Yes, this idea of removing DVD playback capability from Windows is prima facie absurd.
However. Windows users already are accustomed to having to hunt down and install third party software in order to perform even the most mundane of tasks. They'll hardly notice. As others have noted it'll merely result in an increase in VLC downloads.
"[Y]ou can't run a business off of nothing but techie-emergencies."
Apparently you can if you diversify enough. There's a local PC/electronics shop that sells anything from disco lights to Maplin-type kits to hard disks and VGA cables. When asked about e.g. low ESR radial polarised electrolytic capacitors they hand you a thick catalogue to choose from, and ask how many you want. Bless.
Most PC shops aren't like that though, in fact I've avoided most of them since the 1990s (the incompetence of PC salespeople is of all ages).
The reality, though, is that nobody cares about backup processes. What counts is restore processes. (Demonstrating the need for the latter so you can fund the former is left as an exercise for the reader.)
From small screens and single-task systems to big screens and multi-tasking systems to... small screens and single-tasking systems. Full circle in 30 years, a little slower than the fashion industry but still, well done Microsoft.
I blame the mobile computing hype. Everything is a phone these days, even things that are not phones.
Then again, experience with SharePoint (not very recent but proving very resistant to alcohol) long since convinced me that Microsoft sucks at anything to do with time zones, date handling, etc. so this comes as absolutely no surprise at all.
Except perhaps for the kind of problems that are caused by a broken user profile, of which unfortunately there are many in previous versions of Windows.
Even better, gas giants can be mined for hydrogen fuel and electricity so they would make a natural watering hole for interstellar spacecraft to visit. Assuming certain things about their propulsion systems and other workings, of course. I'd say the odds of stuff being left in Jupiter orbit or on its moons (many of which are subject to heavy erosion, though) are about as good as stuff being left on Luna, depending on how long ago they were visited.
And if you're adapted to space or even just different gravity, pressure or gas mixture, Earth may not be on the to-do list at all.
I thought the wedge shape was simply for reducing the lighthugger's cross section. There also was a thick coating of water ice for ablative armour. (I don't remember any magnetic shielding, but it wouldn't surprise me.)
When you back up something, you copy it somewhere else for safekeeping. That's sort of the point.
Taking snapshots is more like generating patches using diff - you still need the original for them to be useful. That's more like a journal or redo log, not like a backup at all.
Snapshots + off-site replication fixes that (indeed, my Bacula setup uses VSS to take consistent backups of Windows filesystems), but snapshots in themselves are not backups.
Your point is valid only you seriously believe the plod know about Tor, darknets or indeed much about IT in general. Historically there is little evidence to support this hypothesis.
Nearly correct - the great RAM shortage of 1993 was cause by a fire in a Japanese epoxy resin factory. There was another RAM shortage in 1999 because of a bad earthquake in Taiwan. And again in 2002, I think.
From day one I've wondered why Flash would ever need microphone or webcam access, and to this day I've yet to see a single legitimate use for it. Get rid of it if you can't secure it properly Adobe, sheesh. And while you're at it, take Javascript and other rubbish "active content" support out of your PDF reader...
If the business has agreed that IT's function includes keeping the network free of viruses and malware, and usually also that this must cost next to nothing, then most likely yes, he does say.
Customers often don't realise the implications of what they're asking. Clarifying and correcting this perception may be IT's job but very often they have no say in the matter.
If someone burglars your house because you left the door open, this is not the locksmith's fault. If you left the door open because the lock is too difficult to operate, it's probably still not the locksmith's fault that you or maybe the architect insisted on having that type of lock.
All Linux desktops used to look like they were cobbled together by hackers and engineers with little regard to user interface design. Ubuntu lately looks the same, only they put the marketing people in charge, again with little regard to user interface design. At least they're consistent.
Canonical continue to fail to see the point of a desktop, which is to run applications, so you can get things done. Users don't really give a shit about kernel versions, Gnome variants or licencing holy wars. They just want a machine that works. Linux keeps approaching that point, only to go off on a different tangent - No! This is not how stable production software is produced. People need to know when to leave well alone.
That said, I run Ubuntu with Unity on my 13" netbook and it works well (this is probably because the only apps I use are Firefox, LibreOffice and Terminal). On my other machines, which run different things for different tasks, I almost certainly would not.
Luckily, if your Linux distro succumbs to feature rot, you can just pick another, and never look back :)
Europeans with firearms were also simply much better at killing people in large numbers than the natives were (we've had lots of practice). That, and the imported diseases.
Remember that meetings were had, brains were stormed, and policies were deliberately formulated in order to fail this way.
As long as media companies keep foisting rubbish "features" on those very people who give them money, piracy will always be the more consumer-friendly option.
Most serious companies seek to continuously improve the service they provide to their customers, and they care about people leaving. Perhaps Netflix are indeed deliberately trying to fail.
Pirate flag for the obvious, fast & virtually hassle-free alternative.
Regardless of the fact that Facebook's explanation is transparently a load of bollocks (everything else being equal, the fact that they actively resist attempts to back up your stuff (contacts/pictures/whatever) or export it from their site should be a big fat hint), anyone whose business depends on a free web site not under his control is a fool.
The argument that not everyone has IT skills or is capable of putting up a web site is void - for a few hundred Euros you can get someone to do that for you. I can't draw so I get the graphics for my flyers from some free web site - if it goes away, does anyone seriously think I have the right to complain just because "I can't draw"? Do you get many free lunches where you live?
For theft to take place, something must be removed from the posession of someone else, who is deprived of the use of said something. Since the patches were just downloaded and not removed there is no theft, by definition.
The word you're looking for is tort. Dweeb.
One could argue that the customers were "stolen", but this is basically just about licence violation. Doesn't mean the people involved don't need shootin', mind you.
A mutant variety running on a type of mobile phone isn't going to determine Linux's success or failure in any other domains, certainly not as measured by some bean counter applying whatever metrics fit his predetermined conclusion, to whatever data he feels like pulling out of his ass.
Had you compared Linux's market share to embedded systems instead of data centre servers you would have gotten a completetely different picture, and one that is just as relevant to Android (or indeed mainstream Linux) - i.e. not very.
"it'd take a couple of seconds to draw the font select dialog"
Just like this Core Duo 2Ghz with 2GB RAM when the virus scanner and the other crap that came with the standard corporate image is running. Plus ça change...
Funding "free" content with advertising is the site owner's choice and theirs alone. If I choose to filter the ads, that is my choice too. There is absolutely no moral obligation on my part to accomodate a web site's chosen business model any more than I am obliged to sit through the ads on a taped TV show (yah, I know I'm dating myself here). If a site can't survive because people block their ads or tracking bugs, obviously their business model is rubbish.
There's no need for dial-up. Usenet uses bog-standard NNTP over TCP/IP. The server software is readily available via any Linux distro, so the people who want such a thing will still be able to build it. I still have my old Fidonet software, but I'd rather install INN than dosemu and a landline...
Oh, that old chestnut again. You need to be enlightened as to the relative sizes of space exploration and Earth sciences budgets (what exactly depends on where you live and what you mean by "sustainability"). No, I'm not going to do it for you, you can use Google just like anyone else.
It would be nice to be able to keep ISS around as a museum, but unfortunately space doesn't actually preserve things that well - materials decay due to micrometeorite impacts, thermal stress and hard radiation. Boosting it into a high, stable orbit would only make matters worse, since it would probably have to be put outside the Van Allen belt and that will turn it into a slowly dispersing torus-shaped cloud of navigational hazards that much quicker. At the very least you'll want to wrap it in something.
Digitally mapping it in high resolution and 3D before it deorbits would be much easier though, and actually feasible right now.
"If we assume the 1st law is true, then all of the universes energy must have *always* been here. If it has *always* been here, and the 2nd law is true, then entropy would have already occured."
Total entropy has not occurred because the universe's age is not infinite. There rest of your post is as superfluous as the supernatural non-sequitur.
Google "heat death" once your knickers have untwisted.
Exactly, and also don't underestimate the bandwidth of a courier + bag full of codebooks compared to a telegraph. A single secure delivery can set up a remote station with crypto keys for months or more.
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218 posts • joined Monday 16th April 2007 13:32 GMT
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Re: New and intuitive
No doubt the most often used gesture will be the one involving the raised index and middle fingers.
Hardly matters
Yes, this idea of removing DVD playback capability from Windows is prima facie absurd.
However. Windows users already are accustomed to having to hunt down and install third party software in order to perform even the most mundane of tasks. They'll hardly notice. As others have noted it'll merely result in an increase in VLC downloads.
Re: A shame in one sense
"[Y]ou can't run a business off of nothing but techie-emergencies."
Apparently you can if you diversify enough. There's a local PC/electronics shop that sells anything from disco lights to Maplin-type kits to hard disks and VGA cables. When asked about e.g. low ESR radial polarised electrolytic capacitors they hand you a thick catalogue to choose from, and ask how many you want. Bless.
Most PC shops aren't like that though, in fact I've avoided most of them since the 1990s (the incompetence of PC salespeople is of all ages).
Styling
Another reason why these things have traditionally failed to gain any traction with the mainstream is that they look incredibly dorky.
Re: I stopped reading after the first point
The reality, though, is that nobody cares about backup processes. What counts is restore processes. (Demonstrating the need for the latter so you can fund the former is left as an exercise for the reader.)
"Dynamics, delete!"
Voice control is the future for business apps. Really, Microsoft?
Just imagine an open plan office in 2014 full of suits frantically shouting at their tablets. What could possibly go wrong?
Re: Who is even affected?
Two words: Virtual Machines.
Evolution
From small screens and single-task systems to big screens and multi-tasking systems to... small screens and single-tasking systems. Full circle in 30 years, a little slower than the fashion industry but still, well done Microsoft.
I blame the mobile computing hype. Everything is a phone these days, even things that are not phones.
Bahaha
Then again, experience with SharePoint (not very recent but proving very resistant to alcohol) long since convinced me that Microsoft sucks at anything to do with time zones, date handling, etc. so this comes as absolutely no surprise at all.
Re: how will they fix their machines?
They take it back to to the shop and pay the ignorance tax, just like in the old days.
"The art in this case was probably pottery."
Piratebay and neo-Nazism
Sure. I bet you're the type of guy who opposes Walt Disney cartoons for ideological reasons, too.
This post has been deleted by its author
Exit strategy
Sounds like maybe he's preparing to apply for a job with the Syrian government.Save a lot of pain...
Except perhaps for the kind of problems that are caused by a broken user profile, of which unfortunately there are many in previous versions of Windows.
We live in hope.
You're a geek (or this issue would not arise in the first place). You already *have* a media server :)
Even better, gas giants can be mined for hydrogen fuel and electricity so they would make a natural watering hole for interstellar spacecraft to visit. Assuming certain things about their propulsion systems and other workings, of course. I'd say the odds of stuff being left in Jupiter orbit or on its moons (many of which are subject to heavy erosion, though) are about as good as stuff being left on Luna, depending on how long ago they were visited.
And if you're adapted to space or even just different gravity, pressure or gas mixture, Earth may not be on the to-do list at all.
Buzz bomb
I keep imagining an Iranian air force jet flying alongside the drone and simply tipping it over with its wing tips.
A reactor which burns nuclear waste is not green technology? How's that?
I thought the wedge shape was simply for reducing the lighthugger's cross section. There also was a thick coating of water ice for ablative armour. (I don't remember any magnetic shielding, but it wouldn't surprise me.)
Are Snapshots Backups?
When you back up something, you copy it somewhere else for safekeeping. That's sort of the point.
Taking snapshots is more like generating patches using diff - you still need the original for them to be useful. That's more like a journal or redo log, not like a backup at all.
Snapshots + off-site replication fixes that (indeed, my Bacula setup uses VSS to take consistent backups of Windows filesystems), but snapshots in themselves are not backups.
Your point is valid only you seriously believe the plod know about Tor, darknets or indeed much about IT in general. Historically there is little evidence to support this hypothesis.
Remember what happened to the last Czar.
Fuck off you twat, there are enough computer illiterates online already.
Nearly correct - the great RAM shortage of 1993 was cause by a fire in a Japanese epoxy resin factory. There was another RAM shortage in 1999 because of a bad earthquake in Taiwan. And again in 2002, I think.
We never learn, apparently.
Useless features
From day one I've wondered why Flash would ever need microphone or webcam access, and to this day I've yet to see a single legitimate use for it. Get rid of it if you can't secure it properly Adobe, sheesh. And while you're at it, take Javascript and other rubbish "active content" support out of your PDF reader...
Who says?
If the business has agreed that IT's function includes keeping the network free of viruses and malware, and usually also that this must cost next to nothing, then most likely yes, he does say.
Customers often don't realise the implications of what they're asking. Clarifying and correcting this perception may be IT's job but very often they have no say in the matter.
If someone burglars your house because you left the door open, this is not the locksmith's fault. If you left the door open because the lock is too difficult to operate, it's probably still not the locksmith's fault that you or maybe the architect insisted on having that type of lock.
Change for change's sake
All Linux desktops used to look like they were cobbled together by hackers and engineers with little regard to user interface design. Ubuntu lately looks the same, only they put the marketing people in charge, again with little regard to user interface design. At least they're consistent.
Canonical continue to fail to see the point of a desktop, which is to run applications, so you can get things done. Users don't really give a shit about kernel versions, Gnome variants or licencing holy wars. They just want a machine that works. Linux keeps approaching that point, only to go off on a different tangent - No! This is not how stable production software is produced. People need to know when to leave well alone.
That said, I run Ubuntu with Unity on my 13" netbook and it works well (this is probably because the only apps I use are Firefox, LibreOffice and Terminal). On my other machines, which run different things for different tasks, I almost certainly would not.
Luckily, if your Linux distro succumbs to feature rot, you can just pick another, and never look back :)
I especially love the bit where he says "It's wrong to require our users to reboot every week."
No. As the Chinese, Germans et al. found out the hard way, there is a very large difference between an unguided rocket and a homing missile.
Besides that, rocket launches are hard to do subtly.
Europeans with firearms were also simply much better at killing people in large numbers than the natives were (we've had lots of practice). That, and the imported diseases.
They still haven't got it, have they
Remember that meetings were had, brains were stormed, and policies were deliberately formulated in order to fail this way.
As long as media companies keep foisting rubbish "features" on those very people who give them money, piracy will always be the more consumer-friendly option.
That's what I thought - their collecting data becomes illegal wiretapping the moment the contract ends.
What an interesting approach
Most serious companies seek to continuously improve the service they provide to their customers, and they care about people leaving. Perhaps Netflix are indeed deliberately trying to fail.
Pirate flag for the obvious, fast & virtually hassle-free alternative.
Even if this flies...
It's not a problem, I'll just wait for someone to either leak the keys or crack the firmware. Or my next mainboard will be made in China. (Again.)
"they have little sense of what they are being protected from"
Plus ça change... I'm sure anyone who's had to admin e-mail systems in the past decade can sympathise... not!
Re: Serves 'em right
Regardless of the fact that Facebook's explanation is transparently a load of bollocks (everything else being equal, the fact that they actively resist attempts to back up your stuff (contacts/pictures/whatever) or export it from their site should be a big fat hint), anyone whose business depends on a free web site not under his control is a fool.
The argument that not everyone has IT skills or is capable of putting up a web site is void - for a few hundred Euros you can get someone to do that for you. I can't draw so I get the graphics for my flyers from some free web site - if it goes away, does anyone seriously think I have the right to complain just because "I can't draw"? Do you get many free lunches where you live?
Hmmm
The claims in the PowerPoint slides do feature an awful lot of asterisks, which usually means "* Not actually true; ** Bald-faced lie", etc.
Copying software is not theft
For theft to take place, something must be removed from the posession of someone else, who is deprived of the use of said something. Since the patches were just downloaded and not removed there is no theft, by definition.
The word you're looking for is tort. Dweeb.
One could argue that the customers were "stolen", but this is basically just about licence violation. Doesn't mean the people involved don't need shootin', mind you.
What complete twaddle
A mutant variety running on a type of mobile phone isn't going to determine Linux's success or failure in any other domains, certainly not as measured by some bean counter applying whatever metrics fit his predetermined conclusion, to whatever data he feels like pulling out of his ass.
Had you compared Linux's market share to embedded systems instead of data centre servers you would have gotten a completetely different picture, and one that is just as relevant to Android (or indeed mainstream Linux) - i.e. not very.
"it'd take a couple of seconds to draw the font select dialog"
Just like this Core Duo 2Ghz with 2GB RAM when the virus scanner and the other crap that came with the standard corporate image is running. Plus ça change...
Nuts
Funding "free" content with advertising is the site owner's choice and theirs alone. If I choose to filter the ads, that is my choice too. There is absolutely no moral obligation on my part to accomodate a web site's chosen business model any more than I am obliged to sit through the ads on a taped TV show (yah, I know I'm dating myself here). If a site can't survive because people block their ads or tracking bugs, obviously their business model is rubbish.
Re: UUCP, hmm, no.
There's no need for dial-up. Usenet uses bog-standard NNTP over TCP/IP. The server software is readily available via any Linux distro, so the people who want such a thing will still be able to build it. I still have my old Fidonet software, but I'd rather install INN than dosemu and a landline...
Juno's frying pan
Judging from Greco-Roman mythology, Juno will be using her frying pan for hitting Jupiter about the head with rather than for cooking...
"The louder transient noise of AM"
If your wind farm involves antimatter you're doing it wrong.
@Scott
Oh, that old chestnut again. You need to be enlightened as to the relative sizes of space exploration and Earth sciences budgets (what exactly depends on where you live and what you mean by "sustainability"). No, I'm not going to do it for you, you can use Google just like anyone else.
Preservation
It would be nice to be able to keep ISS around as a museum, but unfortunately space doesn't actually preserve things that well - materials decay due to micrometeorite impacts, thermal stress and hard radiation. Boosting it into a high, stable orbit would only make matters worse, since it would probably have to be put outside the Van Allen belt and that will turn it into a slowly dispersing torus-shaped cloud of navigational hazards that much quicker. At the very least you'll want to wrap it in something.
Digitally mapping it in high resolution and 3D before it deorbits would be much easier though, and actually feasible right now.
Re: Meta-clangers
"If we assume the 1st law is true, then all of the universes energy must have *always* been here. If it has *always* been here, and the 2nd law is true, then entropy would have already occured."
Total entropy has not occurred because the universe's age is not infinite. There rest of your post is as superfluous as the supernatural non-sequitur.
Google "heat death" once your knickers have untwisted.
Re: The thing I never got...
Exactly, and also don't underestimate the bandwidth of a courier + bag full of codebooks compared to a telegraph. A single secure delivery can set up a remote station with crypto keys for months or more.
1998 called...
They want their directory traversal exploits back.
Re: Russians got there first...
Unlike the Americans they still had other manned spacecraft, though.
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