You know, I never quite figured out what this 'dangerous' thing meant when talking about C or C++. Yes, there's nothing stopping you from going *(int*)NULL = 1337;, but programmers are supposed to be intelligent detail-oriented people who after a few years of training can instinctively and deliberately avoid bugs both the subtle and the egregious without wasting time that is supposedly saved by higher-level languages like Java that do everything for you including tying your shoes for you in the morning.
One can write in assembler too. We use C/C++ because we can focus on higher level problems without having to focus on all the minutia of assembler. We use C#/Java because we can focus on higher level problems without having to focus on all the minutia still exposed by C/C++.
Being intelligent and detail oriented still involves spending considerable time taking care of those details. Using a language without those aspects means you can spend your time being more productive.
So what would you replace it with? C# isn't necessarily faster, and it's got that wonderful Microsoft lock-in.
At this point C# and the CLR has quite a bit less Microsoft lock in than Java and its Oracle lock in.
Anything else is just FUD. The licenses around C# and mono are really pretty good. Mono is GPL2/LGPL2/MIT and gives the C# compiler and CLR.
C# and CLI are ISO and ECMA standards with RAND licensing. That's about as good as it gets really.
I concede there are absolutely some patent risks with it but I challenge you to name something without patent risks.
You could clean room your own language runtime devise your own language... and still be sued into oblivion for patent infringment by Microsoft, Oracle, and probably IBM too... hell... you don't even need to have actually infringed any patents... SCO is the textbook example.
(*) In order it to be a "sharp" the symbol in use must be (1) in italics, and (2) in a musical clef. In Microsoft's language definition it is neither, that makes those two vertical and two horizontal lines a "pound" no matter how much they want you to call it a "sharp".
a) The pound symbol is that cursive L shaped glyph with the verital cross through it.
b) Only in the US is # called the 'pound sign'. Canada calls it the 'number sign', most of the rest of the english speaking world calls it the hash.
c) Technically you are correct that # isn't an actual sharp sign, but you are incorrect on both counts as to why. A sharp does not need to be on a "musical clef". And it has nothing to do with italics. The sharp must have true vertical bars, and slanted horizontal bars. A number sign must have true horizontal bars, with optionally slanted vertical bars.
d) The language C# is called C-sharp. Wandering around calling it c-pound and actually arguing that this is somehow correct is just pointless. Why "c-pound" and not "c-hash" or even "c-octothorpe"?
C-sharp is the clearly stated intention of the people who named it, and at the end of the day language rules are descriptive not prescriptive. The symbols use to write things do not dictate how we pronounce them. Written language is simply an approximation using a mix of tradition, convention, and convenience.
The programming language was named "c-sharp". It was then rendered conveniently as C#. Suck it up.
Punishment should be based on intent as well, not simply the result.
Perhaps he didn't intend to kill, but he did deliberately make some spectacularly bad decisions that led to the loss of life, and he, as a police officer no less, knew damn well that making the decision to "shoot someone" is likely to cause serious or even lethal injury.
There is a separate license for Blu-Ray playback and decoding. HDCP is only an output format.
Windows doesn't include it either.
But the difference is you CAN add suitably licensed software yourself. You CAN'T on a Mac.
For the average user a mysterious 2x decrease in battery life they don't understand...
How would having flash installed but only activated on flash objects explicitly activated by the user be *anything* approaching what you are suggesting?
don't forget Microsoft doesn't support Blu-ray either
I haven't forgotten. The difference is you are at least allowed to add it on if you like. I don't object to MS or Apple not including. I object to it not be allowed at all.
Yes, in other words - licensing. Apple does not like the licensing terms of including Blu-Ray. That is a business model/political thing.
Apple doesn't need to license squat. Its already licensed HDCP. Its already got support for blu-ray drives as storage devices.
If Apple doesn't want to license playback, that's fine. Windows 7 doesn't license playback either. You have to purchase 3rd party software.
But that is the point. YOU CAN. With OSX you can't.
EA is producing games for the iPad/iPhone today, that jailbreaking allows you to easily pirate. There is the same degree of pressure, for the same reasons.
There is nowhere near the same degree of pressure yet. EA's mobile iphone/ipad division might one day be as important to EA as its Xbox/PS3 divisions, but that day is not today.
There is value in not providing an option for a consumer to use that is overly harmful to them
And how exactly would having the option to run a flash object on your iphone be "overly harmful" to them?
Do you think its going to result all sorts of highway mayhem? bodies slamming into the pavement at high speed while cars form pileups trying to avoid them?
for the same reason you wouldn't put an eject switch in a car even though technically it would be a customers "choice" to eject an annoying passenger.
Oh. I see. Apparently that's exactly what you think will happen.;)
Worst thing that happens is you activate the flash object and your phone crashes. WORST THING. Granted apple might want to shield people from that... but then lots of other apps already crash, so why single out flash?
Hell, even the vaunted Apple apps crash the phone. I've personally crashed safari, itunes, and the camera apps on multiple occasions.
We'll see when it arrives, who is doing what.
Yep. We'll see flash on Windows Phone 7. The only question is whether consumer pressure forces Apple's hand or not.
Which was precisely my point. Microsoft is far more respecting of your privacy. They do collect some data, and they run a search engine and do some advertising...but scope and reach is much smaller.
And primarily their business is to make and sell software. With most of their products/platforms. You are the customer being served in exchange for money.
With google you are almost always the product being served up to advertisers.
Apple doesn't support blu-ray in part because of the licensing...
OSX itself is HDCP compliant. The nvidia and intel video chipsets used are HDCP compliant. OSX can also read/write to blu-ray discs/drives (although you have to purchase them separately of course).
There is no technical reason for OSX to fail at support. Its entirely political/business model.
Instead I was lumping it in with other IOS devices as things Apple doesn't really do much to stop jailbreaking on.
There really isn't much reason to stop jailbreaking on ios devices yet.
The *only* device Microsoft has made at all difficult to jailbreak is the xbox, and they have MASSIVE pressure from game-studios on that.
Well actually the reason is a dramatic drop in battery life
There is a dramatic drop in battery life if I play "EA Sports NBA Elite 11" too. What has that got do with anything? So flash drinks battery life if its running... fine... so like EA Sports NBA Elite 11, let the customer decide if its installed and running.
Android has the ability to have it installed, but not run unless you specically enable an object. So it only uses your batter when you want it to... much like EA Sports NBA Elite 11.
And Apple doesn't "disallow" Flash on anything except for iOS devices - they've just stopped including it by default in some computers. Which to bring the whole thing full circle, is exactly what Microsoft does with Flash...
I'm not complaining and have never complained about Apple not including it by default. That is not a restriction. I am complaining about it be disallowed -- that is a restriction. And Adobe has already confirmed that Flash 10.1 is coming to Windows Phone 7, so again Apple is restricting where Microsoft is not.
It also seems worthwhile to note that AV vendors are not entitled to their businesses. They're running a business model that's largely dependent on MS Windows being horribly insecure, and insofar as Microsoft improves security, they're always going to lose out.
Luckily I see that several of them are making the leap to OS X.
Really, I shouldn't need to buy a security suite in order to run my computer securely. Any security measures *should* be part of the OS.
And no matter how good your security is, it could always be better, so the market for add on products will always exist. Whether your average person needs more than reasonable baseline of security is a separate question of course.
Since they did not proactively address security, they are legally obligated to compete in the market they created on a level playing field with other companies already in that market.
Why?
This is not inherently a true statement. If I start selling widgets and company Y starts selling add-ons, I can create an equivalent addon and bundle it with my widget and put Y out of business. Companies do this all the time and it is not illegal to do this.
THE ONLY reason Microsoft may be restricted would be due to a court order stemming from monopolistic abuses. Now MS has abused a monopoly position in the past, and in general does have to be aware of this concern. But there is no evidence I have ever seen that they are under some sort of complete blanket regulatory oversight that legally requires them to compete in every market they enter on a level playing field.
XP came with compressed folder support -- byebye 3rd party zip software on every PC I encounter XP Pro came with remote desktop -- bye bye PC Anywhere and equivalents in tons of scenarios. Vista and later ship with "Snipping Tool" which means I no longer purchase SnagIt. Win 7 Home Premium and up all ship with DVD playback codecs
Apple is the one that doesn't really take many countermeasures against jailbreaking.
Apple is the only company that has locked those down in the first place. Microsoft just added a walled garden app store; historically it was pretty wide open.
And comparing the AppleTV to an Xbox is a superficial comparison.
Apple also doesn't doesn't support blue ray because Steve wants to push his online distribution model. (I'm fine with him pushing his model, but not at the expense of something a lot of customers clearly want.)
Similarly, they disallow flash on their devices without valid reason. Granted it may completely suck, and drink battery life - and those are valid reasons for not bundling it, and even recommending against it, but the final decision should still be up to the consumer not apple.
Apple also still doesn't let you virtualize OSX (except server); even on Apple hardware.
I could see an argument for saying both companies are just as locked down, but to say Microsoft is substantially better just ignores what they are doing, in any space they compete in.
I personally find Apple being at least as restrictive, and generally more restrictive in any space they compete in.
They've got millions of hotmail users, a large ad network centered on Bing that also spans many high volume sites like Facebook, Wall Street Journal, etc.
Google search backs 65% of US search. (Microsoft is pushing 11%.)
Google controls 69%+ of the online advertising market.
Microsoft doesn't have a copy of all your Microsoft Office documents. Google has a copy of all your googledocs documents.
Google analytics infests more internet sites than i can count. Microsoft only gets analytics data for their own properties.
if you use their services, MS is still collecting your data.
Google gets *tons* of data on you even if you don't use there services thanks to adwords/advertising and google analytics.
Microsoft's "large ad network" is just a little slice of the advertising market.
Sure microsoft collects user data, but they aren't even in the same league.
The really invasive alternative is the pat down, or worse, the strip search. With these screeners, you just walk through, no clothing removal necessary
Looking at someone naked without removing their clothes is less invasive of their *privacy* how exactly?
They get what's essentially a contour map of your body. Big deal.
Your "big deal" is another man's porn. And where do you think the technology is going? Towards less resolution? Towards less detail? You do realize that more resolution and more detail == more "security" right?
but it's a heck of a lot better than hoping something won't happen.
No. That right there is your biggest fallacy. Its not better than hoping something won't happen. I spend all day everyday at risk that something might happen. I don't worry about it. I don't need to be more safe. I don't need to go through this absurd exercise to reduce the miniscule chance of one particular bad thing happening by a miniscule amount. That is irrational.
Now, if you WANT to ride on planes that anally probe all its passengers for plastique that's your perogative, and you'll soon have airlines to choose from offering you that.
I however do not. I am perfectly content taking the minuscule chance that my fellow passenger is going to try and blow up the plane. I already accepted the much larger chance of a mechanical failure causing a crash, the potential for inclement weather to bring the plane down. And I took my life into my own hands driving to the airport. Honestly, my time on the plane is probably the least risky part of my whole day.
If an airline offered walk-on service with no screening, no baggage hassles, no checking for id (on a domestic flight), then I'd use that airline. It simply doesn't worry me.
The police / fbi / interpol etc can do what they do to detect terrorist plots, identify terrorists, and arrest them. That's good enough for me. If they miss the odd one and people die, that's tragic, but that's life. I accept that risk. Having my genitals photographed by a rent-a-cop doesn't make me safer in any measurable way, and I object to it happening. I object to the time it wastes. I object to the cost. And I find the people doing it generally objectionable.
One of these days a terrorist is going to detonate a bomb in the airport lineup waiting to pass through one of these screeners. I'm curious how you plan to "fix" that? A strip search to get in line for the strip search?
Terrorists are criminals, and we should do our best to catch them, but we cross a line when we take away innocent peoples freedoms, and harrass them, and subject them to searches. We don't need to do that and it isn't even effective.
Obama could have easily prevented this January 21, 2009. Anyone claiming "he hasn't had enough time" for fixing the DHS/TSA is either lying or ignorant of how the office works.
Yeah. Its one of those two things. Only liars and idiots would ever say something is more complicated than a snap decision for the president.
The bureaucracies have a lot of momentum, and while sure certain key people in key places do have the technical authority to direct something. Its rarely that simple.
Closing guantanamo bay turned out to be more difficult... where do all the prisoners go. Giving them trials is controversial and is causing debate. We can't set the actually dangerous ones free. Nobody wants them in their local prison... that would invite local terrorist acts... blah blah blah.
Full body scanners were floating around in 2005, they were aready installed in airports in 2006/2007... orders have been placed, contracts signed, contractors hired, training done, policies and protocols written, multitudes of careers exist around these infernal things... you don't just step in and undo all that with a snap decision.
Ironically Microsoft out of all of the companies out there right now is the MOST trustworthy.
Microsoft just wants me to pay for it. They are annoying in the degree they go to make sure its paid for but for the most part if you bought it they're cool. You are still the customer when it comes to Microsoft.
Apple? They want to sell things too, but they are also control freaks that would want to make sure you are using it the way they want you to.
Google? They want to monitor and record everything I do and then sell that information to generate advertising revenue. Giving them a camera into your home and microphone.... "We saw you had trouble getting it up last night. Cialis can help with that..."
I kid of course, but in a lot of respects I really am finding that Microsoft is becoming the least objectionable option out there. They haven't really changed, but they just want my money -- I can live with that. They aren't really interested in controlling my life or recording it and selling it to the highest bidder.
They are paid a commission by the lender for bringing them a client. Costs me nothing.
Or more accurately, the commission they are paid ends up being wrapped up in the cost of my mortgage... but seeing as they got me a better rate than I got on my own at the same bank, it still cost me nothing... less than nothing from a certain point of view even.
(BTW, the Dutch people I know refer to their home country as Holland; calling it the Netherlands is more formal, while if you're talking about your homeland it's Holland.)
Yes, but is that because the Dutch people you know are from the province Holland in the Netherlands? Or do -all- Dutch people tend to refer to the country as Holland even if they aren't from the Holland part?
Although the GP doesn't really explain it well I think he is talking about "break up" and "broken up" being valid in other contexts, he just gives really shitty examples. I think the point is that if someone posted "my sisters is really broken up about her dog getting hit by a car" or "I can't believe by favorite band broke up" that the simplistic algorithm explained in the article would count those as the end of romantic relationships when in fact the context indicates that is not the case.
But those posts would be a more or less constant stream. They are the ever present background noise in the study.
If you recorded all those posts, and then looked at the data around the peaks, I think you might well find that the surge around peaks are the result of relationship break up posts rather than a sudden surge of fatal vehicular canine interactions. Maybe they even looked at the peaks vs some flat spots to actually check the context ratio of relationship break ups to other break ups to confirm it.
You're telling me that (I guess) American students don't use that phrase
No. We don't much. We'd break for the holidays. Or look forward to the holiday break. I've never heard the "break up for the holidays idiom".
If the curve was otherwise flat, that demographic would be enough to explain the peaks.
It would also be trivial to skim the data and see it. I'm not saying the researcher validated the data, but to go off half cocked and just assume they didn't so much as skim the data around the peaks is just as bad.
On the other hand, if it was the only factor, you'd probably expect equal peaks three times a year (before Christmas, before Easter, before the summer holiday) as well as smaller spikes for the half term breaks.
Right. There are 3 big breaks, and the summer break is by far the biggest one for tons of people... so maybe they did check the data and the whole "break up for the holidays" idiom was just noise in the data... or maybe they caught and filtered it... just because the puff piece article doesn't mention it doesn't mean they didn't.
Again... a healthy dose of skepticism about the result is perfectly reasonable. But slashdot usually takes skepticism to crackpot heights.
Yes, and did it also say his methodology explicitly prevented him from so much as even looking at the data to ensure it wasn't being obviously polluted? If the rate of "break up" posts jumps up 50% it should be pretty trivial to skim the data and see whether or not there is a huge surge of "break up for the holidays" posts. What researcher wouldn't at least skim the data?
To be skeptical is reasonable. But to automatically infer they didn't do even cursory validation is over the top.
And lets be honest "I can't wait to break up for the holidays", at least in my part of the english speaking world is a pretty uncommon idiom. We'd be FAR more likely to say "i can't wait to break for the holidays" or even more likely "I can't wait for the holiday break".
How common is "break up for the holidays" really? Is is a dramatic spike? Or lost in the same noise as "Julie didn't break up with Steve after all", and "my cookies got broken up in my lunch today".
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty sure the reason it's called C-sharp is in reference
Of course the name C-sharp, and the "C#" spelling is -intended- to invoke the musical C-sharp.
The reason for the symbol choice itself is simple.
You start with C.
The subsequent iteration is C++ (using the C increment operator).
So the next iteration is C++ ++
Then cleverly rearage the two ++ on top each other:
++
++
and stick all them together...
#
and call it C-sharp because both C-pound or C-octothorpe sound stupid, while c-sharp is clever.
You know, I never quite figured out what this 'dangerous' thing meant when talking about C or C++. Yes, there's nothing stopping you from going *(int*)NULL = 1337;, but programmers are supposed to be intelligent detail-oriented people who after a few years of training can instinctively and deliberately avoid bugs both the subtle and the egregious without wasting time that is supposedly saved by higher-level languages like Java that do everything for you including tying your shoes for you in the morning.
One can write in assembler too. We use C/C++ because we can focus on higher level problems without having to focus on all the minutia of assembler. We use C#/Java because we can focus on higher level problems without having to focus on all the minutia still exposed by C/C++.
Being intelligent and detail oriented still involves spending considerable time taking care of those details. Using a language without those aspects means you can spend your time being more productive.
So what would you replace it with? C# isn't necessarily faster, and it's got that wonderful Microsoft lock-in.
At this point C# and the CLR has quite a bit less Microsoft lock in than Java and its Oracle lock in.
Anything else is just FUD. The licenses around C# and mono are really pretty good. Mono is GPL2/LGPL2/MIT and gives the C# compiler and CLR.
C# and CLI are ISO and ECMA standards with RAND licensing. That's about as good as it gets really.
I concede there are absolutely some patent risks with it but I challenge you to name something without patent risks.
You could clean room your own language runtime devise your own language... and still be sued into oblivion for patent infringment by Microsoft, Oracle, and probably IBM too... hell... you don't even need to have actually infringed any patents... SCO is the textbook example.
(*) In order it to be a "sharp" the symbol in use must be (1) in italics, and (2) in a musical clef. In Microsoft's language definition it is neither, that makes those two vertical and two horizontal lines a "pound" no matter how much they want you to call it a "sharp".
a) The pound symbol is that cursive L shaped glyph with the verital cross through it.
b) Only in the US is # called the 'pound sign'. Canada calls it the 'number sign', most of the rest of the english speaking world calls it the hash.
c) Technically you are correct that # isn't an actual sharp sign, but you are incorrect on both counts as to why. A sharp does not need to be on a "musical clef". And it has nothing to do with italics. The sharp must have true vertical bars, and slanted horizontal bars. A number sign must have true horizontal bars, with optionally slanted vertical bars.
d) The language C# is called C-sharp. Wandering around calling it c-pound and actually arguing that this is somehow correct is just pointless. Why "c-pound" and not "c-hash" or even "c-octothorpe"?
C-sharp is the clearly stated intention of the people who named it, and at the end of the day language rules are descriptive not prescriptive. The symbols use to write things do not dictate how we pronounce them. Written language is simply an approximation using a mix of tradition, convention, and convenience.
The programming language was named "c-sharp". It was then rendered conveniently as C#. Suck it up.
I find it odd that you live someplace where Cable and High Speed Internet Lines have been run, but over-the-air television is not available
I don't know the GPs situation, but its pretty hard to put an anything more elaborate up than a rabbit ears in most apartments and condos.
Punishment should be based on intent as well, not simply the result.
Perhaps he didn't intend to kill, but he did deliberately make some spectacularly bad decisions that led to the loss of life, and he, as a police officer no less, knew damn well that making the decision to "shoot someone" is likely to cause serious or even lethal injury.
There is a separate license for Blu-Ray playback and decoding. HDCP is only an output format.
Windows doesn't include it either.
But the difference is you CAN add suitably licensed software yourself. You CAN'T on a Mac.
For the average user a mysterious 2x decrease in battery life they don't understand...
How would having flash installed but only activated on flash objects explicitly activated by the user be *anything* approaching what you are suggesting?
don't forget Microsoft doesn't support Blu-ray either
I haven't forgotten. The difference is you are at least allowed to add it on if you like. I don't object to MS or Apple not including. I object to it not be allowed at all.
Yes, in other words - licensing. Apple does not like the licensing terms of including Blu-Ray. That is a business model/political thing.
Apple doesn't need to license squat. Its already licensed HDCP. Its already got support for blu-ray drives as storage devices.
If Apple doesn't want to license playback, that's fine. Windows 7 doesn't license playback either. You have to purchase 3rd party software.
But that is the point. YOU CAN. With OSX you can't.
EA is producing games for the iPad/iPhone today, that jailbreaking allows you to easily pirate. There is the same degree of pressure, for the same reasons.
There is nowhere near the same degree of pressure yet. EA's mobile iphone/ipad division might one day be as important to EA as its Xbox/PS3 divisions, but that day is not today.
There is value in not providing an option for a consumer to use that is overly harmful to them
And how exactly would having the option to run a flash object on your iphone be "overly harmful" to them?
Do you think its going to result all sorts of highway mayhem? bodies slamming into the pavement at high speed while cars form pileups trying to avoid them?
for the same reason you wouldn't put an eject switch in a car even though technically it would be a customers "choice" to eject an annoying passenger.
Oh. I see. Apparently that's exactly what you think will happen. ;)
Worst thing that happens is you activate the flash object and your phone crashes. WORST THING. Granted apple might want to shield people from that... but then lots of other apps already crash, so why single out flash?
Hell, even the vaunted Apple apps crash the phone. I've personally crashed safari, itunes, and the camera apps on multiple occasions.
We'll see when it arrives, who is doing what.
Yep. We'll see flash on Windows Phone 7. The only question is whether consumer pressure forces Apple's hand or not.
Which was precisely my point. Microsoft is far more respecting of your privacy. They do collect some data, and they run a search engine and do some advertising...but scope and reach is much smaller.
And primarily their business is to make and sell software. With most of their products/platforms. You are the customer being served in exchange for money.
With google you are almost always the product being served up to advertisers.
Apple doesn't support blu-ray in part because of the licensing...
OSX itself is HDCP compliant. The nvidia and intel video chipsets used are HDCP compliant. OSX can also read/write to blu-ray discs/drives (although you have to purchase them separately of course).
There is no technical reason for OSX to fail at support. Its entirely political/business model.
Instead I was lumping it in with other IOS devices as things Apple doesn't really do much to stop jailbreaking on.
There really isn't much reason to stop jailbreaking on ios devices yet.
The *only* device Microsoft has made at all difficult to jailbreak is the xbox, and they have MASSIVE pressure from game-studios on that.
Well actually the reason is a dramatic drop in battery life
There is a dramatic drop in battery life if I play "EA Sports NBA Elite 11" too. What has that got do with anything? So flash drinks battery life if its running... fine... so like EA Sports NBA Elite 11, let the customer decide if its installed and running.
Android has the ability to have it installed, but not run unless you specically enable an object. So it only uses your batter when you want it to ... much like EA Sports NBA Elite 11.
And Apple doesn't "disallow" Flash on anything except for iOS devices - they've just stopped including it by default in some computers. Which to bring the whole thing full circle, is exactly what Microsoft does with Flash...
I'm not complaining and have never complained about Apple not including it by default. That is not a restriction. I am complaining about it be disallowed -- that is a restriction. And Adobe has already confirmed that Flash 10.1 is coming to Windows Phone 7, so again Apple is restricting where Microsoft is not.
It also seems worthwhile to note that AV vendors are not entitled to their businesses. They're running a business model that's largely dependent on MS Windows being horribly insecure, and insofar as Microsoft improves security, they're always going to lose out.
Luckily I see that several of them are making the leap to OS X.
Really, I shouldn't need to buy a security suite in order to run my computer securely. Any security measures *should* be part of the OS.
And no matter how good your security is, it could always be better, so the market for add on products will always exist. Whether your average person needs more than reasonable baseline of security is a separate question of course.
Since they did not proactively address security, they are legally obligated to compete in the market they created on a level playing field with other companies already in that market.
Why?
This is not inherently a true statement. If I start selling widgets and company Y starts selling add-ons, I can create an equivalent addon and bundle it with my widget and put Y out of business. Companies do this all the time and it is not illegal to do this.
THE ONLY reason Microsoft may be restricted would be due to a court order stemming from monopolistic abuses. Now MS has abused a monopoly position in the past, and in general does have to be aware of this concern. But there is no evidence I have ever seen that they are under some sort of complete blanket regulatory oversight that legally requires them to compete in every market they enter on a level playing field.
XP came with compressed folder support -- byebye 3rd party zip software on every PC I encounter
XP Pro came with remote desktop -- bye bye PC Anywhere and equivalents in tons of scenarios.
Vista and later ship with "Snipping Tool" which means I no longer purchase SnagIt.
Win 7 Home Premium and up all ship with DVD playback codecs
Perhaps the real irony is that Microsoft doesn't get any data collected by these devices. It remains the private data of the owner of the device.
Apple is the one that doesn't really take many countermeasures against jailbreaking.
Apple is the only company that has locked those down in the first place. Microsoft just added a walled garden app store; historically it was pretty wide open.
And comparing the AppleTV to an Xbox is a superficial comparison.
Apple also doesn't doesn't support blue ray because Steve wants to push his online distribution model. (I'm fine with him pushing his model, but not at the expense of something a lot of customers clearly want.)
Similarly, they disallow flash on their devices without valid reason. Granted it may completely suck, and drink battery life - and those are valid reasons for not bundling it, and even recommending against it, but the final decision should still be up to the consumer not apple.
Apple also still doesn't let you virtualize OSX (except server); even on Apple hardware.
I could see an argument for saying both companies are just as locked down, but to say Microsoft is substantially better just ignores what they are doing, in any space they compete in.
I personally find Apple being at least as restrictive, and generally more restrictive in any space they compete in.
They've got millions of hotmail users, a large ad network centered on Bing that also spans many high volume sites like Facebook, Wall Street Journal, etc.
Google search backs 65% of US search. (Microsoft is pushing 11%.)
Google controls 69%+ of the online advertising market.
Microsoft doesn't have a copy of all your Microsoft Office documents. Google has a copy of all your googledocs documents.
Google analytics infests more internet sites than i can count. Microsoft only gets analytics data for their own properties.
if you use their services, MS is still collecting your data.
Google gets *tons* of data on you even if you don't use there services thanks to adwords/advertising and google analytics.
Microsoft's "large ad network" is just a little slice of the advertising market.
Sure microsoft collects user data, but they aren't even in the same league.
IS MS's privacy policy so different from Google that it precludes them from selling my data?
Regardless of the policy Microsoft can't sell data they don't have.
They collect FAR less data than google does so they can abuse it far less than google does.
The really invasive alternative is the pat down, or worse, the strip search. With these screeners, you just walk through, no clothing removal necessary
Looking at someone naked without removing their clothes is less invasive of their *privacy* how exactly?
They get what's essentially a contour map of your body. Big deal.
Your "big deal" is another man's porn. And where do you think the technology is going? Towards less resolution? Towards less detail? You do realize that more resolution and more detail == more "security" right?
but it's a heck of a lot better than hoping something won't happen.
No. That right there is your biggest fallacy. Its not better than hoping something won't happen. I spend all day everyday at risk that something might happen. I don't worry about it. I don't need to be more safe. I don't need to go through this absurd exercise to reduce the miniscule chance of one particular bad thing happening by a miniscule amount. That is irrational.
Now, if you WANT to ride on planes that anally probe all its passengers for plastique that's your perogative, and you'll soon have airlines to choose from offering you that.
I however do not. I am perfectly content taking the minuscule chance that my fellow passenger is going to try and blow up the plane. I already accepted the much larger chance of a mechanical failure causing a crash, the potential for inclement weather to bring the plane down. And I took my life into my own hands driving to the airport. Honestly, my time on the plane is probably the least risky part of my whole day.
If an airline offered walk-on service with no screening, no baggage hassles, no checking for id (on a domestic flight), then I'd use that airline. It simply doesn't worry me.
The police / fbi / interpol etc can do what they do to detect terrorist plots, identify terrorists, and arrest them. That's good enough for me. If they miss the odd one and people die, that's tragic, but that's life. I accept that risk. Having my genitals photographed by a rent-a-cop doesn't make me safer in any measurable way, and I object to it happening. I object to the time it wastes. I object to the cost. And I find the people doing it generally objectionable.
One of these days a terrorist is going to detonate a bomb in the airport lineup waiting to pass through one of these screeners. I'm curious how you plan to "fix" that? A strip search to get in line for the strip search?
Terrorists are criminals, and we should do our best to catch them, but we cross a line when we take away innocent peoples freedoms, and harrass them, and subject them to searches. We don't need to do that and it isn't even effective.
Obama could have easily prevented this January 21, 2009. Anyone claiming "he hasn't had enough time" for fixing the DHS/TSA is either lying or ignorant of how the office works.
Yeah. Its one of those two things. Only liars and idiots would ever say something is more complicated than a snap decision for the president.
The bureaucracies have a lot of momentum, and while sure certain key people in key places do have the technical authority to direct something. Its rarely that simple.
Closing guantanamo bay turned out to be more difficult... where do all the prisoners go. Giving them trials is controversial and is causing debate. We can't set the actually dangerous ones free. Nobody wants them in their local prison... that would invite local terrorist acts... blah blah blah.
Full body scanners were floating around in 2005, they were aready installed in airports in 2006/2007... orders have been placed, contracts signed, contractors hired, training done, policies and protocols written, multitudes of careers exist around these infernal things... you don't just step in and undo all that with a snap decision.
Ironically Microsoft out of all of the companies out there right now is the MOST trustworthy.
Microsoft just wants me to pay for it. They are annoying in the degree they go to make sure its paid for but for the most part if you bought it they're cool. You are still the customer when it comes to Microsoft.
Apple? They want to sell things too, but they are also control freaks that would want to make sure you are using it the way they want you to.
Google? They want to monitor and record everything I do and then sell that information to generate advertising revenue. Giving them a camera into your home and microphone.... "We saw you had trouble getting it up last night. Cialis can help with that..."
I kid of course, but in a lot of respects I really am finding that Microsoft is becoming the least objectionable option out there. They haven't really changed, but they just want my money -- I can live with that. They aren't really interested in controlling my life or recording it and selling it to the highest bidder.
But what does the mortgage broker charge?
They are paid a commission by the lender for bringing them a client. Costs me nothing.
Or more accurately, the commission they are paid ends up being wrapped up in the cost of my mortgage... but seeing as they got me a better rate than I got on my own at the same bank, it still cost me nothing... less than nothing from a certain point of view even.
(BTW, the Dutch people I know refer to their home country as Holland; calling it the Netherlands is more formal, while if you're talking about your homeland it's Holland.)
Yes, but is that because the Dutch people you know are from the province Holland in the Netherlands? Or do -all- Dutch people tend to refer to the country as Holland even if they aren't from the Holland part?
Although the GP doesn't really explain it well I think he is talking about "break up" and "broken up" being valid in other contexts, he just gives really shitty examples. I think the point is that if someone posted "my sisters is really broken up about her dog getting hit by a car" or "I can't believe by favorite band broke up" that the simplistic algorithm explained in the article would count those as the end of romantic relationships when in fact the context indicates that is not the case.
But those posts would be a more or less constant stream. They are the ever present background noise in the study.
If you recorded all those posts, and then looked at the data around the peaks, I think you might well find that the surge around peaks are the result of relationship break up posts rather than a sudden surge of fatal vehicular canine interactions. Maybe they even looked at the peaks vs some flat spots to actually check the context ratio of relationship break ups to other break ups to confirm it.
You're telling me that (I guess) American students don't use that phrase
No. We don't much. We'd break for the holidays. Or look forward to the holiday break. I've never heard the "break up for the holidays idiom".
If the curve was otherwise flat, that demographic would be enough to explain the peaks.
It would also be trivial to skim the data and see it. I'm not saying the researcher validated the data, but to go off half cocked and just assume they didn't so much as skim the data around the peaks is just as bad.
On the other hand, if it was the only factor, you'd probably expect equal peaks three times a year (before Christmas, before Easter, before the summer holiday) as well as smaller spikes for the half term breaks.
Right. There are 3 big breaks, and the summer break is by far the biggest one for tons of people... so maybe they did check the data and the whole "break up for the holidays" idiom was just noise in the data... or maybe they caught and filtered it... just because the puff piece article doesn't mention it doesn't mean they didn't.
Again... a healthy dose of skepticism about the result is perfectly reasonable. But slashdot usually takes skepticism to crackpot heights.
Yes, and did it also say his methodology explicitly prevented him from so much as even looking at the data to ensure it wasn't being obviously polluted? If the rate of "break up" posts jumps up 50% it should be pretty trivial to skim the data and see whether or not there is a huge surge of "break up for the holidays" posts. What researcher wouldn't at least skim the data?
To be skeptical is reasonable. But to automatically infer they didn't do even cursory validation is over the top.
And lets be honest "I can't wait to break up for the holidays", at least in my part of the english speaking world is a pretty uncommon idiom. We'd be FAR more likely to say "i can't wait to break for the holidays" or even more likely "I can't wait for the holiday break".
How common is "break up for the holidays" really? Is is a dramatic spike? Or lost in the same noise as "Julie didn't break up with Steve after all", and "my cookies got broken up in my lunch today".