JorgeA Posted August 6, 2013 Author Posted August 6, 2013 No. The US sticker would be either of:"It is an offence under Federal law to use this toilet model as a toilet."or:"The Surgeon General has determined that the use of this novelty item as a toilet may not be compliant with section §118.24 of the Safety and Health Code"http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158485-international-translations-of-common-signs/ jaclaz, on 06 Aug 2013 - 11:46 AM, said:P.S.: As a side note (and to keep the post not too much Off Topic) see the actual "Release note" of the newish "IE test VM's" here:http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloadsQuoteThe Microsoft Software License Terms for the IE VMs are included in the release notes and supersede any conflicting Windows license terms included in the VMs.By downloading and using this software, you agree to these license terms.https://modernievirt.blob.core.windows.net/vhd/virtualmachine_instructions_2013-07-22.pdfAt least TWO Bachelor of Laws (of which at least one at Harvard) are needed to have even a faint idea of what actual License clause apply to what and which terms are conflicting (and are thus superseded). --JorgeA
JorgeA Posted August 6, 2013 Author Posted August 6, 2013 (edited) Uh-oh, it looks like the NSA has found a way to discover users of Tor:Attackers wield Firefox exploit to uncloak anonymous Tor usersAttackers exploited a recently patched vulnerability in the Firefox browser to uncloak users of the Tor anonymity service, and the attack code is now publicly circulating online. While the exploit was most likely designed to identify people alleged to have frequented a child p**n forum recently targeted by the FBI, anonymity advocates say the code could be used against almost any Tor user.A piece of malicious JavaScript was found embedded in webpages delivered by Freedom Hosting, a provider of "hidden services" that are available only to people surfing anonymously through Tor. The attack code exploited a memory-management vulnerability, forcing Firefox to send a unique identifier to a third-party server using a public IP address that can be linked back to the person's ISP. The exploit contained several hallmarks of professional malware development, including "heap spraying" techniques to bypass Windows security protections and the loading of executable code that prompted compromised machines to send the identifying information to a server located in Virginia, according to an analysis by researcher Vlad Tsrklevich.I wonder how they managed to place that piece of malicious JavaScript on the website.Update: Researchers say Tor-targeted malware phoned home to NSAMalware planted on the servers of Freedom Hosting—the "hidden service" hosting provider on the Tor anonymized network brought down late last week—may have de-anonymized visitors to the sites running on that service. This issue could send identifying information about site visitors to an Internet Protocol address that was hard-coded into the script the malware injected into browsers. And it appears the IP address in question belongs to the National Security Agency (NSA).--JorgeA Edited August 6, 2013 by JorgeA
jaclaz Posted August 6, 2013 Posted August 6, 2013 Oww, come on : http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/researchers-say-tor-targeted-malware-phoned-home-to-nsa/ "One researcher contacted us and said, 'Here's the Robotex info. Forget that you heard it from me,'" said a member of Baneki who requested he not be identified. Hmmm. A personal e-mail sent to the researcher has mysteriously leaked : Re:RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! Dear researcher, are you sure that you are a researcher in security? I personally have some doubts, otherwise you would have realized how by merely contacting Baneki and/or by having ever being a member of it, or even having sent them a single e-mail/whatsup message and/or even made a single phone call (actually by just searching for their phone number or e-mail address) you triggered our highly technological monitoring software, so that we do now know perfectly well who you are, what you do, and even last time you brought your puppy to the vet. Unfortunately, I suspect that the vet is wrong, I have checked his database and that poor little dog does not seemingly suffer from Canine parvovirus and the cure he gave it is thus ineffective. I wouldn't have bothered to write you if I wasn't seriously preoccupied by the consequences of that cure, you might be wanting to consult another specialist, as soon as possible, for a second opinion. I do love puppies. Yours faithfully, Kilroy Rogers NSA Special Monitoring Officer (excuse me if I don't sign with my real name, but I am sure you understand the reasons). jaclaz
JorgeA Posted August 7, 2013 Author Posted August 7, 2013 (edited) Paul Thurrott has reissued a backgrounder on a version of Windows that was never released, called "Neptune."Check out the old screenshots. The similarity to Windows 8 Metro, in both look and concept, is uncanny. Bear in mind that this was like 14 years ago.It would appear that the Insanity Faction within Microsoft has been busy trying to ruin Windows since the turn of the millennium. They were successfully suppressed for more than a decade and then, for reasons that we might speculate on, finally overcame the level-headed opposition and imposed their Metro madness.Note (above) the amazing resemblance to Metro style, including the flat visual design and even the back and forward arrows in the top left.Not a Start Menu, but a "Start Page." Hmmmm...From a high level, Neptune was all about simplicity, and a sort of user experience “dumbing down” that we now see realized in the touch-based Metro interface in Windows 8. If you could operate a home appliance, then you would be able to operate Neptune.[...]Neptune would include a search engine—shades of Windows 8.1!—that would “look for the information everywhere: Your PC, The PC at work and the Internet.”...More explanation and graphics on the linked page. A fascinating historical recap. It shows how lucky we've been to dodge this idea for so long.Of course, there's the obligatory 'tard at the end of the comments section who wishes they'd gone this route long ago...--JorgeAP.S. Yes, I know that some of the shots say "Windows Millennium." Paul explains why in his post. Edited August 7, 2013 by JorgeA
jaclaz Posted August 7, 2013 Posted August 7, 2013 Well, as usual Paul Thurrott is somehow mis-representing reality.I do remember the leaked version of Neptune.But it must be "placed" in the exact time period.There was an aging OS/Platform, which was DOS/Win9x, targeted to the home user and the gamer and a newish (strangely excellent) brand new platform, which was NT.NT is/was such a good thing that it still lives today in each and every MS released OS, I will repeat how a not-trivial part of my personal knowledge on 2K, XP, Vista , 7 and now 8/8.1 comes from the experiemce made on NT 3.5 and 4.0 (the OS still basically the same or at least uses the same - sometimes perveted - mechanisms).The idea at the time was evidently that since the "home PC" had now enough "power" to run the (much more demanding) NT, to unify the two families (BTW senselessly forcing upon home users a number of features only suited to business) and save money (for development and support).This is what was later done with XP, managing in one single move to have all the "business" users disgruntled by it's playful looks (when compared to good ol' NT 4.00 and 2K) and all the home users disgruntled by the all new complexity (when compared to 9x/Me).No surprise that they tried somehow to provide an easier interface to the complex system beneath, but the screenshot Thurrott provides are deceiving in the sense that the actual Neptune was all in all a "plain" 2K with some bells and whistles added (not completely unlike what XP later was) and nothing of any relevance or "revolutionary" in the UI was actually changed.Check these series of Neptune screenshots:http://neosmart.net/gallery/album/view/os/Neptune/try to tell me that you can distinguish at first sight them from a 2K or an XP.Now re-read what the now evidently aging Paul Thurrott wrote at the time:http://web.archive.org/web/20010828175222/http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp_gold.aspA purported Neptune user interface study was revealed by John C. Dvorak in February 1999. Dvorak said that he had received a slew of screenshots--actually PowerPoint slides--from a Microsoft developer which supposedly showed off the interface for the next consumer Windows. Not Neptune, but an interesting Activity Center design studyMicrosoft finally admitted that the images did come from within the company but that they were never intended to be the final UI. Instead, it was just a study to see what a task-based Windows interface might look like. "There are hundreds of these types of plans that go around Microsoft every day," Microsoft Windows Group Product Manager Rob Bennett said that February. "Nothing has been decided for the next major consumer version of Windows based on NT. The thing is more of a disservice to customers at this point because it doesn't represent something they can realize the benefits of today."It was "fluff" in 1999, it remained "fluff" in 2001, now besides remaining "fluff" it becomes misinformation! You will appreciate the kind of misinformation that can derive through the leak of a bunch of Powerpoint slides (which curiously re-connects us with the the recent Snowden case, of which all we have seen are a handful of - BTW lousy - Powerpoint slides).I have always argued that PowerPoint (actually the decerebrated people using it) is actually the root of all evil, and this is nothing but the nth confirnmation of this.jaclaz
Kelsenellenelvian Posted August 7, 2013 Posted August 7, 2013 I have Neptune do you want a set of screens?
Tripredacus Posted August 7, 2013 Posted August 7, 2013 I have Neptune do you want a set of screens?A topic in the beta forum and a link to it from a post in this thread would be neat.
CharlotteTheHarlot Posted August 7, 2013 Posted August 7, 2013 I have Neptune do you want a set of screens? I would like to see them also. Can you confirm that the 2nd and 4th screenshot that Jorge reposted above from Thurrott are from that build? I mean the Quasi-Metro "chrome" from the charms bar and bottom navigation that appears in the top of those shots ... ... It reminds of something else but I can't quite zero in on it. Maybe Encarta or Maps'n'Trips or something like that.
JorgeA Posted August 7, 2013 Author Posted August 7, 2013 It was "fluff" in 1999, it remained "fluff" in 2001, now besides remaining "fluff" it becomes misinformation! Hmm... Check out this excerpt from the Thurott article that you linked to from the WayBack Machine:Microsoft had originally intended for Millennium to be at the center of its aborted "EasyPC" initiative, but that 9x-based OS wasn't up to the task. So Neptune's primary feature-set--a task-based UI with deep digital media integration--was in jeopardy.That makes it sound like there was more substance to the project than simply a "study." And besides, why do we trust what some MSFT manager said back then about it being just a study, any more than we trust today's MSFT managers? For more details on this "task-based UI," see this article:Activity Centers PreviewIn early 1999, Microsoft began work on a new user interface paradigm for Windows, dubbed "Activity Centers," that is designed to facilitate a task-based approach to personal computing. Though a large number of Activity Centers were originally slated for inclusion in Windows Millennium Edition ("Windows Me", see my review of Beta 3), Microsoft quickly realized that it would need to scale back these plans due to problems implementing the feature, which is based on a melding of the traditional Win32 API and HTML. So though Windows Me includes a couple of Activity Centers (Help & Support and System Restore), it won't be until the Whistler release (see my exclusive Preview), due in Q2 2000, that Microsoft will fully realize the Activity Centers vision (see my introduction to Activity Centers for more information). (Originally, the company planned for this feature to appear in "Neptune"--as seen in this design mockup, courtesy of ActiveWin--but that project was scrapped in lieu of Whistler.) This showcase focuses on Microsoft's internal design goals for Activity Centers and provides a preview of the functionality we'll see somewhat in Windows Me, but more fully next year in Whistler.And see the screenshots that come with that article. (As we know, this "Activity Centers" concept ultimately didn't make it into the final release of Whistler/XP, at least not as the dominant paradigm.)Regardless of what we think about how serious the idea was back then, ihis is all very interesting history, showing that there's not all that much that's modern about today's "Modern" UI.It would be interesting if you, or someone else with the technical background and/or historical knowledge, were to post your issues in Paul's comments section: when he comes back from vacation, maybe we could get him to clarify the question of exactly how serious that proto-Metro project was, and whether the concepts represented by those PowePoint slides were actually implemented in any OS build back then.--JorgeA
Aero7x64 Posted August 7, 2013 Posted August 7, 2013 (edited) It is strange that Windows 8 UI is called Modern UI by Microsoft while it is against everything modern design is supposed to be. It feels more like Windows 2.0 UI just with bit more colors and of course it is not 16 bit. Good question is that why would somebody with modern desktop PC want UI like that. Of course it could be option for those that like minimalistic design but it should not be default and only option. It is not 1987 anymore and even then flat was only used because hardware was too weak to better interface. Definitely Aero is modern and Modern UI look oldish Edited August 7, 2013 by Aero7x64
jaclaz Posted August 7, 2013 Posted August 7, 2013 I will try being more explicit.Those screenshots DO NOT COME from Neptune.They are Powerpoint slides that Dvorak said he received in first part of 1999 <- read this date and remember it..These static images were supposed to be some future improvements of the GUI that would have been available in next release (Neptune).When Neptune actually leaked (the real Neptune, near the end of the year 1999, Build 5.50.5111) it was clear how NOTHING of the contents of the previously published static images (the 2nd and 4th Charlotte mentioned) was in it:http://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?title=Windows:Neptunehttp://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?title=Windows%3ANeptune%3A5111.1Activity CentersActivity Centers are single window applications, written in a combination of HTML and the Win32 API, that facilitate easy ways to complete common tasks. However, by the release of Windows Millennium Beta 1 in the fall of 1999, it was clear that the underlying Activity Center technology wasn't going to be far enough along to provide the needed HTML hooks into the traditional Win32 interface, so plans where scaled back dramaticly, that Microsoft cancelled Photo Center, Gaming Activity Center and the Home Networking Configuration Center before ever releasing them publicly to testers.ONLY the "main" Activity Center (which was however some further abomination of "Active Desktop") :http://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php?title=File%3AActivitycenter_5.5.5111.jpgwas actually part of the build.What was published was something evidently part of an experiment that NEVER made it to Neptune.The fact that Neptune was anyway abandoned in favour of "Whistler" is another story.Now, think about it a bit.We have a gigantic corporation, which business is (or should be) writing Operating Systems (and nowadays and since 20 years Operating Systems with GUI). Don' t you think very plausible that there were tens, hundreds, thousands of experiments, tentative designs and what not and that most of them were abandoned in these twenty years?jaclaz
JorgeA Posted August 7, 2013 Author Posted August 7, 2013 Now, think about it a bit.We have a gigantic corporation, which business is (or should be) writing Operating Systems (and nowadays and since 20 years Operating Systems with GUI). Don' t you think very plausible that there were tens, hundreds, thousands of experiments, tentative designs and what not and that most of them were abandoned in these twenty years?Sure. For me, the main thing I'm deriving from Thurrott's presentation(s) is that the "Modern UI" concept isn't really all that new, we can see it in those old images. Evidently the idea's been around within Microsoft for (at least) some 14 years, and for whatever terrible reason it finally saw the light of day with Windows 8. Like some city-flattening monster that was penned up for centuries but managed to break out of its sealed cave and is now running rampant, destroying everything in its path.As to whether this mutant UI made it into Neptune is (for me) a secondary consideration. I'd be curious to find out whether these PowerPoint slides are actually screenshots from some (any) experimental Windows OS (Neptune or otherwise), or whether they're simply mockups that were created right on PowerPoint, but this is strictly a secondary issue for me.--JorgeA
JorgeA Posted August 7, 2013 Author Posted August 7, 2013 It is strange that Windows 8 UI is called Modern UI by Microsoft while it is against everything modern design is supposed to be. It feels more like Windows 2.0 UI just with bit more colors and of course it is not 16 bit. Good question is that why would somebody with modern desktop PC want UI like that. Of course it could be option for those that like minimalistic design but it should not be default and only option. It is not 1987 anymore and even then flat was only used because hardware was too weak to better interface. Definitely Aero is modern and Modern UI look oldishI agree with everything you wrote in there!Hmm, maybe this "Modern" UI actually got its start during that Windows 2.0 era, but then was sidetracked as PC graphics became powerful enough to display 3D-type elements like buttons, such as what we started to see in Windows 3. Would be fascinating to know if those 1999 slides reflect ideas that were already being kicked around in, say, 1988.--JorgeA
Formfiller Posted August 8, 2013 Posted August 8, 2013 The modern disease spreads:http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2722493Guy who designed the new logo:http://blog.seanmartell.com/2013/06/27/rebuilding-a-simplified-firefox-logo/Notice the metro look on that site. it even has a swipe function! (The "cell" on the left side)
Tripredacus Posted August 8, 2013 Posted August 8, 2013 Yahoo had announced a new logo as well. Some version is shown here:http://gizmodo.com/yahoo-is-changing-its-logo-but-its-not-this-one-or-s-1050513519But that isn't what I'm seeing it as Yahoo already has a new logo in the Fantasy section at least.http://l.yimg.com/rz/l/yahoo_sports_en-US_f_pw_119x34_2x.pngNOT IMPRESSED!
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