The updating via Firefox claim is utter tripe. I've tried visiting both the normal Windows Update and Microsoft Update (and Office Update) sites via Firefox and I get redirected to an error page each and every time. The only way the site "works" is when I use IETab or otherwise mask my browser header info.
It took off because the DirectX control set offered an integrated toolset to work with. Sound, video, controllers (joysticks/mouse/keyboard,etc) all in one package. With OpenGL you got...graphics. It wasn't a complete toolkit library, and instead of the mish-mash that you end up getting trying to cobble together toolkits for the other components of games to go along with OpenGL, they chose to use DX. Even though most programmers were like, "Ewwww, Microsoft games?", were also like, "Complete toolkit to develop with...we don't have to waste time coding in all of this extra stuff to the toolkit? Sign me up."
They don't apply YET. The RIAA has said that they fully intend to push these royalties upon terrestrial stations as well.
Read more here:
Artists and Labels Seek Royalties From Radio
There are tons and tons and tons of links, data, charts,.pdf files and things you can pour over if you research the topic via Google, local library, watch CSpan, etc.
And to the AC earlier: Yes, corn farmers helped influence the decision, as did domestic sugar producers, but, oil companies are also to blame for this, as they don't want competition from ethanol PERIOD.
I can continue for pages and pages if you wish. You know, search engines are useful tools at times;) Now granted, most of it comes from exploits in 3rd-party apps, such as Apache, PHP, SQL, etc. But...knowing this, and how there are botnets running with Apache priviledge levels.....kind of dumps that whole "don't run as root in *nix" argument right into the toilet. As long as people are people, they can be socially-engineered to offer up their passwords for whatever reason (I'm looking at you, OSX users). Relying on a popup password entry box for security is just as silly as allowing a Windows machine to sit un-patched on the internet.
I am actually quite surprised that more OSes don't have some sort of application firewalling/sandboxing built into them, instead of relying on concepts like UAC or root permissions that are worthless if all it takes to bypass them is someone typing a password into a popup box, clicking Allow (and how many people do we know that use blank or short, all alphabetical passwords, hmmmm?), or running insecure application software that is always accessible via the internet.
The entire problem with what you propose, is that in the USA, 25 mpg is the current fuel economy standard. Good luck finding any car here that gets your 46 mpg average. All of the car manufacturers claim it is too hard or impossible to manufacture 30+ mpg, let alone 40+ mpg vehicles for the USA. Senator Dianne Feinstein has recently submitted a bill that would require 30+ mpg average fuel economy by 2010, and 1 gallon per year after until 2020. She calls shenanigans on all of the car companies that can manufacture cars in Canada, Australia, Europe, Asia and even Africa that get 35 or more mpg, and are making them right now, but claim they can't do it here. She's right.
Also, you aren't even allowed to import any of those aforementioned vehicles into the USA, unless you are immigrating to the USA and already own one. All sorts of taxes, regulations and whatnot to make quite sure of that.
You should try looking up how the Brazilians do it. Sugar cane ethanol. They have trucks, let alone cars, there, that have been recorded at 46-75 mpg. Then read up on why the USA charges an exorbitant import and production tax on cane sugar, and cane sugar ethanol, to the point that you lose money on every drop of that particular flavor of ethanol that you would import or produce domestically, so that a gallon of sugar cane ethanol is more than four times the cost of a gallon of oil-based gasoline. The cost to manufacture, from seed to distilling into ethanol, costs quite a bit less in energy and dollars than it does to even pump a full tank of standard gasoline into the tank of an average SUV (let alone produce it). You'd almost think that the oil companies through their purchased government representatives might have had a say in those import taxes on cane ethanol eh?
It's apparently just MS finally adding in Macrovision DRM to its MCE version of XP, did anyone bother trying to rollback the update? Usually, most updates come with uninstallers you know, although ones like Genuine Advantage and whatnot have the uninstallers hidden.
Actually, conspiracy to commit fraud, using RNC equipment for official government use, lying under oath (perjury), etc are NOT legal. Hence why these firings are coming under the even closer scrutiny of Congress. It's not just that the firings bore some semblance of impropriety, it's that they bear some semblance of illegality:)
All this aside, while true that the President can fire any of them and replace them with people he wants in there, it is also true that he (or those working for him) are not supposed to break the law doing so. Then again, we all know how this President and his administration have such a difficult time obeying laws and treaties. All Gonzales and "friends" had to do to avoid this whole mess was not allegedly pressure one or two of the attorneys into attempting to illegally commit/support election fraud, and to avoid using RNC computer and communications equipment to discuss/enact the firings and replacements, and then trying to hide this activity. It's rather simple to fire and replace a politically-appointed employee right right out in the open under existing laws I thought...
Also, the whole lost email thing is just a stonewall tactic (obviously). Some of these same so-called missing emails were used to railroad/prosecute (i.e. Protect Karl Rove and Dick Cheney from Fed PMITA Prison) Scooter Libby during his trial. If they were available then, I would certainly like to know how they are suddenly "missing". Senator Leahy was right when he called bullshit on this entire situation.
This is not just Republican vs Democrat, this is rapidly becoming a criminal matter, let alone a political one. Part of the problem is these people (and by these people, I mean government Yes Men and their ilk) don't have a strong authority (Congress and SCOTUS have been weakened at every turn over the last 25+ years in favor of the Executive) telling them "No, you can't do that. Try again." And yes, I think Clinton and Reagan were just as bad as Bush I and II (Iran-Contra, War on Drugs, and DMCA. Nuff' said). It almost seems to me that Congress/SCOTUS are kind of wishy-washy. Where's the people in government who actually have spines and stand up for what is right instead?
(Personally, I am voting for Obama...I can pass on the two Clintons running the show again, and none of the Republican candidates stand a snowball's chance in Hell of getting elected either. Besides, even if Obama has less experience than Hillary, I don't think he could possibly make things any worse than the current office-holder already has.)
Actually, the law may not have been designed for this, but some of the RIAA's tactics do fall under RICO. Just read the Attorney General's Guidlines on RICO and criminal/terrorist enterprises, and the RICO Act itself.
Here are a few sections of interest:
"Moreover, a group's activities and the statements of its members may properly be considered in conjunction with each other. A combination of statements and activities may justify a determination that the threshold standard for a terrorism enterprise investigationis satisfied, even if the statements alone or the activities alone would not warrant such a determination."
"(1) Threats or advocacy of violence or other covered criminal acts: Statements are made in relation to or in furtherance of an enterprise's political or social objectives that threaten or advocate the use of force or violence, or statements are made in furtherance of an enterprise that otherwise threaten or advocate criminal conduct within the scope of 18 U.S.C. 2331(1) or (5) or 2332b(g)(5)(B), which may concern such matters as (e.g.):
(i) engaging in attacks involving or threatening massive loss of life or injury, mass destruction, or endangerment of the national security;
(ii) killing or injuring federal personnel, destroying federal facilities, or defying lawful federal authority;
(iii) killing, injuring or intimidating individuals because of their status as United States nationals or persons, or because of their national origin, race,color, religion, or sex; or
(iv) depriving individuals of any rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
(2) Apparent ability or intent to carry out violence or other covered activities: The enterprise manifests an apparent ability or intent to carry out violence or other activities within the scope of 18 U.S.C. 2331(1) or (5) or 2332b(g)(5)(B), e.g.:
(i) by acquiring, or taking steps towards acquiring, biological agents or toxins, toxic chemicals or their precursors, radiological or nuclear materials, explosives, or other destructive or dangerous materials (or plans or formulas for such materials), or weapons, under circumstances where, by reason of the quantity or character of the items, the lawful purpose of the acquisition is not apparent;
(ii) by the creation, maintenance, or support of an armed paramilitary organization;
(iii) by paramilitary training; or
(iv) by other conduct demonstrating an apparent ability or intent to injure or intimidate individuals, or to interfere with the exercise of their constitutional or statutory rights."
"II. GENERAL CRIMES INVESTIGATIONS
A. DEFINITIONS
(1) "Exigent circumstances" are circumstances requiring action before authorization otherwise necessary under these guidelines can reasonably be obtained, in order to protect life or substantial property interests; to apprehend or identify a fleeing offender; to prevent the hiding, destructionor alteration of evidence; or to avoid other serious impairment or hindrance of an investigation.
(2) "Sensitive criminal matter" is any alleged criminal conduct involving corrupt action by a public official or political candidate, the activities of a foreign government, the activities of a religious organization or a primarily political organization or the related activities of any individual prominent in such an organization, or the activities of the news media; and any other matter which in the judgment of a Special Agent in Charge (SAC) should be brought to the attention of the United States Attorney or other appropriate official in the Department of Justice, as well as FBI Headquarters (FBIHQ)."
Now, here are some excerpts from the RICO ACT itself that the RIAA might just so happen to fall under:
Title 18, 1961 (RICO)
1) "racketeering activity" means (A) any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gamb
If AMD keeps losing money hand over fist, you won't have to worry about ATI hardware anymore. I think that acquisition of ATI was a huge mistake on the part of both companies.
Personally, I think they'll stick with the generic Intel hardware, like they do now for the most part. They only seem to offer ATI stuff on their upper mid-range models (some laptops, media pcs/workstations) and their high-end model/gaming rigs. For their Dimension line, etc, it was a pretty much stock Intel chipset/cpu (customized Foxconn motherboards) combo with a Broadcom chipset for networking and AC'97 sound support. In other words, pretty generic hardware, coupled with pretty generic drivers.
It's right up Linux Alley as it were, (Well, the Broadcom chipset sucked, as all Broadcom's chipsets tend to do - they wore out frequently under even moderate use. Not to mention that their drivers were kind of poor as well) as that is all I can ever seem to get Linux running on. Generic stuff (I know, proprietary drivers, blah, blah, blah).
Everyone seems to get nVidia stuff working, but I don't want to pay for nVidia stuff just to have 3D in Linux when I already own ATI hardware. And I don't want to hear excuses about binary blobs, blah, blah, blah. My video cards are at least 7 years old, there is really not an excuse that they can't be automatically detected and installed by now. I can run Linux perfectly fine if rather limited graphics-wise if I revert to using the Intel video chipset on the motherboard, but yeesh. (If you ask why I don't upgrade my hardware, I will just ask you to foot the bill then, as I don't own a personal money tree, therefore I tend to use hardware until it dies.) I am stuck with PCI (not PCI-Express nor AGP) in the case of the desktop, and the laptop is well, non-replaceable ATI hardware anyhow.
Thank you Dell, for crippling the motherboard by not soldering on the AGP slot, you cheap bastards. -shakes fist angrily- (I wonder if I could solder one onto the board myself and I have access to a way to wave solder...the space for it is right there, including all of the solder points, and AGP is enabled in the BIOS...)
A cracking group offering their "services" to crack Wibu and tons of other stuff: http://www.djvibe.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1685 (Advertised on this site and may others, they have a rather large catalog of cracked dongle-protected software for sale.)
Note though: Codemeter is considered "secure" even by some crackers still, as a real solution requires the presence of a legit dongle. Brute-forcing it in software would take too long by most people's standards. So to engineer a crack, someone needs the dongle to work off of.
The weakness with dongles will always apparently be the APIs, especially ones that interact with the MS Windows APIs and Registry.
This info was found doing a quick Google search. I am of the opinion however, that Codemeter has been cracked, but the people who have cracked it, make much more money their way (selling their services or cracked software) than telling Wibu AG how they did it and collecting on any bounty offered like during that "hacking contest" they had.
It is indeed a blanket patent, and even covers icons as well as tabs. It also apparently is trying to cover mouse pointers, windows, menus, saving, editing, minimizing, maximizing, the Beryl "cube" interface, etc as seen here:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the user interface of a data processing system. More specifically, the invention relates to the organization of display objects such as windows into groups which are displayed together on a display-based user interface, each group being appropriate to a particular user task.
Current user interfaces typically include various types of input/output (I/O) devices-display outputs such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) and manually operated inputs such as a keyboard and a mouse. For example, a user provides alphanumeric and other inputs using the keyboard and provides inputs indicating position on the display using the mouse. The data processing system provides a display that helps the user to provide a sequence of manual inputs which will lead to the results the user desires.
One conventional technique for helping the user of a display-based user interface is to provide visually distinct display objects on the screen, each object fulfilling a corresponding function. For example, a pointer such as an arrow can be displayed on the screen, moving in response to a mouse or other pointer control device. The pointer appears to move over a number of other display objects which the user may select. The user typically selects a selectable display object or a distinct internal part of such a display object by a pointer signal, as by pressing an appropriate button on the mouse, when the pointer is on that display object or that distinct internal part. A user selection initiates operations of the data processing system which bear some logical relation to that display object.
The selectable display objects take many forms. The term "window" is applied to selectable display objects of various types, and one typical characteristic of windows is that the effect of a pointer signal within a window depends on the pointer location. The term "menu" is usually applied to another type of display object which also has this characteristic of distinct internal locations, because a menu typically has several areas within it, each of which represents an option which the user may select with a pointer signal in that area. The term "icon", on the other hand, is usually applied to a display object which does not have this characteristic of distinct internal locations, but which is a relatively small and visually suggestive of its function. A pointer signal within an icon typically produces the same effect regardless of the pointer's location within the icon.
Conventional display-based user interfaces thus may include at least three categories of display objects: a position indicating display object, such as a pointer; selectable display objects without internal location distinctions, such as icons; and selectable display objects with internal location distinctions, such as windows and menus. In addition, the user interface includes a set of procedures according to which the data processing system responds to selections and other inputs from the user. There is tons more to read over even after this point. Basically, this patent is trying to cover every aspect and implementation of a GUI interface. The funny thing is, they mention the Apple Lisa, and even earlier publications and applications using these very methods in the patent text itself, and even try to claim some of them as not being prior art, when clearly they are, no matter what they try to claim otherwise.
Their Viiv platform is just chock full of it, from software to chipset:)
They have many PAGES just on DRM (if you use the search term digital rights management on their website, search is powered by Google's search API), and one of their Corporate Responsibility Reports for Stakeholder Engagement states and I quote, "... We are deeply engaged in developing digital rights management solutions that enable creative industries to launch new digital content business models--and bring innovative and exciting experiences to consumers..."
And to think, that is just the tip of the iceberg, like their involvement with Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management amongst others. So yeah. Your fanboyism is well, silly in this respect.
Not to be to flameable here, but who says they aren't part of botnets? The various Unix flavours and derivatives are the reason why we know what a rootkit is.
As my CS professor said once, "With Windows, you know it's broken right up front, and that you have to take certain steps right away to fix it. such as slap an AV program on. With the various Unix-based OSes, you have to go over every little detail with a fine-toothed comb, putz around in the code, recompile, and all of that other hassle because they put the Root into Rootkit."
If you ask me, the only botnet secure OS is the one not sitting with an allowed/established connection to the internet to begin with. If it's human-created code, it's vulnerable, period.
I guess not, because their stock is currently sitting at 95 cents a share, and has been fluctuating at or below a dollar for the better part of three months. They are close to reaching the proverbial 90 day limit:
Thank goodness they might actually get delisted (I believe, but don't quote me on this because not absolutely sure, but as of April 24th, it would be following the 90 day delisting schedule that the Nasdaq follows and would be delisted).
That's because they are seriously understaffed. They have NUMEROUS job offerings available for patent examiners, and the salaries are nothing to scoff at either. The lowest I saw was $75,000 USD. Instead of everyone complaining, why don't more people apply:)
http://www.aztlan.net/razajews.htm (this link will give you some insight on a wee bit of propaganda and racism of their own, something about the "Evil Jews Conspiring Against Them")
MEChA Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan "Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada." "Everything for the race. Everything outside the race, nothing."
All better sources I think, than Wikipedia (then again, almost anything is a better source than Wikipedia). Took all of four minutes to look over them a bit and post a response to you. Next time, try using Google:)
Brazil Blade Runner Altered States The Fly Solaris Red Planet Forbidden Planet Metropolis Alien/Aliens The Day the Earth Stood Still Invasion of the Body Snatchers Tron Dr. Strangelove The Last Starfighter (cheesy I know, but what is cooler than a kid who becomes the hero of the universe by getting top score in an arcade game) Logan's Run THX1138 Alien Nation Amazing Stories The Black Hole Westworld Charly (film adaptation of Flowers for Algernon) War Games Colossus: The Forbin Project Dark City Dark Star
And the list could go on and on and on..... (really, I have tons more I love to watch now and again)
Notice, you don't see Serenity or Star Wars on there. Yes, I do like them, but do I consider them Sci-Fi? Maybe in the same way that I consider "The Terminator" or "The Transformers" to be Sci-Fi.
Serenity was a spaghetti-western in space, only not as good as the real spaghetti westerns such as "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "Pale Rider". I didn't even think Firefly was that great either. Star Wars was entertaining, but I thought it just to be another action flick like Indiana Jones or whatnot, only set in space. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie, but I just didn't see it like I guess some other people see it. The Empire Strikes Back was excellent, and one of the few in the series that Lucas didn't get to screw up the first time around, hence why it was better than the rest. Space opera definitely. I felt like I was watching a fancier Flash Gordon with a better plot.
BTW: Everyone needs to quit dwelling on the whole "Luke this" "Luke that" thing. The entire story arc of the movie series was about Darth Vader, not Luke. The whole Luke obsession thing is almost homo-erotic:P
Uhhh, MS owns part of the company in question. So, competing product? Doubtful:)
Then again, this could be a left hand right hand situation, where MS actually DOES have a competing product lined up somewhere and one subsidiary has no inkling on what the other is doing...
Bootvis is important to use. So is gettig rid of excess fonts out of your C:\Windows\Fonts (or C:\WINNT\Fonts) folder. Everytime Windows restarts (at least with WinME to Vista), the OS will scan the font folder, open and preload every single font in the folder (one of the reasons why Explorer.exe takes such a huge chunk of RAM unecessarily).
Another trick that can help is to strip out unecessary parts of the OS (like the POSIX subsystem if you aren't using OS/2 or *nix compatible programs, etc). In fact, in all of my years of using Windows, I've NEVER had to use useless cruft like NetMeeting or the POSIX subsystem for ANYTHING.
Again, I trim off useless services, etc. just like you suggested. If you are a "Power User", you might also want to strip out the Help System and get rid of all of the useless.chm files as well.
Another useless thing to get rid of: If you are only going to have your particular machine setup in your native language, you can get rid of about 400 MB of useless crap in the form of all of the foreign language files that MS stuffed into a typical Win install (and yes, that that OS scans through and loads parts of every single time you boot).
I got rid of Dr Watson, Dr Watson32, Error Reporting, etc. All crap I don't need for my system. I use my system for light word processing, light spreadsheets, light gaming, IRC, P2P and web browsing. What do I need any of that crap for.
Another thing I've noticed with WinXP: If you happen to replace the Explorer.exe with a different shell like Aston, LiteStep or GeoShell, boot times decrease dramatically depending on how you have any themes, etc setup.
I've trimmed my times down quite considerably using these tricks and quite a few more I've picked up over the years (mainly from trial and error).
Currently it takes me 20-30 seconds from a cold boot to a fully functioning desktop in WinXP, and that is with: Boot wait for choosing recovery console or WinXP partition, Webroot Spysweeper, NOD32, Sygate Pro, my BrotherMFC printer monitor and my Logitech keyboard & mouse monitor programs all loading at boot time. And yes, this means I am clicking links in Firefox and opening.PDF files in Foxit within 20-30 seconds of pushing the power button.
It can be done, if you take the time to research various tweaks and things you can do to speed it all up, and apply them with a bit of common sense.
As it stands, they can't even implement searching in their own OS (certainly not in XP - even with the Search addon, it's trivially easy to dig out something which returns zero results when it patently shouldn't) There are a few reasons for this:
Their XP search tool (and the search tool add-on), rely heavily on the Indexing Service to be run before the search tool is used (and continuously thereafter).
Another reason is that (in particular) the case with system files and other files deemed "important" by MS, they were attributed with an extra "Secret" flag, that the search tools and indexing service were programmed to skip over/ignore. The same thing happens when you use the Find function in the Registry editor, certain key types won't be found because of the way the searching function was programmed. It also happens from a "Command Line Window" to the "DOS" subsystem. Even if you use the DIR command, it will refuse to show you certain files, even if you remove the hidden flag from every file on the disk.
This was all done intentionally, to supposedly "protect" the end-user from themselves. Heck, if you want something really frustrating, just try removing all of the attribute flags (especially the read-only) flags from the files in the C:\Windows and its subfolders once...always fun to use attrib or even by doing it from the GUI, only to find the OS has automagically reset them back to what they were before you changed them:)
>Microsoft Office MSRP prices have been declining in even nominal terms (and of course in real terms) over the past 10+ years. Google News Archive search is your friend -- you can find old MSRP data quite easily with it. And re 'buggy bloatware' - while WordPerfect the word-processor is good (don't know about apps WP Office comes with), I *have* used IBM's SmartSuite, OpenOffice and Microsoft's Office, and give me MS Office anyday. And please don't tell me about LaTeX -- if I have to force naive users to generate well-structured docs, LaTeX isn't an option... I'd rather give them something like Word 2003+ (which can enforce schemas) or come up with my own web-based word processor (I hope Google Docs adds this feature quickly).
So, you just point to some magical list and ignore inflation. Nice. There went those supposed cost savings from the prices being lowered:) Good point on the other Office packages though. I've also tried several of them, and I always come back to MS Office, because the others have limitations that I find unacceptable ("missing" features, obscure interfaces, etc). For me, MS Office just works for what I need an Office package to do, and I don't have to worry about any silly rendering incompatibilities, etc when I send documents to my business clients, friends or relatives, because guess what, they are using MS Office as well.
Even after uninstalling, you need to download and use a special cleaning tool to get rid of all of the files and registry entries that piece of crap software leaves behind.
Slashdot Mirror
The updating via Firefox claim is utter tripe. I've tried visiting both the normal Windows Update and Microsoft Update (and Office Update) sites via Firefox and I get redirected to an error page each and every time. The only way the site "works" is when I use IETab or otherwise mask my browser header info.
n dowsUpdateErrorinFirefox.jpg
For an example:
Without IETab enabled:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y36/thejynxed/Wi
(Sorry it looks kind of crappy, squashed the screencap into a small jpg with Infranview)
As you can see, Microsoft claiming you can use Firefox for WindowsUpdate is not entirely true.
You mean links like these?
y stems/Kernels/MOSIX-7287.shtmly stems/Kernels/MOSIX-Grid-and-Cluster-Management-23 125.shtml3 O SIX.html
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-S
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-S
http://www.mosix.org/txt_cluster.html
http://www.tucows.com/software_detail.html?id=847
http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Software/530140/M
BTW, that's just a few. I hope they helped out. BTW, my search term in Google were "MOSIX download" without the quotation marks.
It took off because the DirectX control set offered an integrated toolset to work with. Sound, video, controllers (joysticks/mouse/keyboard,etc) all in one package. With OpenGL you got...graphics. It wasn't a complete toolkit library, and instead of the mish-mash that you end up getting trying to cobble together toolkits for the other components of games to go along with OpenGL, they chose to use DX. Even though most programmers were like, "Ewwww, Microsoft games?", were also like, "Complete toolkit to develop with...we don't have to waste time coding in all of this extra stuff to the toolkit? Sign me up."
They don't apply YET. The RIAA has said that they fully intend to push these royalties upon terrestrial stations as well. Read more here: Artists and Labels Seek Royalties From Radio
Sure can:
m ent/wm1074.cfmo rums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?t=247n ol.htmlhttp://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/27 /061127ta_talk_surowiecki. htmlr azil_cx_1116energy_adams.html
. htmh icles.pdf [Warning: PDF]
.pdf files and things you can pour over if you research the topic via Google, local library, watch CSpan, etc.
Sugar Ethanol
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnviron
http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?t=247http://f
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/09/sugar-etha
http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/03/tax_gasoline_im
http://www.iags.org/es82905.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/15/energy-ethanol-b
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8769619/site/newsweek
(there are tons more links all over)
USA Gas Mileage Standards:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/cafe/overview
http://zfacts.com/p/414.html
http://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/FEG2007_GasolineVe
There are tons and tons and tons of links, data, charts,
And to the AC earlier: Yes, corn farmers helped influence the decision, as did domestic sugar producers, but, oil companies are also to blame for this, as they don't want competition from ethanol PERIOD.
Ask and ye shall receive:
3 /when_macs_attack.html
4 4
4
;) Now granted, most of it comes from exploits in 3rd-party apps, such as Apache, PHP, SQL, etc. But...knowing this, and how there are botnets running with Apache priviledge levels.....kind of dumps that whole "don't run as root in *nix" argument right into the toilet. As long as people are people, they can be socially-engineered to offer up their passwords for whatever reason (I'm looking at you, OSX users). Relying on a popup password entry box for security is just as silly as allowing a Windows machine to sit un-patched on the internet.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/0
http://lwn.net/Articles/222153/
http://www.networkworld.com/community3/?q=node/53
http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/30
http://www.shadowserver.org/
I can continue for pages and pages if you wish. You know, search engines are useful tools at times
I am actually quite surprised that more OSes don't have some sort of application firewalling/sandboxing built into them, instead of relying on concepts like UAC or root permissions that are worthless if all it takes to bypass them is someone typing a password into a popup box, clicking Allow (and how many people do we know that use blank or short, all alphabetical passwords, hmmmm?), or running insecure application software that is always accessible via the internet.
The entire problem with what you propose, is that in the USA, 25 mpg is the current fuel economy standard. Good luck finding any car here that gets your 46 mpg average. All of the car manufacturers claim it is too hard or impossible to manufacture 30+ mpg, let alone 40+ mpg vehicles for the USA. Senator Dianne Feinstein has recently submitted a bill that would require 30+ mpg average fuel economy by 2010, and 1 gallon per year after until 2020. She calls shenanigans on all of the car companies that can manufacture cars in Canada, Australia, Europe, Asia and even Africa that get 35 or more mpg, and are making them right now, but claim they can't do it here. She's right.
Also, you aren't even allowed to import any of those aforementioned vehicles into the USA, unless you are immigrating to the USA and already own one. All sorts of taxes, regulations and whatnot to make quite sure of that.
You should try looking up how the Brazilians do it. Sugar cane ethanol. They have trucks, let alone cars, there, that have been recorded at 46-75 mpg. Then read up on why the USA charges an exorbitant import and production tax on cane sugar, and cane sugar ethanol, to the point that you lose money on every drop of that particular flavor of ethanol that you would import or produce domestically, so that a gallon of sugar cane ethanol is more than four times the cost of a gallon of oil-based gasoline. The cost to manufacture, from seed to distilling into ethanol, costs quite a bit less in energy and dollars than it does to even pump a full tank of standard gasoline into the tank of an average SUV (let alone produce it). You'd almost think that the oil companies through their purchased government representatives might have had a say in those import taxes on cane ethanol eh?
It's apparently just MS finally adding in Macrovision DRM to its MCE version of XP, did anyone bother trying to rollback the update? Usually, most updates come with uninstallers you know, although ones like Genuine Advantage and whatnot have the uninstallers hidden.
Actually, conspiracy to commit fraud, using RNC equipment for official government use, lying under oath (perjury), etc are NOT legal. Hence why these firings are coming under the even closer scrutiny of Congress. It's not just that the firings bore some semblance of impropriety, it's that they bear some semblance of illegality :)
All this aside, while true that the President can fire any of them and replace them with people he wants in there, it is also true that he (or those working for him) are not supposed to break the law doing so. Then again, we all know how this President and his administration have such a difficult time obeying laws and treaties. All Gonzales and "friends" had to do to avoid this whole mess was not allegedly pressure one or two of the attorneys into attempting to illegally commit/support election fraud, and to avoid using RNC computer and communications equipment to discuss/enact the firings and replacements, and then trying to hide this activity. It's rather simple to fire and replace a politically-appointed employee right right out in the open under existing laws I thought...
Also, the whole lost email thing is just a stonewall tactic (obviously). Some of these same so-called missing emails were used to railroad/prosecute (i.e. Protect Karl Rove and Dick Cheney from Fed PMITA Prison) Scooter Libby during his trial. If they were available then, I would certainly like to know how they are suddenly "missing". Senator Leahy was right when he called bullshit on this entire situation.
This is not just Republican vs Democrat, this is rapidly becoming a criminal matter, let alone a political one. Part of the problem is these people (and by these people, I mean government Yes Men and their ilk) don't have a strong authority (Congress and SCOTUS have been weakened at every turn over the last 25+ years in favor of the Executive) telling them "No, you can't do that. Try again." And yes, I think Clinton and Reagan were just as bad as Bush I and II (Iran-Contra, War on Drugs, and DMCA. Nuff' said). It almost seems to me that Congress/SCOTUS are kind of wishy-washy. Where's the people in government who actually have spines and stand up for what is right instead?
(Personally, I am voting for Obama...I can pass on the two Clintons running the show again, and none of the Republican candidates stand a snowball's chance in Hell of getting elected either. Besides, even if Obama has less experience than Hillary, I don't think he could possibly make things any worse than the current office-holder already has.)
Actually, the law may not have been designed for this, but some of the RIAA's tactics do fall under RICO. Just read the Attorney General's Guidlines on RICO and criminal/terrorist enterprises, and the RICO Act itself.
Here are a few sections of interest:
"Moreover, a group's activities and the statements of its members may properly be
considered in conjunction with each other. A combination of statements and activities may
justify a determination that the threshold standard for a terrorism enterprise investigationis
satisfied, even if the statements alone or the activities alone would not warrant such a
determination."
"(1) Threats or advocacy of violence or other covered criminal acts:
Statements are made in relation to or in furtherance of an enterprise's political or social
objectives that threaten or advocate the use of force or violence, or statements are made
in furtherance of an enterprise that otherwise threaten or advocate criminal conduct
within the scope of 18 U.S.C. 2331(1) or (5) or 2332b(g)(5)(B), which may concern such
matters as (e.g.):
(i) engaging in attacks involving or threatening massive loss of life or injury,
mass destruction, or endangerment of the national security;
(ii) killing or injuring federal personnel, destroying federal facilities, or defying
lawful federal authority;
(iii) killing, injuring or intimidating individuals because of their status as United
States nationals or persons, or because of their national origin, race,color,
religion, or sex; or
(iv) depriving individuals of any rights secured by the Constitution or laws of the
United States.
(2) Apparent ability or intent to carry out violence or other covered activities:
The enterprise manifests an apparent ability or intent to carry out violence or other
activities within the scope of 18 U.S.C. 2331(1) or (5) or 2332b(g)(5)(B), e.g.:
(i) by acquiring, or taking steps towards acquiring, biological agents or toxins,
toxic chemicals or their precursors, radiological or nuclear materials, explosives,
or other destructive or dangerous materials (or plans or formulas for such
materials), or weapons, under circumstances where, by reason of the quantity or
character of the items, the lawful purpose of the acquisition is not apparent;
(ii) by the creation, maintenance, or support of an armed paramilitary
organization;
(iii) by paramilitary training; or
(iv) by other conduct demonstrating an apparent ability or intent to injure or
intimidate individuals, or to interfere with the exercise of their constitutional or
statutory rights."
"II. GENERAL CRIMES INVESTIGATIONS
A.
DEFINITIONS
(1) "Exigent circumstances" are circumstances requiring action before
authorization otherwise necessary under these guidelines can reasonably be obtained, in
order to protect life or substantial property interests; to apprehend or identify a fleeing
offender; to prevent the hiding, destructionor alteration of evidence; or to avoid other
serious impairment or hindrance of an investigation.
(2) "Sensitive criminal matter" is any alleged criminal conduct involving corrupt
action by a public official or political candidate, the activities of a foreign government,
the activities of a religious organization or a primarily political organization or the related
activities of any individual prominent in such an organization, or the activities of the
news media; and any other matter which in the judgment of a Special Agent in Charge
(SAC) should be brought to the attention of the United States Attorney or other
appropriate official in the Department of Justice, as well as FBI Headquarters (FBIHQ)."
Now, here are some excerpts from the RICO ACT itself that the RIAA might just so happen to fall under:
Title 18, 1961 (RICO)
1) "racketeering activity" means (A) any act or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gamb
If AMD keeps losing money hand over fist, you won't have to worry about ATI hardware anymore. I think that acquisition of ATI was a huge mistake on the part of both companies.
Personally, I think they'll stick with the generic Intel hardware, like they do now for the most part. They only seem to offer ATI stuff on their upper mid-range models (some laptops, media pcs/workstations) and their high-end model/gaming rigs. For their Dimension line, etc, it was a pretty much stock Intel chipset/cpu (customized Foxconn motherboards) combo with a Broadcom chipset for networking and AC'97 sound support. In other words, pretty generic hardware, coupled with pretty generic drivers.
It's right up Linux Alley as it were, (Well, the Broadcom chipset sucked, as all Broadcom's chipsets tend to do - they wore out frequently under even moderate use. Not to mention that their drivers were kind of poor as well) as that is all I can ever seem to get Linux running on. Generic stuff (I know, proprietary drivers, blah, blah, blah).
Everyone seems to get nVidia stuff working, but I don't want to pay for nVidia stuff just to have 3D in Linux when I already own ATI hardware. And I don't want to hear excuses about binary blobs, blah, blah, blah. My video cards are at least 7 years old, there is really not an excuse that they can't be automatically detected and installed by now. I can run Linux perfectly fine if rather limited graphics-wise if I revert to using the Intel video chipset on the motherboard, but yeesh. (If you ask why I don't upgrade my hardware, I will just ask you to foot the bill then, as I don't own a personal money tree, therefore I tend to use hardware until it dies.) I am stuck with PCI (not PCI-Express nor AGP) in the case of the desktop, and the laptop is well, non-replaceable ATI hardware anyhow.
Thank you Dell, for crippling the motherboard by not soldering on the AGP slot, you cheap bastards. -shakes fist angrily- (I wonder if I could solder one onto the board myself and I have access to a way to wave solder...the space for it is right there, including all of the solder points, and AGP is enabled in the BIOS...)
Certain Wibu implementations have been cracked:
y sis.zip (file contains a .pdf)
http://www.woodmann.com/crackz/Dongles.htm
http://www.woodmann.com/crackz/Tutorials/WibuAnal
A cracking group offering their "services" to crack Wibu and tons of other stuff:
http://www.djvibe.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1685 (Advertised on this site and may others, they have a rather large catalog of cracked dongle-protected software for sale.)
Someone who took a peak at one of Wibu's dongle solutions and wrote a short paper on how to crack it: http://www.cobra-basket.de/e/Dongle.txt
Note though: Codemeter is considered "secure" even by some crackers still, as a real solution requires the presence of a legit dongle. Brute-forcing it in software would take too long by most people's standards. So to engineer a crack, someone needs the dongle to work off of.
The weakness with dongles will always apparently be the APIs, especially ones that interact with the MS Windows APIs and Registry.
This info was found doing a quick Google search. I am of the opinion however, that Codemeter has been cracked, but the people who have cracked it, make much more money their way (selling their services or cracked software) than telling Wibu AG how they did it and collecting on any bounty offered like during that "hacking contest" they had.
The present invention relates to the user interface of a data processing system. More specifically, the invention relates to the organization of display objects such as windows into groups which are displayed together on a display-based user interface, each group being appropriate to a particular user task.
Current user interfaces typically include various types of input/output (I/O) devices-display outputs such as a cathode ray tube (CRT) and manually operated inputs such as a keyboard and a mouse. For example, a user provides alphanumeric and other inputs using the keyboard and provides inputs indicating position on the display using the mouse. The data processing system provides a display that helps the user to provide a sequence of manual inputs which will lead to the results the user desires.
One conventional technique for helping the user of a display-based user interface is to provide visually distinct display objects on the screen, each object fulfilling a corresponding function. For example, a pointer such as an arrow can be displayed on the screen, moving in response to a mouse or other pointer control device. The pointer appears to move over a number of other display objects which the user may select. The user typically selects a selectable display object or a distinct internal part of such a display object by a pointer signal, as by pressing an appropriate button on the mouse, when the pointer is on that display object or that distinct internal part. A user selection initiates operations of the data processing system which bear some logical relation to that display object.
The selectable display objects take many forms. The term "window" is applied to selectable display objects of various types, and one typical characteristic of windows is that the effect of a pointer signal within a window depends on the pointer location. The term "menu" is usually applied to another type of display object which also has this characteristic of distinct internal locations, because a menu typically has several areas within it, each of which represents an option which the user may select with a pointer signal in that area. The term "icon", on the other hand, is usually applied to a display object which does not have this characteristic of distinct internal locations, but which is a relatively small and visually suggestive of its function. A pointer signal within an icon typically produces the same effect regardless of the pointer's location within the icon.
Conventional display-based user interfaces thus may include at least three categories of display objects: a position indicating display object, such as a pointer; selectable display objects without internal location distinctions, such as icons; and selectable display objects with internal location distinctions, such as windows and menus. In addition, the user interface includes a set of procedures according to which the data processing system responds to selections and other inputs from the user. There is tons more to read over even after this point. Basically, this patent is trying to cover every aspect and implementation of a GUI interface. The funny thing is, they mention the Apple Lisa, and even earlier publications and applications using these very methods in the patent text itself, and even try to claim some of them as not being prior art, when clearly they are, no matter what they try to claim otherwise.
You're either naive or just stupid if you think Intel already hasn't done the same thing.
v technology_guide.pdf
:)
Intel Vivv for instance:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/viiv/intelvii
Their Viiv platform is just chock full of it, from software to chipset
They have many PAGES just on DRM (if you use the search term digital rights management on their website, search is powered by Google's search API), and one of their Corporate Responsibility Reports for Stakeholder Engagement states and I quote, "... We are deeply engaged in developing digital rights management solutions that enable creative industries to launch new digital content business models--and bring innovative and exciting experiences to consumers..."
And to think, that is just the tip of the iceberg, like their involvement with Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management amongst others. So yeah. Your fanboyism is well, silly in this respect.
Not to be to flameable here, but who says they aren't part of botnets? The various Unix flavours and derivatives are the reason why we know what a rootkit is.
As my CS professor said once, "With Windows, you know it's broken right up front, and that you have to take certain steps right away to fix it. such as slap an AV program on. With the various Unix-based OSes, you have to go over every little detail with a fine-toothed comb, putz around in the code, recompile, and all of that other hassle because they put the Root into Rootkit."
If you ask me, the only botnet secure OS is the one not sitting with an allowed/established connection to the internet to begin with. If it's human-created code, it's vulnerable, period.
I guess not, because their stock is currently sitting at 95 cents a share, and has been fluctuating at or below a dollar for the better part of three months. They are close to reaching the proverbial 90 day limit:
SCO GRP INC (THE) (NasdaqCM:SCOX)
Last Trade: 0.95
Daily Avg: 0.90-0.95
Thank goodness they might actually get delisted (I believe, but don't quote me on this because not absolutely sure, but as of April 24th, it would be following the 90 day delisting schedule that the Nasdaq follows and would be delisted).
That's because they are seriously understaffed. They have NUMEROUS job offerings available for patent examiners, and the salaries are nothing to scoff at either. The lowest I saw was $75,000 USD. Instead of everyone complaining, why don't more people apply :)
La Raza/Aztlan/MEChA:
m l ---this site also might be taken with a grain or two of salt, but it does have more links to newspaper articles and the like
:)
http://www.mayorno.com/WhoIsMecha.html
http://www.aztlan.net/
http://www.nclr.org/
http://www.aztlan.net/razajews.htm (this link will give you some insight on a wee bit of propaganda and racism of their own, something about the "Evil Jews Conspiring Against Them")
http://www.azteca.net/aztec/mecha/
http://www.americanpatrol.com/MECHA/MEChAindex.ht
Apparently, the motto for MEChA is:
MEChA
Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan
"Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada."
"Everything for the race. Everything outside the race, nothing."
All better sources I think, than Wikipedia (then again, almost anything is a better source than Wikipedia). Took all of four minutes to look over them a bit and post a response to you. Next time, try using Google
Atlantic Broadband. Now you know one :)
Some of my favorites in no particular order:
:P
Brazil
Blade Runner
Altered States
The Fly
Solaris
Red Planet
Forbidden Planet
Metropolis
Alien/Aliens
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Tron
Dr. Strangelove
The Last Starfighter (cheesy I know, but what is cooler than a kid who becomes the hero of the universe by getting top score in an arcade game)
Logan's Run
THX1138
Alien Nation
Amazing Stories
The Black Hole
Westworld
Charly (film adaptation of Flowers for Algernon)
War Games
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Dark City
Dark Star
And the list could go on and on and on..... (really, I have tons more I love to watch now and again)
Notice, you don't see Serenity or Star Wars on there. Yes, I do like them, but do I consider them Sci-Fi? Maybe in the same way that I consider "The Terminator" or "The Transformers" to be Sci-Fi.
Serenity was a spaghetti-western in space, only not as good as the real spaghetti westerns such as "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" or "Pale Rider". I didn't even think Firefly was that great either. Star Wars was entertaining, but I thought it just to be another action flick like Indiana Jones or whatnot, only set in space. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie, but I just didn't see it like I guess some other people see it. The Empire Strikes Back was excellent, and one of the few in the series that Lucas didn't get to screw up the first time around, hence why it was better than the rest. Space opera definitely. I felt like I was watching a fancier Flash Gordon with a better plot.
BTW: Everyone needs to quit dwelling on the whole "Luke this" "Luke that" thing. The entire story arc of the movie series was about Darth Vader, not Luke. The whole Luke obsession thing is almost homo-erotic
Uhhh, MS owns part of the company in question. So, competing product? Doubtful :)
Then again, this could be a left hand right hand situation, where MS actually DOES have a competing product lined up somewhere and one subsidiary has no inkling on what the other is doing...
Bootvis is important to use. So is gettig rid of excess fonts out of your C:\Windows\Fonts (or C:\WINNT\Fonts) folder. Everytime Windows restarts (at least with WinME to Vista), the OS will scan the font folder, open and preload every single font in the folder (one of the reasons why Explorer.exe takes such a huge chunk of RAM unecessarily).
.chm files as well.
.PDF files in Foxit within 20-30 seconds of pushing the power button.
Another trick that can help is to strip out unecessary parts of the OS (like the POSIX subsystem if you aren't using OS/2 or *nix compatible programs, etc). In fact, in all of my years of using Windows, I've NEVER had to use useless cruft like NetMeeting or the POSIX subsystem for ANYTHING.
Again, I trim off useless services, etc. just like you suggested. If you are a "Power User", you might also want to strip out the Help System and get rid of all of the useless
Another useless thing to get rid of: If you are only going to have your particular machine setup in your native language, you can get rid of about 400 MB of useless crap in the form of all of the foreign language files that MS stuffed into a typical Win install (and yes, that that OS scans through and loads parts of every single time you boot).
I got rid of Dr Watson, Dr Watson32, Error Reporting, etc. All crap I don't need for my system. I use my system for light word processing, light spreadsheets, light gaming, IRC, P2P and web browsing. What do I need any of that crap for.
Another thing I've noticed with WinXP: If you happen to replace the Explorer.exe with a different shell like Aston, LiteStep or GeoShell, boot times decrease dramatically depending on how you have any themes, etc setup.
I've trimmed my times down quite considerably using these tricks and quite a few more I've picked up over the years (mainly from trial and error).
Currently it takes me 20-30 seconds from a cold boot to a fully functioning desktop in WinXP, and that is with: Boot wait for choosing recovery console or WinXP partition, Webroot Spysweeper, NOD32, Sygate Pro, my BrotherMFC printer monitor and my Logitech keyboard & mouse monitor programs all loading at boot time. And yes, this means I am clicking links in Firefox and opening
It can be done, if you take the time to research various tweaks and things you can do to speed it all up, and apply them with a bit of common sense.
Their XP search tool (and the search tool add-on), rely heavily on the Indexing Service to be run before the search tool is used (and continuously thereafter).
Another reason is that (in particular) the case with system files and other files deemed "important" by MS, they were attributed with an extra "Secret" flag, that the search tools and indexing service were programmed to skip over/ignore. The same thing happens when you use the Find function in the Registry editor, certain key types won't be found because of the way the searching function was programmed. It also happens from a "Command Line Window" to the "DOS" subsystem. Even if you use the DIR command, it will refuse to show you certain files, even if you remove the hidden flag from every file on the disk.
This was all done intentionally, to supposedly "protect" the end-user from themselves. Heck, if you want something really frustrating, just try removing all of the attribute flags (especially the read-only) flags from the files in the C:\Windows and its subfolders once...always fun to use attrib or even by doing it from the GUI, only to find the OS has automagically reset them back to what they were before you changed them
>Microsoft Office MSRP prices have been declining in even nominal terms (and of course in real terms) over the past 10+ years. Google News Archive search is your friend -- you can find old MSRP data quite easily with it. And re 'buggy bloatware' - while WordPerfect the word-processor is good (don't know about apps WP Office comes with), I *have* used IBM's SmartSuite, OpenOffice and Microsoft's Office, and give me MS Office anyday. And please don't tell me about LaTeX -- if I have to force naive users to generate well-structured docs, LaTeX isn't an option ... I'd rather give them something like Word 2003+ (which can enforce schemas) or come up with my own web-based word processor (I hope Google Docs adds this feature quickly).
:) Good point on the other Office packages though. I've also tried several of them, and I always come back to MS Office, because the others have limitations that I find unacceptable ("missing" features, obscure interfaces, etc). For me, MS Office just works for what I need an Office package to do, and I don't have to worry about any silly rendering incompatibilities, etc when I send documents to my business clients, friends or relatives, because guess what, they are using MS Office as well.
So, you just point to some magical list and ignore inflation. Nice. There went those supposed cost savings from the prices being lowered
It doesn't play nice with uninstallation at all.
f /docid/2005033108162039/ (Skip all of the instructions for reinstallation of Norton, just run the tool.)
N RT_d4749.html
:)
Even after uninstalling, you need to download and use a special cleaning tool to get rid of all of the files and registry entries that piece of crap software leaves behind.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.ns
Alternatively, get it here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Norton_Removal_Tool_Sym
Uninstalling Norton has been known to hose systems, so be careful (make backups, etc) before attempting to uninstall. And make sure you run the tool