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Disorganization?
Everything tagged "beta?"

Welcome to Google.

Have you released a product today?

I like the idea that I have free speech, but it's nothing but a nice sentiment. Free speech is a right, but I can't enforce it. Slander and defamation are crimes, even when they're true (or rather, especially when they're true), so speech is never free. As long as you can be sued for slander, you don't have free speech. I could go on with a rant about everything wrong with the world, specifically Australia, and our legal system, but I'll stop before I do that...

it was released today

I don't even see the scribbles anymore.
All I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead...

Java's well organized, has a great standard library and is (mostly) consistent with itself. Its only problems, as far as I can see, was that it was initially slow and that it marketed itself as a web language, when there were better choices for that.

Disclaimer: I've only coded in Java since 1.5.

Let's see ... if you can buy a UAV or overrun the control station, then you can target anyone within the fuel range. You can easily crash into an airliner in takeoff, killing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. You cane easily spread chemical weapons, not so easy, but quite plausibly.

And that's the bullshit security implications. More importantly, though, you'll have unseeing devices sharing airspace with pink squishy things that won't see them (like me). UAV's, by nature, are generally smaller then manned aircraft. That makes them very difficult to see.

Consider the glider pilot. Let's say that he has a transponder. He's not required to, but he does. His transponder fails. Now, he's invisible to the the UAV. His airplane is painted the same color as the clouds (white) because fiberglass and heat don't work well together. His fiberglass airplane is invisible to radar. if the UAV's coming out of the sun, he's never going to see it, and it won't see him. A person would have seen him, but the UAV doesn't have a person looking out all the windows.

How does the military do it? We block off huge chunks of airspace and keep manned aircraft far away from the UAV's. Oh yeah, and the larger UAV's are driven by certified pilots. The Army has folsk who aren't pilots flying the,m, and crashes a *LOT* of them. The idea of joe cop flying a UAV is bad in every imaginable way. People on the ground, people in the air, privacy, it's just a can of worms.

And black people are more prone to rob a store or do drugs than white people (if you think the prison populations are a good indicator). Let's just proactively lock them up, too.

Scott R. writes "From SciAm.com — Ophthalmologists, optometrists and other eye professionals note a seeming link between myopia, also called nearsightedness, and "near work" — visual activities that take place at a distance of about 40 centimeters (16 inches) from the eye — such as reading a book. Staring at a computer screen qualifies as well, though monitors usually are around 50 centimeters (20 inches) away. But only a small — and mysterious — subset of people see myopic progression from near work, whether they are focusing on a computer or accounting books. The fact that near work doesn't lead to myopia in all of us, however, doesn't mean sitting close to a computer screen causes no problems. Though for most it is not permanently damaging, computer near work leads to an uncomfortable, at times debilitating, list of symptoms collectively known as eyestrain."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa029&articleID=1B4A177C-E7F2-99DF-3FEE777FCBAAC790

An anonymous reader writes "Intel has been awarded three optoelectronics patents, InfoWeek reports. They're apparently related to the prototypes it demonstrated in September of a working silcon-laser modulator-demodulator which can support a communication link of 40 Gigabits per second. This is sigificant because copper wire links top out at about 20 Gbps. With the patents, Intel may have locked up business rights to the technology. While this stuff is very important for low-latency interprocessor communications in the hundred-processor servers which will soon be common, it's more likely to have immediate use in fiber-optic communications systems and the story speculates that Intel may finally be on the verge of the first big successful market its found outside of microprocessors since the old DRAM days."

An anonymous reader writes "Colbert (from the Colbert Report) has announced his candidacy for U.S. President. In a world where the economy is not up to par, the U.S. is engaged in at least two major military conflicts, the real state market is collapsing, and there is a distinct possibility that global warming is for real; are we ready to break from the norm and pursue an alternative candidate? And if he were to win, would that be a strong comment towards the need to break the status quo?"
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/index.jhtml

knithx writes "The Linux Vault is a new wiki project founded with the mission of creating a centralized GNU/Linux information website. It has been just created, so we are begging everybody to take part of it and make it the place for writing guides, HOW-TO's, configurations, administration tips, tricks, tweaks or whatever else related to the GNU/Linux system.

URL: http://www.thelinuxvault.net/"
http://www.thelinuxvault.net/

Mouse mammary glands deficient in PPAR, a nuclear receptor that regulates the storage of fat, produce toxic milk that causes inflammation and baldness in suckling pups, report scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. "We were quite surprised by the unexpected quality control mechanism that ensures the quality of breast milk," says Ronald M. Evans, Ph.D., professor in the Salk Institute's Gene Expression Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. "Our finding explains why breast milk is always clean and healthful, even when there's a lot of inflammation going on in the mother's body," he adds.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070902204430.htm

Windows Vista SP1 Beta Due In Two Weeks By: William Johnson

Today, Microsoft released some new information on forthcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta and what fixes will be available in the final release. In addition, Microsoft also said that the Windows Vista SP1 Betawill bemade available to about 10,000 pre-selectedtesters in the coming weeks ahead. Accordingly, Microsoft also said today that it plans on shipping the final version of Windows Vista SP1 by June of 2008 (or by the end of the first quarter in 2008) and it will then start shipping updated retail versions of the product at that time to include the service pack.

What updates and new features will Windows Vista SP1contain?First, Windows Vista SP1 will include all of the previously released updates for Windows Vista. It will also include new security, reliability and performance improvements. These improvements mark what Microsoftidentified as the mostcommon causes for system crashes and hangs. The updates willgive consumers a more reliable experience andalso improve performance in key scenarios for examplecopying files (whether it's over the network or from hard drive to hard drive)or shutting down your computer.

Firstly, Windows Vista SP1 will include updates in the aforementioned areas (Security, Reliability, and performance) andthe following will describe the improvements that will be included in the first service pack.

Security

Security improvements that will be in Windows Vista SP1 include:

• Provides security software vendors a more secure way to communicate with Windows Security Center.
• Includes application programming interfaces (APIs) by which third-party security and malicious software detection applications can work with kernel patch protection on x64 versions of Windows Vista. These APIs help ISVs develop software that extends the functionality of the Windows kernel on x64 computers without disabling or weakening the protection offered by kernel patch protection.
• Improves the security of running RemoteApp programs and desktops by allowing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) files to be signed. Customers can differentiate user experiences based on publisher identity.
• Adds an Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) to the list of available PRNGs in Windows Vista.
• Enhances BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) to offer an additional multifactor authentication method that combines a key protected by the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) with a Startup key stored on a USB storage device and a user-generated personal identification number (PIN).

Reliability

Windows Vista SP1 will include improvements that target some of the most common causes of crashes and hangs, giving users a more consistent experience. Many of these improvements will specifically address issues identified from the Windows Error Reporting tool. The following list describes some of the reliability improvements that Windows Vista SP1 will include:

• Improved reliability and compatibility of Windows Vista when used with newer graphics cards in several specific scenarios and configurations.
• Improved reliability when working with external displays on a laptop.
• Improved Windows Vista reliability in networking configuration scenarios.
• Improved reliability of systems that were upgraded from Windows XP to Windows Vista.
• Increased compatibility with many printer drivers.
• Increased reliability and performance of Windows Vista when entering sleep and resuming from sleep.

Performance

The following list describes some of the performance improvements that Windows Vista SP1 will include:

• Improves the speed of copying and extracting files.
• Improves the time to become active from Hibernate and Resume modes.
• Improves the performance of domain-joined PCs when operating off the domain; in the current release version of Windows Vista, users would experience long delays when opening the File dialog box.
• Improves performance of Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 in Windows Vista, reducing CPU utilization and speeding JavaScript parsing.
• Improves battery life by reducing CPU utilization by not redrawing the screen as frequently, on certain computers.
• Improves the logon experience by removing the occasional 10-second delay between pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL and the password prompt displaying.
• Addresses an issue in the current version of Windows Vista that makes browsing network file shares consume significant bandwidth and not perform as fast as expected.

Now, from an administration experience many of the changes included in SP1 will improve the deployment, management and support experience for Windows Vista customers. The following will give better detail as to what these updates attain to.

Administration Experience

• BitLocker Drive Encryption encrypts extra local volumes. For example, instead of encrypting only drive C, customers can also encrypt drive D, E, and so on.
• Addresses problems with printing to local printers from a Windows® Terminal Services session.
• The Network Diagnostics tool will help customers solve the most common file sharing problems, in addition to the basic problems that it already diagnoses.
• Administrators can control the volumes on which to run Disk Defragmenter.

In addition to these changes, Windows Vista SP1 will change the tools that customers use to manage Group Policy. Administrators requested features in Group Policy that simplify policy management. To do this, the service pack will uninstall the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) and GPEdit.msc will edit local Group Policy by default. In the SP1 timeframe, administrators can download an out-of-band release that will give them the ability to add comments to Group Policy Objects (GPOs) or individual settings and search for specific settings.

In conclusion, if you would like to learn more about Windows Vista SP1 I encourage you to take a look at the Windows Vista SP1 Whitepaperwhich is posted over at the Windows Vista Team Blog.

Source: The Windows Blog