As I understand it, WGA was simply used to identify the copies of the software, and probably also the master from which all the counterfeit copies were made. From then on it's simply a matter of hunting down the person who owns the master copy.
I take your point, though. It's a very simple logic sequence - does the year go into four? Does it go into two hundred? Does it go into one thousand? If conditions 1 and 3 are satisfied, add an extra day onto the yearly cycle. It's really simple and really stupid.
That said, I'm surprised they didn't use a build of Windows CE, which (IIRC) already has leap-year handling built into it.
It won't have such a problem. MS won't be having financial troubles for a long time - they have plenty of money floating around from OEM licensing and advertising on the Windows Live services.
Please... I don't mind it in the comments, but the OP has a point. It's OK if Slashdot has a bit of anti-MS bias (this is the free world, after all) but I don't like the idea of this place becoming a libertarian Daily Mail (or, god forbid, FOX News).
Finally it looks like Microsoft are doing what they should have done with Vista. It's more stable, they've finally fixed the taskbar, got rid of the ridiculous sidebar and seem to have made it a lot quicker, according to the reports I've read. I've not used it myself yet, but after the disaster that was Vista, as they say, things can only get better.
When the kids access the 'net through the school connection, it goes through an ISA/proxy server which forbids porn and games. At home, it is therefore nanny-free.
Filtering should be server-based if it is to have any effect.
However, the execution is better. It's more polished, and the touch screen actually works well, which is more than can be said for any other smartphone I've used.
Marathon's FPS engine was open-sourced in 2000 (the engine is called Aleph One), and you can also grab a revised version of the original game's data files to play with it. If your child has a James May-like disposition, he may also be interested in the pseudo-3D engine.
2. Root is God. This must really be fixed. There should be a way for root to irrevocably divest its powers, and root does not need to access users file.
This is called SELinux and is installed with pretty much every distribution. But for what you want, the users should instead use encrypted home directories.
SELinux is a pain in the ar$e. passwd root -l, sudo * isn't.
Parents shouldn't buy their kids games that they consider inappropriate (Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, etc). They should keep an eye on them to make sure they don't play these games.
These are the three reasons why I enjoy developing on the Mac:
Xcode: it's a complete IDE which is simple to learn, not fiddly, and Interface Builder etc makes it possible to quickly create the UI and front faÃade, and then get on, quickly, to writing the guts of the program. It also supports distcc and (to some extent) SCM.
UNIX 03 compatible: it's relatively easy to port CLI apps to other systems. True, that's true of most *nixes, but it's further simplified on OS X.
Cocoa: I actually like Cocoa. I just find it to be a very good API: maybe that's just a matter of taste.
New version of Safari. Does this mean/. is turning into a slightly more fleshed-out VersionTracker? I don't see how this is newsworthy: maybe the addition of anti-phishing capabilities would be worth mentioning in passing, but a minor update which causes a few crashes is nothing new.
What about enforcement of other FLOSS licenses (MPL, APL, APSL, CDDL, MIT, BSD, etc)? The GPL isn't the only software license with potential for violation, you know.
The fact that prepubescent children are people who are most likely to be know-it-alls (not attempting to offend anyone in that age group, but it is the typical attitude) who, say, have defragged their hard drive, once, and think they're therefore computer experts. I once found on the stats panel that someone had reached my blog with the search terms 'HOW DO YOU HACK IN TO A COMPUTER'.
The fact that they've learned to Google is good, but if they can't turn Caps Lock off or pay a visit to the local library first, they have NO chances of covering their tracks when performing cybercrime.
IMHO, if they're caught, so be it. Might teach the little buggers to do their research - and that no crime is perfect and that you will get caught.
You can leave comments on snapshots with versioning filesystems? I'm asking, I really don't know, haven't ever dealt with them, but any version control system that doesn't have comments is nearly worthless to me. I really need to know why my developers make a change as looking at the code for a bunch of changes across several files does not always result in the clearest picture of a change if you don't have some idea of what the goal was.
The commit comment log is priceless to me, but then again, the developers I work with are pretty good about making small changes and committing often with useful and informative comments. We try to avoid large commits that change lots of files, and when we have them, we generally warn everyone in advance that its coming and to be prepared for it so as to make merging things together a little easier. If everyone knows its coming, they tend to work together to make the merge smoother and make sure things work well together.
I tend to keep comments on the revision history in text files or as comment blocks in the code themselves. It's a little janky, but it works, and dare I say it but I prefer it to dealing with ridiculous and fiddly SCM systems.
My own opinion is that version control systems are so mind-bogglingly difficult to use, I prefer to use a versioning file system and code packaged (occasionally) in tarballs. CVS/SVN are too clunky IMHO, and Git is only really usable if you happen to have a cloned version of Linus's brain nearby.
Thinking about it, a versioning file system has all the features I need (source code branching and merging? just use cp) but that's my own opinion. If you're desperate to use a VCS, are using *nix (Linux, OS X, Solaris, etc) and feel brave, give git a try - it's speedy and flexible (but still mind-boggling). For speed on Windows, Subversion's a better option.
The title seems to imply that the Borg has patented censorship of speech. It's merely a method which uses speech recognition in a particular way to spot expletives and replace them automatically.
Slashdot Mirror
As I understand it, WGA was simply used to identify the copies of the software, and probably also the master from which all the counterfeit copies were made. From then on it's simply a matter of hunting down the person who owns the master copy.
You learned COBOL in 1991?
I take your point, though. It's a very simple logic sequence - does the year go into four? Does it go into two hundred? Does it go into one thousand? If conditions 1 and 3 are satisfied, add an extra day onto the yearly cycle. It's really simple and really stupid.
That said, I'm surprised they didn't use a build of Windows CE, which (IIRC) already has leap-year handling built into it.
It won't have such a problem. MS won't be having financial troubles for a long time - they have plenty of money floating around from OEM licensing and advertising on the Windows Live services.
Please... I don't mind it in the comments, but the OP has a point. It's OK if Slashdot has a bit of anti-MS bias (this is the free world, after all) but I don't like the idea of this place becoming a libertarian Daily Mail (or, god forbid, FOX News).
Finally it looks like Microsoft are doing what they should have done with Vista. It's more stable, they've finally fixed the taskbar, got rid of the ridiculous sidebar and seem to have made it a lot quicker, according to the reports I've read. I've not used it myself yet, but after the disaster that was Vista, as they say, things can only get better.
Yeah, it's a shame octopuses have eight arms not feet.
Yeah, maybe LaTeX, but use a better front-end, like http://lyx.org/LyX. Then you can apply the formatting as you type.
Simple.
When the kids access the 'net through the school connection, it goes through an ISA/proxy server which forbids porn and games. At home, it is therefore nanny-free.
Filtering should be server-based if it is to have any effect.
However, the execution is better. It's more polished, and the touch screen actually works well, which is more than can be said for any other smartphone I've used.
Marathon's FPS engine was open-sourced in 2000 (the engine is called Aleph One), and you can also grab a revised version of the original game's data files to play with it. If your child has a James May-like disposition, he may also be interested in the pseudo-3D engine.
2. Root is God. This must really be fixed. There should be a way for root to irrevocably divest its powers, and root does not need to access users file.
This is called SELinux and is installed with pretty much every distribution. But for what you want, the users should instead use encrypted home directories.
SELinux is a pain in the ar$e. passwd root -l, sudo * isn't.
Parents shouldn't buy their kids games that they consider inappropriate (Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, etc). They should keep an eye on them to make sure they don't play these games.
These are the three reasons why I enjoy developing on the Mac:
New version of Safari. Does this mean /. is turning into a slightly more fleshed-out VersionTracker? I don't see how this is newsworthy: maybe the addition of anti-phishing capabilities would be worth mentioning in passing, but a minor update which causes a few crashes is nothing new.
Either Western Union or bank wire.
I hear Bill Gates has a lot of time on his hands now...
What about enforcement of other FLOSS licenses (MPL, APL, APSL, CDDL, MIT, BSD, etc)? The GPL isn't the only software license with potential for violation, you know.
The fact that prepubescent children are people who are most likely to be know-it-alls (not attempting to offend anyone in that age group, but it is the typical attitude) who, say, have defragged their hard drive, once, and think they're therefore computer experts. I once found on the stats panel that someone had reached my blog with the search terms 'HOW DO YOU HACK IN TO A COMPUTER'.
The fact that they've learned to Google is good, but if they can't turn Caps Lock off or pay a visit to the local library first, they have NO chances of covering their tracks when performing cybercrime.
IMHO, if they're caught, so be it. Might teach the little buggers to do their research - and that no crime is perfect and that you will get caught.
why are you upgrading the scope at all?
Maybe it broke. Just saying.
this is why we have FTP, timestamps and the touch(1) utility.
You can leave comments on snapshots with versioning filesystems? I'm asking, I really don't know, haven't ever dealt with them, but any version control system that doesn't have comments is nearly worthless to me. I really need to know why my developers make a change as looking at the code for a bunch of changes across several files does not always result in the clearest picture of a change if you don't have some idea of what the goal was.
The commit comment log is priceless to me, but then again, the developers I work with are pretty good about making small changes and committing often with useful and informative comments. We try to avoid large commits that change lots of files, and when we have them, we generally warn everyone in advance that its coming and to be prepared for it so as to make merging things together a little easier. If everyone knows its coming, they tend to work together to make the merge smoother and make sure things work well together.
I tend to keep comments on the revision history in text files or as comment blocks in the code themselves. It's a little janky, but it works, and dare I say it but I prefer it to dealing with ridiculous and fiddly SCM systems.
My own opinion is that version control systems are so mind-bogglingly difficult to use, I prefer to use a versioning file system and code packaged (occasionally) in tarballs. CVS/SVN are too clunky IMHO, and Git is only really usable if you happen to have a cloned version of Linus's brain nearby.
Thinking about it, a versioning file system has all the features I need (source code branching and merging? just use cp) but that's my own opinion. If you're desperate to use a VCS, are using *nix (Linux, OS X, Solaris, etc) and feel brave, give git a try - it's speedy and flexible (but still mind-boggling). For speed on Windows, Subversion's a better option.
The title seems to imply that the Borg has patented censorship of speech. It's merely a method which uses speech recognition in a particular way to spot expletives and replace them automatically.
No it's not.
People want their phone to come out of the box and work. Nearly no-one gives a damn about hackability - myself included.
They're talking about quality standards, one assumes, not standardised protocols and methods.