Whoa, Nelly! This article - and the discussion here - is rife with untested assumptions. Let's establish a bit of context here before going too far.
Microsoft beat Linux? That most certainly is how Microsoft sees the situation. But their entire ethos is of conquest, control and coercion. None of these apply to Linux. While it's true that some have used Linux as a tool to gain leverage with Microsoft, Linux as an operating system has no goal, except to be good at what it does. Unlike Microsoft, Linux is not controlled by any single actor, or even by a like-minded group of actors.
Linux doesn't fight Microsoft (though MS does fight Linux and FOSS in general). It just keeps improving for its own sake and for the sake of its users. If that has detrimental effects on Microsoft's control of the operating systems market - and it does - well, that is nothing more than a collateral benefit.
So, from Microsoft's perspective, maybe they did 'beat' Linux, but even that defeat isn't complete or permanent. When China donates PCs to its development partners, what OS does it ship? Linux. Is Red Flag dead and buried? No. Is China dependant on Microsoft for its IT infrastructure? Hardly.
What price victory? A more honest evaluation of the circumstances of China's decision to accept Microsoft at all shows that Microsoft's 'victory' may be more pyrrhic than anything. With trademark deftness, China has largely de-fanged one of the most effective and brutal corporate negotiating teams in the world. This is the corporation that managed to buy off the US government and avoid any real punishment following its conviction for abuse of monopoly powers. It's the company that has consistently and rather successfully thumbed its nose at the European Union, the largest economic entity in the world today. It has controlled standards processes, locked in countless corporations and ruthlessly dominated the supply chain world-wide.
Yet Chinese negotiators got everything they asked for. Price reductions? They pay about 10% of what other governments do per seat. Control? They not only have access to the source code, they have to right to alter it to suit their purposes.
Think about what that means to the Chinese. In economic, political and strategic terms, they've negotiated unprecedented access to an invaluable resource, and they've done it in a way that costs them next to nothing. Truth be told, Microsoft got almost nothing out of this deal. China still uses Linux whenever and wherever it wants.
A deal that would make Stallman laugh. If we think about the Four Freedoms that underlie the GPL, the same four freedoms for which Richard Stallman and the FSF have fought so desperately to support and preserve, the same freedoms that are so perfectly antithetical to everything that Microsoft stands for... these are exactly the freedoms that China has preserved in its deal with Microsoft.
Let's be honest here: Microsoft may have won the battle, but only by utterly compromising itself and its future in China. They have placed themselves in a virtually abject position vis à vis China. Happily, the Chinese know enough about loss of face to ensure that they never rub this in Gates' face.
Bottom line: This is not a Linux/Microsoft story. Linux is a bit player in this story, a Rosencrantz to Microsoft's Hamlet. The real story is how China managed to pull a classic con on one of the toughest negotiating teams in the corporate world, and how they did it so well that Microsoft keeps coming back for more.
I think you are missing the point. The point is that the Feds create Federal Regulations, based on scientific findings, not the scientists. Using your example, the logical solution to the pollutant problem would be to ban automobiles. Should scientists be able to make into law?
A lot of people here appear to have difficulty discerning between legislation and regulation.
Almost exclusively, regulation is the purview of experts working for federal agencies, who are often scientists. They decide safe levels of carcinogens in the air, the proper distance between two joists, the proper composition of roadway materials, how often a nuclear plant gets inspected and sundry other things about which politicians know exactly Jack Squat. There is no place in their work for political considerations.
Federal Agencies don't make law. But they do make recommendations that can be taken into committee, so that law-makers can make law. That's as it should be. These law-makers - your elected representatives - do not need political handlers to interpose themselves between them and the scientists. They have staff for that. Committee members are usually responsible for making an extra effort (pace, Ted Stevens) to understand the technical details of particular bills, and to consider them line by line.
So exactly what useful role would politically-appointed overseers have, save to intrude on a process that doesn't need them, in order to ensure political influence over activities that already have an appropriate balance between technical and political considerations?
Why would they name it after a Quebec city? Perhaps the relationship is phonetic, as in "We've got-a-no answers for you!"
Interestingly - or perhaps ironically - what is now the city of Gatineau used to be known as Hull. It sits directly across the Ottawa River from, well, Ottawa. The name was changed to something more palatable to the separatist Parti Québecois government. Hull's bars used to close two hours later than their Ottawa counterparts, so it was quite common to hear drunken revellers shouting, "I'll see you in Hull!" Workmates showing up hung-over were often told, "You look like you've been to Hull and back." Worse still, when Ottawa started up a rickshaw service, people claimed it was now possible to go to Hull in a hand cart.
Of this new service, therefore, I will only say: The road to Hull is paved with good intentions.
Could someone explain to me, preferably without recourse to religious argument, what is wrong with these kids viewing porn?
As others have said, it's a question of context - of what's appropriate to their particular situation.
I live in a place where this kind of thing can happen, and I'll tell you that when all the information men get about sex comes from pornography and whispers in the dark, they can get some very weird ideas about what's normal. I won't go into the details of the some of the behaviour that's arisen, because I don't have the stomach to think about it. Suffice it to say that it ranges from silly[*] to absurd to positively sickening.
I'll grant you that this is not fundamentally a technological issue. Dealing with sexuality openly and in a respectful way has a number of prerequisites, not the least of which are equal rights for women and proper education. So while you and I might agree that open expressions of sexuality could conceivably be seen in a moderately benign light, the way to achieve this particular perception does not consist of letting young people roam free and unfettered on the Internet.
-----
[*] Okay, I guess I can manage silly: In a conversation about condom use and HIV/AIDS prevention I had one evening with some young men, one of them told me that he preferred to wear two condoms because (shy smirk) he really knew how to get things going and it's common knowledge that they're, uh, much bigger than the white people that condoms were made for. Everyone else in the group nodded earnestly. This was clearly a serious issue.
Following this story, a friend of mine who does HIV/AIDS prevention for a living bought a carving of a HUGE penis (almost twice the width of a horse's) and subsequently used it in workshops to demonstrate how to put on a condom. It makes the point, and is a hilarious ice-breaker, too.
If you start blocking porn because of its content (porn) then the people who have the power will demand other things be blocked too which leads to the Great Firewall of China problem... Except this one would be in Nigeria.
I've been dealing with exactly this issue for the last 4 years. I work in the developing world, and one of the things I do is assist with the integration of computers into programmes of all kinds. I can tell you that one of the biggest fears (after malware) is the content that people will access.
This may strike some of you as bizarre or even disgusting, but in cultures where sexuality - and women too - have historically been repressed, it's not unusual for a man to sit in his office and wank[*], not stopping when other staff members pass the door. Men can sometimes be surprisingly aggressive about their desire for porn. I remember being told a story about IT staff opening pop ups on a miscreant's computer, saying "We can see what you're doing. Stop it!" He just kept right on going. I myself have sat in the next office to one especially persistent guy, blocking domains the moment he accessed them. In the end I had to use back-channels to get the situation addressed.
[*] Odds are really good that this is the only place he can access the Internet. There's no computer at home, and Internet cafés are too expensive. The compulsion simply becomes to strong to deny.
Everybody asks me to install filters, and I do it, because in this country, pornography is against the law. But I explain to every manager who will listen that the technical measures are simply CYA: They exist so that you can argue in a court of law that you took reasonable measures to curb illegal activity. Ultimately, controlling what staff and/or project stakeholders see on their computers is a basic management issue. If people are properly supervised, they will not stray far. If they do, they must be disciplined.
In short: There's no technical substitute for supervision.
The internet was supposed to free everyone and allow them to think for themselves. Naturally those in power decide to try and force it into a tool for control just like everything else from Income Taxes to Drivers Licenses.
I submit that this contention is just as flawed as the idea that a content filter is the right tool for the job. What you are describing is people allowing a political and social climate that permits this kind of behaviour. The challenge is not a technical one. The means already exist for a complete surveillance state, and we can't un-invent the tools. All we can do is ensure that they are used appropriately. And that problem doesn't have a technical solution. It comes down to human beings showing humanity to one another.
I'll refrain from commenting on any current socio-political trends that might serve as examples. I'm sure we can all find suitable cases in our own back yards.
"The software would also free advertising from its traditional browser yoke. "A word processor may display a banner ad along the top of a window, similar to a toolbar, while a graphical ad may be displayed in a frame associated with the application. A digital editor for photos or movies may support video-based advertisements," the patent application says.
So no, Adblock in its current form wouldn't do squat.
According to TFA:
"The software would also free advertising from its traditional browser yoke.
I believe they mis-spelled 'sandbox'.
I don't know about anyone else, but this strikes me as one of the most potentially disastrous things to happen to PC security since ActiveX got integrated into Outlook and MSIE. How could Marketing possibly resist the temptation to make the advertising material interactive (i.e. executable), and how long before Microsoft begins allowing 'partners' to load their own content into the ad space?
The moment that happens, they've opened up yet another route to remotely (and insecurely) interact with virtually every application on the desktop.
Before anyone jumps on me: I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm saying that it would become Microsoft's responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen, because they will have created this new threat.
What is the situation in other countries? It makes a mockery of the whole system if US webstations have to pay royalities for playing a Beatles song, but the same song played by an Australian or British webstation is exempt/has cheaper fees.
Yep, that'd be the 'no shit, Sherlock' part of the situation that makes the royalty fee scheme so blindingly stupid. There is nothing even approaching a sane strategy behind this - at least, not that I can see. It reminds me most of a drowning man struggling so much that he also drowns the one person who could possibly save him.
Lets say you're, say, 35 years old, recently divorced, ready to move on and find yourself a new girl. Looking around, you meet someone in a bar, she's recently divorced too. Things are going well for the two of you, when all of a sudden, some charges are brought up on you. Turns out, her former husband is employed at [pick your favorite cloak and dagger agency], and not happy about his wife dating again.
Are these charges real? are they made up?
Congratulations! You just described The Trial, by Franz Kafka. The story was written in Czechoslovakia, just prior to the rise of Fascism in Europe, but I'm sure that the purest coincidence.
They're trying to bring it back because they think that there's a fuck-ton of money to be made renting you services and locking your data up in their proprietary formats.
There's a fuck-ton[*] of business to be done through Internet-based services. But competition has a weird effect on this kind of business. It pushes prices so close to zero that it's nearly impossible to make the kind of money that Microsoft is used to.
This is an area that better suits the piranha than the shark, if you'll forgive the metaphor. A swarm of tiny service providers willing to survive on nibbles are going to be much more effective than a lumbering giant that requires the entire beast for itself.
More importantly, working over the Internet will require improvements in interoperability. Whether they arise through formal standards processes or through reverse engineering, you can count on significant movement in interop if the big software players start to commit to the kind of service that Ballmer is describing.
I for one - heh - welcome our online services overlords, because I am going to eat their lunch. Bit by tiny bit. 8^)
[*] That's 0.454 metric fuck-tonnes, for the non-Americans in the audience.
A complete fair scheduler for geeks? I can just see it:
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 1 user 16 0 1464 184 140 S 90.0 86.1 0:01.93 wank 2 user RT 0 0 0 0 S 10.0 13.9 0:00.00 porn 3 user 34 19 0 0 0 Z 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 work 4 user RT 0 0 0 0 Z 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 socialise 5 user 10 -5 0 0 0 Z 0.0 0.0 0:00.31 getadate
Use some programmability/flash/whatever to keep pinging back to the host.
Right, so the users behind my NAT are going to be measured as one person spending all day on somepopularsite.com, in 8 different places simultaneously? What about the four other open tabs currently open in my browser? Am I still visiting those sites? The answer could be 'yes', but I don't see how that adds value for advertisers.
HTTP is a stateless protocol, which means that it's inherently difficult (i.e. impossible) to consistently get accurate data about the duration of a given visit. It can be argued that you can derive data that's statistically significant. You can argue further that if everyone uses the same metric then they'll be valid for comparison purposes, which is enough for the MBAs in Marketing, I suppose.
I personally think time spent on a website is a silly metric, and will continue to hold that opinion until someone can make the case that staring at an advertisement for longer period of time actually encourages a person to finally click on it, rather than tune it out completely. (This works well for branding, but for little else.)
There's a lot of nuance that can be brought into this discussion, and this is where the good advertisers and marketers earn their keep. Assuming that either page views or time spent on a site are sufficient to make a solid judgement of the value of a given website is, uh, a little short on nuance.
...without the sort of $$$ companies like Nokia, Apple and Sony Ericsson regularly throw at "your phone is a statement of who you are" marketing campaigns, I doubt phones based on this software will make much of an impact outside of geek circles.
I can think of a few areas where this might be popular:
Second- and Third-tier carriers in small regional and/or local markets that need something to distinguish themselves from their competitors, but don't have the R&D money to do full-scale product development.
Corporate services - services focused on very specific business niches with unique needs. With GPS, GSM and Wifi built right in, I could think of a few really compelling apps for business....
Developing nations - Places where interface localisation could increase a market by a significant percentage, but not enough to interest the big players. There are millions to be earned there; they just come in smaller increments than the multi-nationals consider interesting.
There are modest fortunes to be made in any of the above. I'm already investigating the business potential of this device for the very unique circumstances that I work in. If the quality and supply of this device are at the right level, I'm almost certain to invest in it.
Someone above mentioned using jigdo to get all of debian, but even using wget to get a full dvd or cd set of some distro will provide you with a good data point.
I beg to differ. Downloading a single file is only indicative of how fast a particular connection is between two particular points. P2P, if it's allowed to, saturates the network with two-way traffic to numerous end points. If - and this is a big if - there were no constraints on P2P traffic at large on our networks, I would consider it a near ideal measure of TCP traffic capacity in the real world.
In fairness to your comment, you characterised that single download as a 'data point'. Strictly speaking, that's a valid statement. How to get enough of these data points to provide useful insight isn't adequately answered by either of our suggestions, and frankly I'm a little doubtful about the online speed tests being discussed here, too.
One might speculate that it's a good thing for linux (and mac) that China runs on Windows.
The government of China has at least two officially supported Linux distributions that I'm aware of. They fund their development and promote them internally as well as internationally. It would be accurate to say that they've got some idea of the relative level of security that Windows and Linux provide, and have made their strategic choice.
Since linux is even harder to keep patched automatically it would not be a better situation (Flame me if you wish but please don't say something moronic as "its' as simple as "apt-get update-all".
Wouldn't dream of it. Because in Linux automatic updates are simpler than Windows, better controlled and more comprehensive. Try the latest Ubuntu and tell me again how inferior it is. No command line, no muss, no fuss, no Genuine Advantage, no worry.
And even if you believe that linux is more resistant to holes than windows that's not an issue: Remember most of these bots come in as trojans not remote execution exploits, and they don't even need to run as root--so linux is not going to be more secure against trojans people welcome into their user spaces.
You might want to read up a little more on the relative health of monoculture and heterogeneous systems. It's true that only a fool would say that Linux is immune to trojans. But it is a good deal more resistant, by virtue of the fact that:
Escalation is somewhat more difficult;
There are more variables at play, which makes it harder to write a 'one-size fits all' trojan.
These factors can slow down the propagation of a given trojan and limit damage even when it succeeds, reducing its overall effectiveness and requiring greater effort for smaller reward.
None of these items represents a complete solution, but security is not a zero-sum game that's won or lost in a single stroke. Linux is not The Answer; it's a useful component of a larger response to the threats posed by malware of all kinds.
The key is new computer users. They don't already have a Windows or Mac background, so they don't know any differently. There's nothing to re-learn, since they're starting from scratch.
Good eye. I did specifically mention them, because I think they're the ones who are most likely to benefit from offers such as Dell's. As far as I can see, there are two groups that will comprise the next wave of desktop Linux users: Office staff and new users. Office staff won't have a choice, but they'll have technical support and training (one hopes). New users, as I've shown, have nothing to fear from Ubuntu, and a lot to like.
Is Ubuntu a good distro in this case, given as it's already installed? I mean, from the standpoint of a non-geeky computer user.
I've installed Ubuntu on computers used by well over a thousand new computer users. Common tasks were picked up with as much ease as I've witnessed with first-time Windows users.
A few things that new users tend to find useful:
The system menus are way easier to find your way around. Software is located in the Applications menu, and it's organised by purpose rather than brand name. Links to your hard drive, USB disk and CD ROM are in the Places menu. System-related tasks are in the System menu. You get the idea.
USB disks, CDs and other removable media pop open folders when inserted, much as they do in Windows.
The default interface is much cleaner and simpler than in Windows. Folders are simpler - which is not to say easier - to navigate. (This is useful for non-geeks, but can prove frustrating for power-users.)
Automatic updates are just as easy as - if not easier then - Windows, and all of your software is covered.
Upgrades are free. 8^)
Those are just the first few things that spring to mind. I'm sure others can add to this list.
Those who are accustomed to Windows will be accustomed to certain conventions, and this will rankle a little bit at first. But once you get used to the fact that, for example, the Start button is on the top of the screen rather than the bottom, you quickly find a lot to like.
So the only reason someone would disagree with your point of view is that they are paid to do so?
Without agreeing with the rhetorical gist of the GP, I believe the point being made was that the suggestion was so absurd that nobody would put it forward unless they were paid to do so.
I disagree with that premise, but I do agree that obscuring any aspect of a voting system that is being used to decide, among other things, the next president of the United Sates is the height of folly.
Security is risk control, not risk elimination. In this particular case the risk of a trapdoor in the platform code is a lower concern than the risk of the running code being substituted on the final machine.
Risk is measured as a combination of:
How easy it is to attack using a particular vector;
What the payoff will be for the attacker;
What the cost will be to the defender if the exploit succeeds;
What the cost of securing that vector is.
In this case, the prize is political control of the most powerful nation in the world. So we need to ask ourselves: How much are fair and free elections worth? What, in effect, is the price of the democratic process in the US?
I think it's worth billions of dollars. That means stringent code review, impeccable chain of custody and constant supervision. Saving a few bucks by using an off-the-shelf operating system - especially one that is orders of magnitude more complex than what is actually required - that's absurd, in my opinion.
All this assumes that users - and support teams - are jumping for joy at the chance to maintain multiple operating systems, software libraries, and skill sets. To anyone but a Geek this can seem sadomasochistic.
I'm not sure you get it. The big benefit of virtualisation is that you can reduce your support costs significantly because much of the arcane knowledge that was required to make Windows play nice with this device or that is suddenly reduced to a manageable package. Virtualisation makes Windows easier to maintain, not harder.
I run Windows only in virtualisation, which means I only have to get it working in one 'hardware' scenario - a virtual one. Once I've got that done, I can roll it out to as many stations as I like simply by copying a folder. Supporting the underlying OS (we're running Linux) is much less time consuming than supporting Windows on bare metal.
If you are naive enough to think that you can get through your technological career knowing only one platform, you've got another thing coming. In fact, 20-odd years of just using computers has taught me that nobody is exempt from this rule. People will always have to learn new things. Learning something that's easier than before is, in my experience, something that most everyone is happy to do.
Despite what groklaw may say they arent going after people that they dont have fairly good cases against.
Groklaw is irrelevant. The RIAA were dead wrong in this case, and now she wants them to pay for their mistake. She has every right to do so. That's how the legal system works in the US.
I think that only goes for show business. "Saturday June 24, Linux Users Eat More Babies" just ain't good for Linux no matter how you interpret the meaning of the title.
Yeah, but if you do a follow-up on June 25 explaining that they're terrorist babies, it's okay again.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoa, Nelly! This article - and the discussion here - is rife with untested assumptions. Let's establish a bit of context here before going too far.
Microsoft beat Linux? That most certainly is how Microsoft sees the situation. But their entire ethos is of conquest, control and coercion. None of these apply to Linux. While it's true that some have used Linux as a tool to gain leverage with Microsoft, Linux as an operating system has no goal, except to be good at what it does. Unlike Microsoft, Linux is not controlled by any single actor, or even by a like-minded group of actors.
Linux doesn't fight Microsoft (though MS does fight Linux and FOSS in general). It just keeps improving for its own sake and for the sake of its users. If that has detrimental effects on Microsoft's control of the operating systems market - and it does - well, that is nothing more than a collateral benefit.
So, from Microsoft's perspective, maybe they did 'beat' Linux, but even that defeat isn't complete or permanent. When China donates PCs to its development partners, what OS does it ship? Linux. Is Red Flag dead and buried? No. Is China dependant on Microsoft for its IT infrastructure? Hardly.
What price victory? A more honest evaluation of the circumstances of China's decision to accept Microsoft at all shows that Microsoft's 'victory' may be more pyrrhic than anything. With trademark deftness, China has largely de-fanged one of the most effective and brutal corporate negotiating teams in the world. This is the corporation that managed to buy off the US government and avoid any real punishment following its conviction for abuse of monopoly powers. It's the company that has consistently and rather successfully thumbed its nose at the European Union, the largest economic entity in the world today. It has controlled standards processes, locked in countless corporations and ruthlessly dominated the supply chain world-wide.
Yet Chinese negotiators got everything they asked for. Price reductions? They pay about 10% of what other governments do per seat. Control? They not only have access to the source code, they have to right to alter it to suit their purposes.
Think about what that means to the Chinese. In economic, political and strategic terms, they've negotiated unprecedented access to an invaluable resource, and they've done it in a way that costs them next to nothing. Truth be told, Microsoft got almost nothing out of this deal. China still uses Linux whenever and wherever it wants.
A deal that would make Stallman laugh. If we think about the Four Freedoms that underlie the GPL, the same four freedoms for which Richard Stallman and the FSF have fought so desperately to support and preserve, the same freedoms that are so perfectly antithetical to everything that Microsoft stands for... these are exactly the freedoms that China has preserved in its deal with Microsoft.
Let's be honest here: Microsoft may have won the battle, but only by utterly compromising itself and its future in China. They have placed themselves in a virtually abject position vis à vis China. Happily, the Chinese know enough about loss of face to ensure that they never rub this in Gates' face.
Bottom line: This is not a Linux/Microsoft story. Linux is a bit player in this story, a Rosencrantz to Microsoft's Hamlet. The real story is how China managed to pull a classic con on one of the toughest negotiating teams in the corporate world, and how they did it so well that Microsoft keeps coming back for more.
It wasn't meant to be. Things would have been a lot clearer to everyone, but the domain that Ballmer wanted was already taken.
A lot of people here appear to have difficulty discerning between legislation and regulation.
Almost exclusively, regulation is the purview of experts working for federal agencies, who are often scientists. They decide safe levels of carcinogens in the air, the proper distance between two joists, the proper composition of roadway materials, how often a nuclear plant gets inspected and sundry other things about which politicians know exactly Jack Squat. There is no place in their work for political considerations.
Federal Agencies don't make law. But they do make recommendations that can be taken into committee, so that law-makers can make law. That's as it should be. These law-makers - your elected representatives - do not need political handlers to interpose themselves between them and the scientists. They have staff for that. Committee members are usually responsible for making an extra effort (pace, Ted Stevens) to understand the technical details of particular bills, and to consider them line by line.
So exactly what useful role would politically-appointed overseers have, save to intrude on a process that doesn't need them, in order to ensure political influence over activities that already have an appropriate balance between technical and political considerations?
Interestingly - or perhaps ironically - what is now the city of Gatineau used to be known as Hull. It sits directly across the Ottawa River from, well, Ottawa. The name was changed to something more palatable to the separatist Parti Québecois government. Hull's bars used to close two hours later than their Ottawa counterparts, so it was quite common to hear drunken revellers shouting, "I'll see you in Hull!" Workmates showing up hung-over were often told, "You look like you've been to Hull and back." Worse still, when Ottawa started up a rickshaw service, people claimed it was now possible to go to Hull in a hand cart.
Of this new service, therefore, I will only say: The road to Hull is paved with good intentions.
As others have said, it's a question of context - of what's appropriate to their particular situation.
I live in a place where this kind of thing can happen, and I'll tell you that when all the information men get about sex comes from pornography and whispers in the dark, they can get some very weird ideas about what's normal. I won't go into the details of the some of the behaviour that's arisen, because I don't have the stomach to think about it. Suffice it to say that it ranges from silly[*] to absurd to positively sickening.
I'll grant you that this is not fundamentally a technological issue. Dealing with sexuality openly and in a respectful way has a number of prerequisites, not the least of which are equal rights for women and proper education. So while you and I might agree that open expressions of sexuality could conceivably be seen in a moderately benign light, the way to achieve this particular perception does not consist of letting young people roam free and unfettered on the Internet.
-----
[*] Okay, I guess I can manage silly: In a conversation about condom use and HIV/AIDS prevention I had one evening with some young men, one of them told me that he preferred to wear two condoms because (shy smirk) he really knew how to get things going and it's common knowledge that they're, uh, much bigger than the white people that condoms were made for. Everyone else in the group nodded earnestly. This was clearly a serious issue.
Following this story, a friend of mine who does HIV/AIDS prevention for a living bought a carving of a HUGE penis (almost twice the width of a horse's) and subsequently used it in workshops to demonstrate how to put on a condom. It makes the point, and is a hilarious ice-breaker, too.
I've been dealing with exactly this issue for the last 4 years. I work in the developing world, and one of the things I do is assist with the integration of computers into programmes of all kinds. I can tell you that one of the biggest fears (after malware) is the content that people will access.
This may strike some of you as bizarre or even disgusting, but in cultures where sexuality - and women too - have historically been repressed, it's not unusual for a man to sit in his office and wank[*], not stopping when other staff members pass the door. Men can sometimes be surprisingly aggressive about their desire for porn. I remember being told a story about IT staff opening pop ups on a miscreant's computer, saying "We can see what you're doing. Stop it!" He just kept right on going. I myself have sat in the next office to one especially persistent guy, blocking domains the moment he accessed them. In the end I had to use back-channels to get the situation addressed.
[*] Odds are really good that this is the only place he can access the Internet. There's no computer at home, and Internet cafés are too expensive. The compulsion simply becomes to strong to deny.
Everybody asks me to install filters, and I do it, because in this country, pornography is against the law. But I explain to every manager who will listen that the technical measures are simply CYA: They exist so that you can argue in a court of law that you took reasonable measures to curb illegal activity. Ultimately, controlling what staff and/or project stakeholders see on their computers is a basic management issue. If people are properly supervised, they will not stray far. If they do, they must be disciplined.
In short: There's no technical substitute for supervision.
The internet was supposed to free everyone and allow them to think for themselves. Naturally those in power decide to try and force it into a tool for control just like everything else from Income Taxes to Drivers Licenses.I submit that this contention is just as flawed as the idea that a content filter is the right tool for the job. What you are describing is people allowing a political and social climate that permits this kind of behaviour. The challenge is not a technical one. The means already exist for a complete surveillance state, and we can't un-invent the tools. All we can do is ensure that they are used appropriately. And that problem doesn't have a technical solution. It comes down to human beings showing humanity to one another.
I'll refrain from commenting on any current socio-political trends that might serve as examples. I'm sure we can all find suitable cases in our own back yards.
Based on that sentence, may I suggest that you also consider: 3) Poor QA?
"The software would also free advertising from its traditional browser yoke. "A word processor may display a banner ad along the top of a window, similar to a toolbar, while a graphical ad may be displayed in a frame associated with the application. A digital editor for photos or movies may support video-based advertisements," the patent application says.
So no, Adblock in its current form wouldn't do squat. According to TFA:
"The software would also free advertising from its traditional browser yoke.
I believe they mis-spelled 'sandbox'.
I don't know about anyone else, but this strikes me as one of the most potentially disastrous things to happen to PC security since ActiveX got integrated into Outlook and MSIE. How could Marketing possibly resist the temptation to make the advertising material interactive (i.e. executable), and how long before Microsoft begins allowing 'partners' to load their own content into the ad space?
The moment that happens, they've opened up yet another route to remotely (and insecurely) interact with virtually every application on the desktop.
Before anyone jumps on me: I'm not saying this is going to happen. I'm saying that it would become Microsoft's responsibility to make sure it doesn't happen, because they will have created this new threat.
Yep, that'd be the 'no shit, Sherlock' part of the situation that makes the royalty fee scheme so blindingly stupid. There is nothing even approaching a sane strategy behind this - at least, not that I can see. It reminds me most of a drowning man struggling so much that he also drowns the one person who could possibly save him.
Congratulations! You just described The Trial , by Franz Kafka. The story was written in Czechoslovakia, just prior to the rise of Fascism in Europe, but I'm sure that the purest coincidence.
There's a fuck-ton[*] of business to be done through Internet-based services. But competition has a weird effect on this kind of business. It pushes prices so close to zero that it's nearly impossible to make the kind of money that Microsoft is used to.
This is an area that better suits the piranha than the shark, if you'll forgive the metaphor. A swarm of tiny service providers willing to survive on nibbles are going to be much more effective than a lumbering giant that requires the entire beast for itself.
More importantly, working over the Internet will require improvements in interoperability. Whether they arise through formal standards processes or through reverse engineering, you can count on significant movement in interop if the big software players start to commit to the kind of service that Ballmer is describing.
I for one - heh - welcome our online services overlords, because I am going to eat their lunch. Bit by tiny bit. 8^)
[*] That's 0.454 metric fuck-tonnes, for the non-Americans in the audience.
A complete fair scheduler for geeks? I can just see it:
Right, so the users behind my NAT are going to be measured as one person spending all day on somepopularsite.com, in 8 different places simultaneously? What about the four other open tabs currently open in my browser? Am I still visiting those sites? The answer could be 'yes', but I don't see how that adds value for advertisers.
HTTP is a stateless protocol, which means that it's inherently difficult (i.e. impossible) to consistently get accurate data about the duration of a given visit. It can be argued that you can derive data that's statistically significant. You can argue further that if everyone uses the same metric then they'll be valid for comparison purposes, which is enough for the MBAs in Marketing, I suppose.
I personally think time spent on a website is a silly metric, and will continue to hold that opinion until someone can make the case that staring at an advertisement for longer period of time actually encourages a person to finally click on it, rather than tune it out completely. (This works well for branding, but for little else.)
There's a lot of nuance that can be brought into this discussion, and this is where the good advertisers and marketers earn their keep. Assuming that either page views or time spent on a site are sufficient to make a solid judgement of the value of a given website is, uh, a little short on nuance.
...without the sort of $$$ companies like Nokia, Apple and Sony Ericsson regularly throw at "your phone is a statement of who you are" marketing campaigns, I doubt phones based on this software will make much of an impact outside of geek circles.I can think of a few areas where this might be popular:
There are modest fortunes to be made in any of the above. I'm already investigating the business potential of this device for the very unique circumstances that I work in. If the quality and supply of this device are at the right level, I'm almost certain to invest in it.
I beg to differ. Downloading a single file is only indicative of how fast a particular connection is between two particular points. P2P, if it's allowed to, saturates the network with two-way traffic to numerous end points. If - and this is a big if - there were no constraints on P2P traffic at large on our networks, I would consider it a near ideal measure of TCP traffic capacity in the real world.
In fairness to your comment, you characterised that single download as a 'data point'. Strictly speaking, that's a valid statement. How to get enough of these data points to provide useful insight isn't adequately answered by either of our suggestions, and frankly I'm a little doubtful about the online speed tests being discussed here, too.
I think you're confusing interoperability and consistency with sameness. The latter is neither necessary nor desirable.
The government of China has at least two officially supported Linux distributions that I'm aware of. They fund their development and promote them internally as well as internationally. It would be accurate to say that they've got some idea of the relative level of security that Windows and Linux provide, and have made their strategic choice.
Wouldn't dream of it. Because in Linux automatic updates are simpler than Windows, better controlled and more comprehensive. Try the latest Ubuntu and tell me again how inferior it is. No command line, no muss, no fuss, no Genuine Advantage, no worry.
You might want to read up a little more on the relative health of monoculture and heterogeneous systems. It's true that only a fool would say that Linux is immune to trojans. But it is a good deal more resistant, by virtue of the fact that:
These factors can slow down the propagation of a given trojan and limit damage even when it succeeds, reducing its overall effectiveness and requiring greater effort for smaller reward.
None of these items represents a complete solution, but security is not a zero-sum game that's won or lost in a single stroke. Linux is not The Answer; it's a useful component of a larger response to the threats posed by malware of all kinds.
Good eye. I did specifically mention them, because I think they're the ones who are most likely to benefit from offers such as Dell's. As far as I can see, there are two groups that will comprise the next wave of desktop Linux users: Office staff and new users. Office staff won't have a choice, but they'll have technical support and training (one hopes). New users, as I've shown, have nothing to fear from Ubuntu, and a lot to like.
I've installed Ubuntu on computers used by well over a thousand new computer users. Common tasks were picked up with as much ease as I've witnessed with first-time Windows users.
A few things that new users tend to find useful:
Those are just the first few things that spring to mind. I'm sure others can add to this list.
Those who are accustomed to Windows will be accustomed to certain conventions, and this will rankle a little bit at first. But once you get used to the fact that, for example, the Start button is on the top of the screen rather than the bottom, you quickly find a lot to like.
You wouldn't say that if you were standing in front of them. 8^)
Without agreeing with the rhetorical gist of the GP, I believe the point being made was that the suggestion was so absurd that nobody would put it forward unless they were paid to do so.
I disagree with that premise, but I do agree that obscuring any aspect of a voting system that is being used to decide, among other things, the next president of the United Sates is the height of folly.
Risk is measured as a combination of:
In this case, the prize is political control of the most powerful nation in the world. So we need to ask ourselves: How much are fair and free elections worth? What, in effect, is the price of the democratic process in the US?
I think it's worth billions of dollars. That means stringent code review, impeccable chain of custody and constant supervision. Saving a few bucks by using an off-the-shelf operating system - especially one that is orders of magnitude more complex than what is actually required - that's absurd, in my opinion.
I'm not sure you get it. The big benefit of virtualisation is that you can reduce your support costs significantly because much of the arcane knowledge that was required to make Windows play nice with this device or that is suddenly reduced to a manageable package. Virtualisation makes Windows easier to maintain, not harder.
I run Windows only in virtualisation, which means I only have to get it working in one 'hardware' scenario - a virtual one. Once I've got that done, I can roll it out to as many stations as I like simply by copying a folder. Supporting the underlying OS (we're running Linux) is much less time consuming than supporting Windows on bare metal.
If you are naive enough to think that you can get through your technological career knowing only one platform, you've got another thing coming. In fact, 20-odd years of just using computers has taught me that nobody is exempt from this rule. People will always have to learn new things. Learning something that's easier than before is, in my experience, something that most everyone is happy to do.
Groklaw is irrelevant. The RIAA were dead wrong in this case, and now she wants them to pay for their mistake. She has every right to do so. That's how the legal system works in the US.
Some people call him Maurice.
Some people call him the gangster of Love....
I think that only goes for show business. "Saturday June 24, Linux Users Eat More Babies" just ain't good for Linux no matter how you interpret the meaning of the title.
Yeah, but if you do a follow-up on June 25 explaining that they're terrorist babies, it's okay again.