I was thinking about that last bit when I posted before but I didn't want to mix it with my other post. It looks like they're just trying to get more customers by adding stupid and useless restrictions that tie it to their system and nobody else's. I mean, you could just make some sort of open source implementation of it if the device itself could be reverse engineered:
*** BEGIN SMELL BLOCK *** 06F2A5CC369B2E5857AF1320ED3D *** END SMELL BLOCK ***
Yep... a lot of bandwidth that would use up. (The actual block could probably be a lot smaller.) Course, they probably made absolutely sure that the device is proprietary and hard to reverse engineer... God I hate companies who think like that.
MOST of the time? These people are suing for $150,000 (the maximum copyright penalty) per download as often as they can. Under something like that, I can't afford to even take the RISK I might lose, even if I'm absolutely sure I'm in the clear. And that's for one download. We all know they sue for more than one, and have in the past made incredibly ludicrous claims like multiplying the damages by the speed of one's CD burner.
The US courts consider us CRIMINALS. Unless there's an uprising, that's how it's going to stay.
(If the CRIA sues me, I figure I'll shred my hdd and say I never downloaded noooothing)
In addition to sibling replies, even if you could forge the RFIDs easily, it would only be referring to an entry in the store's database for the product, correct? So you wouldn't be able to change the price, only replace it with the RFID of a lower-priced item, which would look kinda suspicious to the checkout clerk if the product wasn't very similar.
Course, if stores go ahead with the whole "walking out" thing where people pay automatically without the use of clerks and/or cashiers, they probably deserve it.
I agree, ANSI C is available on all systems, and while the book doesn't go into it, I'd recommend Dan Gookin's C For Dummies for anyone seriously wanting to get into programming. It takes a lot of effort (the two volumes are 1200+ pages in total) but it's manageable, and pretty humourous at times (if you've read DOS For Dummies, you'll know what I mean, same author).
And plus you get to deal with the infamous Doctor Modulus O_O
From the point of view of someone who still supports WinME systems, there's a few things that make ME the worst of the Microsoft OSes (other than 3.1):
It still runs on DOS, but Microsoft doesn't want you to know that.
Go into the startup menu of an ME system and you'll see Normal, Logged, Safe Mode, and Step By Step Confirmation. The thing is, it still runs on a DOS architecture, and to fix some of the major common errors with the OS, you need to get into DOS, which means you need a boot disk, which means that if the computer won't start up, you're screwed if you don't have another one at hand.
It's about as stable as an earthquake.
Microsoft was mostly working on Win2K when they suddenly felt they needed to provide a consumer-level OS for people to buy so they could make more money from the OEM PC market. So they took 98, threw in some, but not enough Win2K components, and called it ME. As a result (and as was mentioned below), drivers have to be specially built for ME so that they work with it, and a lot of old hardware, and for that matter, new hardware, isn't supported at all, or has very unstable drivers. It feels like something that was released half-complete, which is pretty much what it is.
Tools have been removed and replaced with crappier ones.
Microsoft, in their wisdom, decided "Hey, let's not let the user change ANY system files AT ALL," so they created the Windows File Protection mechanism whereby a user couldn't easily change certain OS files that allowed it to run. Of course, viruses and spyware could easily get around this. They also removed the System File Checker program that allowed users and techs to scan the system for altered files (this has since been put back in XP), as they figured it would never be needed. They then replaced it with System Restore, a feature which works, oh, about 40% of the time, and even then rarely solves the problem. (I figure they were beta testing it for the later final version inclusion in XP.) So basically, it's a lot more investigative work than necessary to figure out what went wrong in a system without SFC.
So yeah, use XP if you can, or use 98 if you can't. ME is a hodgepodge of poorly thrown together components that will cause you and us pain and suffering.
Umm... He was looking for open source *accounting* software for the most part... Perhaps you are the start of a new trend of not only not reading the articles but also not reading the post?;^)
Slashdot Mirror
Does the video have an FBI warning on it?
I was thinking about that last bit when I posted before but I didn't want to mix it with my other post. It looks like they're just trying to get more customers by adding stupid and useless restrictions that tie it to their system and nobody else's. I mean, you could just make some sort of open source implementation of it if the device itself could be reverse engineered:
*** BEGIN SMELL BLOCK ***
06F2A5CC369B2E5857AF1320ED3D
*** END SMELL BLOCK ***
Yep... a lot of bandwidth that would use up. (The actual block could probably be a lot smaller.) Course, they probably made absolutely sure that the device is proprietary and hard to reverse engineer... God I hate companies who think like that.
Personally, I don't want to know what sort of smell would be associated with penis enlargement spam...
For the uninitiated: Yes, the SPA *was* on crack at the time ;^)
Hell, I'd vote for the EFF's representative, especially over someone like Bush. ;^)
MOST of the time? These people are suing for $150,000 (the maximum copyright penalty) per download as often as they can. Under something like that, I can't afford to even take the RISK I might lose, even if I'm absolutely sure I'm in the clear. And that's for one download. We all know they sue for more than one, and have in the past made incredibly ludicrous claims like multiplying the damages by the speed of one's CD burner.
The US courts consider us CRIMINALS. Unless there's an uprising, that's how it's going to stay.
(If the CRIA sues me, I figure I'll shred my hdd and say I never downloaded noooothing)
SUPPLIER ...: Team ORiON ....: Team ORiON ...: PepsiCo
CRACKER
PACKAGER
Repent, for the Apocalypse is nigh!
Hehe, I was thinking that after I posted it. The movie was pretty good though ;^)
In addition to sibling replies, even if you could forge the RFIDs easily, it would only be referring to an entry in the store's database for the product, correct? So you wouldn't be able to change the price, only replace it with the RFID of a lower-priced item, which would look kinda suspicious to the checkout clerk if the product wasn't very similar.
Course, if stores go ahead with the whole "walking out" thing where people pay automatically without the use of clerks and/or cashiers, they probably deserve it.
*puts on tinfoil helmet covering forehead*
Seriously, this could be loaded into a tattoo gun, could it not?
I might not even know I had one if they knocked me out first:
And we can print in invisible mode for extra security.
So, theoretically, I can go into a record store, open up some CDs, copy them with a portable CD burner, and then put them back?
And if this law is in effect that I can copy someone else's CD, how is that law limited by the medium it is on?
And if it's not, can I declare everyone on Kazaa my friend?
In the latest java.sun.com feature at Sun's Java site...
;^)
Do you not think that Microsoft has patents on many of the things in that code?
The Win2K Source was released a while ago.
Do I have to sign an NDA?
Seriously, this should be pretty interesting. I wonder how many bugs are ACTUALLY in the NT kernels...
I agree, ANSI C is available on all systems, and while the book doesn't go into it, I'd recommend Dan Gookin's C For Dummies for anyone seriously wanting to get into programming. It takes a lot of effort (the two volumes are 1200+ pages in total) but it's manageable, and pretty humourous at times (if you've read DOS For Dummies, you'll know what I mean, same author). And plus you get to deal with the infamous Doctor Modulus O_O
I have, once. But there have been about five other times where I have not been successful.
Go into the startup menu of an ME system and you'll see Normal, Logged, Safe Mode, and Step By Step Confirmation. The thing is, it still runs on a DOS architecture, and to fix some of the major common errors with the OS, you need to get into DOS, which means you need a boot disk, which means that if the computer won't start up, you're screwed if you don't have another one at hand.
Microsoft was mostly working on Win2K when they suddenly felt they needed to provide a consumer-level OS for people to buy so they could make more money from the OEM PC market. So they took 98, threw in some, but not enough Win2K components, and called it ME. As a result (and as was mentioned below), drivers have to be specially built for ME so that they work with it, and a lot of old hardware, and for that matter, new hardware, isn't supported at all, or has very unstable drivers. It feels like something that was released half-complete, which is pretty much what it is.
Microsoft, in their wisdom, decided "Hey, let's not let the user change ANY system files AT ALL," so they created the Windows File Protection mechanism whereby a user couldn't easily change certain OS files that allowed it to run. Of course, viruses and spyware could easily get around this. They also removed the System File Checker program that allowed users and techs to scan the system for altered files (this has since been put back in XP), as they figured it would never be needed. They then replaced it with System Restore, a feature which works, oh, about 40% of the time, and even then rarely solves the problem. (I figure they were beta testing it for the later final version inclusion in XP.) So basically, it's a lot more investigative work than necessary to figure out what went wrong in a system without SFC.
So yeah, use XP if you can, or use 98 if you can't. ME is a hodgepodge of poorly thrown together components that will cause you and us pain and suffering.
Of course these facts come for the absolute UNDISPUTED source of proven independant facts, Microsoft.
BWAHAHAHA
:^D
Best. Troll. Ever.
Umm... He was looking for open source *accounting* software for the most part... Perhaps you are the start of a new trend of not only not reading the articles but also not reading the post? ;^)
Just use one of the other Xbox emulators. One will probably be good enough by the time the Xbox Next comes out ;^)
SCO has now set the A record for its domain to 127.0.0.1, possibly taking advice from the Netcraft article posted here earlier ;^)
And that is pretty much the answer to your question ;^)