I'll see if I can't get her to dig up some old files. Will you take that in GW-BASIC.BAS format, or would you prefer something less archaic. You know, what happens after Y2K when everyone's MP3 collection becomes totally useless. They will wish they had everything on a vinyl disc that they could play with an old Edison diamond disc hand-crank phonograph!
My girlfriend can only program in BASIC. She likes to transcribe songs using the PLAY command. I told her about MIDI and MP3. She made a beep instrument for the Roland so that it sounds like BASIC music, and she records and encodes the PC-speaker beeps into MP3. I didn't think MP3 could ever be a bloated format. Leave it to a geek girl.
Tell me about it. I left my Nokia 6120 under my screen above the monitor stand. Normally when it rings it does nothing. I guess it had just hopped to an evil frequency this morning. It rang and my monitor went bonkers. The screen blanked and the speakers started a loud buzzing. The monitor had been acting funny before and it was only one of the two that was going bezerk so i thought it had died. I turned it off.
When I turned it back on, I was amazed. All the problems it had been showing in the past were gone. No more high-pitched beeping in text mode; no more wavy lines and displaced scans!
I guess it's kind of like those stories when people get hit by lightning and it cures their blindness or rheumatism. This little bitty HERF from my cell phone too close to my monitor could have destroyed it. Instead it cured all of its ailments!
Ok you have mesa trying to be OpenGL compatible and you've got OpenGL trying to be Mesa compatible now. Why don't the SGI guys just beef up OpenGL support in Mesa?
The only problem is that the browsers don't pay enough attention to the MIME types. Netscape keeps its own database of MIME types independent from the OS so you still have to go and change your settings in a bunch of different places. IE is almost the same way. It handles things the way it wants to unless it doesn't know how -- then the OS gets it.
The other problem with MIME is that MIME handles data types, not protocols. Internet applications are generally geared to a protocol (and then sometimes - and only sometimes) a file with a certain mimetype. MIME types for IRC? I think not.
I am excited to hear about the XML-Rpc spec. It basiclly is the agent I described in my first post, and it is very cool, but it's a backend interface; not a human interface. That is why I think that URI's will be around a long time. It's fine if my Internet apps are all talking XML behind my back but I don't really want to have to see it! If I want to access something on "the internet," I am going to want to type a URI.
Hey, hold on a second. I don't want all my protocols stuck behind one interface! Is that what the browser is supposed to do? I don't even like the fact that browsers handle FTP and E-Mail links unless you go through an obscure procedure to direct them to other clients.
I sugggest that it is time for universal Internet applications messaging standards (between a user's set of apps, not between computers). It should be simpler than browser Plug-In's. It should be universal unlike ActiveX, OLE, and even COBRA. I don't want to hear it about how you can compile COBRA components on any platform. My wristwatch just won't do COBRA any time soon. It should probably be TCP/IP only so that you can do distributed applications and cool stuff like that.
Here's an idea. Let's see a core component that processes URI's and coordinates Internet information between clients that know how to handle HTTP, FTP, SMTP, IRC, Real Time Messaging, Telnet, SSH, ad infinitum.
The URI is the most powerful identifier, and I am very dissapointed that more applications do not use it. I.e. the notion of
is the most powerful tool anybody has to locate information or services. It works for every applicaiton and every protocol. Imagine if the following links all worked:
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that Mozilla will ever become my IRC or messaging client of choice. Not that I have anything against these projects. I like to see them. I just think it would be more useful if someone did something like I have just described. If I could code, I would do it.
Well actually you couldn't trap the hardware bootstrap so sheepshaver can't even use the code in the boot ROM to boot MacOS. It's loader is in fact the only thing really emulated. From the sheepshaver page:
On which systems does it run?
SheepShaver should run on any BeOS/Linux-ready PowerPC system (including BeBoxen and PowerPC Amigas). It does not run on Intel machines because MacOS and PowerPC Mac applications run natively under SheepShaver (there's no slow CPU emulation involved, it's comparable to the "Blue Box" of MacOS X). SheepShaver/BeOS requires BeOS/PPC R4. SheepShaver/Linux will require at least glibc 2.0, GTK 1.2, and a 2.2.x kernel.
Fermat's Last Theorem has been proven. The guy that did it thought he proved it, but then someone found an error in his (100+ page) proof. Luckily he was able to fix it within a few weeks and then the thing was done.
I suppose the Freedows people find the proof extremely bloated and will look to find a more streamlined, modular proof that could be used as parts of other proofs. They're even going to port GCC to it too, so you'll be able to prove things natively!
On the other hand, you will be able to switch out your Mac BootROM so if you wanted to run an O/S such as Linux or Be, you could free yourself completely of the MacOS. I think that most of the other hardware under the hood is understood well enough for some third-party to engineer a BootROM independent from Apple's. You wouldn't be able to run MacOS or OS/X but there's always sheepshaver!
Please, oh please stop confusing me, Rob! If you put the moderator controls on everything I look at, I won't know what to click! Can you Meta-Moderate yourself? If you can't then you could tell if you were a moderator! How about if we don't know if we are Meta-Moderating? How about if moderators get paid $5 per day like jurors? Also, I bet you could probably sell karma for like $5 per point. To get the bonus, people would have to give you about 125 bucks! Then again why not add a double bonus +2? If you post anonymously while logged in and get moderated up, does your karma get effected? Possibly a moderator could figure out who the AC was if this is the case.
Please don't cry when you have to code Hyper-meta-moderation because some day you probably will!
What I really want to see is the ability for me to append to my existing comment without having to reply to myself. I also think that if a person submits a story or has a feature done about one of their projects on slashdot, then they should get like a +3 bonus to their comments in that particular article. It shouldn't boost their Karma though.
I am even more confused now. Time to click on the next button.
When there were two car "versions" in the same year, car companies just added 1/2 to the end. There were several half-year Ford Mustangs I know of and several other car companies also did this.
Debian has offered ISO images for a long time. If you didn't register with them to access the ISO's on their primary site, you had to download them from a mirror, but mirrors always worked for me! As an aside, I really wish RedHat offered ISO images. I'm getting sick of screwing up a RedHat image because I forgot to capitalize RPMS!
An inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. Several years ago (never mind how long exactly -- probably in the 70's with the metric hoopla) in order to make EngishMetric conversions absolutely precise for worldwide scientific use, the inch was actually standardized to the centimeter. As far as I know, the inch is now defined as 2.54 centimeters.
Well as a followup to my own post, I actually found the wireless Winterm 2930 on Wyse's discontinued products page (Didn't know they had a page for that!)
What happened to the wireless terminals that were out there? Wyse used to carry a wireless X terminal and a (shudder) wireless WinTerm quite a while ago, but they dissapeared. IMO they were way way better than all of these low power, limp portables. It was quite something to carry around a 2 pound, wafer-thin screen and keyboard that was really just another display on the mega-computer down the hall.
Well, I have to say that I have tried LPRng, but it still doenst give dummies the control they need. People were even more confused when i tried to explane how to clear the queue with lprng than with lpr. The wrappers didn't help that much either. So I went back to regular old LPR. I found a program on freshmeat called CLPQ, but it really doesnt do much of anything. I've been hacking at it a bit trying to add more features (especially LPRng support and a workaround for the root daemon problem). I'd like to see your scripts, but I don't know if you'll get this since you posted as AC...
At any rate if anyone's interested, CLPQ could use some work. The goals of CLPQ were what I was asking for; too bad it's only a hack!
I'm sorry I can't say whether or not anyone has approached Digital (Compaq) about this, but I have to say that FX!32 is bar-none the absolute best transparent emulation I have ever seen. It simply executes x86 code on Alpha processors at speeds that used to exceed even the fastest x86 processors. It chews Java up and spits it out. It beats IBCS into the ground.
That being said, I would support a petition calling for open-sourcing this project or even providing a biary port, possibly as an extention to IBCS After all, FX!32 it only works on Alpha's which could expect a sales increase because of the gesture - God knows the Alpha needs it. Perhaps the whole thing could spark a new slew of 'emulation' kernel modules (Say hello to Transmeta) that would allow anyone with any processor to run applications designed for any other one. Sure it'd be slightly slower, but not *MUCH* slower if done properly, and it would mae Linux *MUCH MORE ATTRACTIVE* to commercial developers.
OK, I'm not here to discuss the new 256MByte EEPROM or whatever. My only debate is why use solid state memory at all? 256MB is not going to be enough for those die-hard mpeggers that settle for nothing less than 256Kb/s. You get 68 minutes of music at this rate. The chip is going to be expensive too, so don't expect 1GB of solid state in your pocket for under $200.
The coolest (in concept) mp3 player out there uses Iomega Clik! discs for storage. at 40MB they hold barely an album at 112Kb/s compression, but they are small and cheap. What about other small storage methods? Anyone thought of Data-MiniDisc? Portables could easily be made to play these (along with normal MD's!)
Players with an hour of storage aren't going to get the market penetration until they cost well under 100 bucks.
OK. I read this guy's paper all the way through; end to end. I had to take glucose through an IV to make it back to reality, but here I am to report.
I am by no means a TCP/IP expert, but I understand basic routing and CIDR. I have also participated on the 6bone, even though I had no clue what I was doing and still don't really know how I made it work. I hope that means that I am certified to discuss this.
In This Crack-Head's Dream World: Basiclly, what this thing all boils down to is that you use the subnet mask information to store extra bits of network addresses. He talks about the binary and done by the netmask when routing and how this can be used to translate addresses of the parent network. Mathematiclly, this adds up to a greater number of addresses.
In the Real World: This is MORE CONFUSING than IPv6 and what is even further irritating is that it will require MAJOR CHANGES to the existing IPv4 protocol which would render the modified protocol (while it might even keep the same packet structure) incompatible with legacy IPv4, especially where Internet routing is concerned - particularly because the subnet mask does not travel with the IP address in the packet. The subnet mask effects the IP number Only Once meaning that even if this stupid thing could be implemented, every network router would have to do some kind of NAT to get packets where they need to go. This would slow down the entire Internet and create headaches and unnecessary overhead. Imagine troubleshooting! You would know the IP but not the Subnet Identifier! Speaking of that, there's no way to get the information back because you'd have potentially multiple hosts with the same address and different identifiers, but since you wouldn't know the identifiers, you're screwed.
Why IPv6 is better First, IPv6 has a larger address space. Much larger. We're talking over 3K addresses for every square meter of Earth! That's about all most people know about it, though. Interestingly enough, that's the only problem that our friend who wrote this little paper addressed. IPv6 sets out to do more than increase the address space, though. Some of the things people don't know that are crucial to the widespread acceptance and success of the protocol are the following:
Enhanced Multicasting, Subnetting, and Routing: Partly because of the increased address space and studies of IPv4, we can allocate more addresses for these purposes. Multicasting will ultimately reduce bandwidth in media-rich Internet applications, but isn't currently robust enough to do it right with IPv4.
IPSec encryption support: Isn't this one obvious? Secure data structures built in at the protocol level as a STANDARD not some bizzare.diff file you apply to your kernel.
EXTREMELY easy to tunnel IPv6 over IPv4: IPv6 has a tunneling architecture that provides for legacy routers and switches to move IPv6 packets encapsulated in IPv4 packets without issue. Look at the 6bone. Almost all of the IPv6 out there is running piggyback on IPv4 without any problems. This support is key for migration. Imagine trying to encapsulate that freak's subnet identifier junk in IPv4 packets and then parsing and decoding that junk!
Fingers are tired. Review is finished. Either that or I forgot the rest. All in all, the guy's math is right. He expanded the address space. Now if he wants to rewrite every TCP/IP stack in existance in every O/S and Router, then let him do it. I find it almost mind-numbing that he says IPv6 has a steep learning curve when he is throwing out this junk. The math is the easy part. The implementation would have SysAdmins across the country buying drums of coffee and barrels of Advil.
It would be nice if the "Sections" box on the left hand side of all/. pages could alert people to new items in these sections that aren't always on the mainpage. As the site continues to grow like wild, it makes sense to break articles up, but if people don't know there is new news then they're going to miss it.
It is a testament to this fact when an article that was posted early this morning gets its first post in the late afternoon. Especially when the other "Geeks in Space" articles have generated so much discussion.
A lot of high-traffic toll roads, bridges in big cities in particular, have automatic electronic metering. You attach this box to the undercarrage of your car and when you drive over the sensors, you get counted and billed monthly. Beats tokens, cards, and the lines, but yes, there are already auto auto billing systems *smirk* in place.
My personal opinion though is that paying a ticket shouldn't be effortless. That's the "enforcement" part of law enforcement. The continuation of electronic automatic ticket billing would be to say "well why even bother to have police pull the car over? Why not just read the electronic tag at 85Mph and immediately take the appropriate amount of money from the guy's bank account?"
Slashdot Mirror
Why did slashdot just eat my qustion marks? I am posting this one as HTML formatted so maybe it won't!
~GoRK
I'll see if I can't get her to dig up some old files. Will you take that in GW-BASIC .BAS format, or would you prefer something less archaic. You know, what happens after Y2K when everyone's MP3 collection becomes totally useless. They will wish they had everything on a vinyl disc that they could play with an old Edison diamond disc hand-crank phonograph!
~GoRK
My girlfriend can only program in BASIC. She likes to transcribe songs using the PLAY command. I told her about MIDI and MP3. She made a beep instrument for the Roland so that it sounds like BASIC music, and she records and encodes the PC-speaker beeps into MP3. I didn't think MP3 could ever be a bloated format. Leave it to a geek girl.
~GoRK
Nope Matt's still taking votes. I didn't code a stop-date into the pollbooth, so feel free to continue voting.
Tell me about it. I left my Nokia 6120 under my screen above the monitor stand. Normally when it rings it does nothing. I guess it had just hopped to an evil frequency this morning. It rang and my monitor went bonkers. The screen blanked and the speakers started a loud buzzing. The monitor had been acting funny before and it was only one of the two that was going bezerk so i thought it had died. I turned it off.
When I turned it back on, I was amazed. All the problems it had been showing in the past were gone. No more high-pitched beeping in text mode; no more wavy lines and displaced scans!
I guess it's kind of like those stories when people get hit by lightning and it cures their blindness or rheumatism. This little bitty HERF from my cell phone too close to my monitor could have destroyed it. Instead it cured all of its ailments!
~GoRK
Ok you have mesa trying to be OpenGL compatible and you've got OpenGL trying to be Mesa compatible now. Why don't the SGI guys just beef up OpenGL support in Mesa?
~GoRK
The only problem is that the browsers don't pay enough attention to the MIME types. Netscape keeps its own database of MIME types independent from the OS so you still have to go and change your settings in a bunch of different places. IE is almost the same way. It handles things the way it wants to unless it doesn't know how -- then the OS gets it.
The other problem with MIME is that MIME handles data types, not protocols. Internet applications are generally geared to a protocol (and then sometimes - and only sometimes) a file with a certain mimetype. MIME types for IRC? I think not.
I am excited to hear about the XML-Rpc spec. It basiclly is the agent I described in my first post, and it is very cool, but it's a backend interface; not a human interface. That is why I think that URI's will be around a long time. It's fine if my Internet apps are all talking XML behind my back but I don't really want to have to see it! If I want to access something on "the internet," I am going to want to type a URI.
~GoRK
Sorry I am dyslexic and my spell checker has no idea what acronyms even are!
Hey, hold on a second. I don't want all my protocols stuck behind one interface! Is that what the browser is supposed to do? I don't even like the fact that browsers handle FTP and E-Mail links unless you go through an obscure procedure to direct them to other clients.
a m=value
/20323
I sugggest that it is time for universal Internet applications messaging standards (between a user's set of apps, not between computers). It should be simpler than browser Plug-In's. It should be universal unlike ActiveX, OLE, and even COBRA. I don't want to hear it about how you can compile COBRA components on any platform. My wristwatch just won't do COBRA any time soon. It should probably be TCP/IP only so that you can do distributed applications and cool stuff like that.
Here's an idea. Let's see a core component that processes URI's and coordinates Internet information between clients that know how to handle HTTP, FTP, SMTP, IRC, Real Time Messaging, Telnet, SSH, ad infinitum.
The URI is the most powerful identifier, and I am very dissapointed that more applications do not use it. I.e. the notion of
protocol://user:password@host:port/identifier?par
is the most powerful tool anybody has to locate information or services. It works for every applicaiton and every protocol. Imagine if the following links all worked:
http://www.slashdot.org/index.pl
ftp://ftp.freshmeat.net/pub/
irc://JoeSchmoe@irc.slashnet.org/#blah
pop3://JoeSchmoe@mail.myhost.com/Inbox
You get the idea....
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that Mozilla will ever become my IRC or messaging client of choice. Not that I have anything against these projects. I like to see them. I just think it would be more useful if someone did something like I have just described. If I could code, I would do it.
~GoRK
Well actually you couldn't trap the hardware bootstrap so sheepshaver can't even use the code in the boot ROM to boot MacOS. It's loader is in fact the only thing really emulated. From the sheepshaver page:
On which systems does it run?
SheepShaver should run on any BeOS/Linux-ready PowerPC system (including BeBoxen and PowerPC Amigas). It does not run on Intel machines because MacOS and PowerPC Mac applications run natively under SheepShaver (there's no slow CPU emulation involved, it's comparable to the "Blue Box" of MacOS X). SheepShaver/BeOS requires BeOS/PPC R4. SheepShaver/Linux will require at least glibc 2.0, GTK 1.2, and a 2.2.x kernel.
Fermat's Last Theorem has been proven. The guy that did it thought he proved it, but then someone found an error in his (100+ page) proof. Luckily he was able to fix it within a few weeks and then the thing was done.
I suppose the Freedows people find the proof extremely bloated and will look to find a more streamlined, modular proof that could be used as parts of other proofs. They're even going to port GCC to it too, so you'll be able to prove things natively!
~GoRK
On the other hand, you will be able to switch out your Mac BootROM so if you wanted to run an O/S such as Linux or Be, you could free yourself completely of the MacOS. I think that most of the other hardware under the hood is understood well enough for some third-party to engineer a BootROM independent from Apple's. You wouldn't be able to run MacOS or OS/X but there's always sheepshaver!
~GoRK
Please, oh please stop confusing me, Rob! If you put the moderator controls on everything I look at, I won't know what to click! Can you Meta-Moderate yourself? If you can't then you could tell if you were a moderator! How about if we don't know if we are Meta-Moderating? How about if moderators get paid $5 per day like jurors? Also, I bet you could probably sell karma for like $5 per point. To get the bonus, people would have to give you about 125 bucks! Then again why not add a double bonus +2? If you post anonymously while logged in and get moderated up, does your karma get effected? Possibly a moderator could figure out who the AC was if this is the case.
Please don't cry when you have to code Hyper-meta-moderation because some day you probably will!
What I really want to see is the ability for me to append to my existing comment without having to reply to myself. I also think that if a person submits a story or has a feature done about one of their projects on slashdot, then they should get like a +3 bonus to their comments in that particular article. It shouldn't boost their Karma though.
I am even more confused now. Time to click on the next button.
~GoRK
When there were two car "versions" in the same year, car companies just added 1/2 to the end. There were several half-year Ford Mustangs I know of and several other car companies also did this.
~GoRK
Debian has offered ISO images for a long time. If you didn't register with them to access the ISO's on their primary site, you had to download them from a mirror, but mirrors always worked for me! As an aside, I really wish RedHat offered ISO images. I'm getting sick of screwing up a RedHat image because I forgot to capitalize RPMS!
~GoRK
This is really interesting actually.
An inch is exactly 2.54 centimeters. Several years ago (never mind how long exactly -- probably in the 70's with the metric hoopla) in order to make EngishMetric conversions absolutely precise for worldwide scientific use, the inch was actually standardized to the centimeter. As far as I know, the inch is now defined as 2.54 centimeters.
~GoRK
Well as a followup to my own post, I actually found the wireless Winterm 2930 on Wyse's discontinued products page (Didn't know they had a page for that!)
~GoRK
What happened to the wireless terminals that were out there? Wyse used to carry a wireless X terminal and a (shudder) wireless WinTerm quite a while ago, but they dissapeared. IMO they were way way better than all of these low power, limp portables. It was quite something to carry around a 2 pound, wafer-thin screen and keyboard that was really just another display on the mega-computer down the hall.
~GoRK
Well, I have to say that I have tried LPRng, but it still doenst give dummies the control they need. People were even more confused when i tried to explane how to clear the queue with lprng than with lpr. The wrappers didn't help that much either. So I went back to regular old LPR. I found a program on freshmeat called CLPQ, but it really doesnt do much of anything. I've been hacking at it a bit trying to add more features (especially LPRng support and a workaround for the root daemon problem). I'd like to see your scripts, but I don't know if you'll get this since you posted as AC...
At any rate if anyone's interested, CLPQ could use some work. The goals of CLPQ were what I was asking for; too bad it's only a hack!
GoRK
Great! When are we going to get a slashbox for it? How about a slashbox with both Jenni and the BOFH? It could be called Jenni vs. BOFH!!
~GoRK
I'm sorry I can't say whether or not anyone has approached Digital (Compaq) about this, but I have to say that FX!32 is bar-none the absolute best transparent emulation I have ever seen. It simply executes x86 code on Alpha processors at speeds that used to exceed even the fastest x86 processors. It chews Java up and spits it out. It beats IBCS into the ground.
That being said, I would support a petition calling for open-sourcing this project or even providing a biary port, possibly as an extention to IBCS After all, FX!32 it only works on Alpha's which could expect a sales increase because of the gesture - God knows the Alpha needs it. Perhaps the whole thing could spark a new slew of 'emulation' kernel modules (Say hello to Transmeta) that would allow anyone with any processor to run applications designed for any other one. Sure it'd be slightly slower, but not *MUCH* slower if done properly, and it would mae Linux *MUCH MORE ATTRACTIVE* to commercial developers.
~GoRK
OK, I'm not here to discuss the new 256MByte EEPROM or whatever. My only debate is why use solid state memory at all? 256MB is not going to be enough for those die-hard mpeggers that settle for nothing less than 256Kb/s. You get 68 minutes of music at this rate. The chip is going to be expensive too, so don't expect 1GB of solid state in your pocket for under $200.
The coolest (in concept) mp3 player out there uses Iomega Clik! discs for storage. at 40MB they hold barely an album at 112Kb/s compression, but they are small and cheap. What about other small storage methods? Anyone thought of Data-MiniDisc? Portables could easily be made to play these (along with normal MD's!)
Players with an hour of storage aren't going to get the market penetration until they cost well under 100 bucks.
~GoRK
I am by no means a TCP/IP expert, but I understand basic routing and CIDR. I have also participated on the 6bone, even though I had no clue what I was doing and still don't really know how I made it work. I hope that means that I am certified to discuss this.
In This Crack-Head's Dream World:
Basiclly, what this thing all boils down to is that you use the subnet mask information to store extra bits of network addresses. He talks about the binary and done by the netmask when routing and how this can be used to translate addresses of the parent network. Mathematiclly, this adds up to a greater number of addresses.
In the Real World:
This is MORE CONFUSING than IPv6 and what is even further irritating is that it will require MAJOR CHANGES to the existing IPv4 protocol which would render the modified protocol (while it might even keep the same packet structure) incompatible with legacy IPv4, especially where Internet routing is concerned - particularly because the subnet mask does not travel with the IP address in the packet. The subnet mask effects the IP number Only Once meaning that even if this stupid thing could be implemented, every network router would have to do some kind of NAT to get packets where they need to go. This would slow down the entire Internet and create headaches and unnecessary overhead. Imagine troubleshooting! You would know the IP but not the Subnet Identifier! Speaking of that, there's no way to get the information back because you'd have potentially multiple hosts with the same address and different identifiers, but since you wouldn't know the identifiers, you're screwed.
Why IPv6 is better
First, IPv6 has a larger address space. Much larger. We're talking over 3K addresses for every square meter of Earth! That's about all most people know about it, though. Interestingly enough, that's the only problem that our friend who wrote this little paper addressed. IPv6 sets out to do more than increase the address space, though. Some of the things people don't know that are crucial to the widespread acceptance and success of the protocol are the following:
- Enhanced Multicasting, Subnetting, and Routing: Partly because of the increased address space and studies of IPv4, we can allocate more addresses for these purposes. Multicasting will ultimately reduce bandwidth in media-rich Internet applications, but isn't currently robust enough to do it right with IPv4.
- IPSec encryption support: Isn't this one obvious? Secure data structures built in at the protocol level as a STANDARD not some bizzare
.diff file you apply to your kernel. - EXTREMELY easy to tunnel IPv6 over IPv4: IPv6 has a tunneling architecture that provides for legacy routers and switches to move IPv6 packets encapsulated in IPv4 packets without issue. Look at the 6bone. Almost all of the IPv6 out there is running piggyback on IPv4 without any problems. This support is key for migration. Imagine trying to encapsulate that freak's subnet identifier junk in IPv4 packets and then parsing and decoding that junk!
Fingers are tired. Review is finished. Either that or I forgot the rest. All in all, the guy's math is right. He expanded the address space. Now if he wants to rewrite every TCP/IP stack in existance in every O/S and Router, then let him do it. I find it almost mind-numbing that he says IPv6 has a steep learning curve when he is throwing out this junk. The math is the easy part. The implementation would have SysAdmins across the country buying drums of coffee and barrels of Advil.It would be nice if the "Sections" box on the left hand side of all /. pages could alert people to new items in these sections that aren't always on the mainpage. As the site continues to grow like wild, it makes sense to break articles up, but if people don't know there is new news then they're going to miss it.
It is a testament to this fact when an article that was posted early this morning gets its first post in the late afternoon. Especially when the other "Geeks in Space" articles have generated so much discussion.
~GoRK
A lot of high-traffic toll roads, bridges in big cities in particular, have automatic electronic metering. You attach this box to the undercarrage of your car and when you drive over the sensors, you get counted and billed monthly. Beats tokens, cards, and the lines, but yes, there are already auto auto billing systems *smirk* in place.
My personal opinion though is that paying a ticket shouldn't be effortless. That's the "enforcement" part of law enforcement. The continuation of electronic automatic ticket billing would be to say "well why even bother to have police pull the car over? Why not just read the electronic tag at 85Mph and immediately take the appropriate amount of money from the guy's bank account?"
~GoRK