Posts by Pascal Monett 18998 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
That Microsoft tries to infect something with DRM is par for the course. That Netflix does so is not really any concern of mine.
That Google puts its name to such a proposal is the proverbial final nail in the coffin of "do no evil".
The next time anyone comes in defense of Google I will from now on be forced to remember that it proposed DRM. The two are now irrevocably associated : Google = DRM.
Thanks Google, it was nice while it lasted.
Just like every other industrial multinational corporation, Apple officials are there to ensure that production of shiny objects is not impeded by unforeseen obstacles and progresses at minimal cost.
Company officials are not visiting to ensure that sub-contractors are working in the most comfortable, plush environment possible, because every additional comfort affects the bottom line and thus reduces margins.
And reducing the margin is a capital offense, in every sense of the word.
Yep, because the "root cause" is simply that sex sells.
Always has, always will, and I don't care what your religion is 'cause it don't matter.
You wanna address the "root cause" ? Educate your people. Elevate them intellectually beyond the instinctual level and make them appreciate the more sophisticated pleasures of women in stockings instead of just bare flesh.
But whatever you do, don't ever believe that you can eradicate porn. It just won't happen.
Ever.
Let's be clear about one thing : as long as mobile internet costs an arm and a leg, nobody is going to view mobile ads as anything but the greatest annoyance.
Things are changing in that sector, but slowly (heh, operators are not going to just let data flow freely, now are they ?). I predict that, until mobile internet data usage is freed from counting and billing bytes, Facebook is not going to be able to make any meaningful ad money out of it.
Who cares ?
No, frankly, is there any reason at all to pay attention to what Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have to say about anything ? One is a company creating ADD patients, the second is well on its way to irrelevance and the third has the brainpower of a canary.
Now I agree that Google has become the Microsoft of the Internet, but frankly the Three Stooges are the last people I would go to for a discussion on anything.
Yes, but to find them already stored and still waiting for analysis after over a century and a half is a darn shame.
Might be time to get a few interns to go through all storage areas and see what else needs to be "rediscovered".
Microsoft a security leader ? Since when ?
Okay, I'll admit that Windows 7 has a slightly different approach to kernel management than any other Microsoft OS ever made, but that does not change the fact that most driver installations still end up in a reboot of the PC.
Whatever Microsoft does with Windows won't change the fact that it's entire structure is a security hazard. UAC does not change the efficiency of rootkits, and anything that fools the user can turn the PC into a zombie.
Not to turn into a penguinista, but one has to admit that zombifying a Linux computer is a rather difficult proposition, next to the ease with which a Windows platform can be owned, as they say.
So no, sorry. It's not the noise you make that makes you a musician, and it's not the blaring PR coming out of Redmond that makes a leader in security. A leader in security is secure by design, and Windows is shot to pieces from the ground up on that subject.
But Windows is getting better, that I admit. Windows 7 is the best Windows I've had yet, and much more stable than XP was, even in its SP2 configuration.
And if you string the courts through hundreds of hours for nothing, aren't the two related in some way ?
Frankly, as a judge in a civil case (there is no murder here, so no last-minute revelations are admissible if I'm not mistaken), if the accusation (Ceglia is accusing Zuckerberg of owing him money, right ?) does not give proof of its claims within the first two hours of court arguments, I'd call it off until proof is on the table.
IANAL, obviously, but I do seem to remember some vague notion about civil cases being based on putting everything on the table first, then letting both parties discuss over what thing has what importance. If the accusation comes to the table without proof, then there is nothing to discuss.
Already tried Ethernet over power lines and it just doesn't work in my house.
My electrical panel has no less than eight separate circuits, four for the power outlets in the lower and upper areas, four for the lights in the same areas. The room used as office, for example, is not on the same circuit than the living room.
That is significant because the office is where Internet, phone and TV arrive, whereas the living room is, of course, where we watch said TV.
I tried Ethernet over power lines to avoid having to string a cable through the attic. Unfortunately, it never worked.
I doubt this version would work better in the same conditions.
Anything that brings in any money must now bring it to NASA. No side benefits to third parties allowed, be they American Heroes or not.
The beancounter's stranglehold on everything financial is strengthening even more. Where is the "more and more will slip through your fingers" when you need it ?
No we don't. Standing all day long moving my arms every single time I want to interact with a system is not how I prefer to use a computer.
Sitting in a comfortable chair, with a table set at the right inclination, a good, responsive keyboard and a wireless mouse is how I prefer working on a computer.
The 200" screen, however, I would like.
And I love how people hate Steam, yet go on and buy Battlefield 3. Great logic there, people !
For me, Steam is the way to go. It's practical, it's up-to-date, and it's often cheap (if you wait for the deals to appear).
I am sick of disc checks and other such DRM shenanigans. I have accepted the fact that I will be checked if I like it or not, so I might as well use a system where the checking is transparent to me. With Steam, it is.
Additionally, Steam gives me access to many titles I do not see in stores. Have you seen the size of the PC aisle of game stores these days ? Pitiful. I know consoles are very common, but looking at a game selection aisle would make you think that PCs are the Linux of the game community.
They are not.
In any case, I game on PC, and Steam is a good platform to work with. Large game selection, many recent titles, some exclusives. Plus, guess what ? If my PC fails for some reason, all I need to do is port my Steam hard disk to another PC and it starts up fine.
Try doing that with the EA downloader and cry your eyes out.
Because all the new "engineers" enamoured with Web 2.Oh forgot the groundwork that made it all possible and went for the flashy stuff.
Now that we've all had our decade of style over substance, it just might be that people - and maybe even managers - are starting to realize that making things easier for developers is not just a fringe benefit, but can actually create new and more powerful applications.
And we're at this point because managers are not developers and haven't been paying enough attention to what their devs have been saying. After all, up to now, an API was just wasted company resources - not something worthy of being put in an attention-grabbing PowerPoint presentation.
I'm sure their clients will value that excuse greatly.
By the way, does this mean that Stratfor is inclined to use faith-based protection ? Because I wonder if that line of defense would hold up in court. Somehow, I am inclined to think not.
If there is a written agreement between the media cartel and the subjects of the research specifying that nothing the subjects can do will be the subject of a lawsuit during the length of the study, then the law will not be brought into the equation.
Simple as that.
As long as murder is not involved, of course.
I am sick to death of being forced to watch that stupid FBI warning.
HEY MORONS ! IF I SEE YOUR WARNING, IT'S BECAUSE I PAID FOR THE DISK !!
Do they really think that their bloody warning will be kept by pirates ?
Not counting the idiots that make film trailers mandatory before being able to watch the film. Yeah, as if six years after the DVD has been sold I'll still be interested in trailers for films that I either have the DVD for, or have decided that I am totally not interested.
Still, could be good for some laughs (hey, remember that turkey ? Man was that film stupid !).
But no. These days I buy my DVDs when I'm interested, and rip the film to keep only the film. That way I can watch what I want, when I want, which is something I find perfectly normal to do in my own house.
In reality, though, the cash-strapped are less guilty of thieving than one would think, and if they do start stealing, it will be to acquire things they actually need, not useless stuff they can do without.
I think that the people most guilty of copyright infringement are people who could very well pay for it, but choose not to for various reasons (some that can actually be valid from their point of view).
After all, we're not talking about survival here, but about entertainment. When you've reached that level of preoccupation, you've most likely done away with more basic issues like where do you sleep and do you have enough to eat.
I know some expensive magazines tend to think it makes them more intellectual or something, but really it is nothing more than a nuisance and a distraction.
Especially when the quote inside has absolutely no relevance whatsoever to the text that is currently being read.
If you really have to keep using those stupid mid-article boxes, at least use them as they are supposed to be used, i.e. to make an underline a phrase that correctly summarizes the current section of the article.
For example, a more interesting sentence would have been "Connecting via the PCIe-based SCSI Express standard is consistent with Fusion’s cut-through architecture".
But really, I would prefer that it disappears. It is not standard Reg layout and it is not something I like seeing.
I will not accept having a digital cop watching my every move any more than I would accept having a real cop in my house watching my every move.
I am more than fed up with these companies that act as if they have the right to police me in my own home just because they create themselves the means to do so.
I will not buy anything with any sort of DRM tech if I can avoid it. I have already decided on a total boycott of Sony products, and if I have to wait for a noname Chinese knock-off to get performance and freedom, then I will do so.
No one has the right to impose anything on me in my own house, period.
And soon we will see the heat bloom of the subterranean energy source that will revive the alien life-form contained within before re-orienting the comet's course to collide with Earth so as to start the second phase of the infestation.
Now we know why the Mayans didn't bother counting beyond 2012.
It's all true !! Run for the . . . oh wait, that'll be useless anyways.
Oh well, better stock up on champagne then, in order to get ripped to shreds in style.
Especially in an enterprise environment.
With terabyte disks available now (generally speaking - the tsunami effect will not last), one would think that all IT departments have stuffed their servers with disk space.
That is not true, unfortunately. For some strange reason, enterprise servers are still quite often choking from mailbox mismanagement and small disk sizes.
Must have something to do with the fact that server-grade disks are held to much higher reliability and I/O throughput than basic consumer disks and thus more expensive in cost per GB.
That, plus the fact that IT is still viewed as a cost center, makes enterprise servers the red-headed stepchild in disk space availability.
On my personal PC, I have no less than 2 disks with 2TB each, plus four other disks for a total of over 5TB of storage space.
I know for a fact that there are a few companies not far from where I live that employ several hundred people and they have far less storage available on their mail server (think 300GB max).
But my disks are not RAID, or SCSI, nor are they high-throughput parity-checking error-correcting disks. They are just high-capacity consumer-grade disks and I was crazy enough to buy that kind of storage for myself.
My money, my choice. Company IT departments do not have that kind of freedom.
The phone was reported a stolen and deactivated, yet it could still connect to the network and send/receive messages ?
What's the use of deactivating the bloody thing then ?
I thought that, when you report your phone as stolen, the phone network operators would refuse connections from that phone. That should mean that, even if the phone is not wiped, it is nothing more than a shiny brick with a screen.
If that is not the case, then what deterrent is there to make the thief's activity useless ?
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