First, the N800 alone (ignoring the N810) is far faster than the 770. And the N810 is 25% faster than the N800 (400 MHz vs 320 MHz). So rest assured on those grounds.
Unfortunately Nokias lack of priority given to this device [the 770]
Err... what? They've brought out a new model roughly every 10 months, with the N800 materializing around January 2007 and the N810 in October as the third. Each model has gotten quite a bit faster and substantially stabler and added many features. True, they've not continued to upgrade the 770 because it just doesn't have the cpu capability. Some people are annoyed by this, fair enough.
Realistically, I don't see how they could have pumped out new models a lot faster. They've done regular and impressive software updates as well, about 2-3 major ones per year, adding google talk, Skype, SIP, etc.
True, the N810 doesn't have a phone. Or multitouch. And the iPhone doesn't have GPS. Or expandable cards. Or openness (yet). Or the resolution. And I'd bet the N810's screen has less color depth. Isn't the iPhone 20 bit, not 16bit?
The two are aimed at different niches. No question, if I wanted the best video or audio player going, I'd get an iPhone. If I wanted a browser or book reader or GPS device, I'd get the Nokia. If I wanted a phone I'd get an iPhone. If I wanted an open computer I'd get the Nokia. etc.
For many of us, the fact that the Nokia isn't a $500 phone tied to a $2000 contract is a big plus. It's exactly what we want. For others, the fact that the iPhone is a nice seamless device is what they want.
I think Nokia's a little premature in talking about going head-to-head with Apple. The N-series is still a bit more hobbyist in my mind. But it's incredibly powerful, open and flexible.
Memory randomization, no, that was new as of Vista as parent suggests. And I'm amazed it took everyone that long, especially Microsoft whose OS's were absolutely being hammered by Malware.
File system snapshotting?
With the genius that Microsoft shows for marketing, they called the feature "Volume Shadow Copy". Steve Jobs foolishly called it "Time Machine". Everyone knows you want to label interesting features with unwieldy acronyms.
(that's sarcasm). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy And yes, it's available on Win 2K and Windows XP (as of circa 2003), but wasn't included by default until Windows XP SP2.
So parent is right about memory randomization and wrong about filesystem snapshotting. 1/2. Is parent serious, I dryly ask.
Speaking as a BSD/Ubuntu/Win XP (that last for games, and certain legacy apps) fan -- in roughly that order -- Leopard will be the easiest to install, configure and use BSD going. And that's pretty tempting.
I just wish Apple permitted ordinary users to virtualize OS X on whatever hardware they wanted.
-Holmwood.
Re:Draw your own conclusions...
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ZOMG New Zunes
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Why is there such a vocal minority regarding "open up the iphone/ipod/appletv/iwhatever ZOMG" (including comments in this article) but absolutely NOBODY is whining about how the Zune (and Zen, and everything else) are completely utterly closed?
That would require people to own Zunes, and therefore care.
But more seriously, remember that Steve Jobs talked about the iPhone running OS X. Most people, quite reasonably, interpret that as meaning that the iPhone is more than just a phone, or a smartphone, it's a small computer.
For technologically adept people (ie Slashdot readers) in the market for an advanced mobile phone/tiny computer, you bet we'd like to use it for more than just what the manufacturer wants us to.
And we all like our computers (tiny or otherwise) to be at least relatively open, and able to run third party software. (Note the criticism MS is rightly taking over Vista's closed driver model for DRM).
You're certainly right about the N800 though. Great tool, and very hackable.
You don't remember Somalia, Kosovo (and the bombing of Belgrade, where the US managed to bomb the Chinese embassy), and the bombings in Iraq (Desert Fox, anyone?), and missile attacks in the Sudan and elsewhere?
And as for terrorism, the WTC bombing in '93, the USS Cole, US embassies in Africa? Where hundreds died?
It's quite true there wasn't a conflict like Iraq, and we didn't lose over three thousand US troops in combat. But thousands died, just most of them weren't Americans.
Yes, the Clinton years were years of relative peace compared to now. But the idea that there was "no war" (and I'm speaking of conflict directly involving the US military; obviously there were a lot of other wars going on) is pretty peculiar.
Go tell the citizens of Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia, Kosovo, and even Iraq that there was "no war" in the Clinton years. You might get quite an earful.
Why is this marked as a troll? I've seen and experienced much the same thing.
There's a reason why BSD exists.
There's a reason, why, if you want something very secure, very robust you constrict the applications and drivers extremely tightly, even more tightly than the airlines seem to be doing on their passenger boxes.
The Linux kernel is indeed good. So too, oddly enough, is the Windows NT kernel (NT, and Win2K+). What's layered on top of those, especially in the case of Windows? Not always so good.
No, they think voting can be coercive anywhere. And that it is coercive in some places, both in the US and elsewhere.
Let's take a few modern examples. Reporters, editors, Hollywood, and the academy (universities) are about 90% Democratic. When views are that monolithic, people can be very uncomfortable being known as the odd-one out. Even if there's no conspiracy, and nothing but kindness, it can be a career-shortening move to out oneself.
Let's look at the flip side. You're in a small southern town working at a great job. You go to a great church that you love. Problem is about 90% of your company, including all the management above you is Republican. 90% of your church is Republican. You don't want to leave either, because you enjoy everything except the politics, and because there's really nowhere else as good if you want to stay in town. Again, it can be a career or socially-damaging move to out oneself.
Tensions have run high the last few elections. A former Presidential candidate, and VP, Al Gore has said that George Bush "betrayed his Country". Senior Presidential advisers and the VP have said much the same (if not worse) of many Democrats.
I can't recall the rhetoric being quite as consistently vicious on both sides in my lifetime (the closest came in the Clinton years when I believe the Republicans were pretty nasty.)
A voting system that reveals how people voted is a horrific failure. Not because of what will immediately happen but because of what can happen and ultimately will happen.
A day, and handing the rest of a few months work off to someone a couple of years out of film school?
Quite possibly.
John Cleese of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers (and the cocreator of Yes, Minister) who admittedly are not Spielberg set up a little company in the 1970's making training films.
They sold it (many years ago) for $70m. Not a bad chunk of change; even Spielberg might go for that.
This is low-hanging fruit; the potential to add some relatively high-margin guaranteed revenue to a past popular title.
Anyone else care to venture forth an opinion here?
This is/. Does that question even need to be asked?
Maybe when the default system is twice as powerful as what we have to day, maybe people will just say what the hell, accept Vista, and what we're seeing here today will just be a footnote.
Which will be in about 18 months, if Moore's Law holds up. (Yes, I know, technically merely the doubling of transistors).
But I'm not sure. It seems like Microsoft has kinda screwed the pooch here, offering nothing compelling and new with Vista.
The reality is that XP is a 'pretty good' OS. It's not a magnificent OS, but it's 'good enough'. OS X looks a lot nicer and in many respects is (along with being less vulnerable). Locked down BSD is a lot more secure than XP. And Linux is a lot cheaper. But for a large number of people, XP is 'good enough'.
The two big markets that Windows is tough to beat in are gaming and certain legacy enterprise applications. In both cases, Vista performance is inferior to XP.
There's no reason for people to upgrade.
Right now, nope.
Re:Oh wow what a worthless site
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Microsoft FUD Watch
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree with the parent. This is FUD? That's just plain silly. It's PRspeak, and fairly dull PRspeak at that.
Moreover, I actually think what they said about phones was sensible. From TFA:
Some people want a phone where it's easy to dial. People want different sets of capabilities, and a bunch of people want a full QWERTY keyboard.
By 'full' he presumably means physical. Like say, the Blackberry (not even a MS product).
This is just such an unexceptional article, it's surprising that it was linked.
Despite a reference to heat, this is not intended as a flame. I want to see a very strong AMD; it'll take that to keep Intel running hard. I'll buy whoever makes the best product at the best price.
The linked website seems aptly titled -- "HotHardware". Did you see the four extra fans built into the side of the case in the photo in the article?
The mind boggles at how much heat that setup must be producing.
I hope AMD can produce product at 3GHz (and faster) in quantity. And I hope they can do so without requiring 4 large fans taking up the entire side of the case.
Of course, those fans could be just to cool the three AMD graphics cards.
While I'm sure case modders and extreme performance enthusiasts don't care about this point, the rest of us like lower power consumption and quieter computers, while still being very fast.
Macs have sometimes indeed been lower in price than Dells in recent months, however, (and this has remained true for some weeks), configuring identically (or nearly so) configured machines -- Inspiron 1720 and Macbook Pro 17" (2 GB 667MHz RAM, 160GB 5400 RPM HDD, 17" glossy high res display, 8600 GT mobile graphics, OSX/Vista Home Premium, Bluetooth 2 EDR, IEEE 802.11n, wired ethernet (1GB/s on mac, 100MB/s on PC), webcam, 8x DVD Rewriter, 3 year warranty) I got these prices: Apple: $3,148; Dell: $2,127.
The mac has faster wired ethernet, the PC has a built-in modem and card reader. A 1000 Mb/s ethernet ExpressCard runs $67; a modem and card reader run about the same.
No question, the mac is a thinner, lighter form factor, and more elegant in a number of ways. (The power cord and backlit keyboard; possibly the software as well).
The Dell, last I looked, had a better battery. (I could be out of date on this though).
But that's quite a big price difference, and (barring my notes above) it seems to be an apples-to-apples comparison as far as I can tell, with nearly identical hardware in both machines.
Apple's come a long way in reducing (and sometimes eliminating) the price gap, but it still seems to exist in many cases.
My own view? I used Macs from about 1986 to the mid 1990's. Good machines, and for quite a while the OS was light years ahead of Windows. Now, in 2007, if I'm going to be buying a computer with an OS that has compatibility problems with Windows XP, I think I'd prefer that it be OS X as opposed to Vista. After all, a great deal of effort is going into things like Parallels.
But the price difference is real, and still exists.
Where the heck did personal responsibility run away to? The old bankruptcy laws were a slap in the face of people who actually pay for what they buy.
No, they weren't. The old bankruptcy laws were based on centuries worth of common law that evolved out of England. Very similar laws are in place in many countries around the world.
Now I happen to agree with you on personal responsibility. And bankruptcies were rising; Americans were collectively paying at least $400 per household per year to support bankruptcy. Several features of the new law are great -- for example requiring people to take credit counseling courses and requiring them to at least file back tax returns if they haven't.
But coupled with no legislation to rein in predatory high-interest rate credit card companies... well, yes, that's troubling.
This is a very sensible argument. I don't agree, but it's a cogent argument. My counter argument is that this is simply evolutionary. The EDGE execution is poor (even Jobs admits this) and AT&T is a somewhat mediocre partner. (Compare even T-mobile). It's a fairly closed device.... and dare I say it, the iPhone is a US story. GPL3 is a global story.
If we look at devices in the wireless space that bridge communications and mobile entertainment, Nokia's N-series is well on the way, and well ahead of Apple (though I think they deliver an inferior user interface experience to Apple on debatably superior hardware). Even ARCOS has done some interesting stuff.
Again, it comes down I think to whether you view technology stories as about gadgets or, well, about technology. (And your argument straddles this gap very neatly by the way) No question, the announcement of the iPhone was the biggest story of the week. The first deliveries to customers? That's just marketing hype in my view.
I respect those who feel differently, and those who think about the matter intelligently and respond with a good counterargument like you. For all I know you're right. We could compare notes in two years time if either of us actually remembered.
I don't respect those who respond with "CUNT and shitdick" and mod people down harshly for daring to venture a different opinion.
OK. A guy who responds without cursing to the chap who says:
It's tech news, shitdick. That's the point. We are supposed to know about the shit going on in the tech world.
LEARN THINGS, CUNT!
is the troll?
Huh?
And I get 70% negative karma on my OP out because I dared state the opinion that the GPL3 release might be a bigger technical story than the iPhone release.
Wow. Just. Wow.
The AC's point is correct. Slashdot isn't a mall. Cursing wildly at people to make a point shouldn't be slashdot, and to mark someone as a troll who's been called a 'CUNT' and a 'shitdick' for responding with 'moron'? Wow.
Thanks sadly troll-rated AC, and guy below. That's exactly my point. This isn't a mall. This isn't a gadget website. Or at least I thought it wasn't. I think the iPhone is awesome, sure. I don't even mind the tons of stories about it. People are excited, fine.
But it's a gadget. It's a fascinating step on a road by an interesting company that does some great things with technology, UI and user experience.
I honestly and naively thought that I was on a site that was a technical discussion site, not a gadget site. As I said above, I stand corrected.
Again: I've no problem with the plethora of iPhone stories. I do have a problem with the view that one can't even venture the opinion that GPL3 license release is a bigger technical story without being modded down and having any defender referred to as CUNT and shitdick.
I love Apple's technology. I used an Apple PC circa 1981. I started using a mac in 1985. But I am coming to believe that a significant vocal minority of its fans are crazy people incapable of rational thought.
I am speechless.
"Cunt and shitdick"? And the guy who responds is the troll? And I get more negative points than the "cunt and shitdick" guy? Ok...
I guess this'll get me modded as a troll. But you're creating an echo chamber here. Enjoy it. But count this Apple fan out.
I'm not complaining about the plethora of iPhone stories; I'm pointing out that one can legitimately argue this really isn't the biggest piece of tech news in the last week, unless you view tech news purely as what lots of consumers are interested in, and tech news as being purely about gadgets.
Evidently slashdot has come to. Fair enough. I stand corrected.
To repeat my view though; the iPhone's moving into the hands of consumers will, in a few years time, be a minor footnote (though probably a footnote to a very successful story from Apple).
In my view, tech stories aren't about gadgets, however exciting they are.
I shrug at the lack of reading comprehension. I said nothing against iPhone stories, and nothing against the iPhone. I simply pointed out that I didn't personally believe that it was the biggest tech story of the week, and gave valid arguments why. For that I was modded down pretty heavily. Shrug. I've learned my lesson, Apple mods aren't capable of rational analysis when it comes to anything they perceive as criticism.
It's a shame, because I really do think the iPhone is a fantastic piece of technology. But its fans? Heh. Well, it's just another step on Slashdot becoming a website about gadget stories. And we've got plenty of those.
I appreciate you responding. Kudos. (Slashdot doesn't have ENOUGH dialog). I think you're mistaken on a major point though.
Remember I said stories "galore, all over CNN".
I just thought I'd call you on making a sweeping statement that was untrue.
I think we differ on what "untrue" means.
I think your comment that I made an untrue statement is unfair. And, well, uh... incorrect. You don't have to accuse someone of being a liar, just say you think they were mistaken. And I don't believe I was.
Again, I said stories news stories "galore, all over CNN". Not 'one lonely wire service story quoting a single user'.
I pointed out that you cited three identical stories from AP that simply spoke of "simmering blogs", and a SINGLE user with problems. You should have read the stories. You looked a little ridiculous citing three identical stories (in my respectful opinion). Fair enough, you didn't read them, but that's part of the problem. I think we all suffer from a lack of reading on Slashdot.
Again, as I said, there'd be stories "all over" CNN. They wouldn't be quoting ONE user from a Friday news wire. They'd be quoting hundreds, thousands.
I've looked at CNN right now, and there's nothing on the iPhone off the main page. Not even the wire story you reference. When I clicked through to Tech, I did find the same exact story you reference about blogs simmering as a minor headline. Unupdated for me. (In fairness, I may be getting a different geographic CNN feed than you; I'm in central Asia, but surfing via an IP that registers as Canadian). It may be that CNN is playing this up a lot more in the US; I can't tell, but I don't think so.
Personally, I think both the phone and the ensuing problems are over-hyped (don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool device). How else does the media operate but by sensationalizing things, though? It's a direct consequence of their social function.
Now here I get you 5x5. Yeah. The media needs conflict and controversy to survive (or so they feel). Personally, I think the best thing about the iPhone is it will drive competition. Good, because I'd rather not buy one given its significant limitations (to me).
It's the biggest thing techy to happen in the past week.
Bigger than the GPL3 license?
OK...
Look, I think the iPhone is superfantastic. Great. But it's just another massively massively better-implemented Zune. It's a nifty piece of hardware. But it's just that. In two years time it'll be history. In more ways than one, with the iPhone 2, 3 and 4 out no doubt. (or whatever they will call them). The GPL3? Still very, very relevant. For good or ill.
The viral aspects of the GPL3 are... very interesting. We could be talking about them.
Instead we're talking about a piece of plastic that's been well-marketed.
I'm familiar with Engadget. Look, you're posting as AC. I don't know why. I wish you weren't. But read this and tell me if you think I'm an iPhone hater:
The phone was brilliantly overhyped and I think it's got some serious design/service shortcomings.
- The lack of openness in architecture.
- The expensive service plan ($60+) with one of the weaker (service-wise) providers.
- Relatively low resolution (an 800x480 screen would have been feasible in roughly that form factor),
- a non-user-serviceable battery thereby mandating product destruction within 3-4 years, (Yes, I use a 4-year-old MP3 player with a replaceable battery)
- lack of a physical keyboard.
- Horrible (IMO) service partnership with AT&T, one of the weaker and more disorganized mobile carriers.
All of these service/design flaws render it unacceptable to me.
So am I an iPhone hater?
I also think it's a fantastic, nifty product with an elegant user interface. I think it will, and should, do very well. Whether it'll reinvent the phone? Probably not, especially given that they've partnered with AT&T. But it's raised the bar for everyone, and I as a consumer am very happy about that.
It's possible to dislike a bunch of things about the iPhone -- strongly so, even, and like a bunch of things about it. And decide that it's not for me.
And not be a hater. I trust.
Best,
Holmwood
Nearly all customers have been able to activate their phones within five to eight minutes, he said.
The story cites a single customer complaining he took 48 hours. And "simmering blog posts". Sorry, proves my case.
(Yes, the AT&T spokesman could be lying, but in the age of Sarbannes-Oxley, publicly-traded companies lying just got a lot more expensive in jail time for senior executives).
Yes, the phone was over-hyped. Yes, it's got some teething troubles. Yes, I think Apple chose a carrier that... well I have no clue why they chose AT&T. No, there is no way I'll buy an iPhone unless they cut the required monthly contract in half while still offering the same features. And switch to a better carrier, and have something better than the godawfully slow EDGE service which even Steve Jobs condemns. Even then, I doubt it, because I think the iPhone is too low res, and too closed an architecture.
For me, the iPhone has a lot of problems, but they're all at the service/design level rather than the implementation layer. The presence of three identical stories sourced from AP that quote "almost all customers" activating within minutes... nope, doesn't prove your argument, sorry.
If Microsoft, within the first 48-72 hours of launch of Vista were having the same problems with activations?
If Vista were unusable in those 72 hours? No. I wouldn't cut them remotely the same slack. Why? Activation is necessary for mobiles. International agreements specify the payment of vast sums of money based on international call traffic between national carriers. Even fairly large carriers are on the hook for 976 payments for calls that their customers make. And phones are frequently highly subsidized by ongoing payments.
Allowing people free and unrestricted access to untraceable phones means that carriers could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.
There's a genuine need to ensure that someone using your network for long distance, 976 and the like, and calls between carriers, is actually a paying customer.
It isn't the same with Vista. Microsoft can cheerfully let someone use Vista for 10 days -- or even 30, as they do -- without completing activation, and without incurring losses. As they do. No harm, no foul.
Next, Vista is purely under the control of Microsoft. The iPhone sadly isn't. One has to look at the world as it is not as we would wish it to be.
In the ideal world, we'd all be using incredibly reliable custom-built computers as cheap as the cheapest parts with all the mail-in-rebates working, running something with the aesthetics of OS X that cost us what Linux costs and had all the compatibility and game playing capability of Windows, and all the security of FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD.
I find it amusing that I'm both an Apple apologist and an Apple hater for the same post. I suppose I must be in the middle!
Coming back to your question? Given that Vista is usable for 30 days prior to activation, I wouldn't have a serious issue with 48-72 hours of problems for up to 7 percent of those activating. I wouldn't like it; I'd think it bungled given that it's entirely under their control, but I wouldn't conclude that it's a doomed launch.
In Apple's case, knowing what I know of AT&T and the merger mess, I think it's reasonable. (You've a stronger case if you criticize Apple for going with AT&T. Much stronger).
Seriously, I'm a mild Apple "hater" in that I dislike the hype. But I think they produce some aesthetically lovely, at times overpriced technology. Haven't regularly used a mac since the early 90's. I still can't imagine buying a desktop mac as they don't offer anything both expandable and affordable (Xeon based machines, whether from Dell or Apple aren't cost-effective for the average non-workstation user).
But my next laptop? Probably a mac. I won't care that it's not expandable, and on high-end machines their prices track Dells within a few hundred dollars. Sometimes a few hundred dollars better.
there are many people who are "haters" of the Apple products, of the iPhone, etc, and I suspect many people who don't own iPhones are responding anyway saying they have activation problems, to skew the poll.
I really don't buy that 'haters' are skewing the poll significantly. It's possible, sure, but... it really comes off as sounding unlikely to me.
That said, there's no way that 33% or more of iPhone customers are having serious activation problems. That would be many, many hundreds of thousands of people. If that were the case, there'd be news stories galore, all over CNN etc. We'd all (not just a few of us) know people who were suffering activation problems.
The OP is certainly correct in this -- it's an unscientific poll that doesn't mean much. Any online poll like that will suffer from selection bias. That bias could be 'haters', but it's much more likely that people having troubles activating are out actively searching for information, and, more likely to find such a poll and, in turn, much more likely to respond to such a poll than people who have the phone perfectly activated and are relaxing and enjoying their phones.
(To the OP, I wanted to see the results and cheerfully answered -- lying -- that I'd had no problems activating my non-existent iPhone. So at least I biased it the other way!)
I'm biased btw, I think the iPhone is nice, but ludicrously overhyped, and anyone who waited a long time in line for it is out to lunch.
But I suspect the OP's experience (2 of 4 phones activating perfectly, one almost perfectly, and the fourth within 24 hours) is par for the course. And, frankly, considering what a mess AT&T's systems are, I think that's an impressive achievement for Apple.
If we took a WAG (wild-assed guess), there are almost certainly thousands of people with serious activation problems. There might even be tens of thousands. A hundred thousand? I doubt it, but perhaps possible. Even at the 100k mark, that'd be one in 15 customers. 6.7%. Considering it's mobiles and AT&T involved, that actually sounds very good to me, though painful for those with problems.
Granted, if there are still many thousands of people with serious problems in several days time, that'd be quite bad.
As someone who isn't an iPhone fan, it looks like a pretty decent launch. Though I still shake my head at those waiting in line.
Heh. It is funny, but Microsoft actually started doing this a while back. Mainly because IE was so awful. (Anyone remember IE3, IE4?). I used to fuzz IE for fun. It's one of the big reasons I switched to Firefox. By IE6 my own light fuzzing seemed to show IE had gotten a lot better at dealing with really bad, even malicious HTML. So they were having some success and getting better.
But not quite good enough. Nowhere near in fact.
At CanSecWest last year, HD Moore and a student took an hour to hack together a fuzzer that found over fifty flaws in Internet Explorer. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11387
Think about that. Two person-hours work, that leads directly to the discovery of fifty flaws. That's pretty impressive for a released product that's supposedly had a great deal of scrutiny. There are few other techniques that could discover flaws as rapidly.
The simple thing is, fuzzing is one of the cheapest things to do with one of the highest yields in bugs. Moore noted:
"Fuzzing is probably the easiest way to find flaws, because you don't have to figure out how the application is dealing with input," said Moore, a well-known hacker and the co-founder of the Metasploit Project. "It lets me be a lazy vulnerability researcher."
The idea of using a pseudo-random number generator with a known seed is good, but fuzzing is better if you actually work it so as to try and give increased code coverage (as the article notes). So rather than just spew purely "random" stuff, set up a handshake properly for a particular type of protocol, that will likely take you down a particular code path, and then go into 'random world'.
Indeed, because of the ease, I'd guess a lot of black-hat work these days is fuzzing-based, and then examining the results carefully, discovering specific vulnerabilities, and then trying to weaponize them.
Glad to see you posted using your name and logical arguments without any ad hominem attacks. Clearly you are not the OP. No chance.
As I said, some of us like the idea of plugging in memory cards, iPods, MP3 players and playing the media off those. You obviously think that's a step backwards. Fair enough.
And I've no idea what the OOB experience on this is. If you do, great. Enlighten us, AC who is NOT the OP.
The company is embracing Open source because the product is dying and badly designed.
IIRC, they embraced open source from the beginning. I guess they did so because they time-travelled back after they found their product was, according to some AC who is not the OP, 'dying'?
There are hard drive enclosures that cost less that do more than this does (HD anyone? how about 720p?) and does way more.
OK, please show me a sub-$249 hard drive enclosure that will plug into my TV and does everything this box does as well as HD. 1080 or 720, I don't care. I'd like to buy it. Seriously. Show it to me. I want to buy it, because that sounds (unlike this product) exactly what I need. I've never yet found such a thing, but you say it exists. I believe you, because you're an AC who is not the OP. Show us.
OP is dead on, you are simply a modded up troll who prides himself in being an asshole.
OP stated it was windows software. It was Linux.
OP stated it should do SMB. It does. Yes, OK, it needs a firmware update. Sorry if that's too difficult for you.
OP stated a bunch of things that were simply flatly demonstrably false. I corrected his bizarre assertions.
Indeed I stated that I suspected this device wasn't adequate because of the lack of HD and (probable) lack of processing power. You seem to agree, but think I'm full of 'shit'. Hmm... guess you're just illogical, AC who is not the OP.
Anyway, happy long weekend if you're US or Canadian.
Let me start by correcting a single typo from my original post. Of course, I prefer OPEN source. As I hope the context made clear. But... as I said, I don't really care a lot, relative to transparency of process.
I've acted as a scrutineer in elections. Have you? It's pretty plain to see you haven't. I've verified code for emergency nuclear reactor shutdowns (open and closed source, and, incidentally, I think it's a terrible idea to have a nuclear reactor primarily under software control). I know how tough it is to get something as 100% robust and reliable as we need it to be for a purely electronic voting system. Have you? Do you?
I've studied carefully many of the proposals for voting systems and thought about them deeply. It's pretty plain to see you haven't -- at least not intelligently, because your statements simply don't add up logically. See below.
Now. You're the one comparing apples and oranges. Read carefully. Open source systems in general say nothing about whether or not there is a paper trail. (Does linux have a paper trail? No.)
You claim that "all" open source proposals feature a paper trail. Even this isn't true, at least not if we define a paper trail as being human readable, very difficult to falsify and robust. And that is what a paper trail must be if it's to have any meaning!
A closed-source system can have a paper trail; so can an open source. Either system can lack a paper trail.
Look, we agree that process-opaque systems are an unmitigated disaster if they are closed source. Great!
Unfortunately, you argue that an opaque system is just fine if it's open-sourced. Opaque systems will destroy trust in the voting system. There's a reason I picked the example I picked, and that's because every electronic touch-screen system -- closed or open source -- devolves to having no reliable robust paper trail.
"all proposed open systems do indeed have a paper trail, so this opening statement is false"
OK, so you accuse me of being a liar based on your definition of what a good open source system SHOULD be. Not is, but should be. Good argument technique.
I've yet to see a proposed transparent robust electronic system of any kind (as opposed to optical scan) that lets the human reliably create a human-readable ballot. Open or closed-source.
There are all kinds of proposals for systems with cryptographic signing (on an electronic or even printed paper ballot), and all kinds of proposals that we incorporate a printer into electronic voting systems that produces something -- maybe human readable, maybe not.
If you're going to sit there and have the gall to call me a liar then please prove that introducing this additional mechanical ink/toner-dependent point of failure is 100% robust and will never break down. Alternatively, please prove that this cryptographic signing is as robust as you think it is and as transparent to the average user.
Or show me how an electronic touch-screen system will produce a human-readable and verifiable independent ballot, safely and with 100% accuracy.
All I've seen is incredibly flimsy systems that do something like print off a ballot, then the printer runs out of ink or breaks down, voting comes to a halt, a judge says somewhere that it can proceed even if there are no paper ballots... boom.
I'm utterly appalled at your arrogance and ignorance of the subject. You're in a typical technical mode of "more technology is good". Step back from the problem and consider that we want elections to be seen as fair and transparent by the typical voter. Or get as close to there as we can.
Worse yet, you do the open source movement a tremendous disservice by arriving at the mistaken belief that it equates to an paper-trail.
Here are some of the benefits you get from the Canadian system I mentioned: - instant count. - 100% recountable with robust human-readable ballots - each ballot is subtly different -- fingerprints, ink used, level of pen pressure. If you see a stack of
Slashdot Mirror
Realistically, I don't see how they could have pumped out new models a lot faster. They've done regular and impressive software updates as well, about 2-3 major ones per year, adding google talk, Skype, SIP, etc.
True, the N810 doesn't have a phone. Or multitouch. And the iPhone doesn't have GPS. Or expandable cards. Or openness (yet). Or the resolution. And I'd bet the N810's screen has less color depth. Isn't the iPhone 20 bit, not 16bit?
The two are aimed at different niches. No question, if I wanted the best video or audio player going, I'd get an iPhone. If I wanted a browser or book reader or GPS device, I'd get the Nokia. If I wanted a phone I'd get an iPhone. If I wanted an open computer I'd get the Nokia. etc.
For many of us, the fact that the Nokia isn't a $500 phone tied to a $2000 contract is a big plus. It's exactly what we want. For others, the fact that the iPhone is a nice seamless device is what they want.
I think Nokia's a little premature in talking about going head-to-head with Apple. The N-series is still a bit more hobbyist in my mind. But it's incredibly powerful, open and flexible.
-Holmwood.
Memory randomization, no, that was new as of Vista as parent suggests. And I'm amazed it took everyone that long, especially Microsoft whose OS's were absolutely being hammered by Malware.
File system snapshotting?
With the genius that Microsoft shows for marketing, they called the feature "Volume Shadow Copy". Steve Jobs foolishly called it "Time Machine". Everyone knows you want to label interesting features with unwieldy acronyms.
(that's sarcasm). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy And yes, it's available on Win 2K and Windows XP (as of circa 2003), but wasn't included by default until Windows XP SP2.
So parent is right about memory randomization and wrong about filesystem snapshotting. 1/2. Is parent serious, I dryly ask.
Speaking as a BSD/Ubuntu/Win XP (that last for games, and certain legacy apps) fan -- in roughly that order -- Leopard will be the easiest to install, configure and use BSD going. And that's pretty tempting.
I just wish Apple permitted ordinary users to virtualize OS X on whatever hardware they wanted.
-Holmwood.
That would require people to own Zunes, and therefore care.
But more seriously, remember that Steve Jobs talked about the iPhone running OS X. Most people, quite reasonably, interpret that as meaning that the iPhone is more than just a phone, or a smartphone, it's a small computer.
For technologically adept people (ie Slashdot readers) in the market for an advanced mobile phone/tiny computer, you bet we'd like to use it for more than just what the manufacturer wants us to.
And we all like our computers (tiny or otherwise) to be at least relatively open, and able to run third party software. (Note the criticism MS is rightly taking over Vista's closed driver model for DRM).
You're certainly right about the N800 though. Great tool, and very hackable.
Holmwood
Were you around during the Clinton presidency?
No war?
You don't remember Somalia, Kosovo (and the bombing of Belgrade, where the US managed to bomb the Chinese embassy), and the bombings in Iraq (Desert Fox, anyone?), and missile attacks in the Sudan and elsewhere?
And as for terrorism, the WTC bombing in '93, the USS Cole, US embassies in Africa? Where hundreds died?
It's quite true there wasn't a conflict like Iraq, and we didn't lose over three thousand US troops in combat. But thousands died, just most of them weren't Americans.
Yes, the Clinton years were years of relative peace compared to now. But the idea that there was "no war" (and I'm speaking of conflict directly involving the US military; obviously there were a lot of other wars going on) is pretty peculiar.
Go tell the citizens of Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia, Kosovo, and even Iraq that there was "no war" in the Clinton years. You might get quite an earful.
Holmwood.
Why is this marked as a troll? I've seen and experienced much the same thing.
There's a reason why BSD exists.
There's a reason, why, if you want something very secure, very robust you constrict the applications and drivers extremely tightly, even more tightly than the airlines seem to be doing on their passenger boxes.
The Linux kernel is indeed good. So too, oddly enough, is the Windows NT kernel (NT, and Win2K+). What's layered on top of those, especially in the case of Windows? Not always so good.
Holmwood.
No, they think voting can be coercive anywhere. And that it is coercive in some places, both in the US and elsewhere.
Let's take a few modern examples. Reporters, editors, Hollywood, and the academy (universities) are about 90% Democratic. When views are that monolithic, people can be very uncomfortable being known as the odd-one out. Even if there's no conspiracy, and nothing but kindness, it can be a career-shortening move to out oneself.
Let's look at the flip side. You're in a small southern town working at a great job. You go to a great church that you love. Problem is about 90% of your company, including all the management above you is Republican. 90% of your church is Republican. You don't want to leave either, because you enjoy everything except the politics, and because there's really nowhere else as good if you want to stay in town. Again, it can be a career or socially-damaging move to out oneself.
Tensions have run high the last few elections. A former Presidential candidate, and VP, Al Gore has said that George Bush "betrayed his Country". Senior Presidential advisers and the VP have said much the same (if not worse) of many Democrats.
I can't recall the rhetoric being quite as consistently vicious on both sides in my lifetime (the closest came in the Clinton years when I believe the Republicans were pretty nasty.)
A voting system that reveals how people voted is a horrific failure. Not because of what will immediately happen but because of what can happen and ultimately will happen.
Holmwood.
A couple of years? Of course not.
A day, and handing the rest of a few months work off to someone a couple of years out of film school?
Quite possibly.
John Cleese of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers (and the cocreator of Yes, Minister) who admittedly are not Spielberg set up a little company in the 1970's making training films.
They sold it (many years ago) for $70m. Not a bad chunk of change; even Spielberg might go for that.
This is low-hanging fruit; the potential to add some relatively high-margin guaranteed revenue to a past popular title.
This is
The reality is that XP is a 'pretty good' OS. It's not a magnificent OS, but it's 'good enough'. OS X looks a lot nicer and in many respects is (along with being less vulnerable). Locked down BSD is a lot more secure than XP. And Linux is a lot cheaper. But for a large number of people, XP is 'good enough'.
The two big markets that Windows is tough to beat in are gaming and certain legacy enterprise applications. In both cases, Vista performance is inferior to XP.
Right now, nope.
Moreover, I actually think what they said about phones was sensible. From TFA:
By 'full' he presumably means physical. Like say, the Blackberry (not even a MS product).
This is just such an unexceptional article, it's surprising that it was linked.
Despite a reference to heat, this is not intended as a flame. I want to see a very strong AMD; it'll take that to keep Intel running hard. I'll buy whoever makes the best product at the best price.
The linked website seems aptly titled -- "HotHardware". Did you see the four extra fans built into the side of the case in the photo in the article?
The mind boggles at how much heat that setup must be producing.
I hope AMD can produce product at 3GHz (and faster) in quantity. And I hope they can do so without requiring 4 large fans taking up the entire side of the case.
Of course, those fans could be just to cool the three AMD graphics cards.
While I'm sure case modders and extreme performance enthusiasts don't care about this point, the rest of us like lower power consumption and quieter computers, while still being very fast.
Holmwood
Macs have sometimes indeed been lower in price than Dells in recent months, however, (and this has remained true for some weeks), configuring identically (or nearly so) configured machines -- Inspiron 1720 and Macbook Pro 17" (2 GB 667MHz RAM, 160GB 5400 RPM HDD, 17" glossy high res display, 8600 GT mobile graphics, OSX/Vista Home Premium, Bluetooth 2 EDR, IEEE 802.11n, wired ethernet (1GB/s on mac, 100MB/s on PC), webcam, 8x DVD Rewriter, 3 year warranty) I got these prices:
Apple: $3,148; Dell: $2,127.
The mac has faster wired ethernet, the PC has a built-in modem and card reader. A 1000 Mb/s ethernet ExpressCard runs $67; a modem and card reader run about the same.
No question, the mac is a thinner, lighter form factor, and more elegant in a number of ways. (The power cord and backlit keyboard; possibly the software as well).
The Dell, last I looked, had a better battery. (I could be out of date on this though).
But that's quite a big price difference, and (barring my notes above) it seems to be an apples-to-apples comparison as far as I can tell, with nearly identical hardware in both machines.
Apple's come a long way in reducing (and sometimes eliminating) the price gap, but it still seems to exist in many cases.
My own view? I used Macs from about 1986 to the mid 1990's. Good machines, and for quite a while the OS was light years ahead of Windows. Now, in 2007, if I'm going to be buying a computer with an OS that has compatibility problems with Windows XP, I think I'd prefer that it be OS X as opposed to Vista. After all, a great deal of effort is going into things like Parallels.
But the price difference is real, and still exists.
No, they weren't. The old bankruptcy laws were based on centuries worth of common law that evolved out of England. Very similar laws are in place in many countries around the world.
Now I happen to agree with you on personal responsibility. And bankruptcies were rising; Americans were collectively paying at least $400 per household per year to support bankruptcy. Several features of the new law are great -- for example requiring people to take credit counseling courses and requiring them to at least file back tax returns if they haven't.
But coupled with no legislation to rein in predatory high-interest rate credit card companies... well, yes, that's troubling.
-Holmwood
This is a very sensible argument. I don't agree, but it's a cogent argument. My counter argument is that this is simply evolutionary. The EDGE execution is poor (even Jobs admits this) and AT&T is a somewhat mediocre partner. (Compare even T-mobile). It's a fairly closed device.... and dare I say it, the iPhone is a US story. GPL3 is a global story.
If we look at devices in the wireless space that bridge communications and mobile entertainment, Nokia's N-series is well on the way, and well ahead of Apple (though I think they deliver an inferior user interface experience to Apple on debatably superior hardware). Even ARCOS has done some interesting stuff.
Again, it comes down I think to whether you view technology stories as about gadgets or, well, about technology. (And your argument straddles this gap very neatly by the way) No question, the announcement of the iPhone was the biggest story of the week. The first deliveries to customers? That's just marketing hype in my view.
I respect those who feel differently, and those who think about the matter intelligently and respond with a good counterargument like you. For all I know you're right. We could compare notes in two years time if either of us actually remembered.
I don't respect those who respond with "CUNT and shitdick" and mod people down harshly for daring to venture a different opinion.
Best,
Holmwood
is the troll?
Huh?
And I get 70% negative karma on my OP out because I dared state the opinion that the GPL3 release might be a bigger technical story than the iPhone release.
Wow. Just. Wow.
The AC's point is correct. Slashdot isn't a mall. Cursing wildly at people to make a point shouldn't be slashdot, and to mark someone as a troll who's been called a 'CUNT' and a 'shitdick' for responding with 'moron'? Wow.
Thanks sadly troll-rated AC, and guy below. That's exactly my point. This isn't a mall. This isn't a gadget website. Or at least I thought it wasn't. I think the iPhone is awesome, sure. I don't even mind the tons of stories about it. People are excited, fine.
But it's a gadget. It's a fascinating step on a road by an interesting company that does some great things with technology, UI and user experience.
I honestly and naively thought that I was on a site that was a technical discussion site, not a gadget site. As I said above, I stand corrected.
Again: I've no problem with the plethora of iPhone stories. I do have a problem with the view that one can't even venture the opinion that GPL3 license release is a bigger technical story without being modded down and having any defender referred to as CUNT and shitdick.
I love Apple's technology. I used an Apple PC circa 1981. I started using a mac in 1985. But I am coming to believe that a significant vocal minority of its fans are crazy people incapable of rational thought.
I am speechless.
"Cunt and shitdick"? And the guy who responds is the troll? And I get more negative points than the "cunt and shitdick" guy? Ok...
I guess this'll get me modded as a troll. But you're creating an echo chamber here. Enjoy it. But count this Apple fan out.
I'm not complaining about the plethora of iPhone stories; I'm pointing out that one can legitimately argue this really isn't the biggest piece of tech news in the last week, unless you view tech news purely as what lots of consumers are interested in, and tech news as being purely about gadgets.
Evidently slashdot has come to. Fair enough. I stand corrected.
To repeat my view though; the iPhone's moving into the hands of consumers will, in a few years time, be a minor footnote (though probably a footnote to a very successful story from Apple).
In my view, tech stories aren't about gadgets, however exciting they are.
I shrug at the lack of reading comprehension. I said nothing against iPhone stories, and nothing against the iPhone. I simply pointed out that I didn't personally believe that it was the biggest tech story of the week, and gave valid arguments why. For that I was modded down pretty heavily. Shrug. I've learned my lesson, Apple mods aren't capable of rational analysis when it comes to anything they perceive as criticism.
It's a shame, because I really do think the iPhone is a fantastic piece of technology. But its fans? Heh. Well, it's just another step on Slashdot becoming a website about gadget stories. And we've got plenty of those.
Remember I said stories "galore, all over CNN".
I think we differ on what "untrue" means.
I think your comment that I made an untrue statement is unfair. And, well, uh... incorrect. You don't have to accuse someone of being a liar, just say you think they were mistaken. And I don't believe I was.
Again, I said stories news stories "galore, all over CNN". Not 'one lonely wire service story quoting a single user'.
I pointed out that you cited three identical stories from AP that simply spoke of "simmering blogs", and a SINGLE user with problems. You should have read the stories. You looked a little ridiculous citing three identical stories (in my respectful opinion). Fair enough, you didn't read them, but that's part of the problem. I think we all suffer from a lack of reading on Slashdot.
Again, as I said, there'd be stories "all over" CNN. They wouldn't be quoting ONE user from a Friday news wire. They'd be quoting hundreds, thousands.
I've looked at CNN right now, and there's nothing on the iPhone off the main page. Not even the wire story you reference. When I clicked through to Tech, I did find the same exact story you reference about blogs simmering as a minor headline. Unupdated for me. (In fairness, I may be getting a different geographic CNN feed than you; I'm in central Asia, but surfing via an IP that registers as Canadian). It may be that CNN is playing this up a lot more in the US; I can't tell, but I don't think so.
Now here I get you 5x5. Yeah. The media needs conflict and controversy to survive (or so they feel). Personally, I think the best thing about the iPhone is it will drive competition. Good, because I'd rather not buy one given its significant limitations (to me).
Holmwood
Bigger than the GPL3 license?
OK...
Look, I think the iPhone is superfantastic. Great. But it's just another massively massively better-implemented Zune. It's a nifty piece of hardware. But it's just that. In two years time it'll be history. In more ways than one, with the iPhone 2, 3 and 4 out no doubt. (or whatever they will call them). The GPL3? Still very, very relevant. For good or ill.
The viral aspects of the GPL3 are... very interesting. We could be talking about them.
Instead we're talking about a piece of plastic that's been well-marketed.
I'm familiar with Engadget. Look, you're posting as AC. I don't know why. I wish you weren't. But read this and tell me if you think I'm an iPhone hater: The phone was brilliantly overhyped and I think it's got some serious design/service shortcomings. - The lack of openness in architecture. - The expensive service plan ($60+) with one of the weaker (service-wise) providers. - Relatively low resolution (an 800x480 screen would have been feasible in roughly that form factor), - a non-user-serviceable battery thereby mandating product destruction within 3-4 years, (Yes, I use a 4-year-old MP3 player with a replaceable battery) - lack of a physical keyboard. - Horrible (IMO) service partnership with AT&T, one of the weaker and more disorganized mobile carriers. All of these service/design flaws render it unacceptable to me. So am I an iPhone hater? I also think it's a fantastic, nifty product with an elegant user interface. I think it will, and should, do very well. Whether it'll reinvent the phone? Probably not, especially given that they've partnered with AT&T. But it's raised the bar for everyone, and I as a consumer am very happy about that. It's possible to dislike a bunch of things about the iPhone -- strongly so, even, and like a bunch of things about it. And decide that it's not for me. And not be a hater. I trust. Best, Holmwood
The story cites a single customer complaining he took 48 hours. And "simmering blog posts". Sorry, proves my case.
(Yes, the AT&T spokesman could be lying, but in the age of Sarbannes-Oxley, publicly-traded companies lying just got a lot more expensive in jail time for senior executives).
Yes, the phone was over-hyped. Yes, it's got some teething troubles. Yes, I think Apple chose a carrier that... well I have no clue why they chose AT&T. No, there is no way I'll buy an iPhone unless they cut the required monthly contract in half while still offering the same features. And switch to a better carrier, and have something better than the godawfully slow EDGE service which even Steve Jobs condemns. Even then, I doubt it, because I think the iPhone is too low res, and too closed an architecture.
For me, the iPhone has a lot of problems, but they're all at the service/design level rather than the implementation layer. The presence of three identical stories sourced from AP that quote "almost all customers" activating within minutes... nope, doesn't prove your argument, sorry.
If Microsoft, within the first 48-72 hours of launch of Vista were having the same problems with activations?
If Vista were unusable in those 72 hours? No. I wouldn't cut them remotely the same slack. Why? Activation is necessary for mobiles. International agreements specify the payment of vast sums of money based on international call traffic between national carriers. Even fairly large carriers are on the hook for 976 payments for calls that their customers make. And phones are frequently highly subsidized by ongoing payments.
Allowing people free and unrestricted access to untraceable phones means that carriers could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.
There's a genuine need to ensure that someone using your network for long distance, 976 and the like, and calls between carriers, is actually a paying customer.
It isn't the same with Vista. Microsoft can cheerfully let someone use Vista for 10 days -- or even 30, as they do -- without completing activation, and without incurring losses. As they do. No harm, no foul.
Next, Vista is purely under the control of Microsoft. The iPhone sadly isn't. One has to look at the world as it is not as we would wish it to be.
In the ideal world, we'd all be using incredibly reliable custom-built computers as cheap as the cheapest parts with all the mail-in-rebates working, running something with the aesthetics of OS X that cost us what Linux costs and had all the compatibility and game playing capability of Windows, and all the security of FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD.
I find it amusing that I'm both an Apple apologist and an Apple hater for the same post. I suppose I must be in the middle!
Coming back to your question? Given that Vista is usable for 30 days prior to activation, I wouldn't have a serious issue with 48-72 hours of problems for up to 7 percent of those activating. I wouldn't like it; I'd think it bungled given that it's entirely under their control, but I wouldn't conclude that it's a doomed launch.
In Apple's case, knowing what I know of AT&T and the merger mess, I think it's reasonable. (You've a stronger case if you criticize Apple for going with AT&T. Much stronger).
Hehe. Mod the parent up for funny!
Seriously, I'm a mild Apple "hater" in that I dislike the hype. But I think they produce some aesthetically lovely, at times overpriced technology. Haven't regularly used a mac since the early 90's. I still can't imagine buying a desktop mac as they don't offer anything both expandable and affordable (Xeon based machines, whether from Dell or Apple aren't cost-effective for the average non-workstation user).
But my next laptop? Probably a mac. I won't care that it's not expandable, and on high-end machines their prices track Dells within a few hundred dollars. Sometimes a few hundred dollars better.
I really don't buy that 'haters' are skewing the poll significantly. It's possible, sure, but... it really comes off as sounding unlikely to me.
That said, there's no way that 33% or more of iPhone customers are having serious activation problems. That would be many, many hundreds of thousands of people. If that were the case, there'd be news stories galore, all over CNN etc. We'd all (not just a few of us) know people who were suffering activation problems.
The OP is certainly correct in this -- it's an unscientific poll that doesn't mean much. Any online poll like that will suffer from selection bias. That bias could be 'haters', but it's much more likely that people having troubles activating are out actively searching for information, and, more likely to find such a poll and, in turn, much more likely to respond to such a poll than people who have the phone perfectly activated and are relaxing and enjoying their phones.
(To the OP, I wanted to see the results and cheerfully answered -- lying -- that I'd had no problems activating my non-existent iPhone. So at least I biased it the other way!)
I'm biased btw, I think the iPhone is nice, but ludicrously overhyped, and anyone who waited a long time in line for it is out to lunch.
But I suspect the OP's experience (2 of 4 phones activating perfectly, one almost perfectly, and the fourth within 24 hours) is par for the course. And, frankly, considering what a mess AT&T's systems are, I think that's an impressive achievement for Apple.
If we took a WAG (wild-assed guess), there are almost certainly thousands of people with serious activation problems. There might even be tens of thousands. A hundred thousand? I doubt it, but perhaps possible. Even at the 100k mark, that'd be one in 15 customers. 6.7%. Considering it's mobiles and AT&T involved, that actually sounds very good to me, though painful for those with problems.
Granted, if there are still many thousands of people with serious problems in several days time, that'd be quite bad.
As someone who isn't an iPhone fan, it looks like a pretty decent launch. Though I still shake my head at those waiting in line.
But not quite good enough. Nowhere near in fact.
At CanSecWest last year, HD Moore and a student took an hour to hack together a fuzzer that found over fifty flaws in Internet Explorer. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/11387
Think about that. Two person-hours work, that leads directly to the discovery of fifty flaws. That's pretty impressive for a released product that's supposedly had a great deal of scrutiny. There are few other techniques that could discover flaws as rapidly.
The simple thing is, fuzzing is one of the cheapest things to do with one of the highest yields in bugs. Moore noted:
The idea of using a pseudo-random number generator with a known seed is good, but fuzzing is better if you actually work it so as to try and give increased code coverage (as the article notes). So rather than just spew purely "random" stuff, set up a handshake properly for a particular type of protocol, that will likely take you down a particular code path, and then go into 'random world'.
Indeed, because of the ease, I'd guess a lot of black-hat work these days is fuzzing-based, and then examining the results carefully, discovering specific vulnerabilities, and then trying to weaponize them.
As I said, some of us like the idea of plugging in memory cards, iPods, MP3 players and playing the media off those. You obviously think that's a step backwards. Fair enough.
And I've no idea what the OOB experience on this is. If you do, great. Enlighten us, AC who is NOT the OP.IIRC, they embraced open source from the beginning. I guess they did so because they time-travelled back after they found their product was, according to some AC who is not the OP, 'dying'?
OK, please show me a sub-$249 hard drive enclosure that will plug into my TV and does everything this box does as well as HD. 1080 or 720, I don't care. I'd like to buy it. Seriously. Show it to me. I want to buy it, because that sounds (unlike this product) exactly what I need. I've never yet found such a thing, but you say it exists. I believe you, because you're an AC who is not the OP. Show us.
OP stated it was windows software. It was Linux.
OP stated it should do SMB. It does. Yes, OK, it needs a firmware update. Sorry if that's too difficult for you.
OP stated a bunch of things that were simply flatly demonstrably false. I corrected his bizarre assertions.
Indeed I stated that I suspected this device wasn't adequate because of the lack of HD and (probable) lack of processing power. You seem to agree, but think I'm full of 'shit'. Hmm... guess you're just illogical, AC who is not the OP.
Anyway, happy long weekend if you're US or Canadian.
Let me start by correcting a single typo from my original post. Of course, I prefer OPEN source. As I hope the context made clear. But... as I said, I don't really care a lot, relative to transparency of process.
I've acted as a scrutineer in elections. Have you? It's pretty plain to see you haven't. I've verified code for emergency nuclear reactor shutdowns (open and closed source, and, incidentally, I think it's a terrible idea to have a nuclear reactor primarily under software control). I know how tough it is to get something as 100% robust and reliable as we need it to be for a purely electronic voting system. Have you? Do you?
I've studied carefully many of the proposals for voting systems and thought about them deeply. It's pretty plain to see you haven't -- at least not intelligently, because your statements simply don't add up logically. See below.
Now. You're the one comparing apples and oranges. Read carefully. Open source systems in general say nothing about whether or not there is a paper trail. (Does linux have a paper trail? No.)
You claim that "all" open source proposals feature a paper trail. Even this isn't true, at least not if we define a paper trail as being human readable, very difficult to falsify and robust. And that is what a paper trail must be if it's to have any meaning!
A closed-source system can have a paper trail; so can an open source. Either system can lack a paper trail.
Look, we agree that process-opaque systems are an unmitigated disaster if they are closed source. Great!
Unfortunately, you argue that an opaque system is just fine if it's open-sourced. Opaque systems will destroy trust in the voting system. There's a reason I picked the example I picked, and that's because every electronic touch-screen system -- closed or open source -- devolves to having no reliable robust paper trail.
"all proposed open systems do indeed have a paper trail, so this opening statement is false"
OK, so you accuse me of being a liar based on your definition of what a good open source system SHOULD be. Not is, but should be. Good argument technique.
I've yet to see a proposed transparent robust electronic system of any kind (as opposed to optical scan) that lets the human reliably create a human-readable ballot. Open or closed-source.
There are all kinds of proposals for systems with cryptographic signing (on an electronic or even printed paper ballot), and all kinds of proposals that we incorporate a printer into electronic voting systems that produces something -- maybe human readable, maybe not.
If you're going to sit there and have the gall to call me a liar then please prove that introducing this additional mechanical ink/toner-dependent point of failure is 100% robust and will never break down. Alternatively, please prove that this cryptographic signing is as robust as you think it is and as transparent to the average user.
Or show me how an electronic touch-screen system will produce a human-readable and verifiable independent ballot, safely and with 100% accuracy.
All I've seen is incredibly flimsy systems that do something like print off a ballot, then the printer runs out of ink or breaks down, voting comes to a halt, a judge says somewhere that it can proceed even if there are no paper ballots... boom.
I'm utterly appalled at your arrogance and ignorance of the subject. You're in a typical technical mode of "more technology is good". Step back from the problem and consider that we want elections to be seen as fair and transparent by the typical voter. Or get as close to there as we can.
Worse yet, you do the open source movement a tremendous disservice by arriving at the mistaken belief that it equates to an paper-trail.
Here are some of the benefits you get from the Canadian system I mentioned:
- instant count.
- 100% recountable with robust human-readable ballots
- each ballot is subtly different -- fingerprints, ink used, level of pen pressure. If you see a stack of