Microsoft sells hardware in pretty much the same fashion they sell everything outside the Windows and Office teams: They pay a company to produce the goods and then slap the Microsoft label on them. The only difference between hardware and software in this regard is that, historically, Microsoft has bought software vendors outright versus simply being a continuous customer to the hardware vendors.
Yes, it looks like MS is releasing this to cover systems that aren't expected to get BIOS updates or to be used in lieu of a BIOS update.
Still seems odd to me, but the quietness of the issue doesn't encourage any suspicion for me.
MS often releases non-security and non-critical updates in a graduated manner: First, you must call PSS to be able to download the patch. MS just wants to be sure the patch fixes the problem. You're a beta tester. Next, they release the patch for public download. Affected users will find or be directed to the KB article and apply the update. Finally, if enough people download the update, they release it to Windows Update for general download.
Most updates that make it to stage 2 are rolled into the next Service Pack, as are all the updates from the last stage.
First of all, the expected performance gain between any hardware generation -- video, CPU, RAM, whatever -- is only about 5%.
In your actualy post, however you're confusing the enthusiast and home user environment with the business commodity hardware environment. If you want long-term support hardware, you need to go to a PC manufacturer, not to a chip designer.
HP's dc5xxx and dc7xxx as well as Dell's OptiPlex series are very, very stable. At my last job, we ordered roughly 500 dc5000 PCs over the course of two years, and the hardware did not appreciably change at all. Indeed, the only things that did change were the make of the hard drive and the make of the RAM, both components that are relatively OS independent. Even today you can still get HP's dc5700 with a Pentium 4 processor. They stopped offering the original dc5000 series only a year or so ago, and that was DDR RAM, P4 processor, IDE HDD, and Intel 845 chipset. Those are specs that date from 2002 being sold brand new in 2006.
Your body completely remakes itself every few years (I forget the precise length of time). Quite literally, you're not the same person you were 10 years ago.
Ultimately, though, if a copy is absolutely perfect and wholly indistinguishable from the original, then there is no difference between the two. This is the fundamental basis behind digital data. I doubt all religions will see it that way, though. Those that hold the body sacred (like Jehovah's Witnesses) will probably object to it's use on humans. That's a philosophical debate I thankfully will not have to endure, though, as I expect I will be long since dead by the time it becomes an issue.
Even then, though, I bet there will always be some people unwilling to take a trip into Schroedinger's box.
I expect the technology will only be used on inanimate objects for a very long time, though. And that's assuming they can scale it up to an object of worthwhile size. And that's assuming they can get it to do anything worthwhile at all.
Yes, the outlawing of hemp is a terrible thing. You can make nearly any plant product from it. Linen, oil, paper, etc. Too bad the Feds will never agree to allow it, and the corn industry and lumber industry will fight it tooth and nail.
Maybe in twenty years when pot has moved beyond prohibited to decriminalized to taxed and regulated.
There's a problem with you logic. Namely, instructions and recipes are, under the Berne convention, not subject to copyright.
This is one of the reasons Wizards of the Coast developed the Open Gaming License. What the system reference documents actually do is precisely identify uncopyrightable material. The license is simply a covenant not to try and sue, a case which they would have a huge difficulty in winning.
Yeah, that's exactly what I go out of it. The tension of that would drive me insane.
People didn't get that? Christ, it was like a fucking neon sign. All they needed was a slow pan of a white wall.
They set it up exactly as though there we going to be a hit on Tony. They did 3-4 minutes of just exposition, showing the happy couple, the Cub Scouts, the creepy guy at the bar. They played a memorable song (Journey's Don't Stop Believin' -- "it goes on and on and on and on...").
People feel gyped because it wasn't a Hollywood ending. I loved the ending. It was memorable and it spoke to exactly what the series was about.
MS's tech division is great. You ask questions and get answers. Sales division, however, tends to get you corporate dogma, which is exactly what you get when you talk to GPL elitists. The sales division is also the source of the most unpleasant conversations I've ever had with MS. They're pigheaded and arrogant. Just like GPL elitists.
There is nothing in GPL that has to shoved down your throat when you ask a question about GPLed software.
Yeah, I know. That's the point. I'm not asking about licensing issues. I might be talking about a bug with the software on Windows, or a bug with PostgreSQL interpoerability, and suddenly it's my fault for trying to use software that doesn't meet a GPL elitist's ideals.
If you can't fix the bug, tell me. I'll find software that does what I need, or fix it myself if it comes to that. I don't need developers preaching to me that my environment is evil -- not misconfigured, not out-of-date, not a technical issue, it's evil -- when I ask a simple technical question.
My only problem with GPL v3 as a developer (a hat I've long since given up, and never enjoyed wearing) is that it gives FSF license elitists more reason to feel their license is freer, opener, and in all ways better than any MPL, BSD, or Apache license. I'd rather talk to MS sales division about licensing issues than a bloody GPL zealot.
I have no problem with GPL software, or with the FSF philosophy. I just don't need it shoved down my throat every time I ask a question on a forum or a mailing list. Yes, guys, I get it. Now, how about you help me fix this bug?
That sounds like Aristotle. He said everything was unique and you could only describe an object by observing that object and you couldn't make assumptions about other similar objects just because they were similar. Indeed, he said the most useful thing you could say about an object is describing it's relation to the center of the universe (wherever that may be).
Chemistry, of course, is based on the opposite notion.
Because you have two options: 1. Statically link libraries. You 4 MB program is now 400 MB. 2. Require an installer to check and configure the environment for the program.
Re-usability of code, one of the requirements for significantly complex systems, requires that the program assume things about *other* programs on the system.
Again, no. "Expectation of privacy" is a legal term (which is generally used for determining legality of government searches) and this is the sense of the word that is used here.
Kazaa has no reasonable expectation of privacy not because it's traffic is unsecured between endpoints but because it takes no steps to obfuscate the end user. The IP addresses and all content shared are broadcast to the network, and that personally identifiable information is readily available to any user on the whole network.
It's like sending email encrypted vs not encrypted. This in no way implies that SMTP traffic is secure (headers remain visible, packets are world-readable), but it does provide privacy for the end users for message content. Privacy is often a prerequisite for computer security because controlling digital information is how you secure it, but the two concepts are really not related.
Strictly speaking, a door need not be locked to provide privacy. You could, for example, put a transparent door with a deadbolt on a bathroom. Security but no privacy. Or, you could use a curtain or turn the lights out. Privacy but no security. Consider also: a man in a jail cell is very secure, but has no expectation of privacy at all. On the other hand, a man in his own home with curtains closed and doors closed has privacy, but he need not lock his doors to ensure that. He could be having a wild party or surfing SlashDot, and you have no way of knowing without violating the mechanisms of his privacy.
Who modded this insightful? This is like arguing "I have food in my cupboards today, therefore supermarkets should close".
And we shouldn't make laws because people break them? Laws exist partly to prevent the issue, but they also exist to punish those who break them. "Murder shouldn't be a crime because people still kill other people". That's a brilliant plan.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft sells hardware in pretty much the same fashion they sell everything outside the Windows and Office teams: They pay a company to produce the goods and then slap the Microsoft label on them. The only difference between hardware and software in this regard is that, historically, Microsoft has bought software vendors outright versus simply being a continuous customer to the hardware vendors.
Yes, it looks like MS is releasing this to cover systems that aren't expected to get BIOS updates or to be used in lieu of a BIOS update.
Still seems odd to me, but the quietness of the issue doesn't encourage any suspicion for me.
MS often releases non-security and non-critical updates in a graduated manner:
First, you must call PSS to be able to download the patch. MS just wants to be sure the patch fixes the problem. You're a beta tester.
Next, they release the patch for public download. Affected users will find or be directed to the KB article and apply the update.
Finally, if enough people download the update, they release it to Windows Update for general download.
Most updates that make it to stage 2 are rolled into the next Service Pack, as are all the updates from the last stage.
First of all, the expected performance gain between any hardware generation -- video, CPU, RAM, whatever -- is only about 5%.
In your actualy post, however you're confusing the enthusiast and home user environment with the business commodity hardware environment. If you want long-term support hardware, you need to go to a PC manufacturer, not to a chip designer.
HP's dc5xxx and dc7xxx as well as Dell's OptiPlex series are very, very stable. At my last job, we ordered roughly 500 dc5000 PCs over the course of two years, and the hardware did not appreciably change at all. Indeed, the only things that did change were the make of the hard drive and the make of the RAM, both components that are relatively OS independent. Even today you can still get HP's dc5700 with a Pentium 4 processor. They stopped offering the original dc5000 series only a year or so ago, and that was DDR RAM, P4 processor, IDE HDD, and Intel 845 chipset. Those are specs that date from 2002 being sold brand new in 2006.
Your body completely remakes itself every few years (I forget the precise length of time). Quite literally, you're not the same person you were 10 years ago.
Ultimately, though, if a copy is absolutely perfect and wholly indistinguishable from the original, then there is no difference between the two. This is the fundamental basis behind digital data. I doubt all religions will see it that way, though. Those that hold the body sacred (like Jehovah's Witnesses) will probably object to it's use on humans. That's a philosophical debate I thankfully will not have to endure, though, as I expect I will be long since dead by the time it becomes an issue.
Even then, though, I bet there will always be some people unwilling to take a trip into Schroedinger's box.
I expect the technology will only be used on inanimate objects for a very long time, though. And that's assuming they can scale it up to an object of worthwhile size. And that's assuming they can get it to do anything worthwhile at all.
You're not telling me anything I don't already know. :)
Yes, the outlawing of hemp is a terrible thing. You can make nearly any plant product from it. Linen, oil, paper, etc. Too bad the Feds will never agree to allow it, and the corn industry and lumber industry will fight it tooth and nail.
Maybe in twenty years when pot has moved beyond prohibited to decriminalized to taxed and regulated.
Heck, if you're going to go that far, an ideal world would not need printers at all. Save the trees, man.
There's a problem with you logic. Namely, instructions and recipes are, under the Berne convention, not subject to copyright.
This is one of the reasons Wizards of the Coast developed the Open Gaming License. What the system reference documents actually do is precisely identify uncopyrightable material. The license is simply a covenant not to try and sue, a case which they would have a huge difficulty in winning.
Better question: Why are you wasting 200 proof Ethanol on a $30 keyboard?
Yeah, that's exactly what I go out of it. The tension of that would drive me insane.
People didn't get that? Christ, it was like a fucking neon sign. All they needed was a slow pan of a white wall.
They set it up exactly as though there we going to be a hit on Tony. They did 3-4 minutes of just exposition, showing the happy couple, the Cub Scouts, the creepy guy at the bar. They played a memorable song (Journey's Don't Stop Believin' -- "it goes on and on and on and on...").
People feel gyped because it wasn't a Hollywood ending. I loved the ending. It was memorable and it spoke to exactly what the series was about.
Yeah, I know. That's the point. I'm not asking about licensing issues. I might be talking about a bug with the software on Windows, or a bug with PostgreSQL interpoerability, and suddenly it's my fault for trying to use software that doesn't meet a GPL elitist's ideals.
If you can't fix the bug, tell me. I'll find software that does what I need, or fix it myself if it comes to that. I don't need developers preaching to me that my environment is evil -- not misconfigured, not out-of-date, not a technical issue, it's evil -- when I ask a simple technical question.
Well said.
My only problem with GPL v3 as a developer (a hat I've long since given up, and never enjoyed wearing) is that it gives FSF license elitists more reason to feel their license is freer, opener, and in all ways better than any MPL, BSD, or Apache license. I'd rather talk to MS sales division about licensing issues than a bloody GPL zealot.
I have no problem with GPL software, or with the FSF philosophy. I just don't need it shoved down my throat every time I ask a question on a forum or a mailing list. Yes, guys, I get it. Now, how about you help me fix this bug?
That sounds like Aristotle. He said everything was unique and you could only describe an object by observing that object and you couldn't make assumptions about other similar objects just because they were similar. Indeed, he said the most useful thing you could say about an object is describing it's relation to the center of the universe (wherever that may be).
Chemistry, of course, is based on the opposite notion.
Because you have two options:
1. Statically link libraries. You 4 MB program is now 400 MB.
2. Require an installer to check and configure the environment for the program.
Re-usability of code, one of the requirements for significantly complex systems, requires that the program assume things about *other* programs on the system.
Oh noes! That'll take a whole mouse click to fix.
Again, no. "Expectation of privacy" is a legal term (which is generally used for determining legality of government searches) and this is the sense of the word that is used here.
Kazaa has no reasonable expectation of privacy not because it's traffic is unsecured between endpoints but because it takes no steps to obfuscate the end user. The IP addresses and all content shared are broadcast to the network, and that personally identifiable information is readily available to any user on the whole network.
It's like sending email encrypted vs not encrypted. This in no way implies that SMTP traffic is secure (headers remain visible, packets are world-readable), but it does provide privacy for the end users for message content. Privacy is often a prerequisite for computer security because controlling digital information is how you secure it, but the two concepts are really not related.
Strictly speaking, a door need not be locked to provide privacy. You could, for example, put a transparent door with a deadbolt on a bathroom. Security but no privacy. Or, you could use a curtain or turn the lights out. Privacy but no security. Consider also: a man in a jail cell is very secure, but has no expectation of privacy at all. On the other hand, a man in his own home with curtains closed and doors closed has privacy, but he need not lock his doors to ensure that. He could be having a wild party or surfing SlashDot, and you have no way of knowing without violating the mechanisms of his privacy.
Counterpoint: Security is not privacy.
Who modded this insightful? This is like arguing "I have food in my cupboards today, therefore supermarkets should close".
And we shouldn't make laws because people break them? Laws exist partly to prevent the issue, but they also exist to punish those who break them. "Murder shouldn't be a crime because people still kill other people". That's a brilliant plan.
That's why I like the Creative Commons logo. It has the nifty slogan "Some rights reserved."
They want their rhetoric back.
Ext3cow wasn't exactly innovative either. I don't remember derisive laughter in that story.
Girls don't really like you, do they?
If you prefer dating over soliciting prostitutes, then you've already acknowledged a need for intimacy.
Not nVidia. AMD owns ATI.