is much more than a typical phone, considering the low cost of long distance / wireless, it could very well never pay off to use the service.
I'm not trying to be a tool here, but seriously, does anyone ever expect any piece of software to be 100% foolproof? Software is complex, and in its complexity lies opportunity for problems to arise. Sometimes they are simple coding mistakes, sometimes they are problems that arise when the software isn't used as its developers envisioned.
As users of software though, it is irresponsible to assume that just because it is commercial, open source, MS, non-MS, or whoever is the messiah of the day's product that it will never have unexpected problems. Admittedly, some companies software appears to be worse than others, but that is the gamble we take when we build complex systems.
I fondly do remember WordPerfect's Reveal Codes feature. While this is more a reflection on the simplistic nature of WordPerfect (and other word processors of the day), being able to see all of the formatting codes as they appeared in a document was great help when trying to format a document to look a certain way, but have it turn out completely different. Also, if I remember correctly, you could even type in the codes exactly where you wanted them to appear.
Its unfortunate the power that PR and Marketing departments have in a company these days. I'm not saying anyone should talk down about their own products, but statements like this are just a regurgitation of some form-letter-like marketing material. It used to be that you could get frank conversation from most companies. Honest "Yes we would like you to buy our product. Its strong suits are A, B, and C, while it isn't necessarily comparable to Co. X's product in circumstances 1, 2, and 3, we think that in your situation this isn't too significant of an issue because of... etc." rhetoric. It truely allows customers to debate the value of various products, and, IMHO, builds trust and faith in the vendor. Unfortunately, as many of us are aware, product shortcomings are discovered either through external sources, or, even worse, after the ink is dry.
Oh well, maybe I'm just being a little too altruistic.
Its really about the UK employing technology to track pedophiles that has been used for some time in the US. Granted the parallels to RFID are there, but the bigger issue is whether one can be tagged after being convicted and serving a sentence. The laws in the US have flip-flopped on this one several times, generally the only time this sort of monitoring holds up is when it is a part of the original conviction of the criminal. Therefore, there are some precedents for electronic monitoring, the real question is whether they will apply once the private sector faces legal challenges regarding the use of RFID to track innocent people.
Honestly I've never tried. I only use Wine when I absolutely have to run a Windows app in Linux. Generally, I keep an old junker under my desk for apps that really only run on Windows (I.e. Yahoo IM w/ voice, etc), and use VNC from my Linux machine.
Don't knock this too hard... it has been used in the past. Back in college when I designed web pages I used to use a Wacom tablet, which for those of you that have never used one, is a large tablet that lets you control the mouse with a pen. The pens had magnets built into them, and the tablet sensed the position, orientation, and button presses by a change in the magnetic field. The biggest advantage of this was a pen that was lightweight and didn't need either a cord or batteries to operate.
Unfortunately (or possibly, by design), the pens only functioned up to about 1 inch above the surface of the tablet, however considering how well it functioned, it would not surprise me if this technology could be improved to the point where accurate communication could take place over several feet, i.e. Bluetooth range.
I used this software several years ago. While it does exactly what it does, the biggest problem was the sever lack of an installed base. Once Yahoo started integrating voice chat into their IM client, I really had no use for it. Its unfortunate though, since I always felt the sound quality was inferior on Yahoo (and the others that have since come along), but I'd imagine that was due to those clients compressing more to save bandwidth.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, the reality is it is not cost effective to implement multi-vendor solutions for most applications, not to mention my company does significant business with customer's systems, where we have minimal (if any) actual say in what is implemented. Midsized companies just can't afford to spend significant $$$ on software. Hindsight is always better than 20-20, and in retrospect we definately would have implemented less customized applications that were more platform neutral, but we're a 27 year old company, back in 1977 these problems didn't exist. Today it is difficult, expensive, and slow to migrate to more flexible software (or migrate to _anything_). As my boss says, unfortunately, sometimes it just isn't worth the trouble.
As much as I'd love to use SO (or, insert other non-MS product here), the unfortunate reality is most business applications my company uses (and our clients as well) that sit on the desktop require Office. It simply isn't enough to say "This can open & save Word / Excel / etc. documents." A true replacement needs to support MS plugins, VBA (ugh, but sorry, its needed), and so on before we can even consider it. Unfortunately, as absurd as MS pricing is, its an all-or-nothing battle too, the cost to support each additional Office Suite is just too high for a midsized (500-1000 user) shop. We've tried talking to dozens of vendors just to get a timeline on this sort of thing, and with the occasional exception of a few that are porting apps to Java, most aren't even considering it, simply because of the costs they would incur for what appears to be a small market. Unfortunately, I know its a chicken & egg situation: My company can't switch until a good number of our business apps support non-MS software, but... well, this is slashdot, you know the rest.