Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[jaclaz]

Let's talk seriously for one moment.

I pay a service by means of a yearly (payed in advance) fee.

Then the provider decides (please mind the meaning of the verb, it is not "was forced to" or "the Devil made he do it" or "world financial crises caused", it's "decides" ) to shut down the service, without warning and thus giving me no time to backup locally the whatever of value relevance he has been hosting.

AND he asks me to give him some more money for funding his defense about something he won't talk about in detail (this time very probably because he is not allowed to).

Then another service, decides preventively, to shut down as well without warning AND deletes all my contents he is hosting (in order to protect me).

Ordinarily, this would lead in no time to a Class Action Suit for breach of contract, asking for damages.

Imagine that you are a subscriber to (say) Disney Channel through Sky and Mr. Murdoch decides to shut down the satellites AND remotely deletes the movies you saved in your TV-HD boxes, he would additionally face charges of being mean to minors.

Or imagine that you have rented a storage box where you have put temporarily some of your possessions and the owner decides to shutdown the utility, empty all boxes, without giving you a suitable advance notice.

Just in the case of the MegaUpload, the actual victims are those customers that used the service lawfully and payed for a service that not only is abruptly stopped, but that also implies losing integrally - I presume a vast majority of users of those services are/were "legitimate" and were in perfect good faith trusting their data in the hands of such providers - your data.

Set apart the specific reasons, who's responsability it is, and what not, including privacy concerns, it is another good reason to NOT trust the cloud in any way, your data is stored *somewhere* (of which you know nothing) and *anything* (ADDITIONAL to "Acts of God" such as wars, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) can make it go poof in no time.

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

Pirate Bay Celebrates 10th Anniversary With The Pirate Browser ( Maximum PC 2013-08-11 )

The Pirate Bay releases 'PirateBrowser' to circumvent censorship ( TechSpot 2013-08-12 )

The Pirate Bay launches PirateBrowser', designed to avoid online censorship ( NeoWin 2013-08-13 )

It used to be pretty easy to figure out who wore the white hats and who wore the black hats. Anyone else seeing the difficulty now?

Reviews on this aren't good. First it doesn't have NoScript and it uses TOR. Running Torrents through TOR will slow down the service.

[jaclaz]

Reviews on this aren't good. First it doesn't have NoScript and it uses TOR. Running Torrents through TOR will slow down the service.

Also locking firearms into safes/special cases/lockers/etc. makes for a slower reaction in case of danger but increases security if you have other people in the house against accidental mishandling.

The word of the day is trade-off :

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trade-off

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Let's talk seriously for one moment.

I pay a service by means of a yearly (payed in advance) fee.

Then the provider decides (please mind the meaning of the verb, it is not "was forced to" or "the Devil made he do it" or "world financial crises caused", it's "decides" ) to shut down the service, without warning and thus giving me no time to backup locally the whatever of value relevance he has been hosting.

AND he asks me to give him some more money for funding his defense about something he won't talk about in detail (this time very probably because he is not allowed to).

Then another service, decides preventively, to shut down as well without warning AND deletes all my contents he is hosting (in order to protect me).

Ordinarily, this would lead in no time to a Class Action Suit for breach of contract, asking for damages.

Imagine that you are a subscriber to (say) Disney Channel through Sky and Mr. Murdoch decides to shut down the satellites AND remotely deletes the movies you saved in your TV-HD boxes, he would additionally face charges of being mean to minors.

Or imagine that you have rented a storage box where you have put temporarily some of your possessions and the owner decides to shutdown the utility, empty all boxes, without giving you a suitable advance notice.

Just in the case of the MegaUpload, the actual victims are those customers that used the service lawfully and payed for a service that not only is abruptly stopped, but that also implies losing integrally - I presume a vast majority of users of those services are/were "legitimate" and were in perfect good faith trusting their data in the hands of such providers - your data.

Set apart the specific reasons, who's responsability it is, and what not, including privacy concerns, it is another good reason to NOT trust the cloud in any way, your data is stored *somewhere* (of which you know nothing) and *anything* (ADDITIONAL to "Acts of God" such as wars, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) can make it go poof in no time.

I get your drift. Personally I think the cloud with respect to storage privacy is over, toast, kaput. My idea of a wise use of the "cloud" is only for stuff I don't mind losing, nothing private, and in fact best used for stuff to be publicly displayed like funny images on Imgur. No private photos, nothing with EXIF or telltale iinformation obviously.

The links I keep posting for Mega and Pirate Bay ( so far, hopefully more to come ) are getting into something new. And judging from the shutdowns we have recently seen they may be the only folks working on this - secure P2P communication, stuff that is temporary and never stored ( or stored undetectably ). So yeah, forget the cloud storage aspects and let's see if progress on secure P2P picks up again.

The concept of two people securely communicating is the worst nightmare of all governments and their agents. That's why this is going to be difficult. I think they will stop at nothing to prevent it's development and use. This is the bane of government, people talking behind their backs, plotting to "destroy" them, or even just voting them out. They cannot have that.

And to think we used to make fun of 3rd world dictators for preserving their own power.

[JorgeA]

Pirate Bay Celebrates 10th Anniversary With The Pirate Browser ( Maximum PC 2013-08-11 )

The Pirate Bay releases 'PirateBrowser' to circumvent censorship ( TechSpot 2013-08-12 )

The Pirate Bay launches PirateBrowser', designed to avoid online censorship ( NeoWin 2013-08-13 )

It used to be pretty easy to figure out who wore the white hats and who wore the black hats. Anyone else seeing the difficulty now?

<raising hand>

Although I'm not sure that I'd want to go surfing the Web on a browser that identified itself as "Pirate Browser." Couldn't that start setting off all sorts of alarm bells on every site I visited? Unless the idea were to use it only for "sensitive" surfing.

Stores Tracking Shoppers Using Phone Wi-Fi Signals ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-12 )

UK Firm Tracking Users' Cell Phone Choices via Trashcans ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-12 )

London Calls for Smartbins to Stop Collecting Data ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-13 )

Nothing to see here, move along! Sniffing smartphones, kinda like Google sniffing access points. As one commenter pointed out, governments hate competition which is the only explanation for the hypocrisy of getting worked up over Google and others doing what they are already engaged in. It's a brave new world.

[emphasis added]

BTW, wasn't there a way, in the old forum software, to give several quotes separately from the same post and have them all properly atttributed and formatted? (Not happening in the second quote above.)

--JorgeA

Edited August 14, 2013 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

IDC says sales of touchscreen laptops were overestimated ( TechSpot 2013-08-12 )

IDC: Sales of touchscreen laptops to be lower than expected in 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-08-12 )

Microsoft May Have Overestimated Demand for Touchscreen Laptops ( Maximum PC 2013-08-13 )

According to Computerworld, IDC originally estimated that between 17% and 18% of all notebooks released this year would feature touch interfaces. Furthermore, Acer president Jim Wong also made an optimistic forecast in May, stating that up to 35% of his companys notebooks would sport touchscreens before 2013 came to a close.

But these predictions have failed to come true, as buyers are steering clear of the higher prices associated with touch-enabled laptops. To put things into perspective, the average touchscreen notebook retails between $700 and $800, while its classical counterparts can frequently sell for half this cost.

[...]

Based upon the criticisms discussed above, Bob ODonnell, an analyst with IDC, admits that the firms original forecast now appears to be quite an overestimate. That now looks to be too high, to be honest, added ODonnell, who reevaluated the figure to be between 10% and 15% of all laptop sales.

Well done analysts. Well we can't just blame them since they are working from a statistical disadvantage. Just imagine if Microsoft would release the truthful numbers for Surface and Windows 8. Then you might be able to get a really accurate analysis.

I suspect this is another case (like 3D televisions) where the manufacturers have gotten ahead of what the market wants. There's simply no compelling need for touch capability on a larger machine intended for serious use (in fact, the ergonomics make touch worse than the keyboard+mouse model). Add in the price premium for touch screens, and you've got a loser in your hands.

Dot MetroTard said:

Many fought back against the Start Button and Menu by saying there were no benefits to it, and it only confused people. There was quite a newsgroup discussion about it back in the day. I remember quite fondly how much my Dad swore against buying a new computer with 95 on it, until he agree that me and my brother needed our own.

Liar. There were discussions alright, mostly about what took them so long to release a 32-bit non-crashing mulitasking OS in the first place. Other discussions about PnP. This "big lie" is all about his mental rationalizations in order to deal with the worldwide outcry against the Playskool toy he so loves. He rationalizes that there must be some magic reason since he himself cannot possibly be wrong. That reason? Everyone else is afraid of change of course. But his lies are transparent because in other comments he talks of graduating college within the last couple of years making him about 22 years old now so he was around 4 years old when these alleged Windows 95 controversies occurred. This 'Tard never even saw USENET and is a classic generation Xbox baby. The sad thing about that generation is that their parents were so spoiling and irresponsible that they never taught them to tell the truth and never punished them for lies.

Yeah, this is a completely made-up memory. I was around back then, very active on CompuServe, and nobody was complaining about Windows 95 or the new Start Button/Menu. In fact, it was about as close to a consensus on the worth of a new Microsoft OS as I've ever seen.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Set apart the specific reasons, who's responsability it is, and what not, including privacy concerns, it is another good reason to NOT trust the cloud in any way, your data is stored *somewhere* (of which you know nothing) and *anything* (ADDITIONAL to "Acts of God" such as wars, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.) can make it go poof in no time.

A very cool trick! How did you do that?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

My idea of a wise use of the "cloud" is only for stuff I don't mind losing, nothing private, and in fact best used for stuff to be publicly displayed like funny images on Imgur. No private photos, nothing with EXIF or telltale iinformation obviously.

Amen

Which prompts for ....

A very cool trick! How did you do that?

I tricked someone else into doing it for me .

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/152748-custom-avatars-and-signatures/?p=1015549

in open violation of Karl Marx's theories about labour and it's exploitation

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

The links I keep posting for Mega and Pirate Bay ( so far, hopefully more to come ) are getting into something new. And judging from the shutdowns we have recently seen they may be the only folks working on this - secure P2P communication, stuff that is temporary and never stored ( or stored undetectably ). So yeah, forget the cloud storage aspects and let's see if progress on secure P2P picks up again.

How about these folks? (Either or both.) How do they fit into the scheme?

--JorgeA

[Tripredacus]

Explaining Microsoft Windows' evolution is simple [Kotaku]

http://kotaku.com/explaining-microsoft-windows-evolution-is-simple-1133538251

[jaclaz]

Explaining Microsoft Windows' evolution is simple [Kotaku]

http://kotaku.com/explaining-microsoft-windows-evolution-is-simple-1133538251

Exceptional! :

And the good part is that I like the "2000" house just like I did the actual OS, simple, effective and solid enough to stand a big bad wolf attack:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Little_Pigs

jaclaz

Edited August 14, 2013 by jaclaz

[TELVM]

(Sorry for quoting this way, I just refuse to deal with this ridiculous new interface)

<< Charlotte the Harlotte said >>

"... The concept of two people securely communicating is the worst nightmare of all governments and their agents. That's why this is going to be difficult. I think they will stop at nothing to prevent it's development and use. This is the bane of government, people talking behind their backs, plotting to "destroy" them, or even just voting them out. They cannot have that ..."

<<>>

Back in the nineties, when the internet was blooming, I was wondering "how comes they are allowing this?". The only logical answer was "for them, the 'benefits' must far outweigh the 'drawbacks', otherwise they'd shoot down this show in a fortnight".

What is the Matrix?: CONTROL

<< Charlotte the Harlotte said >>

"... And to think we used to make fun of 3rd world dictators for preserving their own power."

<<>>

Man I remember the times when the dissidents were fleeing from Russia and it was the USA who granted them assylum .

[jaclaz]

Man I remember the times when the dissidents were fleeing from Russia and it was the USA who granted them assylum .

Another VERY GOOD one! :

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

From the "water is wet" news department:

High PC prices hindering industry recovery, analysts say

You don't say!

More seriously, here's what they mean:

Samsung has launched an ATIV Book 9 Plus laptop with Intel's latest Haswell chip that will be available for US$1,400, but analysts said such sustained high prices for laptops and ultrabooks could hinder the recovery of the PC market.

PC shipments are already in a steady decline with the growing adoption of tablets, and buyers are not yet willing to pay a premium for machines with Microsoft's Windows 8, analysts said. Most of the new laptops with Haswell chips, including Toshiba's latest Satellite laptops, are priced above $800, and buyers at this point are only willing to pay a premium for Apple products.

"The thought that you can sell a $1,400 notebook is ridiculous. The mess is partly credited to Windows 8," said Roger Kay, president and principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates.

[...]

But in a slumping PC market, it defies logic that companies are rolling out expensive Windows 8 laptops.

"In their bones they don't get it," Kay said. "They refuse to deal with the reality of what's going on."

[emphasis added]

Of course, PC vendors aren't stupid. No doubt they would prefer to sell what people actually want to buy, whereas Microsoft in its attempt to leverage its near-monopoly status has been pushing them to put Windows 8 on their systems.

The brilliant engineering minds at MSFT would do well to study some economics. They're not like the government schools which can rip people off with impunity (and well-honed agitprop) for decade after decade. There ARE live alternatives out there, and it doesn't require a "majority" voting with their dollars to sink Ballmer & Co.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Stores Tracking Shoppers Using Phone Wi-Fi Signals ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-12 )

UK Firm Tracking Users' Cell Phone Choices via Trashcans ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-12 )

London Calls for Smartbins to Stop Collecting Data ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-13 )

Nothing to see here, move along! Sniffing smartphones, kinda like Google sniffing access points. As one commenter pointed out, governments hate competition which is the only explanation for the hypocrisy of getting worked up over Google and others doing what they are already engaged in. It's a brave new world.

Another reason to keep your smartphone off unless you need to make a call or expect one!

Slowly, the conditions for 1984 are being fulfilled:

(Sorry about the size.)

Here's another report on the topic.

--JorgeA