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Stories and comments across the archive that link to weekly.org.

Comments · 66

  1. Re:BeOS by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 2, Funny · on Fast-Booting OS for Usually-Off Appliance PCs?

    Sadly, perhaps the greatest legacy of BeOS is this little Zork spoof about writing a graphic driver.

  2. Re:Sued the customers, now sue the owners by nodwick · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Vonage Vows to Pursue Customers Who Renege on IPO
    Re: vonage: there's nothing weird about sueing someone who breaches a contract (even a verbal contract) with you. Why would it matter that the contract is about share deals, or anything else?

    Can you imagine how the prospective buyers would react if the shares had shot up, and Vonage management had said that they'd decided to sell them at the higher price?

    If you want to become a stock market speculators, you have to learn to cope with the fact your going to be wrong sometimes, and suck up the loss you take.

    A lot of the complaints have centered around the really poor execution of the sale. Shares were supposed to be issued to the buyers at the IPO price immediately, so that buyers could then trade them on the first day. Instead, the underwriters screwed up their purchasing system so that buyers couldn't put stop-loss orders or sell their shares on the way down and limit their losses; instead, the computer system refused to accept sells and forced them to sit there watching the share price fall. Even worse, some buyers were initially told they weren't allocated shares, only to find out at the end of that day that they actually were given shares. (To extend your analogy, how would you feel about initially being told you wouldn't get any shares, then the price tanked, and THEN you were told that whoops, we made a mistake, and we're going to be selling you shares at a 12% markup to the current market price anyhow?)

    Note that IPO shares are typically priced slightly below what the company thinks the fair value is, in order to give the initial purchasers a good deal. The more paranoid (cynical?) have suggested that Vonage deliberately overpriced its shares and used its own customers to prop up its IPO price. Given that customer relations for the company weren't stellar to begin with (too many horror stories dealing with their staff), this is going to generate a lot more negative PR with both their current customer base and potential future customers.

  3. It's Horrible Leaving by dew · · Score: 5, Informative · on Ahead of IPO, Vonage Faces User Complaints

    I signed up for the Vonage service, tried it, didn't like it, tried to leave. I went through a bit of a nightmare trying to cancel the service and ended up needing to resort to the BBB. I wrote up the experience here: http://david.weekly.org/writings/vonage.php3 - apparently from the comments others have had similar experiences.

  4. A real world experience ... (very old BeOS story) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Coding is a Text Adventure

    http://david.weekly.org/writings/be-adventure.php3 /

  5. Re:Guess which console I want! by oGMo · · Score: 4, Informative · on PS3 On Track For Spring 2006
    I do hope history repeats itself, if they make good on the promises this time, like they did last, we're all in for a real treat.

    I'd like to add some detail to this. There are two big myths regarding PS2 pre-launch claims:

    1. Sony said the PS2 could render Toy Story in realtime
    2. The Final Fantasy 8 demo was faked, and we haven't seen anything like it on the PS2 to date

    The first myth is wrong; Sony never said this. If you don't believe me, try and find a quote, from a Sony spokesperson, that says this. Given all the articles are still on the web, this should be fairly easy to do, if this is true. However, it's fairly easy to find quotes from Microsoft spokespeople, like Bill Gates, that the XBOX would have "Toy Story quality graphics" (this particular case is from CES 2001).

    The second myth is a result of people being wowed by realtime graphics that blew away the current stuff, and forgetting how crappy the graphics at the time were. Here are two screenshots I managed to find from the FF8 tech demo:

    Decent. Way better than the PS1. (Note, in that screenshot, only the characters are 3D, the background is prerendered.) However, the original FMV was still far superior:

    Now, regardless, the claim is that the original demo was faked, and they haven't matched the quality. You be the judge:

    Most of these are at least as good, if not better than the screenshots for the FF8 demo, and most of them are early to mid PS2 games. There are many more examples, but this is enough to compare.

  6. Another "IPv6 won't be here soon" article... by tcopeland · · Score: 4, Informative · on MIT Technology Review Slams IPv6

    ...by David Weekly can be found here.

    Good summary of CIDR and NATing adoption, too.

  7. Another "IPv6 won't be here soon" article... by tcopeland · · Score: 4, Informative · on MIT Technology Review Slams IPv6

    ...by David Weekly can be found here.

    Good summary of CIDR and NATing adoption, too.

  8. Here's how to write a graphic driver Infocom-style by absurd_spork · · Score: 3 · on Infocom's Dave Lebling Interviewed
    I know it's slightly offtopic, but there was a rather frustrated post once on a BeOS mailing list from a guy who had to write a graphic driver for BeOS and made an Infocom-style text adventure out of his rather frustrating experiences with it...

    Here's a small excerpt (Formatting is a bit cruddy):

    You are in a cube. In front of you is a 16" (visible) Sony monitor. In front of that is a Mitsumi keyboard and an unbranded mouse. Just to the right is a 266 MHz PC clone. The system is running a development version of BeOS R4.
    There is a graphics card here.
    There is a floppy disk here.
    There is a note from your boss here.
    There is a Hoberman sphere here.
    > INVENTORY
    You have a well-used satchel. Inside it are

    • A set of screwdrivers
    • A small telescope
    • A 16M laptop RAM module
    • A book on decorative knots
    • A PCMCIA Ethernet card
    • Last year's tax return
    • A 166 MHz Pentium laptop computer
    • A bottle of echinacea capsules
    • Hair sticks
    Your wallet contains $3200.
    > REPLACE KEYBOARD
    You put aside the amazingly cruddy Mitsumi keyboard and substitute your favorite AT&T keyboard.
    > PUT LAPTOP ON DESK
    The laptop is now on the desk.
    > READ NOTE
    "Write a driver for this card. We'd like it in time for R4 release."
    > EXAMINE GRAPHICS CARD
    You are evidently the proud owner of a Yoyodyne Monstra VelocElite-LX 128-3D-AGP graphics card.
    > INSERT CARD IN MACHINE
    The machine emits a curious and worrying noise.
    > TURN OFF MACHINE AND INSERT CARD
    The graphics card is now installed in the machine.
    > TURN ON MACHINE
    BeOS R4(devel) boots. You are looking at a gray scale desktop.
    > EXAMINE FLOPPY DISK
    The handwritten label reads, "Programming docs."
    >INSERT DISK AND PRINT DOCS
    Nothing happens.
    > INSERT DISK, MOUNT DISK, AND PRINT DOCS
    The drive spins for a moment, and the command prompt returns.
    > READ DOCS
    I see no docs here.
    > GO TO PRINTER AND GET DOCS
    The printer is out of paper.
    > PUT PAPER IN PRINTER
    There is no paper here.
    > STEAL PAPER FROM COPIER UPSTAIRS
    After installing the liberated paper in the printer, you print your docs.
  9. OS/X? by dew · · Score: 2 · on Aussie Bill Would Ban Hacking Tools, Virus Code
    I find it interesting to note that OS/X comes with an SSH (secure shell) server and client for encrypted connections; but further yet (and relevant to this article) it comes with a very pretty port scanner. That's right, each and every copy of OS/X could be illegal in Australia if scanners are made illegal. Hm. Wonder if Apple has the heads up on that?

    Further yet, is it illegal for you in the US to make available hacking tools to Australians? (Legislation is pushing that way, yes?) If not now, might it be soon?

    David E. Weekly

  10. More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts) by dew · · Score: 4 · on Adorable Little Linux Boxes
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  11. More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts) by dew · · Score: 4 · on Adorable Little Linux Boxes
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  12. More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts) by dew · · Score: 4 · on Adorable Little Linux Boxes
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  13. More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts) by dew · · Score: 4 · on Adorable Little Linux Boxes
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  14. More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts) by dew · · Score: 4 · on Adorable Little Linux Boxes
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  15. More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts) by dew · · Score: 4 · on Adorable Little Linux Boxes
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  16. More Pictures of the Cube (and its guts) by dew · · Score: 4 · on Adorable Little Linux Boxes
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  17. Bad "Users Plummeting" Article by dew · · Score: 2 · on Napster Signs Indie Deal
    It seems that Xavier doesn't understand that the number of users diplayed as being online in the Napster client is the number that are logged onto the current server. It wasn't the case that there were only 7000 people on the whole service when he wrote the article; there were 7000 people on the same server as him, which means that each Napster server was carrying about that many.

    Despite him getting his facts messed up, it is true that Napster usage has slacked off tremendously: a search for "funk" yielded no results on several servers a week ago, which I felt was a telling sign. There's no more funk in the system. Go home.

    [singing] ...the day / the music died...

    David E. Weekly

  18. Methodologies and Trust by dew · · Score: 5 · on IDC Analyst Dan Kusnetzky Explains the Numbers
    I can't believe this. We got ten questions to ask this guy and only one (question 5) is really about his methodology? C'mon people! It is vital that we drill these research firms that seem to periodically publish data out of their asses; to ask them how they get their numbers. Drill them on their statistical methodology. As a friend of mine once pointed out "if they can't tell you where they got their numbers from, they probably just asked their kid sister." People fall into a trap of trusting numbers. Note how Jupiter's numbers are always very precise but rarely ever accurate (e.g., "In 2010, 2,103,293,523 people will use cellular telephones.") - it's easy to trust these numbers, but it's pure, fanatical faith if the firms don't detail how they achieved their results.

    Could you imagine a scientific journal that only contained abstracts? It would be laughed at. The methodology is absolutely essential to understanding the trustworthiness of the data. There needs to be full disclosure of these procedures before they release their snippets into the media.

    Spreading unfounded information is as good as lying.

    David E. Weekly

  19. Fizzilla - Mozilla for OS/X - already 0.9.1+ by dew · · Score: 3 · on Mozilla 0.9.1 Out
    If any of you have OS/X and want to grab a version, get it fresh and hot from the fizzila page on mozilla.org. They've got a binary based on a post 0.9.1+ that seems pretty stable and pretty fast. It was taken from the trunk two days ago. Yay!

    David E. Weekly

  20. Napster's Already Dead. =( by dew · · Score: 2 · on Napster Going Legit
    I don't know if you noticed, but (among other queries) a search for "funk" on Napster returned zero hits. Napster is dead.

    The sad part is that Gnutella's not sufficiently useable to be a replacement, even on a 1.5 megabit line on a fast computer. And yes, I've tried just about every client out there (BearShare, ToadNode, Limewire, etc.) - while you can get some interesting content every once in a while, it just doesn't measure up to what Napster used to be. The scaling issues inherent in peered networks may be a fundamental stumbling block to their popularity and efficiency, and centralized networks are easily sued.

    The kneejerk answer, to take things offshore, seems to currently only be carried out by pretty slimy people (with a few exceptions), with ties to offshore gambling, sketchy offshore banks, etc. (I just helped expose one such venture.) Frankly, I'd trust the RIAA more after looking into some of these things.

    So I'm not sure what the answer is, or where things are going to go, other than small, tight sharing networks of people. The record companies are pretty happy, they seem to have won for now.

    And oh yeah, the record labels are starting to take stakes in CD recording companies to prevent you from burning data you shouldn't be. =/ Ack.

    Welcome to the Future(TM).

    David E. Weekly

  21. Pictures of Boxes That Small by dew · · Score: 5 · on Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  22. Pictures of Boxes That Small by dew · · Score: 5 · on Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  23. Pictures of Boxes That Small by dew · · Score: 5 · on Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  24. Pictures of Boxes That Small by dew · · Score: 5 · on Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  25. Pictures of Boxes That Small by dew · · Score: 5 · on Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  26. Pictures of Boxes That Small by dew · · Score: 5 · on Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  27. Pictures of Boxes That Small by dew · · Score: 5 · on Paperweight or Computer? You Decide!
    I went to the RSA 2001 Conference up in San Francisco, and the Embedded Systems Conference was just across the street, so I dropped by with my digital camera. I managed to take several pictures of these boxes in various form factors. You may (or may not) be interested.

    David E. Weekly

  28. The Larger Mesh... by dew · · Score: 2 · on Interplanetary Internet (IPN)
    IPNSIG (the InterPlanetary Internet Special Interest Group) submitted this document to the IETF. It's interesting to note that IPNSIG is looking at very long-term solutions, but (to me at least) it's equally fascinating to read about current space communications standards in development that already take into account many, indeed nearly all, of the "far reaching" recommendations made in the post.

    Readers may be interested in the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) homepage which has many protocols, proposals, and drafts available for public review. Take for example their file transfer protocol (PDF - start reading on page 20) that already "bundles" data and looks to be somewhat comprehensively thought out.

    Food for thought; these principles have not only been conceived before, but reduced to standards (and implementation).

    David E. Weekly

  29. Not Very Good News for Sealand by dew · · Score: 2 · on EU Data Protection Could Clamp Data Flows
    This could unfortunately be pretty bad news globally for countries like Sealand that are attempting to establish themselves as autonomous free information states. If a sufficient number of countries are banded together to snip access to "rogue states" the Internet could end up less than the free utopia that we've been hoping for. Economic sanctions could be imposed upon nations that permitted access to non-compliant states. Oh well. We didn't need freedom anyhow.

    David E. Weekly

  30. Search time Recollect time by websensei · · Score: 1 · on Are Computers Stealing Your Memory?

    If it takes longer accurately to recall information than it does to find it - with references and additional information - then the loss of memory under discussion is perhaps not such a big deal after all.

    My brother's essay on Google becoming an extension of his brain touches on this too.

  31. Linux Tablets by dew · · Score: 3 · on COMDEX and Linux Handhelds
    I'm at Comdex right now, covering for some Korean news media agencies, and I interviewed the folks at Qbe, who have been making a tablet PC for the last year or so. Their next-gen Qbe (Qbe Vivo) has built in 802.11, among other things. I asked the woman who was giving the demonstration about the hardware: it's all standardized! I asked her right off if it could run Linux and she unabashedly said yes. A further look into the guts showed that indeed, it was just a full computer in an incredible form factor. Shipping March 2001, there you go. A cute, sexy Linux tablet. -david

    David E. Weekly

  32. More FFM Pictures by dew · · Score: 5 · on Final Fantasy: The Movie
    There's one at Ming-Na's website (she's one of the lead vocalists) not on the main site (picture), another from Animation Artist herepage for the movie).

    The dmoz category for the movie is here with a fair number of links to sites about the movie (like the GIA).

    David E. Weekly

  33. Re:Redhat x.0 or x.1 -- wait and research... by dew · · Score: 4 · on Red Hat Linux 7 Released
    Those who merely install Linux and expect it to be secure deserve to get rooted.

    Technosnobbery in general is abhorrent, but to see someone like you refusing to even acknowledge that perhaps a distribution could be shipped secure out-of-the-box additionally reflects ignorance.

    Distributions should be friendly, easy-to-use, and informative. They should instruct where necessary (i.e., 'Turning on this option will let anyone remotely read the directories you've specified. Are you sure you want to do this?') and be as secure as possible.

    Why hasn't anyone done an OpenBSD-style audit on the Linux source base? There, at least, they know a thing or two about shipping a secure distribution. Instead of making fun of their users they simply provide them with the world's most secure operating system out-of-the box, no questions asked.

    The short of it? Distros can and should be secure out-of-the box and any potentially insecure operations should be accompanied by links to the latest literature. Users should be informed about security updates instead of having to actively discover patches, with an option for one-click upgrades (e.g., 'The FTP server you're running has just been updated. Your version contains a serious security hole. Would you like to update it now?'). These things are possible.

    Don't make fun of users for wanting a good product.

    David E. Weekly

  34. What now, Personals? =) by dew · · Score: 3 · on Constructing A Geek House
    Well, danged if slashdot isn't turning into geek classifieds of sorts, but I'm heading out to the San Francisco area in the next two weeks and am looking for a geek pad myself, to crash at for a few months to a year. Anyone within 50 miles of SF? =)

    Seriously, though, is there a real place for geek classifieds and roommate ads?

    David E. Weekly

  35. But This is Useless... by dew · · Score: 5 · on Encrypting Digital Music With Multiple Keys
    The ultimate point is that crypto is useless in this application. Hackers won't try to break the keys, they'll just record the digital output, such as is trivial to do with a SoundBlaster Live! card - it's a handy and trivial way to break any cryptosystem, because no matter how you protect the music, you've ultimately got to send the raw data to sound card and that's pretty trivial to intercept.

    So the sum of this is that it's ultimately a futile endeavor, regardless of how they rotate keys or whatnot. The folks at Emusic are selling hundreds of times more music than anyone else and none of their stuff is encrypted -- did you know that half their board came from PGP: Pretty Good Privacy, the crypto folks? And that Gene, their CEO, is a longtime cypherpunk? So why is it, you should ask yourself, that some of the most knowledgeable crypto people in the world would start the only online music sales outfit to sell *unencrypted* dowloads?

    Maybe because they understand what crypto is really for.

    Crypto is for keeping secrets between parties that desire to keep that information a secret. If A wants to tell B something, he can use crypto to prevent some C from listening in that both A and B don't want hearing the information. But if B desires to share this information with other parties, there is fundamentally, long-term nothing that can be done to protect B from sharing it. Crypto is only useful at protecting information if all parties who know the secret want to keep it a secret.

    So ultimately, any attempt to protect publicly-published data (books, movies, music) with crypto is going to fail; it's fundamentally untenable.

    David E. Weekly

  36. Just Like Perl! by dew · · Score: 2 · on Thoughts On The Pike Programming Language?
    Wow! Look at this: it's a new programming language! Gosh, it looks like Perl, smells like perl, feels like perl...

    Only without the years of development, the thousands of freely available modules, the extreme flexibility, the massive cross-platform portability (you can configure perl for your toaster), integration with Apache, Database support, tens of thousands of existing experts and freely available sample scripts, a huge set of some of the world's best programming language documentation, and (let's not forget) its own poetry (what other language can claim that?), having the core built by one of the coolest people on earth (read and laugh!).

    Maybe Pike is amusing, but next to a language like Perl, is it really needed? And can you really claim that Pike has "character" when you can't even write poetry? (Yes, I am a Perl bigot.)

    BTW, Hello world in perl? perl -e 'print "hello, world\n";' on the command line will do the trick. Ha!

    David E. Weekly

  37. How to un-ban yourself from Napster by saridder · · Score: 1 · on More Napster Updates

    Check out this link if you've been banned from Napster. http://david.weekly.org/code/na pster-metallica.php3

  38. Free Electronic version, paid for paper version by dew · · Score: 2 · on Publishing-Online or "Dead Tree" Format?
    People are going to want to read your book on paper if they like it. Releasing the whole book online is a good way to expose people to your ideas; if people like what they see, they'll buy your book.

    A simple example from a government office should illustrate my point: a pamphlet was being sold for about $10 via the mail, but wasn't getting many orders. The administration decided to put the text online for free, and the next year, they had ten times as many sales of the paper document.

    I myself am writing a book on MP3s (very slowly, mind you) and have published the first two chapters online in HTML format. As I write chapters, I'll be posting them to my website and then when I'm all done I'm going to sell a print version. Fundamentally, it's going to be a while before a sufficiently compelling non-paper solution comes into existance.

    For another example of this in action, take Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" which he released as ASCII text to the Net for free redistribution and simultaneously put up for sale in bookstores. I can't speak for the sales of the book, but I know that I bought a copy as did quite a few of my friends.

    So release your book online in HTML format and sell it in paper version as well. Don't worry, if your content is good, you'll find an audience. =) And remember, it's not about minimizing the number of people who read your book without paying for it; it's about maximizing the amount of money you make. There's a big difference there; those two goals may very well be in opposition to each other.

    David E. Weekly

  39. Free Electronic version, paid for paper version by dew · · Score: 2 · on Publishing-Online or "Dead Tree" Format?
    People are going to want to read your book on paper if they like it. Releasing the whole book online is a good way to expose people to your ideas; if people like what they see, they'll buy your book.

    A simple example from a government office should illustrate my point: a pamphlet was being sold for about $10 via the mail, but wasn't getting many orders. The administration decided to put the text online for free, and the next year, they had ten times as many sales of the paper document.

    I myself am writing a book on MP3s (very slowly, mind you) and have published the first two chapters online in HTML format. As I write chapters, I'll be posting them to my website and then when I'm all done I'm going to sell a print version. Fundamentally, it's going to be a while before a sufficiently compelling non-paper solution comes into existance.

    For another example of this in action, take Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line" which he released as ASCII text to the Net for free redistribution and simultaneously put up for sale in bookstores. I can't speak for the sales of the book, but I know that I bought a copy as did quite a few of my friends.

    So release your book online in HTML format and sell it in paper version as well. Don't worry, if your content is good, you'll find an audience. =) And remember, it's not about minimizing the number of people who read your book without paying for it; it's about maximizing the amount of money you make. There's a big difference there; those two goals may very well be in opposition to each other.

    David E. Weekly

  40. Re:Beer and Joy by dew · · Score: 2 · on Interview/Article On John "Maddog" Hall
    Awesome - does he speak at a lot of different locations? I'd love if he came to Stanford for a bit. =)

    BTW - THURSDAY is the big day here @ Stanford - the DMCA hearings are here at the Business School. Come raise your voice!!!

    David E. Weekly

  41. G Spot by dew · · Score: 2 · on Physicists Find More Precise Gravity Number
    Damn, well, that G spot's pretty hard to find, let me tell you. I'm glad that these guys have it nailed down!

    News for Nerds - stuff that matters??

    David E. Weekly

  42. "Heavy Duty"? I think not... by dew · · Score: 2 · on Philip Greenspun Answers
    Server Busy

    The server is temporarily busy. Please try again later.

    For all the tooting of their own horn about how incredibly powerful and robust their backend services are, do you really want to work with a company half of whose pages can't even load because their server can't handle the traffic? These are the LAST guys I would go to for a publishing gig. As for providing a community system, why not use Zope - a system that has been pretty thoroughly embraced by the community?

    David E. Weekly

  43. Interesting Specs... by dew · · Score: 2 · on Sun no Longer the "dot" in .com
    The S80 has some pretty phat specs. According to the Official Homepage it's got 53 PCI slots (yipes!), 48 drive bays, and can fit up to 64Gb of memory. Cost for the "base configuration?" (That's 9.1Gb HDD, 6 450Mhz RS64 III's, and 2Gb of memory) $294,096.00. Whew. Hate to think what the pimped out version costs...

    David E. Weekly

  44. Ethernet by dew · · Score: 5 · on Super Tiny Espresso PC
    How do you wire this puppy to the Net? There are very cheap USB Ethernet interfaces. Here's one at Buy.com. $36 to hook this baby up to the Net is not too bad methinks. =)

    HELL-OOO portable server! =) Just plug 'er into the wall and the 'Net and you're good to go. If something goes wrong, plug it into the TV and pop the keyboard on. (Wiggling with excitement) AWESOME!

    David E. Weekly

  45. Re:Ask Jeeves Is Awful by dew · · Score: 2 · on AskJeeves Interview
    Funny, Yahoo is happy to make an entry for and index the homepage of anyone who asks. So is the Open Directory Project. Google, Altavista, Excite, and HotBot are all also happy to index my page and list it in their search results. It's not egotistical: I expect my homepage to be treated no more specially than anyone else's homepage of the same size/traffic level. Failing to even acknowledge my requests is bad customer service. Even a short form letter saying "I'm sorry, but we cannot service requests to index individual homepages" would have at least let me know that all mails to their customer center aren't being redirected to /dev/null. Ignoring email is unprofessional.

    As for my (admittedly generalist) claims about their customer service, if repeated emails don't even get a cursory acknowledgement (I asked them in the last one to please at least acknowledge that someone had actually read the email), how can you claim to have anything resembling decent customer support? Amazon, Yahoo, and most all of the other successful sites have cheerful and intelligent people on the other end of the line. My experience to date says that this is something that Ask Jeeves lacks...I'm guessing from the quality of their search results that others have run into similar problems getting questions pertaining to them properly answered.

    Your mileage may vary; alternate opinions / experiences accepted.

    David E. Weekly

  46. Ask Jeeves Is Awful by dew · · Score: 4 · on AskJeeves Interview
    It's true: it almost never finds what I really want. I use Encylopaedia Britannica Online (search.eb.com and britannica.com) and Google to find just about anything I want. As a simple example, asking "Who Is David Weekly?" I'm referred to the Amy Chow Fan Page, the resume of a certain David Bosley, The Greatful Dead Hour, and American folklore, among other things. I've asked them repeatedly to answer this question with my home page, but they seem to believe that Amy Chow's Fan page is more likely what people were looking for. They haven't responded to any of the three politely worded emails I sent to them.

    It's not so much that I'm whining about them not specifically indexing my homepage as that it is that I feel that the attitude (and relevance) of my treatment is endemic to how they treat everyone. Namely, that they give ridiculously erroneous answers and seem to have no interest in changing that.

    Bloody hell, Jeeves. You're fired.

    David E. Weekly

  47. Re:But I don't WANNA go outside! by dew · · Score: 2 · on Solar Cells For Laptops?
    Remember last week's post on IEEE 802.11 antennas to give you AirPort access from miles away? =) Hello, beach! =) You could literally live on the beach while working. Gives a whole new sense to telecommuting. (Ooh, and add a waterproof casing and you could be telecommuting *underwater*!)

    David E. Weekly

  48. Vertical Horizons Has What You Want by dew · · Score: 2 · on Are There MP3/CD Player Combinations?
    Vertical Horizons has the only portable MP3-CD player on the market for ~$120. (Pine has announced one for a while, but as far as I know it is only vaporware). You can read more about the player on their site. MP3.com also did a review of the player, at CES 2000 -- I cite the relevant section below.

    New Horizon

    One of the most anticipated products in the MP3.com Editorial camp went from vapor to reality as it made its debut at CES 2000.

    Garden Grove, Calif.-based hardware outfit Vertical Horizon finally put the CD in portable MP3 audio with a line of portable MP3 CD players.

    The two models displayed at CES play MP3 CDs and standard red book audio discs, and both are about the size of standard portable CD players.

    Of course, thanks to MP3 compression technology, these players can play discs that contain more than 10 hours of music, rather than the 70-minute standard audio CD.

    The larger of the two models includes a port for SmartMedia cards, giving it added value for those who utilize other non-CD portable MP3 players like the Rio and Nomad.

    Sound quality on both players was excellent, and both incorporate all of the standard CD player features, including EQ and multiple playback options. Each has an LCD screen displaying track numbers, times and mode icons. There's no ID3 tag display yet, but the Vertical Horizon staff assured us that it will be incorporated soon.

    Each unit also includes 20 seconds of digital anti-shock protection to prevent CD skipping, and an infrared port for the possible future addition of a wireless remote control.

    The real music to our ears was the pricing on these units, with the CD-only device expected to retail at around $120 U.S. and the SmartMedia-enabled device priced at about $150 U.S., not much more than many standard CD players on the market today.

    Vertical Horizon expects to have the units in full production in the first half of this year. To keep up on this hot new product, visit VH's web site at http://www.evhi.com.


    David E. Weekly

  49. Re:Where is ESS 1868 support? by adamsc · · Score: 2 · on BeOS For Linux!
    [the ESS 1868 chipset]. It pains me to throw away a perfectly good full-duplex 16-bit sound card and go buy SBLives.
    There are those who would say that you'd only be giving up "a perfectly good full-duplex 16-bit sound card" if you had another one in the machine to go with the ESS. <g> This subject came up just recently on the BeUserTalk mailing list: http://www.escribe.com/softw are/beusertalk/m27160.html is from the guy who wrote the ESS driver for BeOS, as is http://www.escribe.com/softw are/beusertalk/m27115.html. (His Other postings)

    (the Be Adventure was also worth reading).

  50. Ironic by dew · · Score: 5 · on National Association of Broadcasters Sues RIAA
    Radio broadcasters have been very lucky folks for a long time now: they managed to avoid a recording royalty in public performance for the last 50-odd years, which is somewhat mind-boggling, when you consider that an artist who performs a song that they did not compose does not get a blessed penny no matter how popular her song is on the radio. Only composers get compensated for public performance.

    Then this odd thing happened with the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) -- for the first time ever, a public performance right in audio recordings (versus just the composition) was granted to record labels for webcasts. A number of members of NAB were, IMHO, quite happy, because this is going to make it considerably more difficult for webcasters to survive. (The royalty rate has yet to be decided, but last I checked, the RIAA proposed a figure of 45% of gross sales as the appropriate figure to be paid.)

    It wasn't until they realized that this would really affect them too that they got up in arms. So now we have the bizarre case of them trying to claim exemption from any Internet stream that is also broadcasted over the air: punish them, not us! All of the sudden they want to be special, without realizing that they've stumbled headlong into the RIAA's trap to reclaim those royalties they've been lusting after (perhaps with good cause) for the last five-odd decades.

    Of course this brings up some interesting issues is the exception is accepted: what if I'm broadcasting music over cellular? Does that count? What if I'm using a satellite downlink? If my customers are using micro-FM broadcasting units? Methinks the law is going to get particularly hairy with regards to these technologies (a general truism, perhaps!).

    David E. Weekly