Posts by Henry Wertz

I'm with the 1/3rd...

From the article, "A third said that although the exercise might be legally questionable it 'helps raise awareness'"

I agree with that.

These people running unpatched Windows systems are already pwned anyway if there cycles and bandwidth are for sale. Might as well do something useful for the BBC rather than send v!4gr4 spam or DDOS some guy.. and it definitely should raise awareness, for those who are somehow unaware that an unpatched Windows box can get pwned almost immediately. But, that said, there's no question it was illegal. Should they get prosecuted? No, that's why there are judges instead of some kind of automated crime computers*.

*If there WERE automated crime computers, they'd be pwned anyway, so the BBC could of course just pay a few more quid and have the botmasters let them off the hook.

So can they take 10% off work?

So, can they take 10% off work then? For 4 5-day work-weeks, that's about 2 days off in April. Or quite a few VERY extended lunch breaks...

@Russ, and the cost of texts

The description of the mechanics is right, the SMS messages go over the control channel. It's also true that I think the phone cos are charging FAR more than it costs to send and receive texts -- especially ala carte rates.

BUT, the costs are not 0 or near-0.

First, brief info on what goes over the control channel (besides texts..). From phone to cell site, the phone sends info to the site when it's first turned on (or first gets in range of the site), then every 5 to 15 minutes afterwards it sends the same info. This is just so the phone network knows your phone exists. If you make a phone call, your phone sends a request over the control channel. If your phone is ringing and it picks up it sends a request to indicate this as well. From site to your phone, the network sends your phone "you're getting a call, start ringing!" and the caller ID info.

As for why costs are not 0:

1) The control channels can and do overload. Traditionally, the same control channel info would be broadcast by every cell site city-wide. After SMS took off, they started having to split cities into zones, with additional equipment to handle the control of these groups of cell sites for each zone. In the densest areas, they'll have to even add additional control channels to some sites.

2) They have to have equipment to handle and forward all these texts. I hang out a lot on howardfroums.com, late last year alone, there were intermittent delays (of sometimes several hours) with Sprint; AT&T had localized cases of slow or even worse LOST texts. Nextel was basically considered a joke for texting pre-merger with Sprint, I don't know if it's better now. The texting servers or whatever apparently cost enough that they put off upgrading the capacity of them at least for a while.

3) Inter-carrier texting. This all goes through some exchange, which costs. I don't know if they are charged per text, or if they are charged per T1 or whatever. A few months ago, several carriers did not have enough capacity to this exchange, resulting in texts to the same carrier being fast, but minutes to hours delays to other carriers.

4) Spam filters. Some carriers in the US, based on the complaints I read online, clearly do not have a spam filter. I know for sure Verizon brags about theirs, and it seems to work very well. But due to the volume of spam it does filter it is likely rather expensive as well. Again, for a few days last year it backed up and they had to spend extra money on it.

-==================-

As for US cell phones...

The norm here is to have a bucket of minutes.. either for an individual phone, or on a "family plan" where phones can be added onto it for $10 a line. Texting is also done with buckets of texts, either per line (from $5 for about 250 to about $20 for unlimited texts), or some $20 or so addon that gives unlimited texts for the whole family plan. Free long distance within the US, and free roaming within the US are included, although most companies have a "40% roaming" or "50% roaming" rule in the fine print, so they can drop customers who roam nearly 100% of the time... Verizon specifically does not have this roaming restriction though.

So, SprintPCS does have free incoming texts on some plans. "Old" AT&T Wireless had free incoming texts (but Cingular bought them, then after the merger dragged down Cingular's name a bit, renamed the whole thing AT&T.. *that* AT&T doesn't do free incoming..) US Cellular has free incoming texts *and* free incoming calls. But the norm is for all incoming to come out of your buckets. The flip side, though, *calling* a cell is normal rate (so, from a landline, calling a cell with a local phone number is local, and otherwise the normal long distance rate.)

Well it's obvious who the responsible party was...

"On Wednesday, shortly after Wikileaks published the information, Coleman's office condemned the attack and vowed to work with the US Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies to bring the responsible parties to justice."

It's obvious who the responsible party was -- whoever set up a web site with no security, so that using an IP address instead of hostname is enough to have it merrily dump a database out to you. If no passwords were put in, and no access controls were bypassed on the part of whoever downloaded this (which is apparently the case), then no crime was committed on their part, period. The only crimes appear to be 1) Negligence on the part of whoever set up the site. 2) Failure to report exposure of this data on the part of the sentaor's campaign.

Seems like a double standard...

Seems like a double standard. Maybe it's different in Chicago, but here I've seen PLENTY of hooker ads in the classified in the newspaper and online, in fact even in the phone book.

@Mike Flugennock, here here!! I used to look on craiglist, along with a few jobs sites... they'd vaguely talk about "job opportunities" in "eastern iowa region" or "midwest", and then have a New York City phone #. Yeah. Makes the sites almost useless when almost all listings were just temp agencies anyway, you know, if I want to sign up with a temp agency, I'll sign up with a temp agency, that's not what job sites are for. Disturbingly, looking through craigslist now the NEWEST jobs listings for my area are from like mid-Februrary, almost 3 weeks ago. Looks like the jobs (real or not) may have dried up! 8-(

It could work, maybe...

@Goat, this wouldn't have to be an issue. The cell cos here in the US sell a phone at a subsidized price (as low as "free" or even some cash back) in exchange for a 2-year contract. They don't care if you even use that phone or just sell it off (I think it has to be activated once, even if just for a minute, to formally indicate acceptance of contract extension and get the discounts.) In other words, they won't care how you use it, they get the early termination fee from the customer if they just buy it and don't keep the plan that goes with it. The tendency is for the cell cos to customize (i.e. lock down) phones pretty hard, while PDAs might just get a preinstalled app or two maybe. I expect netbooks to be treated more like PDAs than phones.

@J, I've read recently how the Mini 9 is racking up 33% Linux sales (and, Dell also said the return rate was similar between Ubuntu and Windows Mini 9s.) I've read the unfortunate state of netbooks in UK, where almost all the models that are supposed to have Linux available don't for some reason. If Dell starts removing the Linux models in the US, they've lost my sale, I will no longer buy ANYTHING with a Microsoft license attached to it. If the Linux or clean systems drop back off the market I'll either 1) whitebox it (build a machine from scratch) or 2) Buy a system, return all licenses. I WILL play hardball and return the entire system if the license refunds are refused.

So video or sound?

So, are they blocking the whole video, or are they doing what they do for some youtube videos here in the states with unlicensed music and just blocking the audio? Watching muted music videos could be rather amusing 8-)

@spectularly refined chap....

specatularly refined chap, she's not trying to get something for nothing.. you say

"If you were switching from Vista Basic to XP Home you would have a valid grievance."

This is one of her complaints. She WAS perfectly happy getting XP Home. Vista Basic DOES NOT GIVE downgrade rights. So she had to pay extra for an unwanted upgrade to Vista Premium, in order to downgrade to a copy of XP Pro that is overkill compared to what she really was looking for (and then pay even more for the actual XP Pro install.). There's no legal way to get XP Home onto a new computer; it's unlikely to find a legal copy anywhere since it's been off the market for so long.

Now, personally, I'd buy a box with no Microsoft products whatsoever, preferably with Ubuntu instead. But people should not have to jump through these hoops if they really want to still run XP for some reason.

ROSETTA

"Perhaps the Chinese should come up with their version of the ASCII code, with 16-bit length. Instead of 256 characters, you would get 65536 characters, and a hell of compatibility headache. Instead of ASCII code you could call it ROSETTA Code, since it fits all the characters and all of pictograms, of all the languages, both dead and alive, including runic, pre-colombian Maya, and whatever-you-cant-name-due-lack-of-proper-name-in-our-alphabet."

Can't tell if you're joking, but it's called Unicode. And it kind of is a hell of a compatibility headache. They've even (unofficially I think) set aside a portion of the "user defined" area for Klingon.

Looks good...

I saw Scratch a while ago, and it looked very nice, fun to use, and lets people very easily make at least simple apps. As they say in the article you shouldn't need to pull out a C compiler or even python just to come up with some simple little game or the like.

I don't think it ties in with OLPC though. I think Negroponte did end up jumpstarting the netbook market, but he sold out a main concept of OLPC as an open system that encourages tinkering when he turned it into a underpowered Windows PC.

He's right

I'm not a Microsoft fan, but he's right! In general, if everyone else in a market cuts down to no R&D, then the company or two who DO still do R&D will be ahead of everyone else, taking advantage of new research to produce new products, and more advanced versions of old products, ahead of everyone else.

In general, he's right. In specific, I don't know if the recession will cut R&D on free and open source software. But they'll have to keep it up to have a chance.

Good research

Well, I won't go so far as to say it's "better than IE and Chrome" since it doesn't exist as a downloadable product.. but the research looks good, and it's good that people (Microsoft and Google both) are looking at not just letting plugins and such run loose on the system. If they DID work on turning Gazelle into a download, even if not appropriate for general use it might be great for Kiosks and things where they really do want a secure, limited browser rather than a browser that can run wild. (A "Gazelle for Linux" would be even better though..)

Smart

"Hewlett Packard has walked away from some hardware deals in the UK as the recession encourages other vendors to adopt "suicidal" pricing policies to chase corporates' shrinking IT spend."

This is smart. Pumping up some "sales volume" figure, but losing money on every sale, is not smart. I can easily see some companies doing this so they don't show a sales drop.. but you don't make up "losing money on every sale" in volume.

Quite a turnaround from the old days of the Itanic. I was talking to someone from a University department here, this was like 5 years ago.. HP sold them a Itanium-based HP Superdome system for like $1000.. it was a $100,000 system. They simply wanted to show SOME Itanium sales that year, and that was how they did it. When they bought it, the (several year old) HP Superdome PA-RISC system they already had was spanking the Itanium Superdome. I guess with later compiler improvements, they at least ran neck-and-neck, and eventually the Itanium ran slightly ahead. But probably not $100,000 ahead 8-). This is DEFINITELY not the kind of game you want to play if you're looking to keep the balance sheets out of the red though, and it appears HP has realized this.

How big was the full payment?

So I've now read the overpayment was about $5000. How much was the total? Was it $5000 over on a $10000 payment, or $5000 over on a $100,000 payment? I guess it doesn't matter, Microsoft did the right thing (once they realized the bad PR they were going to get at least...), but I am wondering anyway.

I've wondered...

I've wondered about this Azure stuff how much porting has to be done? (Both by end users, and by Microsoft especially to provide services?)

1) Are they just hammering and adjusting settings? 2) Minor code adjustments? 3) Or are they having to make large changes, or almost write from scratch, to make SQL Server etc. work "on the cloud?" I think there's no way I'll get an answer to this but I have kind of wondered.

If 1, they are just making marketing decisions, trying to figure how much power they can have with Azure without cannibalising SQL Server sales. If 3, they really ARE deciding how many features to put in because they have to get them working.

Also, if 3, the other cloud services have a huge advantage -- they are running more or less off-the-shelf open source software (with some cloud-specific APIs on top.) I don't know if they are at stage "1" or "2", but Python, MySQL, etc., they sure aren't rewriting them from scratch.

A few points about this...

a) Chris Miller's point "I don't get it." (3 comments in.) He sums this point up so perfectly I won't even repeat it.

b) Is this "meta-cloud" software on YOUR end or their end? Otherwise as they say in the article, "But if you opt for RightScale's meta-cloud, aren't you then locked in to RightScale?". You're replacing a single point of failure (the cloud provider) with a single point of failure (RightScale), if it depends on going to a RIghtScale web site. If it can run on your end, I guess you don't have a single point of failure (well, your own computer.. better keep a backup of that RightScale software!)

I'm honestly not a big believer in cloud services, I do see their uses (the compute-intensive rendering and etc. would be OK.) I'm very skeptical of how wise it is to have some huge database "in the cloud" though, getting a copy of this database could be a) difficult and b) costly. Also, depending on the nature of the database, it places confidential company data fully in the hands of a 3rd party, and relies on them to keep it secure. I'm also skeptical of using "the cloud" as some vital backbone of business, I may be traditional but I would think just running regular servers would be better for day-to-day use, with possible cloud use for extra capacity once in a while, if that combination is workable.. that way if the cloud crashes and burns, you are not screwed.

My responses to this

A) Super classy guys. I'd never CONSIDER walking off with confidential data. The golden rule applies -- would you want some guy to walk off with YOUR data? I did not think so.

B) Not too surprised. Many US companies just treat people like replaceable cogs rather than people. Employees know when they are not valued but treated as cogs, and react accordingly -- by swiping whatever they can on the way out.

@JimC

Except it doesn't. Even China, where they do try this on a national level (the "Great Firewall of China" forces all outbound connections through censorship boxes, which forge a connection reset if they see content or sites they don't like).. if a site doesn't load, people "know" they aren't supposed to go there. But there's trivial ways around it. If a gov't really wants to stop you, they still can't.

Not $220 a game

Not $220 a game -- that would be his total bill, unlimited data (for tethering to a computer) is typically about $60. And probably a few other phones on the line.

I agree, AT&T shouldn't have offered $6000, they should have credited it in full and said "what the hell" to the cruise ship operator -- they are not supposed to operate in-ship service in port... in international waters they can do as they wish, in port the frequencies are licensed to the local phone company and the cruise ship is not to transmit on them.

Blah, plus HD

Blah, I'm not going to buy an XP model. Mini 9 it is then! (Once my Inspiron 2200 gets "loose" enough for me to replace it.)

Second, GMA500 should do HD OK. I've managed on a P4-3.0 with a Intel 945 to decode 1920x1080 HD, then rescale it down to display on a 1280x1024 CRT. (720 would be 1280x720). The CPU was very busy, but it worked fine. A GMA500 is much faster, and more importantly supports video decoding on the card (which should make the biggest difference.) I think it should be no sweat. Of course this was with mplayer on ubuntu -- Windows Media Player is a resource hog, so I don't know how XP + WMP will do at this.

@Storm in a teacup

Well, yeah, I don't think anyone thinks it's nefarious. But, it' s pretty low class to can people, pay them redundancy, then ask for some of it back.

@kain preacher, I wouldn't tell them dick. It's illegal to not pay overtime, they can't expect you to stay in extra but not authorize overtime. Stay the course!

@"Sorry we stabbed you in the back, can we have our knife back please? ", that's how I would do it too. I mean, if it's obvious someone made a typo, and there's an extra $100,000 paid out, I'd pay it back. If it's "Oh, you owe back 10%", they can damn well eat it. If they push it, pay back $1 a month.

Surveillance society

"The police pretty much said they can't do anything for our apartment block 'cos we didn't have CCTV"

I think I'm speaking to the choir here but that is a bald-faced lie of course. Most of the US is not such a surveillance society (the police-state shit happens in New York City area mainly, along with Texas). But areas WITH excessive CCTV, they will try to use cameras *instead* of police on foot and in cars in the area (I don't know if they just figure the cameras can replace police, or just don't have money for both...) Since cameras don't catch anyone, and there's no longer police on patrol, crime goes up. They use this crime increase as an excuse to install *more* cameras.

Here, some apartments have cameras in the hallways (to prevent vandalism mainly -- i.e. spraypainting the hallways... a few I've seen obviously were not even hooked up.) But in general, the best deterrent, police can get to anywhere in town within about 5 minutes. They still managed not to catch a serial mugger (even after they were given info what bar he hung out in, bragging about how he beat people up every night...) But in general..the US chav-equivalents (meth heads, gangbangers, and drunk students.. I don't live far enough south for drunken rednecks) are FAR more deterred from commiting petty crimes by the likelihood that someone will call the cops, they'll show up and toss them into a black-and-white, than they are deterred by being picked up on some shitty, blurry camera.

The British plan for massive use of camera, and centralizing police in massive centralized installations, is exactly backwards from what you need to help with crime. It will not be documented well enough on the typical cheap cameras to do anything, and the centralized police will be so far from, well, everyone not immediately near the police station, that they won't come out to actually help with any crimes. And criminals are already criminals, will police catching them on CCTV and mailing them a ticket or whatever really going to do anything? No, if they are already vandalizing, mugging, and chaving it up, I see no reason they would pay the ticket anyway.

Pretty weak...

Pretty weak case, if any. There's no law against any company having a dominant position, and I think they can behave as they like, SO LONG AS they are not using the dominant position to block competitors from entering the market (or using the dominant position in one market to muscle into another market.) I haven't seen them doing a thing to prevent other advertisers from entering the market.

They should not bar competitors from buying up ads, but I don't think they do. As for business.com, well.. I think Burke is right, business.com doesn't look great. But, in my opinion, sourcetool looks similar... both do ultimately go to some sort of B2B information and links, and both could use some sprucing up.

So...

So a NBC-owned portal is pulling shows that originally aired on Fox off a CBS-owned portal. Yeah. All we need now is ABC to get in the mix and we've got all 4 big networks involved.

ahh the spam

"all this for something I don't hear many men moaning about "

Well, of course not, NO ONE is going to admit they suffer from limp dick.

*shrug*. Seems kind of prudish, but here in the US no company would have even ATTEMPTED this ad.

You don't have ads for prescription meds there? We've got em all over. Actually it's odd, these ads, they're required to have some full list of complications, etc. available in a magazine. So the TV ad will make the med totally sound like the shit, list main possible side effects, they'll say like "See our ad in Mens Golfing Monthly" or whatever (it can be ANY magazine so it's a real odd one sometimes). THAT one is like a full page of fine print with, well I don't know I've never bothered to read one.

There's one REALLY odd medicine TV ad now.. it's like 2 and a half minutes long (most are 30 seconds)... it boils down to "No, our product has not been pulled off the market.. some studies have shown it causes fatal side effects but hey, one or two studies said it doesn't! You really should try it anyway!" It's super classy.

I assume they can work 10% slower...

I assume with a 10% cut, I would be able to do 10% less work.

This is NOT smart, one of the things oil companies do is run number-crunching jobs and simulations to determine where to find new oil. This involves large systems, and (IT) staff to keep it running. These are in effect BPs source of future revenue, and the last guys they should piss off!

One tact I'm surprised businesses aren't trying is offering (unpaid) vacation time off. It's effectively a pay cut put keeps things positive by saying they have more personal time. The hours people in the states are expected to work have been steadily increasing for decades (there's still 40 hour a week jobs but more and more just "expect" people to put in all this overtime)... and vacation has been decreasing for years. There's plenty of jobs now that have 4 or 5 holidays and 0 vacation time. My parents work for a university, so they get about 2 weeks off a year, and that's considered super-cushy.

@Wouldn't this make...

"So, say I have a shock site hosting an image that has now become illegal. Can I trick people into visiting, and then forward their IP's to the police?"

Yes. And I think it's already happened in the US in a case I read about. Well, the person posting the links didn't forward them to the police, the photos were on some "sting" site. The INITIAL links were put on by the feds on the seediest forums on the internet where they figured paedos hung out and made it pretty obvious what kind of photos were being linked to. But then people LATER posted links to this "sting" site from regular forums with very generic description like "here's some photos", not making it clear at all what KIND of photos they were. One click, bam! Here comes the feds. I don't know if they got convicted but they were charged at least. And of course the feds stole their computers -- they don't seem capable of making forensic copies, they just sit on machines until they are entirely obsolete, if they ever give them back.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas

So, as the article says (but title doesn't make clear) they aren't "banning" these, they've been illegal all along. Electronic or mechanical counting devices have been illegal in the casinos for decades.

Regarding card counting "au naturale". There's an important thing to know. In Vegas, the casinos can and do find people that are counting cards, kick them out and if they keep doing it ban them. (ONLY if they are good at it! The casinos apparently LOVE people that BADLY count cards.. they'll lose a lower percentage than normal but make it up by spending a larger amount of cash since they think they'll win.) The casinos have plenty of surveillance, I've read they have face recognition kit in place as well. Just like any face recognition, it's not accurate enough to use by itself, but it would wake up security to at least compare "that guy" to the file photo. They apparently also share this info so once you are banned you may find you are not welcome in almost any casino in Vegas. I have no idea if they still "rough them up" like in the old mob days. I saw a video about the MIT card counters, one of them demonstrated the efficiency of this.. they walked in and in under 30 seconds, a well-dressed gent walks up and is like "sir you are no longer welcome in this establishment, please leave."

Atlantic City? Apparently kicking someone out is not allowed (if they are not using devices). They apparently just send bustier and bustier waitresses with increasing frequency like congratulating you on your run of luck and offering complimentary drinks, until the card counter either starts drinking (gets drunk and loses count) or gets distracted by the waitresses rack (and loses count).

Yes...

I'd say Mitnick is right on this count. Given the Sectera is apparently a dual-PDA, one with an unknown (but I'm sure quite secure) OS, and the other Windows Mobile... I would guess any old (well, new at least) Windows Mobile attack could affect the Sectera. But... 1) I'd assume given the concerns the Sectera omit GPS hardware, so "they" would be unable to track it even if "they" got GPS tracking software on it. 2) The photos I've seen, the secure side apparently even has a seperate little LCD display, I'd guess the WinMo and secure PDAs are electrically seperate, so any amount of screen grabs, "key" logs, etc would not show a thing from the secure side. 3) As Mitnick says, the heat would be too intense. Anyone would be a moron to even try it.

I agree

I agree that writing to the prez will do nothing.

BUT, "lets use crap software because we've always used it" is an AWFUL argument, and I do agree with Redhat etc. writing a letter, even if it's probably pointlessl. Deptartments. continuing expensive, insecure deployments of Microsoft software... expensive copies of Oracle... etc. should not be used unless there's a damn good reason for it.

For special projects, agencies should insist on having the source. (I think a medical records system would be a FINE example of this). As it is now, it's all too common to have a vendor work on a project... if it doesn't work out, the vendor and product are scrapped and it's all started over with the second vendor. If the agency has the source, if the vendor works out things work exactly as now (agency keeps paying vendor for bug fixes and feature requests.) If it DOESN'T work out, the second vendor has the option of fixing this code up rather than having to start from scratch.

Cisco Linksys

My experience with Cisco Linksys is similar.

I bought a WRT54G years ago, and it was great. The stock firmware was fine and there's numerous 3rd-party firmwares for it. (I have DD-WRT on mine.)

Bought one more recently (ver 5). Useless! The firmware was so buggy, it'd crash within hours, AND scramble the settings! It was nice, you'd power it back up and it STILL wouldn't come back up without hooking ethernet up and resetting the settings on it. Right after Cisco bought Linksys, they stripped the fully-functional Linux firmware, cut the RAM and ROM in half, and put in a barely-working version 1.00.00 firmware. Why they didn't at least get the hideous bugs out first, I don't know. I returned it!

I think they still sell them. I don't know how the stock firmware is, but there's a special extra-small DD-WRT version for it I guess. But, if you're running 3rd-party frimware anyway, the WRT is like twice as expensive as competitors (since Cisco cut RAM and ROM, but not the price.)

I'm with Lionel...

I'm with Lionel Baden on this one...

a) The US gov't is crooked as hell. The NSA will just claim "state secrets" or something and not pay a cent.

b) They should not be performing wide-scale eavesdropping anyway... and for targetted eavesdropping they can just slap in a microphone.

In conclusion if I DID figure a way to crack Skype I sure as hell wouldn't share it with the NSA.

---------------------

@FUD "The can just tap into the ISP's network or break the wireless key. The IP address of the target is known (or knowable)....

ISPs and telcos have been obliged to provide easy access for law enforcement for years."

Yes, and at that point they get a nice Skype-encrypted data stream. It could still be that they can crack Skype as well and this is "FUD" (more like obfuscation, really... push people "with sometihng to hide" onto a cracked system)... but the fact is, getting the data off the ISP's network won't do a thing.

------------------------

@Alan Eastham

I had read an article a while ago about how the NSA has been regularly buying new computers that WOULD be nice and high powered.. if they could run them. But they did not spend to upgrade the building electrics and so could not even plug several of them in. That was several years back, but anyway...

Steve Jobs and Apple...

Steve Jobs and Apple... fuck you.

I've never bought an Apple product and never will.

I've advised everyone I know to not buy Ipods etc. fore years. A few have anyway, they'll be like "Hey I can't get the music back off my Ipod!" and I tell them "Yep you sure can't." They ask why and I let them know all about the artificial restrictions Apple puts on their products.. and they are enlightened.

They are right

They are right. Physics is important. You would not have the transistor, modern-style hard drives (the giant magnetoresistive heads used in the last 10 years use quantum tunneling effects to work), a lot of modern metals and other materials, without what at first would have appeared to be "not economically valuable" research. I'll tell you what's NOT economically valuable -- the military. I guess there's not much to cut there in the UK though, the US should do some cutting there though. This wouldn't have to put Raytheon etc. out of business, just have them do useful R&D instead of developing the next jet fighter and bombs.

I am not sure if ANY gov't money should go to pharma research -- unlike CERN for instance where results are public, what seems to happen with this pharma research is the taxpayer pays for it, then some company uses those results and patents any resulting drugs or treatments. Then they mark the drugs way up "to cover the cost of development." Why should I pay -- twice -- for the drug company's research?

Is that a real interview?

Is that a real interview? Just wondering, I don't live in UK so I don't know if The Day Today is for real or not. Man that was pretty rough, but I must say hilarious. The icing on the cake is at the end where he's just like "....... Thank you." and gets ready for the next story.

AWD isn't 4x4

AWD isn't 4x4. There's a minor but important difference. A 4x4 (or 4 wheel drive) system here is typically considered to be one where there is NOT a center differential, when 4WD is engaged all 4 wheels are simply locked together and run at the same speed. You (are supposed to) engage 4 wheel drive before you are driving through DEEP snow or going off-road, it will basically lock all 4 wheels together so you won't get stuck... But, since it just locks all 4 wheels together, if you engage this type of system on ice, or light snow, it tends to force the vehicle off line and into a ditch. On dry pavement it'll tear up your tires a bit every time you corner and eventually destroy the 4WD system. A lot of trucks and SUVs have this.. here around Iowa City, college students buy 4x4s, then a month later you see the tow trucks running full time loading the ones with destroyed 4WD systems onto flatbeds. Then a while later after the first snow or ice storm, the tow trucks come back out to tow the rest of them out of the ditch, since 4WD is not for use on ice.

AWD is what Subaru and most non-2-wheel-drive cars use. With the center differential and all, you just don't worry about it... some run only 2 wheels until they start slipping or bogging down in the snow, some run all 4 wheels full-time, but the systems on the car take care of power distribution and all that so it's basically "on" full-time.

Blah to Vista

"What many people call a ‘netbook’ today is really a small notebook, and users expect it to perform like one"

And they do if you don't put Vista on them. Preferably Ubuntu or "Ubuntu Netbook Remix" instead.

A NVidia9400+Atom combo (which is what ION is) is interesting and should be quite the setup but I'm sure not going to squander it by running Vista on it!

I don't think it exposes anything

"The discovery exposes the dark side to a free and open source software movement that often allows webmasters to deploy extremely powerful packages without the guidance of support people to make sure best practices are being followed."

It does no such thing. It's just as easy for someone to buy one or more commercial packages (Exchange, IIS, SQL Server, Oracle, plenty of commercial Java-on-the-server rigs, etc.) and install them without the guidance of support people to make sure best practices are being followed.

Responses

Well, I live here in the states, so I still have a choice of a real OS on this machine apparently. But, I also will not buy a single machine ever again with Windows on it. No non-Windows version? No sale. I don't care if it has Linux or is blank, I will not send money to Microsoft for something I'm never going to use. And I know the reality is companies will make me FIGHT to return the unused software, more than I'm willing to put up with.

@Linux doesn't cut the mustard, quit the trolling. Modern Linux distros are MORE point'n'click and easier than windows overall. Try installing most scanners and printers -- linux has drivers, windows you have to go download them, it's much harder. I've found more situations the Winodws GUI won't handle than OSX *or* Ubuntu's. No comment on Suse specifically.

@Nic, MS are evil AND successful. They are successful, but also are a (twice! US *and* EU) convicted monopolist. They REALLY play dirty, and will do ANYTHING including bribery to keep their position.

@Brian Allan: Wasting money on Linux? Windows has a much higher cost.

Guys you are talking past each other

Except for the person calling Stevie a berk (you are WRONG), you guys are right, but talking past each other.

The early G4s, sawtooth included, were VERY reliable. G3s and older? Reliable in general. A few individual "beige" models had cache problems, but in general these were plenty reliable. Several other G4 models -- quite reliable. But Stevies right also, some models have alarming design problems, blow power supplies, melt CPUs, blow motherboards, etc.

@Dave, I urge you to at least make sure your machine is dust-free. I've seen roughly 3 out of 4 mirror door DPs I get in come with 1 or both processors absolutely cooked. (If 1 cooks, it typically still runs as a single proc machine.. if both cook of course the machine's a goner.)

@"mac tactics" I bet your PC has Vista. Windows in general is a piece, but Vista takes the cake.. it's BLOATED. Believe me your PC will spank any G4 configuration by a WIDE margin if you get Vista off it. If you "need" Windows, Windows XP, otherwise I recommend Ubuntu. There's slimmer and faster Linuxes than Ubuntu but it's pretty fast while being fully-featured out of the box.

@Way too much crap on the screen... ahh a twm man 8-). What is your opinion on vi versus emacs hahaha. (I stay out of that one, I use joe, which ends up being mostly a wordstar clone.)

Didn't always have caps.

"In one sense, all this cappage is a good thing. American ISPs have always had caps. They just didn't tell you what they were."

No they didn't! Even the "secret caps" only began about 3 or 4 years ago, and my ex-cable internet provider STILL doesn't have caps, quite a few US ISPs don't.

That said.. IMHO... caps where you hit it and are charged cash: BAD. Caps where you hit it and are throttled down (either, throttled period or throttled until you pay for some extra GBs): less bad. Obviously I'd prefer no caps at all, but with a cash cap, I'd be watching that meter like crazy, even if I was nowhere near the cap (which I wouldn't be, except with TWC's absurd caps... 5GB!!! AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all have a 5GB cap on *wireless* data.. for cable this is absurd.) With a "throttle cap", I'd still look if I was getting towards the cap but it's far less worrying, while doing the job of reigning in people doings 100s of GBs a month.

256kbps 24/7 for a month is about 80GB... 64kbps is 20GB. So it won't stop anyone dead at the cap, but will serve the purpose of reigning in heavy users, without pissing them off with an unexpected huge bill. They could pay for more GBs, or just wait it out in the slow lane.

These two are related

" In some cases, users also complained that Redmond wasn't returning as much as it said it would.

In the early days of the bribery machine, eBayers noticed they could game the system by selling $630 in cash for $714. But Microsoft says it has ways of stopping this."

These are directly related. Microsoft's "ways of stopping this" amount to reducing the % payback on high-dollar transactions. Originally they paid back 35%, so the seller gets $84 straight off (714-630). The buyer gets 35% of 714 back, that's like $250 (so the buyer would clear $166 more or less.) Well, the simple way of stopping this was to reduce the paybacks.... they're more like 10% now, it's not so enticing to try this for a $35 apiece or so take. (There's also a clause about not allowing "sham" transactions that I'm sure is meant to cover this as well.)

But, of course, that leads to people not looking at updated terms and conditions or whatever, and going "Microsoft isn't paying what they said they would."

@Ron

"Surely someone somewhere can put all this together and come up with the definitive 'most reliable drive' manufacturer?"

I don't think so. I work at a computer surplus, and (other than the 40GB+ Deskstars which really did fail way to often) I haven't noticed a large trend. Some particular MODEL will be junk, I think either due to manufacturing problems or perhaps even firmware or design problems.. I don't know. But not the entire brand. Made the same time, some DriveCo model X will be utter crap, DriveCo model Y will be fantastically reliable. I haven't kept hard numbers, but it seems for some particular age drive brand X will be maybe 5-10% better than brand Y.... 6 months newer (or even 3 months) and they've swapped places. Basically one vendor might have a bad batch and that's enough to skew it.