There are a myriad companies that Microsoft has bought, then put to good use. Some were then thrown off a cliff (like McAfee does/did with Network General and OilChange) while others made them smarter. They need the brains.
And they need a new authentication methodology, a new networking stack, and a new registry protection mechanism not made of tissue paper.
That doesn't mean they'll get it. So many people have blown up Vista (yes, I know it's not RC+ yet) that Microsoft must be rattled to their very core (yes, Bill-- you, you crummy half-assed programmer) before they'll believe their customers.
It's a classic case of Sales Department Rules (Ballmer) and everything else drools. Hit the sales department in the wallet, and things change. Look for a big change from Microsoft soon when they report that XP sales are down and that Windows 2003 server's recent sales peak has now hit the skids, and the X360's are costing a fortune. Mark these words.
The old stuff had so many holes we stopped counting. Based on BSD stuff that had been around since the early '90s, Microsoft had to change the stacks.
The new provider modules are a step ahead of what they'd been using. This is what Symantec is mad about: being left out of the anti-virus and spyware game. Look to see that Microsoft also purchased Win/Sysinternals today to see what else motivates Symantec. Their cash cow, a flea-bitten operating system-- might just work for a change.
1) Microsoft announces 'free' Virtual PC for free. Yawn. We're already down the street on this one. Yes, instances of Virtual Server are cool. Move along, please. 2) VMWare announces 'free' VMWare Server-- a while after their other free stuff is announced; a nice embarrassment for Microsoft, who lags miserably here. 3) SUSE comes out with Xen; proving once again that it's as fragile as any code made with toothpicks. Really: this stuff explodes into little bits if you're not careful. 4) Microsoft, not to be out done, and needing to mod their kernel to accomodate Xen's odd functionality, claims future support.
And it gets 7 miles to the gallon. It was invented for a bygone era. And he can afford to drive it less than two tanks of gas per year.
Sure, I can get a 386 and even an 8088 to work with weird ports of Linux or other OSes. But why? They're slower than molasses and use up more energy than four reasonable incadescent light bulbs.
I like being able to use old hardware-- hassleing the hell out of it with work. But there's a point where the functionality vs service costs make it impractical, and more of a curiousity than something useful.
Energy conservation is a good thing, even if we're all pissed at the state of energy markets today. They've misplaced the emphasis, unfortunately.
Consider:
1) All of the brick power supplies we're using that suck energy 24/7 when in use, or not 2) CRT energy efficiency vs information they give us compared to LCDs 3) Plasma displays. You can heat your living rooms with them 4) The state of ACPI and other energy savings initiatives, like EnergyStar jokes 5) How batteries are polluting aquifers because they're thrown away into landfills, then melt over time into ugly pools of toxic metal concentrations 6) How computing machinery disposal anarchy pollutes as much or more than #5 7) Why I have to buy a new set of computers and cell phones and PDAs so often..... and recycle the old ones (sorry, even Linux can't save a 486SX-25 machine)
This was for the perception that Congress is concerned. Instead, they're demonstrating technology cluelessness once again.
1) be happy that these didn't go into the drink (and stop worrying about that foam stuff) 2) it only cost $14B per space ball 3) they're rumored to bounce! 4) they're using WiFi, but on Channel 14 (at least it's MIMO!) 5) they can be used to fix the Hubble!!
These nine pound balls of your spacial tax dollars could become:
1) garbage collectors for all the space junk out there in orbit around us 2) a new and interesting way of getting rid of those pesky competing satellites 3) spiffy stratosphere-bouncing little comm links 4) ways to make sure that Indian satellites don't achieve orbit 5) new and interesting ways of avoiding Azimov's Laws of Robots-- including the Zeroeth Law
Armies of lobbyists and lawyers go into the Rayburn building and across the hill to cow legislators. It's not a partisan issue-- it's a Jack Welch/We're Big And Here's Our Army To Prove It posture.
Look at where the lobbying dollars and perks are spent, and by whom. Then mod the parent up as he/she's absolutely on target. This isn't about common sense, this is about re-writing the Telecom Act of 1935 (as amended) and pulling back decades of consumer-focused legal decisions and legislation to one specific end:
THE TELCOs. IT's THE MONEY, STUPID. FOLLOW IT AND FIND THE ABYSS OF YOUR ONCE FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT.
Dateline San Jose CA July 5, 2011: The Google anti-trust ligitation now in its fifth year, may now come to a conclusion says Pamela Jonesish, chief blogger of CommLaw, the site that's tracking the litigation surrounding anti-trust and the old concept of 'net-neutrality'.
"Who would have ever believed that these nutcases could have gotten this far" said Pamela, also known as PJ-ish. "When HD-IPTV finally clogged the pipes to the point where nothing could get through, even ICMP, we all knew the jig was up. Now that Verizon is in Chapter 11 and AT&T has merged with the remaining remnants of the 'baby bells', market leader Comcast-Time Warner believes that the Google litigation should end"....
String theory is almost recursive.... a snake eating its tail.
TFA is right in one thing-- it's lead to physicist bigotry.... an increasingly inbred idea that string theory rules and all else drools, but in dimension 9. So many things are unsolved.... and Hawking has helped but the mathematicians that used to rule physicists are finding themselves in a reverse role, where expostulations must be found to match equations which were pimped for expostulation.
It's like curve-fitting, but with unprovable geometry, not Euclidian and not non-Euclidian.
The article thinks it's a glowing thing because it costs >$100.... without any comparisons to others-- even the higher priced ones.
Yes, it's nice to see things in the 2.4Ghz band. It's very simple and that simplicity can be useful for those looking for simple amplitude nearby. Beyond that, there are lots of things that it doesn't do.... including letting someone using this as a tool identify lots of signal types-- not just that there might be something inside the boundaries.
So, the dialog goes: Ug. Look: something nearby. Bummer.
Beyond that, nothing, and there's little gradient or other measure within the context of the review to say it's anything more than a very simple SA.... with no other context to describe it.... no comparisons... no test info....nothing.
That's my point-- citing it on price rather than functionality. It has basal functionality-- and apparently no more.
I'm not trying to justify the price of more expensive SAs. Instead, the article misses a lot of points and comparisons with the higher priced stuff, then baits the article with price so as to justify it. A good RF engineer could do his/her own fairly easily. The software that does the rest takes a helluva lot more. Basic FFTs are cute and a freaking high schooler ought to be able to do them.
This 'review', however, tries to make the comparison with higher priced equipment, then doesn't cite the features that makes that higher costing equipment compare to the under $100 variety-- only cost is used. Nice bait.... not very sharp hook.
Yes, it's under $100. That's news. But many other comparisons to the higher-priced analyzers aren't there.
1. Does it do channel characterizations? Apparently not. 2. Does it have channel reticules? Apparently not. 3. Does it do 802.11a? Apparently not. 4. Does it have enough resolution to find Bluetooth and other spread-spectrum devices? Apparenly not. 5. Can it identify specific kinds of interfering devices, like 2.4Ghz phones, microwaves, door openers, etc? Apparently not.
I say apparently not because none of this functionality, commonly found in other spectrum analyzers of this type, is even mentioned. It's nice to have a cool A-to-D converter in the 2.4Ghz region, but comparing this to Cognio or Air Magnet is like comparing a bicycle to a Porche. I can buy a bicycle for under $100. I can barely touch the ugliest old 914 Porche for $3K.
Don't be fooled by price, or comparisions that hardly scratch the surface of what diagnostic tools are all about. For under $100, it's pretty damn cute. But it's just the basics.... and minimalist basics at best.
For a long time, we've had the evidence that their code has deficiencies.... glaring ones. The closed source model bites for numerous reasons, including masking the quality (or lack thereof) in code, algorithms, and so on.
What if MS coders across the world did F/OSS code? Is that competition for all of the coders that can lay claim to kernel trees before 2.2 in Linux? Or those that can do a conditional compile for another processor/platform other than Intel/AMD/Via?
What if those coders were actually good? Or what if they were bad? What happens when an army of formerly (actually currently in the closet for the most part) closed-source coders start contributing to the GPL? Do we care what Craig "The Fibber" Mundie says an any way? No. We get potentially great code contributions with Microsoft sanction, and perhaps even blessing.
So fornicate Mundie, and let him incentivize coding under the GPL. It's a PR move any way..... so nice, too, that eWeek swallowed it whole without a challenge.
-only larger objects in the sky would be used, if this were indeed an astrological device and so -it ought to be fairly easy to devolve an astrological map to the appropriate year then -check positioning against it with 'static' night sky objects
If it's not astrological (and we don't know the text yet to get a clue) then it might be just a navigational aid.
It actually looks like a Nardi steering wheel that's been thrown into a burning trash can. It makes me wonder.... the Reg....
DSL and cable ISPs don't support VLANs or IPV6 either
Not so. Do your homework.
.....2 streams per customer worse-case
That's if you don't have several children.... eschew things like QT7.... and want to have any kind of reasonable future running non-carrier-controled QoS streams!
As for consumer broadband ISPs that support MPLS, again-- you need to do your homework. The big guys don't, but the little ones are getting smart. SLAs are becoming important, too. What happened to 5-9's? Is it one 9, two, or three or four or what? There are no guarantees at all. And no guarantees that you won't get blocked-- what with Net Neutrality out the window.
Like it or not (I don't), IPV6 is in the near future. If your organization supports it, you don't really have to support as there are work-arounds. But for some, it's becoming mandatory.
First, note that this isn't a symmetrical implementation. The Verizon network uses a PON scheme that can't really do symmetrical, and so, please download more than you upload. Secondly, they also have great difficulties with VLANs, and IPV6-- try it to see (not that IPV6 is worth a crap).
Let's see if it's future proof.... can they update their hardware to accommodate multiple concurrent IPTV QoS-based streams at HD raster/frame/color levels? No. Are they going to guarantee your network applications-- no matter who provides them-- won't be port blocked or attenuated by service type/port? No. This is called 'net-neutrality' and Verizon isn't net-neutral (just their services of course).
Can you join an MPLS network, even though Verizon supports their own internally? Nope. Can you join theirs? Nope-- not today anyway and no date in sight.
Can you run Skype and Vonage, or are they blocked? Can you run mulitple QoS- VoIP streams without raising eyebrows? Nope.
Can you get them to do an SLA? Nope.
Can you currently up-and-download stuff amazingly fast? You bet.
And no- I do not work for any carrier or affiliate of any kind. Instead, I've been following FTTX for 20 years.
ISPs are being asked to retain data for possible court orders. Otherwise, they're not compelled to want to keep the info. Would you like to keep track of all of the DHCP that Comcast does, as an example? For what, just in case you get a subpoena? The NSA should have subpoenas to monitor phone conversations..... but they don't-- they're operating under an unconstitutional executive order.
We should be able to keep track of lawmakers, where they go, who's buying dinner (or whatever is spent), which people they're with, whether they used condoms, and their cell phone records.... with reverse # lookups.
Then we can let ISPs retain the records of where we surf.
Egads:
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment 4:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Just how bogus TPC and SAP benchmarks are is the fodder for yet another discussion.
The TPC council is state of the art 1992. SAP benchmarks are so easily distorted that they're meaningless. Sorry. I live in the benchmarking world... and it's pretty ugly.
Yes, the Power chip is very very good; it's also lagging right now. I'm no Intel fan, but multi-core Itaniums with a decent compiler are not possible to beat-- at this moment-- subject to change tomorrow.
Slashdot Mirror
There are a myriad companies that Microsoft has bought, then put to good use. Some were then thrown off a cliff (like McAfee does/did with Network General and OilChange) while others made them smarter. They need the brains. And they need a new authentication methodology, a new networking stack, and a new registry protection mechanism not made of tissue paper. That doesn't mean they'll get it. So many people have blown up Vista (yes, I know it's not RC+ yet) that Microsoft must be rattled to their very core (yes, Bill-- you, you crummy half-assed programmer) before they'll believe their customers. It's a classic case of Sales Department Rules (Ballmer) and everything else drools. Hit the sales department in the wallet, and things change. Look for a big change from Microsoft soon when they report that XP sales are down and that Windows 2003 server's recent sales peak has now hit the skids, and the X360's are costing a fortune. Mark these words.
The old stuff had so many holes we stopped counting. Based on BSD stuff that had been around since the early '90s, Microsoft had to change the stacks.
The new provider modules are a step ahead of what they'd been using. This is what Symantec is mad about: being left out of the anti-virus and spyware game. Look to see that Microsoft also purchased Win/Sysinternals today to see what else motivates Symantec. Their cash cow, a flea-bitten operating system-- might just work for a change.
But I doubt it.
It's like this:
1) Microsoft announces 'free' Virtual PC for free. Yawn. We're already down the street on this one. Yes, instances of Virtual Server are cool. Move along, please.
2) VMWare announces 'free' VMWare Server-- a while after their other free stuff is announced; a nice embarrassment for Microsoft, who lags miserably here.
3) SUSE comes out with Xen; proving once again that it's as fragile as any code made with toothpicks. Really: this stuff explodes into little bits if you're not careful.
4) Microsoft, not to be out done, and needing to mod their kernel to accomodate Xen's odd functionality, claims future support.
See a trend here?
And it gets 7 miles to the gallon. It was invented for a bygone era. And he can afford to drive it less than two tanks of gas per year.
Sure, I can get a 386 and even an 8088 to work with weird ports of Linux or other OSes. But why? They're slower than molasses and use up more energy than four reasonable incadescent light bulbs.
I like being able to use old hardware-- hassleing the hell out of it with work. But there's a point where the functionality vs service costs make it impractical, and more of a curiousity than something useful.
Energy conservation is a good thing, even if we're all pissed at the state of energy markets today. They've misplaced the emphasis, unfortunately.
Consider:
1) All of the brick power supplies we're using that suck energy 24/7 when in use, or not
2) CRT energy efficiency vs information they give us compared to LCDs
3) Plasma displays. You can heat your living rooms with them
4) The state of ACPI and other energy savings initiatives, like EnergyStar jokes
5) How batteries are polluting aquifers because they're thrown away into landfills, then melt over time into ugly pools of toxic metal concentrations
6) How computing machinery disposal anarchy pollutes as much or more than #5
7) Why I have to buy a new set of computers and cell phones and PDAs so often..... and recycle the old ones (sorry, even Linux can't save a 486SX-25 machine)
This was for the perception that Congress is concerned. Instead, they're demonstrating technology cluelessness once again.
1) be happy that these didn't go into the drink (and stop worrying about that foam stuff)
2) it only cost $14B per space ball
3) they're rumored to bounce!
4) they're using WiFi, but on Channel 14 (at least it's MIMO!)
5) they can be used to fix the Hubble!!
These nine pound balls of your spacial tax dollars could become:
1) garbage collectors for all the space junk out there in orbit around us
2) a new and interesting way of getting rid of those pesky competing satellites
3) spiffy stratosphere-bouncing little comm links
4) ways to make sure that Indian satellites don't achieve orbit
5) new and interesting ways of avoiding Azimov's Laws of Robots-- including the Zeroeth Law
It was inevitable.
He speaks the truth.
Armies of lobbyists and lawyers go into the Rayburn building and across the hill to cow legislators. It's not a partisan issue-- it's a Jack Welch/We're Big And Here's Our Army To Prove It posture.
Look at where the lobbying dollars and perks are spent, and by whom. Then mod the parent up as he/she's absolutely on target. This isn't about common sense, this is about re-writing the Telecom Act of 1935 (as amended) and pulling back decades of consumer-focused legal decisions and legislation to one specific end:
THE TELCOs. IT's THE MONEY, STUPID. FOLLOW IT AND FIND THE ABYSS OF YOUR ONCE FRIENDLY GOVERNMENT.
Google Inc vs Verizon, AT&T, QWest, et al
Dateline San Jose CA July 5, 2011: The Google anti-trust ligitation now in its fifth year, may now come to a conclusion says Pamela Jonesish, chief blogger of CommLaw, the site that's tracking the litigation surrounding anti-trust and the old concept of 'net-neutrality'.
"Who would have ever believed that these nutcases could have gotten this far" said Pamela, also known as PJ-ish. "When HD-IPTV finally clogged the pipes to the point where nothing could get through, even ICMP, we all knew the jig was up. Now that Verizon is in Chapter 11 and AT&T has merged with the remaining remnants of the 'baby bells', market leader Comcast-Time Warner believes that the Google litigation should end"....
String theory is almost recursive.... a snake eating its tail.
TFA is right in one thing-- it's lead to physicist bigotry.... an increasingly inbred idea that string theory rules and all else drools, but in dimension 9. So many things are unsolved.... and Hawking has helped but the mathematicians that used to rule physicists are finding themselves in a reverse role, where expostulations must be found to match equations which were pimped for expostulation.
It's like curve-fitting, but with unprovable geometry, not Euclidian and not non-Euclidian.
The article thinks it's a glowing thing because it costs >$100.... without any comparisons to others-- even the higher priced ones.
Yes, it's nice to see things in the 2.4Ghz band. It's very simple and that simplicity can be useful for those looking for simple amplitude nearby. Beyond that, there are lots of things that it doesn't do.... including letting someone using this as a tool identify lots of signal types-- not just that there might be something inside the boundaries.
So, the dialog goes: Ug. Look: something nearby. Bummer.
Beyond that, nothing, and there's little gradient or other measure within the context of the review to say it's anything more than a very simple SA.... with no other context to describe it.... no comparisons... no test info....nothing.
That's my point-- citing it on price rather than functionality. It has basal functionality-- and apparently no more.
I'm not trying to justify the price of more expensive SAs. Instead, the article misses a lot of points and comparisons with the higher priced stuff, then baits the article with price so as to justify it. A good RF engineer could do his/her own fairly easily. The software that does the rest takes a helluva lot more. Basic FFTs are cute and a freaking high schooler ought to be able to do them.
This 'review', however, tries to make the comparison with higher priced equipment, then doesn't cite the features that makes that higher costing equipment compare to the under $100 variety-- only cost is used. Nice bait.... not very sharp hook.
Yes, it is.... but with some twists.
Yes, it's under $100. That's news. But many other comparisons to the higher-priced analyzers aren't there.
1. Does it do channel characterizations? Apparently not.
2. Does it have channel reticules? Apparently not.
3. Does it do 802.11a? Apparently not.
4. Does it have enough resolution to find Bluetooth and other spread-spectrum devices? Apparenly not.
5. Can it identify specific kinds of interfering devices, like 2.4Ghz phones, microwaves, door openers, etc? Apparently not.
I say apparently not because none of this functionality, commonly found in other spectrum analyzers of this type, is even mentioned. It's nice to have a cool A-to-D converter in the 2.4Ghz region, but comparing this to Cognio or Air Magnet is like comparing a bicycle to a Porche. I can buy a bicycle for under $100. I can barely touch the ugliest old 914 Porche for $3K.
Don't be fooled by price, or comparisions that hardly scratch the surface of what diagnostic tools are all about. For under $100, it's pretty damn cute. But it's just the basics.... and minimalist basics at best.
For a long time, we've had the evidence that their code has deficiencies.... glaring ones. The closed source model bites for numerous reasons, including masking the quality (or lack thereof) in code, algorithms, and so on.
What if MS coders across the world did F/OSS code? Is that competition for all of the coders that can lay claim to kernel trees before 2.2 in Linux? Or those that can do a conditional compile for another processor/platform other than Intel/AMD/Via?
What if those coders were actually good? Or what if they were bad? What happens when an army of formerly (actually currently in the closet for the most part) closed-source coders start contributing to the GPL? Do we care what Craig "The Fibber" Mundie says an any way? No. We get potentially great code contributions with Microsoft sanction, and perhaps even blessing.
So fornicate Mundie, and let him incentivize coding under the GPL. It's a PR move any way..... so nice, too, that eWeek swallowed it whole without a challenge.
Sheez.
I would hypothesize that
-only larger objects in the sky would be used, if this were indeed an astrological device and so
-it ought to be fairly easy to devolve an astrological map to the appropriate year then
-check positioning against it with 'static' night sky objects
If it's not astrological (and we don't know the text yet to get a clue) then it might be just a navigational aid.
It actually looks like a Nardi steering wheel that's been thrown into a burning trash can. It makes me wonder.... the Reg....
Sorry, I forgot. They do that in the Middle East.
DSL and cable ISPs don't support VLANs or IPV6 either
Not so. Do your homework.
That's if you don't have several children.... eschew things like QT7.... and want to have any kind of reasonable future running non-carrier-controled QoS streams! As for consumer broadband ISPs that support MPLS, again-- you need to do your homework. The big guys don't, but the little ones are getting smart. SLAs are becoming important, too. What happened to 5-9's? Is it one 9, two, or three or four or what? There are no guarantees at all. And no guarantees that you won't get blocked-- what with Net Neutrality out the window.
Like it or not (I don't), IPV6 is in the near future. If your organization supports it, you don't really have to support as there are work-arounds. But for some, it's becoming mandatory.
First, note that this isn't a symmetrical implementation. The Verizon network uses a PON scheme that can't really do symmetrical, and so, please download more than you upload. Secondly, they also have great difficulties with VLANs, and IPV6-- try it to see (not that IPV6 is worth a crap).
Let's see if it's future proof.... can they update their hardware to accommodate multiple concurrent IPTV QoS-based streams at HD raster/frame/color levels? No. Are they going to guarantee your network applications-- no matter who provides them-- won't be port blocked or attenuated by service type/port? No. This is called 'net-neutrality' and Verizon isn't net-neutral (just their services of course).
Can you join an MPLS network, even though Verizon supports their own internally? Nope. Can you join theirs? Nope-- not today anyway and no date in sight.
Can you run Skype and Vonage, or are they blocked? Can you run mulitple QoS- VoIP streams without raising eyebrows? Nope.
Can you get them to do an SLA? Nope.
Can you currently up-and-download stuff amazingly fast? You bet.
And no- I do not work for any carrier or affiliate of any kind. Instead, I've been following FTTX for 20 years.
Ah, but it is. There is no court order.
ISPs are being asked to retain data for possible court orders. Otherwise, they're not compelled to want to keep the info. Would you like to keep track of all of the DHCP that Comcast does, as an example? For what, just in case you get a subpoena? The NSA should have subpoenas to monitor phone conversations..... but they don't-- they're operating under an unconstitutional executive order.
Live free or die.
Let's see, who do I want to be today? Gonzales... yeah....
We should be able to keep track of lawmakers, where they go, who's buying dinner (or whatever is spent), which people they're with, whether they used condoms, and their cell phone records.... with reverse # lookups.
Then we can let ISPs retain the records of where we surf.
Egads:
Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment 4:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Look at what happened after CAN-SPAM....
Just how bogus TPC and SAP benchmarks are is the fodder for yet another discussion.
The TPC council is state of the art 1992. SAP benchmarks are so easily distorted that they're meaningless. Sorry. I live in the benchmarking world... and it's pretty ugly.
Yes, the Power chip is very very good; it's also lagging right now. I'm no Intel fan, but multi-core Itaniums with a decent compiler are not possible to beat-- at this moment-- subject to change tomorrow.