By using the term "the real solution to this" you show that you don't think this is the real solution.
I'm going to assume English isn't your first language, because the alternative is to call you an ass. My saying "The real solution to this" wasn't sarcastic, the word "real" wasn't in quotes, and there were no context clues to indicate joking or irony. I said what I meant and what I meant should be clear to anyone with a basic grasp of the language.
So either you didn't understand the consequences, or you fail at english.
b) they not only removed the Windows Media Player, but also Windows Media Codecs
Good grief. They get forced to remove WMP and then people get mad when then they go and remove WMP. When you uninstall Quicktime are you shocked to learn the MP4 and other Apple codecs are also removed? Besides, they're free too.
The whole point was to give consumers "choice" by making them install WMP themselves. Don't ask for something and then cry when you get it.
Most likely it will just ship with a second or third browser installed.
And how will Microsoft select the alternatives? If they were forced to include other browsers, every dinky browser author and company would be pining to get their browser included in the alternatives list, threatening lawsuits if Microsoft doesn't comply. It would also mean that, since the software is supplied by Microsoft as part of Windows, Microsoft has to keep it updated and has to accept a certain level of liability.
The real solution to this is for Microsoft to allow OEMs like Dell, HP, etc to include other browsers on new machines. This would give users the same choices they have with regards to other bundled software and it also leaves the market open, for example, to allow Mozilla or Opera to pay to have their software installed on all Dell machines. This would also prevent Microsoft from needing to keep the first-party bundled browser up-to-date with service packs and updates.
The only downside is that people who buy retail/OEM versions of Windows will still need to use IE to download their choice browser, but I still fail to see how that impacts anything. If the complete failure of Windows N has taught us anything it should be that customers really don't want a crippled out-of-the-box operating system.
any "group policies" you enforce or enable remotely, such as software installs and restrictions, are pretty easy to get around
I think you're missing the point here. Your "exploits" that got you around GPO weren't anything of the sort. You were simply doing what you were allowed to do. As others have said, there is nothing special about installing a program to your home directory. As long as an application doesn't require write privileges to the HKLM (and related) hives, the Program Files directory, the Windows directory, (etc ad nauseum) there is no reason you can't "install" it to your profile. Also, how is using Office to run a program getting around security when you could just run the program manually anyway?
GPO is rarely enforced at it's strictest level because it makes support a nightmare. Users are allowed to run whatever they have rights to read and execute. They can create files and folders in their home directories and profiles, and they can write to their registry hive. Unless you found a way to bypass file/registry ACLs or succeeded in some kind of privilege escalation, you didn't bypass GPO or Windows security at all. If that does happen, it's big news (like the getadmin Win2K exploit, similar to the vmsplice Linux problem).
The caveat to all this is trying to enforce GPO when the user is a local administrator. In that case you've lost before you began.
Microsoft "security" is a joke.
Any real examples? Otherwise you're just spouting FUD. Your mention of resorting to ERD did make me laugh though. Physical access to the machine pretty much guarantees admin/root access regardless so that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
It's nice to see all you have to do to get a +5 Insightful on Slashdot these days is spew unrelated obscenities in a semi-literate fashion. Well done.
I'll bet that this whole thing really has little to do with "Christian nutters" as you so eloquently put it. To get the government to spend that kind of money on that kind of project just screams corporate lobbyists. The real targets of this "censorship" project is probably downloaded music, movies, and software. They can block torrents for movies and software as well as any unofficial music sites like AllOfMP3 (now defunct) and MP3Sparks (still online) -- all in the name of protecting the children.
The fact is, it is incredibly hard to effectively censor pornographic or other generally illicit websites. There are always exceptions to the contextual rules the filters try and use to determine what shouldn't be allowed and URL blacklists are completely worthless. Since the filtering is done at the ISP level, how are you supposed to bypass the filter so you can read that Wikipedia article? On the other hand, blacklists are easy and work great to block domains and IP addresses of the most popular torrent sites and trackers.
The whole thing smells like an attempt at continent-wide piracy prevention, Internet DRM, or whatever you call it. Don't be surprised when port 6969 all of a sudden stops working.
Either he/she thinks "Virtual Memory" is the same thing as paging
Physical memory, virtual memory, address space, and paging files are some of the most misunderstood things your average computer "expert" deals with. When it comes to Windows, few can probably explain why only 3GB of 4GB physical RAM shows up on a 32-bit system. Fewer even can probably define the difference between "virtual memory" and "paging file".
I highly recommend any Windows users or administrators read Mark Russinovich's latest blog entry Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory. It goes over all these things and describes the difference between virtual memory, committed memory, and why it really is important to have a paging file, even on that system with 8GB of physical RAM. Should be required reading for any Windows admin.
On a funny level, I'm curious what you think is a useful application on windows 3.1 that we magically somehow don't have an equivalent of. What do you have in mind?
One word (well, two words really, but only one when smashed together like marketing people like to do): SkiFree.
Sure you can get a 32-bit version that runs under XP and even Vista, but come on! That's nothing like playing it the way it was meant to be played - 16 bits, 100% CPU usage, and Windows 3.1. Everything else is just a poor copy.
My browser already supports audio, video, vector graphics and a scripting language.
Yes, by using a plugin called Flash. This is a plugin that competes with Flash, the first real contender in some time. Competition is good, especially when it competes with Adobe.
(Silverlight required)
And in any case this isn't even true. There are a half dozen download links right in the post:
17 kg at 160 kph could hit the earth anywhere? What if it hits SOMETHING, like a car in the highway or an airplane?
A Boeing 747 with mass 340,000 kg takes off from JFK airport at 3:00 pm and heads towards Los Angeles at a cruising speed of 800 kph. A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia with mass 17 kg jettisoned from the ISS 560 days prior is about to achieve re-entry at 160 kph. Where and when will they meet?
For those interested, there was a really cool hack of hotpatching the files and services that are affected by this exploit. The Microsoft patch isn't designed to be hotpatched, instead requiring a reboot to replace the needed files. However, by using a binary diff and DLL injection you can apply the patch on the fly without rebooting.
I wish Microsoft would put more effort into making the official patches not require a reboot. Consumer operating systems are one thing, but rebooting Windows servers gets annoying really fast.
And now they're just going to jump 300 years into the future, a time when most of the characters from the last two games are dead, and expect it to make sense?
I actually look at it from the other direction. Maybe they're putting this game 300 years afterward for the express reason that all the previous characters are dead. That way, when/if this MMO fails (and even if it doesn't--there are a lot of people with no interest in these online games), they can go ahead and release another standalone KotOR game or two and finish up the KotOR story proper.
I first heard about Microsoft Research somewhere around Jan. 2008. [...] Fast forward almost 11 years. 11 years ok. Let me say it one more time: 11 YEARS. What exactly has Microsoft Research produced in those 11 years that is truly noteworthy?
So somebody found (probably) a SQL injection vulnerability in an obscure Microsoft-hosted site and changed a few submission titles and comments? This is news? It's not like they defaced microsoft.com or anything else even slightly significant.
They couldn't even do something creative with the hole they found. Kids these days...
Plus the gritty, dark, angsty look has been done to death.
And the shiny, glowing, neon-stylized atmosphere hasn't? Besides, since when is trying to make a game feel realistic considered overrated?
I like color.
Then go play Warcraft III or World of Warcraft or Starcraft II or... Hm, anyone else notice a pattern here?
The Diablo series has always been about the stark contrast between good and evil, light and dark. The "gritty, dark" look was there for a reason: True evil and it's effects are not clean, nor are they pretty. You can have light and color in the natural and "good" sides of things, and with effects like magic and buffs, but the environments and equipment (unless possible enchanted) should reflect their likely rough and possibly sordid past. Diablo II felt very real; it was anything but stylized.
I'm not advocating such dark environments that you can't see anything, and I don't think that was really a problem with Diablo II (with the possible exception of a small light radius). I don't think they need to replicate the style of previous Diablo games directly, but I DO think they shouldn't just throw them away for the new "oooh, shiny colors!" motif of all Blizzard's newer games. My biggest concern over Diablo III isn't poor gameplay or a bad story, but rather that it's just going to become Warcraft IV and/or Starcraft With Demons.
To be fair, Joel had very little to do with the actual implementation or development of the site. The majority of the credit for the idea and actual creation should go to Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror.
Personally I think it's a great idea, if for no other reason than to put the screws to Expert Sexchange. Their stupid referrer sniffing and page layout designed to make people pay to see answers has gone on long enough.
Seriously though, I've always been confused why they don't issue a quick patch to Diablo II to let us play it at a higher resolution.
In all fairness, they did increase the resolution from 640x480 to 800x600 with the Diablo II LoD Expansion pack. This was a huge benefit to play (and re-play) motivation.
What I'm surprised about is that they haven't done anything for Starcraft's resolution. The only thing I can figure is that at some point the game reached an "untouchable" status where they didn't feel it was right or fair to make such a sweeping change.
In any case, I'm hoping Starcraft II has something akin to Supreme Commander's strategic view, so you can zoom out far enough to see more of the battlefield. I'm not holding my breath though.
Data usage, also known as bandwidth usage, is the amount of data, such as images, movies, photos, videos, and other files that customers send, receive, download or upload over a specific period of time.
A more interesting question might be, what will this do to the overall average torrent share ratio? Considering that every megabyte you upload is one less you can download, I've got to think it will take a pretty serious hit once they start enforcing this. The scare alone will probably be enough to make it take a noticeable cut.
Does that also mean it's NOT as fast as native C/C++ code because C# is blatantly not and thus is part of the marketing guff that you were gulliable to believe?
.NET languages have a JIT compiler that is automatically invoked when the application is run. This compiles the program down to native binary code for the current architecture and operating system. The resulting binary is cached on the system so future executions can skip the compiling process. Additionally the compiler can be executed manually when the program is installed to prevent the first-run delay.
That said, in general programs written using the.NET framework end up with the same basic overhead as a program written in C/C++. The biggest difference are all the.NET libraries and other managed features of the language. In this way C# would be about the same as C++ using a bunch of dynamically-linked 3rd party libraries and a completely autonomous garbage collection library.
Obviously this is more overhead than a small and simple C program but that wasn't the point. I think it would be interesting if you could provide pre-compiled Javascript files to browsers for execution -- give it the bytecode directly and allow it to skip the compile process. This would make Javascript much more like Java in that regard.
I think it's very telling that you call it "the ice age", as if there's only been one.
Dur. That was originally "the last ice age" but I restructured my post and it got lost apparently.
In any case, my point stands. There are lots of examples to choose from, but The Ice Age (as a proper noun) is commonly used to indicate just the last event and is widely known.
Global warming is a misnomer anyway - it should be called, "global climate instability."
The earth's climate is a control system. As it becomes unstable [...]
Both of you are assuming that the Earth's climate has ever been stable, but even if it is stable, who's to say that it's becoming unstable now? We've seen evidence of relatively severe fluctuations in the climate, the ice age for example, which suggest that it's normal for the climate to change. To us it seems significant but when taken in the proper scope it's likely to be business as usual.
Getting people worked up about things nobody can change is simply an ace-in-the-hole for politicians.
Slashdot Mirror
Because they were delivered with cookies like all packages from the dark side!
No, no. Not cookies. Cake!
By using the term "the real solution to this" you show that you don't think this is the real solution.
I'm going to assume English isn't your first language, because the alternative is to call you an ass. My saying "The real solution to this" wasn't sarcastic, the word "real" wasn't in quotes, and there were no context clues to indicate joking or irony. I said what I meant and what I meant should be clear to anyone with a basic grasp of the language.
So either you didn't understand the consequences, or you fail at english.
Coming from anyone else that would be an insult.
Microsoft wouldn't- the computer manufacturer would.
If you'd read past the third sentence of my post you'd see that's exactly what I said. Good work.
a) it had the same price
That's because Windows Media Player is free.
b) they not only removed the Windows Media Player, but also Windows Media Codecs
Good grief. They get forced to remove WMP and then people get mad when then they go and remove WMP. When you uninstall Quicktime are you shocked to learn the MP4 and other Apple codecs are also removed? Besides, they're free too.
The whole point was to give consumers "choice" by making them install WMP themselves. Don't ask for something and then cry when you get it.
Most likely it will just ship with a second or third browser installed.
And how will Microsoft select the alternatives? If they were forced to include other browsers, every dinky browser author and company would be pining to get their browser included in the alternatives list, threatening lawsuits if Microsoft doesn't comply. It would also mean that, since the software is supplied by Microsoft as part of Windows, Microsoft has to keep it updated and has to accept a certain level of liability.
The real solution to this is for Microsoft to allow OEMs like Dell, HP, etc to include other browsers on new machines. This would give users the same choices they have with regards to other bundled software and it also leaves the market open, for example, to allow Mozilla or Opera to pay to have their software installed on all Dell machines. This would also prevent Microsoft from needing to keep the first-party bundled browser up-to-date with service packs and updates.
The only downside is that people who buy retail/OEM versions of Windows will still need to use IE to download their choice browser, but I still fail to see how that impacts anything. If the complete failure of Windows N has taught us anything it should be that customers really don't want a crippled out-of-the-box operating system.
any "group policies" you enforce or enable remotely, such as software installs and restrictions, are pretty easy to get around
I think you're missing the point here. Your "exploits" that got you around GPO weren't anything of the sort. You were simply doing what you were allowed to do. As others have said, there is nothing special about installing a program to your home directory. As long as an application doesn't require write privileges to the HKLM (and related) hives, the Program Files directory, the Windows directory, (etc ad nauseum) there is no reason you can't "install" it to your profile. Also, how is using Office to run a program getting around security when you could just run the program manually anyway?
GPO is rarely enforced at it's strictest level because it makes support a nightmare. Users are allowed to run whatever they have rights to read and execute. They can create files and folders in their home directories and profiles, and they can write to their registry hive. Unless you found a way to bypass file/registry ACLs or succeeded in some kind of privilege escalation, you didn't bypass GPO or Windows security at all. If that does happen, it's big news (like the getadmin Win2K exploit, similar to the vmsplice Linux problem).
The caveat to all this is trying to enforce GPO when the user is a local administrator. In that case you've lost before you began.
Microsoft "security" is a joke.
Any real examples? Otherwise you're just spouting FUD. Your mention of resorting to ERD did make me laugh though. Physical access to the machine pretty much guarantees admin/root access regardless so that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
[Parent comment omitted]
It's nice to see all you have to do to get a +5 Insightful on Slashdot these days is spew unrelated obscenities in a semi-literate fashion. Well done.
I'll bet that this whole thing really has little to do with "Christian nutters" as you so eloquently put it. To get the government to spend that kind of money on that kind of project just screams corporate lobbyists. The real targets of this "censorship" project is probably downloaded music, movies, and software. They can block torrents for movies and software as well as any unofficial music sites like AllOfMP3 (now defunct) and MP3Sparks (still online) -- all in the name of protecting the children.
The fact is, it is incredibly hard to effectively censor pornographic or other generally illicit websites. There are always exceptions to the contextual rules the filters try and use to determine what shouldn't be allowed and URL blacklists are completely worthless. Since the filtering is done at the ISP level, how are you supposed to bypass the filter so you can read that Wikipedia article? On the other hand, blacklists are easy and work great to block domains and IP addresses of the most popular torrent sites and trackers.
The whole thing smells like an attempt at continent-wide piracy prevention, Internet DRM, or whatever you call it. Don't be surprised when port 6969 all of a sudden stops working.
Either he/she thinks "Virtual Memory" is the same thing as paging
Physical memory, virtual memory, address space, and paging files are some of the most misunderstood things your average computer "expert" deals with. When it comes to Windows, few can probably explain why only 3GB of 4GB physical RAM shows up on a 32-bit system. Fewer even can probably define the difference between "virtual memory" and "paging file".
I highly recommend any Windows users or administrators read Mark Russinovich's latest blog entry Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory . It goes over all these things and describes the difference between virtual memory, committed memory, and why it really is important to have a paging file, even on that system with 8GB of physical RAM. Should be required reading for any Windows admin.
That's a tool bag!
Sigh...
There go another set of $10,000 government hammers -- not to mention the $24,000 socket set :(
(Ha. As an aside, I wonder how much that tool bag really cost when you factor in its mass during launch.)
On a funny level, I'm curious what you think is a useful application on windows 3.1 that we magically somehow don't have an equivalent of. What do you have in mind?
One word (well, two words really, but only one when smashed together like marketing people like to do): SkiFree.
Sure you can get a 32-bit version that runs under XP and even Vista, but come on! That's nothing like playing it the way it was meant to be played - 16 bits, 100% CPU usage, and Windows 3.1. Everything else is just a poor copy.
My browser already supports audio, video, vector graphics and a scripting language.
Yes, by using a plugin called Flash. This is a plugin that competes with Flash, the first real contender in some time. Competition is good, especially when it competes with Adobe.
(Silverlight required)
And in any case this isn't even true. There are a half dozen download links right in the post:
MP4
MP3
WMV
WMV High
17 kg at 160 kph could hit the earth anywhere?
What if it hits SOMETHING, like a car in the highway or an airplane?
A Boeing 747 with mass 340,000 kg takes off from JFK airport at 3:00 pm and heads towards Los Angeles at a cruising speed of 800 kph. A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia with mass 17 kg jettisoned from the ISS 560 days prior is about to achieve re-entry at 160 kph. Where and when will they meet?
I hate these stupid questions.
For those interested, there was a really cool hack of hotpatching the files and services that are affected by this exploit. The Microsoft patch isn't designed to be hotpatched, instead requiring a reboot to replace the needed files. However, by using a binary diff and DLL injection you can apply the patch on the fly without rebooting.
I wish Microsoft would put more effort into making the official patches not require a reboot. Consumer operating systems are one thing, but rebooting Windows servers gets annoying really fast.
And now they're just going to jump 300 years into the future, a time when most of the characters from the last two games are dead, and expect it to make sense?
I actually look at it from the other direction. Maybe they're putting this game 300 years afterward for the express reason that all the previous characters are dead. That way, when/if this MMO fails (and even if it doesn't--there are a lot of people with no interest in these online games), they can go ahead and release another standalone KotOR game or two and finish up the KotOR story proper.
Or maybe that's just hope talking :(
I first heard about Microsoft Research somewhere around Jan. 2008. [...] Fast forward almost 11 years. 11 years ok. Let me say it one more time: 11 YEARS. What exactly has Microsoft Research produced in those 11 years that is truly noteworthy?
A time machine?
This isn't news.
Well, you're right about that at least. The whole thing is a joke. Here is the evidence (consider yourself saved from 3 pages of ads):
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
So somebody found (probably) a SQL injection vulnerability in an obscure Microsoft-hosted site and changed a few submission titles and comments? This is news? It's not like they defaced microsoft.com or anything else even slightly significant.
They couldn't even do something creative with the hole they found. Kids these days...
For anyone curious, Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror recently wrote about them in his blog. Included are some additional details and a couple of examples.
At face value it's a somewhat obvious exploit, but still interesting.
Plus the gritty, dark, angsty look has been done to death.
And the shiny, glowing, neon-stylized atmosphere hasn't? Besides, since when is trying to make a game feel realistic considered overrated?
I like color.
Then go play Warcraft III or World of Warcraft or Starcraft II or... Hm, anyone else notice a pattern here?
The Diablo series has always been about the stark contrast between good and evil, light and dark. The "gritty, dark" look was there for a reason: True evil and it's effects are not clean, nor are they pretty. You can have light and color in the natural and "good" sides of things, and with effects like magic and buffs, but the environments and equipment (unless possible enchanted) should reflect their likely rough and possibly sordid past. Diablo II felt very real; it was anything but stylized.
I'm not advocating such dark environments that you can't see anything, and I don't think that was really a problem with Diablo II (with the possible exception of a small light radius). I don't think they need to replicate the style of previous Diablo games directly, but I DO think they shouldn't just throw them away for the new "oooh, shiny colors!" motif of all Blizzard's newer games. My biggest concern over Diablo III isn't poor gameplay or a bad story, but rather that it's just going to become Warcraft IV and/or Starcraft With Demons.
To be fair, Joel had very little to do with the actual implementation or development of the site. The majority of the credit for the idea and actual creation should go to Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror.
Personally I think it's a great idea, if for no other reason than to put the screws to Expert Sexchange. Their stupid referrer sniffing and page layout designed to make people pay to see answers has gone on long enough.
Seriously though, I've always been confused why they don't issue a quick patch to Diablo II to let us play it at a higher resolution.
In all fairness, they did increase the resolution from 640x480 to 800x600 with the Diablo II LoD Expansion pack. This was a huge benefit to play (and re-play) motivation.
What I'm surprised about is that they haven't done anything for Starcraft's resolution. The only thing I can figure is that at some point the game reached an "untouchable" status where they didn't feel it was right or fair to make such a sweeping change.
In any case, I'm hoping Starcraft II has something akin to Supreme Commander's strategic view, so you can zoom out far enough to see more of the battlefield. I'm not holding my breath though.
Notice that it doesn't say anything about if the 'data limit' is uploaded data or downloaded. My guess is they'll make it combined.
Of course they will, and I can't really blame them as it makes sense to account for all traffic when speaking of bandwidth limits.
From http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use:
A more interesting question might be, what will this do to the overall average torrent share ratio? Considering that every megabyte you upload is one less you can download, I've got to think it will take a pretty serious hit once they start enforcing this. The scare alone will probably be enough to make it take a noticeable cut.
Does that also mean it's NOT as fast as native C/C++ code because C# is blatantly not and thus is part of the marketing guff that you were gulliable to believe?
That said, in general programs written using the .NET framework end up with the same basic overhead as a program written in C/C++. The biggest difference are all the .NET libraries and other managed features of the language. In this way C# would be about the same as C++ using a bunch of dynamically-linked 3rd party libraries and a completely autonomous garbage collection library.
Obviously this is more overhead than a small and simple C program but that wasn't the point. I think it would be interesting if you could provide pre-compiled Javascript files to browsers for execution -- give it the bytecode directly and allow it to skip the compile process. This would make Javascript much more like Java in that regard.
I think it's very telling that you call it "the ice age", as if there's only been one.
Dur. That was originally "the last ice age" but I restructured my post and it got lost apparently.
In any case, my point stands. There are lots of examples to choose from, but The Ice Age (as a proper noun) is commonly used to indicate just the last event and is widely known.
Both of you are assuming that the Earth's climate has ever been stable, but even if it is stable, who's to say that it's becoming unstable now? We've seen evidence of relatively severe fluctuations in the climate, the ice age for example, which suggest that it's normal for the climate to change. To us it seems significant but when taken in the proper scope it's likely to be business as usual.
Getting people worked up about things nobody can change is simply an ace-in-the-hole for politicians.
All Perl needs is a shiny new catch phrase...
Perl on Rails?
CloudPerl?
Extreme Perl?
Perl#?
Perl.NET