That's why there are many times more Microsoft developers than there are for any other platform. MS has made programming insanely simple. DLL's and other forms of COM objects make code reuse very, very simple. I can make a application with a functional web browser embedded in it in under 30 seconds. Can't do that on any other platform that I'm aware of.
Yes, this is true because "Dynamically Linked Libraries" are a feature only present in Microsoft Windows. In the UNIX/Linux/Mac world, we are stuck with "Shared Libraries."
The reason there are more Microsoft developers than there are for any other platforms is because there are more Microsoft Windows deployments than any other platform.
Shared libraries were not invented by Microsoft. Wikiedpia says "Dynamic linking was originally developed in the Multics operating system, starting in 1964." How does that corporate juice taste?
something original = copyright something original + non-obvious* = patent
You have to remember who you are dealing with here. Most people really don't know the difference between these things and would probably take your definition as fact. However, it is completely wrong... Perhaps you knew that, perhaps you didnt or maybe you could care less. Either way I feel as though I have educated some people and got some good karma.
64 bit is a blindly obvious extension of 32 bit, particularly when you realize that 32 was also an extension of 16, 16 of 8 and 8 of 4, and therefore totally fails any reasonable obviousness test.
Okay sure it is. 128-bit will be next. Then 256-bit. What's the point? Everything is built on something else. I never said patents were good, or even not "broken," I was just defining them. It is important for people to understand what they are talking about. The OP had confused patents and copyrights... two very different things.
Ssssssh! Shut up, the global warming mob might hear you.
Yes, it would be horrible to have all those people who have noticed that global temperature is increasing also notice that you are skeptical that the oceans will run out of sea life just because the living things in the sea are dying off faster than their numbers are being replenished. Those people are so weird, with their fact-based reality and belief that life on this planet matters. I'm glad you're too much of an independent thinker to fall for their soft-headed ruses.
The skeptics need to respect that humanity absolutely must keep an eye on the environment and out impact on it. However, the "fact-based" environmentalists need to understand that we don't understand what is happening around us. As advanced a race as we've become, we simply do not know how to predict our environment, or the long-term results of our impact on it. This article should have a footnote: "Warning: Computer Simulation -- May be erroneous and unverifiable"
Nature has a way of balancing itself out. That is how it has always been.
Were you aware that "global warming" -- which was surely made slightly worse by humanity -- started in the last 1850s? The world has been trending warmer for well over a century. Its natural... It gets colder for a few hundred (thousand) years, and then it gets warmer. Remmber the ice age?? Same idea.
What do you propose we should do about this declining trend in aquatic life? Artificially restore the dying species? No... that is a terrible idea. Lets think back to the 1920s (give or take) when the National Parks Service was formed, and proceeded to "preserve" America's national parks. They meant well... see Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of America's First National Park.
The best thing we can do is protect breeding areas, try to control the fisherman, and let the ecosystem balance itself out. I'd be more worried about what is happening on the west coast of America. Every summer, like clockwork, you can watch news coverage of *thousands* of firefighters mobilizing to fight the "evil" forest fires. Why do they do that? Said fires are usually natural... not arson... Did you know that the California forests USED TO burn down every decade or so? The ecosystem didnt collapse. The trees regrew. They probably evolved rapidly because of their shorter life. How many species have impacted by putting out these natural fires? Bottom line is that nobody cares. Burned down forests are ugly and nobody wants that.
There are TONS of scientific papers and book written about how ridiculous our view of the environment is. For every paper about how SUVs in Australia cause glaciers to melt in new zealand, there is an equally valid paper on how it is not true. But, fear sells.
If dry papers are not your thing, I recommend Michael Crichton's book State of Fear. A well written work of fiction based on literally dozens and dozens published works of environmental research that takes a very critical look at environmentalism and anti-environmentalism.
Here is a list of some of Crichton's sources, and a short review of how accurate the book is.
**Footnote: I recycle. I dont idle my car. I don't litter. I hike and camp in the woods from time to time. I love the environment, but I am also very critical of what I hear on the news. Everybody has an agenda.
Google books the flight and buys the ticket for you. You pay for the lodging, food, etc., and then submit your receipts to Google for reimbursement after the trip.
There you go. I doubt Google pays for your hookers (unless you get the job), so the other response might have been accurate:)
...snip certificate...
1. It's only a 1024 bit RSA key. That is weak by today's standards.
You use of the word "weak" implies that 1024-bit RSA can be cracked. As of today, I know of no method to efficiently crack a 1024-bit RSA key generated by a strong RSA implementation. There was a big uproar in 2002 when a paper was published claiming that 1024-bit RSA could be cracked with about a billion dollars worth of computing hardware. Maybe by now the costs have come down... but 1024-bit keys are still widely (safely) used. Banks and critical systems (and my keys) are now 2048-bit, just to be on the safe side.
2. The signature algorithm is 'RSA-MD2'.
So what? That is the signature algorithm that VeriSign used to create that certificate. As such, it is ONLY used by YOU when YOU want to validate YOUR copy of the certificate. That certificate is self-signing, which means that it is used to validate itself. The signature on that certificate was encrypted with Verisigns private key. Your computer pulls VeriSigns public key from their servers and decodes the signature. Then your computer MD2 hashes the non-signature part of the X.509 cert. If the hash that your computer generated matches the decoded signature bit for bit, then the certificate is presumed valid. So you see: the MD2 is only used as a basic hash. The real security comes from RSA. Additionally that MD2 hash is not used to validate any other certificate that Verisign signs.
So you see, forging that X.509 root certificate would accomplish nothing. For one thing, you would need verisign's private key, which is heavily guarded. However the best part is that you would need to implant that certificate on other people's machines and then exploit something else (like DNS poisoning) before anything malicious can be done. If you can do all that, then there are worse security holes exposed and forged root certs are really not the problem.
3. Attacks against this certificate may only be theoretical today, but Verisign foresaw this, and saw fit to mark the certificate as valid until 2028!
This is common practice for all CA's. Check your other certificates... Most of the certs on my box are valid for at least 10 more years. They are valid for a long time because having them expire is a security risk. When your certs go bad, you need to get new ones. That process would be a security nightmare for the common user. Its better to just rely on software vendors to provide up-to-date keys with their products as X.500 currently does not have a key update system (at least not one that has been implemented). Note that your key was probably generated 11 years ago.
Has anyone found an effective way of cracking regular SSL? Is not the whole point of SSL to just slow down the decryption to a point where even if decrypted the data is old enough to be useless?
I mean hell if SSL is weak encryption and we need stronger encryption should I not SUE verisign right now for providing a false sense of saftey?
1. You have clearly not read the article, or even the entire/. summary. 2. Who is talking about cracking SSL? Nobody... the underlying algorithm algorithms can be changed. 3. You should not sue VeriSign because they did not invent AES or 3DES or the SSL spec. Nor did VeriSign encrypt the data you get when using SSL. All they do is "guarantee" that the certificate you recieve is from a website belongs to that website and only that website. They basically sign certificates with their own super-secret private key.
You really should figure out what you're talking about before writing garbage like this.
> And what, exactly, is creating something original, if not being "the first one to get there"?
something original = copyright something original + non-obvious* = patent
Way off-base. The problem is that so many Americans do not really understand what a Patent or Copyright is. Right from the horses mouth (USPTO):
" There are three types of patents: 1) Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof; 2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture; 3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant. "
The key here is that patents are for things that are invented. The invention may be an entirely new idea or a significant improvement on some other idea. By idea, I mean: "process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter." So even though 64-bit cards are the natural evolution of 32-bit graphics cards, SGI was the first company to "think of" this improvement to the cards.
On the other hand a copyright only applies to authored materials, namely "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished." You may copyright the manual describing how to manufacture a 64-bit graphics card, but you would have to patent the procedures in that manual.
Back to the OP. So you see, your definition of a patent as being a "non-obvious copyright" is way off base.
My university has an undergrad population of at least 15,000 students. It is located in Boston proper. I won't say more than that... There are two wireless networks that represent examples of both the best and worst deployments.
The University-wide Wireless: Completely insecure. Open to students, faculty, community members, and hackers. This network covers the better part of a square mile. It's huge.
The College of Computer Science: This network has two levels of security. First, you need to log in to use the access points. You can choose to log in normally or via IPSec secured VPN. The former allows only port 80 traffic, SSH and other secure communication. The latter provides unrestricted traffic flow. You can't use it at all without being a currently enrolled student, and there is no connection further than a few feet outside of the building.
I wasted over $3k in expenses out of pocket to interview with them.
Wow! For a company that provides "free everything" to their employees, they sure are cheapskates when it comes to interviewing potential employees. I've had far less prosperous companies pay my for my airfare, lodging, and food when visiting for an interview.
I know three employees of Google. The interview process is strictly standardized. One introductory phone interview from an HR person, followed by another, more technical, phone interview. If you make it past those two, they either fly you out to Mountain View (all expenses paid) for a tough in-person final interview. After that, you still may or may not have the job. I have also spoken to a Google recruiter out here Boston. She told me the exact same thing.
I'm not calling this guy a liar... but his story sounds odd. Seriously, even if he flew out to CA for a week to do interviews, how could it add up to $3000? A flight from NY to CA can be had for about $500 round trip... and that is coast-to-coast. Say $100/night for a decent hotel for a week. Plus $500 in food would make it $1500.
These are great ideas (though I don't like the US bias:| ). But! $100M is a lot of money. It'll earn you a lot of annual interest. And academic books become dated quickly. Wouln't it be wize to buy updated copy each year, than as much as you possibly could all at once?
Not really... Yes, academic books are constant being revised, but the information is generally VERY static. The publishers like to reorder chapters, question, etc so that poor university students like me have to purchase "new" versions of the same textbook (a reaction to half.com and general book resale).
History texts change when our interpretation of the past changes. Anatomy and other various medical texts change as our understand of ourselves evolves. Examples of things that don't change all that often: An intro to physics textbook, a calculus textbook (math laws are fairly sound...), Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language, etc....
I don't know why the author of the article suggests that floating nuclear power plants are a novel idea. Of course the U.S. Navy has had them for decades, and there are Russian nuclear-powered icebreakers that take civilian passengers. If you have US$18,000 to spend, you can travel to the freakin' North Pole on the Yamal
Umm... this is a slightly different scale of power generation. Those ships and submarines which are nuclear powered have really small reactors. The power (and more importantly pressure) generated in a small Navy sub reactor is "small" compared to this beast. We're talking about TWO full scale reactors on a barge.
While the reactor on a aircraft carrier might provide power for the 1000 crewmen and motors, etc, this scale vessel could power a city. Think about it... what if the government could keep one on reserve in the event of an extended blackout. Or better, what if we could anchor a nuclear barge 50 miles off a foreign shore to power troop deployments? Or to power parts of our enemies country after we take out all their power plants.
Universities have historically been the epicenter of progress and liberalism. I wouldnt say that the administration drive that progress, rather the student body does. Unlike other entities, the University is unique in that the student have most of the power. If the president of my university outlawed "offensive" websites, there would be student protests, bad press coverage etc until the policy is changed.
Honestly this is unimaginable for me, as a senior undergrad student. My university does no filtering whatsoever. They do shape packets for peer-to-peer networks as they leave the LAN because these networks use to completely choke the internet pipe.
University campuses should facilitate the congregation of intelligent and mature individuals. That can only happen without senseless anti-progressive restrictions like net censorship. Why are they protecting?
Office applications are designed for... well... the office. You write a report using a canned coporate template that requires no extra effort. You can share it with others and they can change it without any special effort.
(La)TeX is a typesetting program! Its the best at mathematical composition (or pretty much anything with complex mathematical expressions in it) as well as for typesetting publications. Very complex templates can be applied with little effort. TeX handles all the gorey layout details.
Even though they can be used for the same thing, these two applications are for very different things. Using an office app to layout a 1200 page textbook is insane. You can do it, but it would be much more time consuming than laying out a textbook in TeX. On the other hand, TeX would feel cumbersome if all you are doing is writing an office memo.
Actually I would bet that Google servers DON'T have a video card, and that all of them have RJ-45 SOL support (or something like it). The reason being that Google has admitted that they fully embrace the commodity distributed server system. Google will periodically host talks at my university where they explain all this in [too much] detail.
Basically, when a machine fails, it is pulled from the rack and replaced with an identical machine with a cookie cutter image. Kinda like the Borg:)
When a box fails it is probably instantly detected by some machine monitor and taken offline (think: the 'crop' tenders in the Matrix I). The sysadmins arent going to waste time plugging a video cable into the rack... just pull it. Toss the box into a repair queue and let the tech's put a video card into it if needed. Remeber: 100's of machines fail for them every day. That's a fact from the Google talk in 05.
Sony better get their act together. This is at least the third major recall on Sony laptop batteries in this year alone, and all for different reasons. If I were a competeing battery manufacturer, I would be very happy right now. If I were Apple, Toshiba or Dell, I would be looking for other suppliers.
This might be true, but it sounds like more fake Apple rumors. Keeping in mind the fact that 90% of Apple rumors are completely unbased, look at the holes in this rumor.
First, Google Video is great, but its video quality is nothing special. The video is very highly compressed and encoded in to a Macromedia Flash container. The result is a very very lossy conversion prosses. Herein lies the problem. Google video's quality is perfect for free PC content, but for TV?? The trend lately is heavily towards HDTV and better, not worse. I for one would NEVER play anything on my television that was below antenae quality (if that).
The second hole here is, if not for Google Video software, what is Google providing here?? The servers and bandwidth? That does not make any sense because Google is not an ISP. So maybe its the content? Nope. Apple has MUCH more mature ties with the media conglomerates than Google does. This is due to their past relations relating to the iTunes store and especially close ties with Disney (recently) and Pixar. Apple.
So, sorry to burst the all of your bubbles, but the only thing Google has to offer Apple that we know of is: Advertisements and Phd's. How streaming TV with advertisements can generate enough revenue to work, I don't know... but maybe thats what Google's Phd's have figured out. Lets just wait and see...
Yes, displaying an error message in a billion languages instead of just the language the computer is setup to use is definately much more helpful. You know, just in case you forgot how to read your prefered language at the exact same time that the kernel crapped out. You do know a backup language for those times that you forget the primary one, right?
I know that was probably meant as a joke, regardless... You do know that image is almost certinely hardcoded? It isnt like the kernel can go and look up the default language as its getting fried...
Jeez, I had no idea my OP would have caused so many different directions of discussions. First off, I agree that it should mention that there was a problem. However, nothing more specific because it doesnt make sense. If we hit the bsod point we are in a state where the only possible other option is to just tell the motherboard to cut power (if we can even do that).
2. Their system DOES crash (sometimes) and they just don't know it because Apple hides it from them.
Blah blah. Systems crash. Linux crashes, Windows crashes, Mac's crash, HP-UX crashes, Solaris crashes, etc, etc. You're saying that Apple "hides" crashes in some way that users don't know it has happened?? Is that a bad thing?? Are you insane?? If Apple have figured out a way to make their shit smell like fresh Roses, then I say more power to them
Keep it simple AND keep it informative. A real BSOD will include information about the stop code and arguments at the time of death. If the system knows which driver caused the crash it will tell you this as well. The Mac panic screen not only takes more resources to display but they tell you far less. "Please restart" in 23 different languages is not helpful. The 10.0 and 10.1 version looked much better.
Obviously you are NOT ready for the Mac. Come see the light, friend.
Do you really think that Apple have decided error codes and detailed crash reports are not important?? No, of course they have not. There are two reasons Apple does this.
1) The truth is that the infamous blue page of kernel farts that windows spews out are only to technicians or sysadmins. The home user, and in fact, the power users, can do nothing with it. Nothing, of course, except Google for the stop code and hope Microsoft has a techhelp article on what it means. You can reply to this and say that
makes perfect sense to you... but you'd be lying. I know that the relevent part is 8E but 99% of users NEVER NEED TO SEE THIS and will NEVER USE IT.
Back to Apple. Apple has a little ditty called the "CrashReporter" and it has an OSX front-end to the system's log filed in/var/log/. The logs contain all the nitty gritty about what was in the registers when the sytem exploded, what driver/module caused it, etc readily and easily recorded in the system log. Said information (like STOP: 0x0000000000000000008E) is for a tech or sysadmin, not a standard user.
2) What do you do with the BSOD info displayed?? A true nooblar would write it all down. That's a waste of time, becuase its also in Windows' system log. Assuming you're going to Google for it, you would presumably reboot the machine, right? So why did we even need to see the error when it happened? The machine is up not, and the logs are visible...??
Bottom line: Apple's goal is to keep things simple, clean and friendly. What would your parents rather see?
A pleasant semi-transparent overlay that asks them to reboot their machine (in their native language)
A solid blue screen reading "KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED" followed by 30 rows of random-like numbers
Which one?
P.S. - Don't even think about saying "what happens if you cant boot." If that is the case, remove the new hardware. Otherwise you are in DEEP trouble... the code doesnt really matter and you'd actually be better off reading the error from/var/log.
They want to turn it on, and not have to worry that the computer from which they're trying to transfer music is "iTunes anointed" or not. DRM-fatigue, finally, sets in (it's about time!).
Do you honestly think this affects more than 1% of the massive iPod user base?? And you are confused I think... You can only sync 1 computer to your iPod, but you can play iTunes music from up to 5 computers. Most people will never max out the 5 computer iTunes DRM limit. The average person uses one primary computer at home, maybe another at work, and a possibly a laptop. The DRM would allow you to play on all 3 of those at the same time (and 2 more).
Even if you want to go over that 5 computer limit, fret not. It is not a hard limit. You can "deauthorize" your machines and add new ones.
After reading TFA, I have to say that it is a pretty worthless doomsday article.
My favorite line:
...while other consumers who had bought iPods more recently had not even taken theirs out of the package to set it up.
Who drops $300 on an iPod and then does not take it out of the box?? I think they interviewed grandparents who got iPods from their kids or something...
A close second was the sentence immediately preceeding that one:
some long-time iPod-users told us that they have stopped updating their iPods because it's too much work
Step 1: Plug in iPod, Step 2: Click "Yes" when iTunes asks if you want to update, Step 3:...Oh, there is no step 3
Slashdot Mirror
You're implying that America and/or western culture is the culprit here. I think this is more of a global issue. Especially including the far east.
Yes, this is true because "Dynamically Linked Libraries" are a feature only present in Microsoft Windows. In the UNIX/Linux/Mac world, we are stuck with "Shared Libraries."
The reason there are more Microsoft developers than there are for any other platforms is because there are more Microsoft Windows deployments than any other platform.
Shared libraries were not invented by Microsoft. Wikiedpia says "Dynamic linking was originally developed in the Multics operating system, starting in 1964." How does that corporate juice taste?
You have to remember who you are dealing with here. Most people really don't know the difference between these things and would probably take your definition as fact. However, it is completely wrong... Perhaps you knew that, perhaps you didnt or maybe you could care less. Either way I feel as though I have educated some people and got some good karma.
Okay sure it is. 128-bit will be next. Then 256-bit. What's the point? Everything is built on something else. I never said patents were good, or even not "broken," I was just defining them. It is important for people to understand what they are talking about. The OP had confused patents and copyrights... two very different things.
The skeptics need to respect that humanity absolutely must keep an eye on the environment and out impact on it. However, the "fact-based" environmentalists need to understand that we don't understand what is happening around us. As advanced a race as we've become, we simply do not know how to predict our environment, or the long-term results of our impact on it. This article should have a footnote: "Warning: Computer Simulation -- May be erroneous and unverifiable"
Nature has a way of balancing itself out. That is how it has always been.
Were you aware that "global warming" -- which was surely made slightly worse by humanity -- started in the last 1850s? The world has been trending warmer for well over a century. Its natural... It gets colder for a few hundred (thousand) years, and then it gets warmer. Remmber the ice age?? Same idea.
What do you propose we should do about this declining trend in aquatic life? Artificially restore the dying species? No... that is a terrible idea. Lets think back to the 1920s (give or take) when the National Parks Service was formed, and proceeded to "preserve" America's national parks. They meant well... see Playing God in Yellowstone: The Destruction of America's First National Park.
The best thing we can do is protect breeding areas, try to control the fisherman, and let the ecosystem balance itself out. I'd be more worried about what is happening on the west coast of America. Every summer, like clockwork, you can watch news coverage of *thousands* of firefighters mobilizing to fight the "evil" forest fires. Why do they do that? Said fires are usually natural... not arson... Did you know that the California forests USED TO burn down every decade or so? The ecosystem didnt collapse. The trees regrew. They probably evolved rapidly because of their shorter life. How many species have impacted by putting out these natural fires? Bottom line is that nobody cares. Burned down forests are ugly and nobody wants that.
There are TONS of scientific papers and book written about how ridiculous our view of the environment is. For every paper about how SUVs in Australia cause glaciers to melt in new zealand, there is an equally valid paper on how it is not true. But, fear sells.
If dry papers are not your thing, I recommend Michael Crichton's book State of Fear. A well written work of fiction based on literally dozens and dozens published works of environmental research that takes a very critical look at environmentalism and anti-environmentalism.
Here is a list of some of Crichton's sources, and a short review of how accurate the book is.
**Footnote: I recycle. I dont idle my car. I don't litter. I hike and camp in the woods from time to time. I love the environment, but I am also very critical of what I hear on the news. Everybody has an agenda.
There you go. I doubt Google pays for your hookers (unless you get the job), so the other response might have been accurate
You use of the word "weak" implies that 1024-bit RSA can be cracked. As of today, I know of no method to efficiently crack a 1024-bit RSA key generated by a strong RSA implementation. There was a big uproar in 2002 when a paper was published claiming that 1024-bit RSA could be cracked with about a billion dollars worth of computing hardware. Maybe by now the costs have come down... but 1024-bit keys are still widely (safely) used. Banks and critical systems (and my keys) are now 2048-bit, just to be on the safe side.
So what? That is the signature algorithm that VeriSign used to create that certificate. As such, it is ONLY used by YOU when YOU want to validate YOUR copy of the certificate. That certificate is self-signing, which means that it is used to validate itself. The signature on that certificate was encrypted with Verisigns private key. Your computer pulls VeriSigns public key from their servers and decodes the signature. Then your computer MD2 hashes the non-signature part of the X.509 cert. If the hash that your computer generated matches the decoded signature bit for bit, then the certificate is presumed valid. So you see: the MD2 is only used as a basic hash. The real security comes from RSA. Additionally that MD2 hash is not used to validate any other certificate that Verisign signs.
So you see, forging that X.509 root certificate would accomplish nothing. For one thing, you would need verisign's private key, which is heavily guarded. However the best part is that you would need to implant that certificate on other people's machines and then exploit something else (like DNS poisoning) before anything malicious can be done. If you can do all that, then there are worse security holes exposed and forged root certs are really not the problem.
This is common practice for all CA's. Check your other certificates... Most of the certs on my box are valid for at least 10 more years. They are valid for a long time because having them expire is a security risk. When your certs go bad, you need to get new ones. That process would be a security nightmare for the common user. Its better to just rely on software vendors to provide up-to-date keys with their products as X.500 currently does not have a key update system (at least not one that has been implemented). Note that your key was probably generated 11 years ago.
1. You have clearly not read the article, or even the entire
2. Who is talking about cracking SSL? Nobody... the underlying algorithm algorithms can be changed.
3. You should not sue VeriSign because they did not invent AES or 3DES or the SSL spec. Nor did VeriSign encrypt the data you get when using SSL. All they do is "guarantee" that the certificate you recieve is from a website belongs to that website and only that website. They basically sign certificates with their own super-secret private key.
You really should figure out what you're talking about before writing garbage like this.
Way off-base. The problem is that so many Americans do not really understand what a Patent or Copyright is. Right from the horses mouth (USPTO):
" There are three types of patents:
1) Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof;
2) Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture;
3) Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plant. "
The key here is that patents are for things that are invented. The invention may be an entirely new idea or a significant improvement on some other idea. By idea, I mean: "process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter." So even though 64-bit cards are the natural evolution of 32-bit graphics cards, SGI was the first company to "think of" this improvement to the cards.
On the other hand a copyright only applies to authored materials, namely "literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished." You may copyright the manual describing how to manufacture a 64-bit graphics card, but you would have to patent the procedures in that manual.
Back to the OP. So you see, your definition of a patent as being a "non-obvious copyright" is way off base.
The University-wide Wireless: Completely insecure. Open to students, faculty, community members, and hackers. This network covers the better part of a square mile. It's huge.
The College of Computer Science: This network has two levels of security. First, you need to log in to use the access points. You can choose to log in normally or via IPSec secured VPN. The former allows only port 80 traffic, SSH and other secure communication. The latter provides unrestricted traffic flow. You can't use it at all without being a currently enrolled student, and there is no connection further than a few feet outside of the building.
Like I said: The best and the worst.
I know three employees of Google. The interview process is strictly standardized. One introductory phone interview from an HR person, followed by another, more technical, phone interview. If you make it past those two, they either fly you out to Mountain View (all expenses paid) for a tough in-person final interview. After that, you still may or may not have the job. I have also spoken to a Google recruiter out here Boston. She told me the exact same thing.
I'm not calling this guy a liar... but his story sounds odd. Seriously, even if he flew out to CA for a week to do interviews, how could it add up to $3000? A flight from NY to CA can be had for about $500 round trip... and that is coast-to-coast. Say $100/night for a decent hotel for a week. Plus $500 in food would make it $1500.
Not really... Yes, academic books are constant being revised, but the information is generally VERY static. The publishers like to reorder chapters, question, etc so that poor university students like me have to purchase "new" versions of the same textbook (a reaction to half.com and general book resale).
History texts change when our interpretation of the past changes. Anatomy and other various medical texts change as our understand of ourselves evolves. Examples of things that don't change all that often: An intro to physics textbook, a calculus textbook (math laws are fairly sound...), Kernighan and Ritchie's The C Programming Language, etc....
Umm... this is a slightly different scale of power generation. Those ships and submarines which are nuclear powered have really small reactors. The power (and more importantly pressure) generated in a small Navy sub reactor is "small" compared to this beast. We're talking about TWO full scale reactors on a barge.
While the reactor on a aircraft carrier might provide power for the 1000 crewmen and motors, etc, this scale vessel could power a city. Think about it... what if the government could keep one on reserve in the event of an extended blackout. Or better, what if we could anchor a nuclear barge 50 miles off a foreign shore to power troop deployments? Or to power parts of our enemies country after we take out all their power plants.
Universities have historically been the epicenter of progress and liberalism. I wouldnt say that the administration drive that progress, rather the student body does. Unlike other entities, the University is unique in that the student have most of the power. If the president of my university outlawed "offensive" websites, there would be student protests, bad press coverage etc until the policy is changed.
Honestly this is unimaginable for me, as a senior undergrad student. My university does no filtering whatsoever. They do shape packets for peer-to-peer networks as they leave the LAN because these networks use to completely choke the internet pipe.
University campuses should facilitate the congregation of intelligent and mature individuals. That can only happen without senseless anti-progressive restrictions like net censorship. Why are they protecting?
Lets just stop this argument now.
Office applications are designed for... well... the office. You write a report using a canned coporate template that requires no extra effort. You can share it with others and they can change it without any special effort.
(La)TeX is a typesetting program! Its the best at mathematical composition (or pretty much anything with complex mathematical expressions in it) as well as for typesetting publications. Very complex templates can be applied with little effort. TeX handles all the gorey layout details.
Even though they can be used for the same thing, these two applications are for very different things. Using an office app to layout a 1200 page textbook is insane. You can do it, but it would be much more time consuming than laying out a textbook in TeX. On the other hand, TeX would feel cumbersome if all you are doing is writing an office memo.
Actually I would bet that Google servers DON'T have a video card, and that all of them have RJ-45 SOL support (or something like it). The reason being that Google has admitted that they fully embrace the commodity distributed server system. Google will periodically host talks at my university where they explain all this in [too much] detail.
:)
Basically, when a machine fails, it is pulled from the rack and replaced with an identical machine with a cookie cutter image. Kinda like the Borg
When a box fails it is probably instantly detected by some machine monitor and taken offline (think: the 'crop' tenders in the Matrix I). The sysadmins arent going to waste time plugging a video cable into the rack... just pull it. Toss the box into a repair queue and let the tech's put a video card into it if needed. Remeber: 100's of machines fail for them every day. That's a fact from the Google talk in 05.
Sony better get their act together. This is at least the third major recall on Sony laptop batteries in this year alone, and all for different reasons. If I were a competeing battery manufacturer, I would be very happy right now. If I were Apple, Toshiba or Dell, I would be looking for other suppliers.
This might be true, but it sounds like more fake Apple rumors. Keeping in mind the fact that 90% of Apple rumors are completely unbased, look at the holes in this rumor.
First, Google Video is great, but its video quality is nothing special. The video is very highly compressed and encoded in to a Macromedia Flash container. The result is a very very lossy conversion prosses. Herein lies the problem. Google video's quality is perfect for free PC content, but for TV?? The trend lately is heavily towards HDTV and better, not worse. I for one would NEVER play anything on my television that was below antenae quality (if that).
The second hole here is, if not for Google Video software, what is Google providing here?? The servers and bandwidth? That does not make any sense because Google is not an ISP. So maybe its the content? Nope. Apple has MUCH more mature ties with the media conglomerates than Google does. This is due to their past relations relating to the iTunes store and especially close ties with Disney (recently) and Pixar. Apple.
So, sorry to burst the all of your bubbles, but the only thing Google has to offer Apple that we know of is: Advertisements and Phd's. How streaming TV with advertisements can generate enough revenue to work, I don't know... but maybe thats what Google's Phd's have figured out. Lets just wait and see...
I know that was probably meant as a joke, regardless... You do know that image is almost certinely hardcoded? It isnt like the kernel can go and look up the default language as its getting fried...
It is pretty lame, but I love when somebody gets caught in it. Priceless.
Blah blah. Systems crash. Linux crashes, Windows crashes, Mac's crash, HP-UX crashes, Solaris crashes, etc, etc. You're saying that Apple "hides" crashes in some way that users don't know it has happened?? Is that a bad thing?? Are you insane?? If Apple have figured out a way to make their shit smell like fresh Roses, then I say more power to them
Sorry in advance for the terrible spelling/grammar in that... I forgot to proof read it :)
Obviously you are NOT ready for the Mac. Come see the light, friend.
Do you really think that Apple have decided error codes and detailed crash reports are not important?? No, of course they have not. There are two reasons Apple does this.
1) The truth is that the infamous blue page of kernel farts that windows spews out are only to technicians or sysadmins. The home user, and in fact, the power users, can do nothing with it. Nothing, of course, except Google for the stop code and hope Microsoft has a techhelp article on what it means. You can reply to this and say that
makes perfect sense to you... but you'd be lying. I know that the relevent part is 8E but 99% of users NEVER NEED TO SEE THIS and will NEVER USE IT.
Back to Apple. Apple has a little ditty called the "CrashReporter" and it has an OSX front-end to the system's log filed in
2) What do you do with the BSOD info displayed?? A true nooblar would write it all down. That's a waste of time, becuase its also in Windows' system log. Assuming you're going to Google for it, you would presumably reboot the machine, right? So why did we even need to see the error when it happened? The machine is up not, and the logs are visible...??
Bottom line: Apple's goal is to keep things simple, clean and friendly. What would your parents rather see?
Which one?
P.S. - Don't even think about saying "what happens if you cant boot." If that is the case, remove the new hardware. Otherwise you are in DEEP trouble... the code doesnt really matter and you'd actually be better off reading the error from
Do you honestly think this affects more than 1% of the massive iPod user base?? And you are confused I think... You can only sync 1 computer to your iPod, but you can play iTunes music from up to 5 computers. Most people will never max out the 5 computer iTunes DRM limit. The average person uses one primary computer at home, maybe another at work, and a possibly a laptop. The DRM would allow you to play on all 3 of those at the same time (and 2 more).
Even if you want to go over that 5 computer limit, fret not. It is not a hard limit. You can "deauthorize" your machines and add new ones.
My favorite line:
Who drops $300 on an iPod and then does not take it out of the box?? I think they interviewed grandparents who got iPods from their kids or something...
A close second was the sentence immediately preceeding that one:
Step 1: Plug in iPod, Step 2: Click "Yes" when iTunes asks if you want to update, Step 3: