I belive i got it from the FHS pdf ages ago Correct. Full explanation and rationale for the Linux filesystem can be found here. It is possible that other sources of rationale and explanation exist in other, more venerable, locations associated with AT&T, Bell Labs, BSD, and others who were present at the time that the whole thingw as being fleshed out. This link, and the sections immediately following it, contain the contact information for the people who know where the material originated.
They cannot go and redo the algorithm The industry is at least decades ahead of you--probably closer to centuries. Credit card companies learned this lesson from number theorists who were probably first employed by insurance brokers.
How many different algorithms are there to generate a prime number? Sure, all of them eventually fail, but they each fail in their own special way. Every prime number generator has an optimum range.
These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys for Dell. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys for HP. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys sent to China. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys in the alpha testing groups. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys in the beta testing groups. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys on the test systems shipped to technical writers.
Et cetera.
Microsoft compiles information from Windowsupdate, third party software, websites, exploits, error reports, and anything else which communicates any bit of information that can be associated with the key in use on that system. Microsoft knows full well where the source of its piracy is--and it's not just some vaporous hackboi in Romania.
only people...crap..."last"...idiots...nothing better...bitch and moan...laugh at Microsoft. The vendor of the story, pcworld.com, deserves the vitriol.
I suspect Why abuse Slashdot? How did you get modded from AC to 5?
Arguing about it lends to Senators and Representatives spending their time arguing about it. Their arguing time is very expensive and, if the argument grows large enough, they may need to schedule a national conference to argue about it. That's even more expensive.
Implementation is expensive but, if they're really dead-set on going ahead with it, it cannot be avoided. The best thing for a taxpayer to do is to pay close attention to the companies which profit from the allocation of the new funds in the hope that they can make an private investment in those companies. The taxpayer will never see the corporate profit of his tax dollar but the private citizen may.
Enforcement is expensive. The best thing for a taxpayer to do is to comply as quickly and painlessly as possible to minimize the tax burden of enforcement. In the case of the Real ID system: just go and make sure you have yours. After you have yours then you can freely debate, until you're blue in the face, whether or not it is right or true for us to have them. Unless the goal is a coordinated DDoS of the court system there's no sense in avoiding a mandatory ID.
Profit. Think along the lines of profit. Minimize effort, minimize damage, maximize return. Do nothing if you have to.
The government is the only organization that can ensure net neutrality It wasn't always this way though we haven't known anything different in our lifetime. With resignation I agree with your sentiment: when playing within a rigged system it is necessary to follow at least some of the rules and adhere to some of the guidelines.
Still, though, I would much rather see a complete decimation of the federal stranglehold on financial control of the nation. It would be better for the entire nation to spend a year in collapse and rediscover the virtue of decentralization than for the world to continue careening on the current crash course with inevitable disaster. How long before the Feds truly p--s off someone who is powerful enough to engineer a real worldwide calamity? Every day the feds consolidate more and more power, money, and control. It is only a matter of time before some Senator, or foreign ambassador, or military contractor somewhere steps on someone's toes in (accidentally, of course) precisely the wrong way.
Without some sort of oversight, any company could violate neutrality without worrying about the laws If the 'net were truly managed as a free system, though, would anyone hear a lone tree falling in the forest? Near ubiquitous government control only ensures one thing: a single subcommittee causes a thousand trees to fall at a time.
at least the committee's not your bad guy True. Each member of the committee constitute their own special kind of bad guy.:-)
Poor supplicant. You will never reach enlightenment if you still place your trust in secure keys and encryption algorithms. Have not the radar gun vs. radar detectors taught you anything? Has not copy protection taught you anything? Has not DVD, Blu-Ray, or iTunes taught you anything? Has not closed hardware taught you anything? These things are intricacies and crusades of people who are paid to assert that they have completed an impossible task. You ask for feats of engineering when reverse engineering is just as important.
I will happily compile secure libraries, encryption algorithms, and maintain a basic level of privacy measures. I will never ever ever be deluded to think that "protected memory" is indeed protected, that "FIPS 140-1 level 1" is "the best one can get", or that "compliant" means anything other than sophisticated sounding advertising.
This functionality (especially certified FIPS 140-1 or FIPS 140-2) would be nice to see in UNIX variants I'm sure that somewhere someone has made a program which you can pipe data to and from or which you can use as a wrapper around your network transactions (a la tcpwrapper).
An additional application for this would be the ability to use hardware PKCS #11 tokens At one time railroad lines had two different track spacings and some roundhouses sported heavy machinery which could quickly change the wheelbases on locomotives and the train cars. Be careful of integration. There is profit motive in change (for the sake of change) and integration makes change very slow and painful.
Probably not. Which game recently had the political expose on game designers who were giving themselves and/or their social allies unfair game advantages? "Hacked accounts" are a convenient way of disguising those advantages similar to money laundering and it works both directions. It's also a source of profit like dropped Blackberrys or scratched CDs.
If we take a step away from the particular details of whatever argument he's made, let's consider the following:
Berners-Lee, speaking before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet in the U.S. House of Representatives...said the Web as a communications medium deserves "special treatment" to protect its nondiscriminatory approach to content. Does anyone else notice that the very fact that we have a US HoR Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (complete with all of the money that its respective members have a hand in distributing, regulating, or privately investing) makes it impossible for there to be a nondiscriminatory approach?
Sure, the subcommittee can recognize that the federal government won't pass laws regulating content and then, in the next week, they can dump billions in social security funds into private investment brokerages which invest in only organizations which maintain pro-Mormon, pro-Catholic, pro-Abortion, pro-Prohibition, pro-War websites. Or they can go home and privately invest only in companies which are pro-Duracell, pro-Pepsi, or pro-Guatemalen. Or they can wait for the next spending bill to come along and selectively filibuster any measures which are pro-Smoking, or pro-Cheetos, or pro-Ford.
Let's not allow the trees to obscure the forest. The only way to achieve net neutrality is to divest the government of their power to direct the flow of a significant portion of the GDP. As long as the federal government directly collects a significant portion of the GDP in tax money, and indirectly regulates the remainder, "net-neutrality" is nothing but lip service.
does asking for opinions imply that you agree to follow and publish every one of them Probably not but I've always seen coverups (selectively and somewhat ambiguously deleting posts) as disingenuous.
I didn't realise how much of the code was contributed by companies Reading the changelogs, and the files in the source Documentation directory, on a semi-regular basis provides enlightening insight into the diversity and number of people who regularly make contributions to the Linux kernel. It truly is a sign of the success of GNU/FSF mindset.
I was fairly suprised to see broadcom had donated so much code Many companies have different motivations for donating code. Sometimes a company may donate alpha code in the interest of testing its applicability and integratability. Sometimes a company may donate old code in order to appease a market which sufficiently supports profit margin, indirectly, through use and advertising. Sometimes a company may even donate commercial code for PR or because the open source community holds the largest population percentage of people who will likely work with it.
Corporations are not all bad and neither are they all good. Every move is carefully planned and executed based upon a number of considerations--some of which may even be at odds against each other. Knowing how to appeal to the greatest number of consumers in the greatest number of market sectors is usually a sign of a company which is agile and successful.
There isn't much choice when the maker of the cheap, heavily advertised crap was so heavily subsidized with government funds and stock market favoritism that no competitor had a running chance in the market.
I don't think many people fully recognize what an impact government had on the software industry and the internet through the 90s. It was taxpayer money that provided a significant percentage of the capital for the companies which went big (or went broke). It was taxpayer money that provided a significant percentage of the capital to build the infrastructure. It was taxpayer money that provided a significant percentage of the research funding. On the other side of the counter it was taxpayer money which bought the products.
But it was only the directors, CxOs, VPs, and major stock holders who were allowed to walk away with the profits. Where is the taxpayer's cut?
When I'm voting on the firehose I look for several things:
- I usually vote down when people post enormous quotes from TFA in their summary - I usually vote down if more than half the summary is a quote from TFA - I usually vote down use of ""text text text"". Quote within quote style is important to programmers. - I usually vote down if the summary is longer than two paragraphs - I usually vote down if line breaks or quoting makes the summary look sloppy - I usually vote down when full URL links are included as opposed to using an href - I usually vote down if an href link covers entire sentences - I usually vote down if the href'd words make up more than 10% of the summary text - I usually vote down if the summary contains multiple spelling or grammar errors (c'mon peeps, I don't want to be a purist, but I value an effort for publication quality) - I usually vote down if the summary reads like an advertisement - I usually vote down if there does not seem to be a single main reference (ie. summaries, IMHO, are about one article and may contain auxiliary links but shouldn't read like a discussion in and of themselves) - I usually vote down if I smell any scent of trollage
If I can pass through all of these while reading the summary I usually vote up by default. Journal entries are almost always voted up regardless of the applicability of the above criteria. I try to keep an eye on the topics to see if they match the headline and content though I've let a few slip.
I read the first few paragraphs of the article. It was some of the most disgusting crap I've ever read--lascivious, l3wd, suggestive in a creepy and unwholesome way, prurient. It would've been okay if the author dropped the whole "wouldn't you like to have a woman" objectification after the first paragraph. As it was I was left with the impression that the author exhibited a writing style which would be typical of a man who makes a hobby out of buying (and prides himself on the knowledge of) women's underwear just so that he can wear them on his head while viewing pr0n--and not necessarily becoming ually aroused while doing it either (look, I don't care if the guy does know the clothier's terminology of every piece of women's underwear, and I don't care if he does wear them on his head while viewing pr0n... but if he's wearing women's underwear and viewing pr0n then it should be part of a s3xual expression--not a written piece about Windows Vista). I usually call it "flaming" where the flamer is trying to pass off flagrantly obnoxious behavior as perfectly normal.
> If you destroy something, you're asking for trouble
I personally would choose not to use software which is known to contain lethal traps. I can't imagine, in a world full of software, that one particular developer with a personality issue (vigilanteism) could create a program which is so important that everyone must have it.
I've always been in support of authors who attempt copy protection by any measure. If one wishes to play in the piracy game then they must accept, ahead of time, that there may be serious consequences. At the same time if the author chooses to waste his time fighting against pirates he doesn't even know then he must acknowledge that he's already lost.
It's a speed trap vs. radar detector game. Simple as that. The only problem I have is when the government uses taxpayer money to take sides (eg. RIAA/MPAA).
Power is increasingly being consolidated at the federal level. While there are a plethora of candidates for local titles the major money movers are ted by Democrats and Republicans which are essentially two arms of the same body.
> not all think we should immediately surrender our rights
Those are the ones who never receive enough corporate or political backing to make their campaigns viable against the extremely well-funded Big Two.
It's either Coke or Pepsi or resign yourself to being a "crackpot". Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me--unless reputation means anything in the job market.
> PC Gaming is DEAD. It's only a matter of time before MMORPGs move to the consoles too
You have expressed the reason for the assertion. PC gaming is no longer about gaming. Gaming could be described as a system of rules around a logic puzzle. PC gaming is now about social networking and appeal (mostly visual).
Computers are the realm of intellectuals. PC games, the really good ones, were intense intellectual puzzles. A good transition to recognize is the shift in RPG style: from symbolic display to a concentration on realism. Times of Lore marked this event. Before ToL were games such as Ultima 3 and Phantasie (Nintendo had Zelda) and even earlier were the text based games such as Zork. After ToL were the AD&D games and, later, the anime (eg. Final Fantasy series) style realism RPGs.
Developmentally the earlier games had more intriguing game plots, puzzles, and intrigue. The later games were more visually appealing and spectacular.
People do the same things with their computers today as they did 15 (even 20) years ago: play games, print, e-mail, read, write, collect media. While there is an argument to be made that OSD, due to higher resolutions and 3D algorithms, and networking have become more complex there simply is no efficient reason why the size of the codebase and the memory footprint has increased as much as it has.
Slashdot Mirror
The website has prominent names with proven records in real results for the taxpayers and citizens. Best of luck in their efforts.
How many different algorithms are there to generate a prime number? Sure, all of them eventually fail, but they each fail in their own special way. Every prime number generator has an optimum range.
These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys for Dell. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys for HP. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys sent to China. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys in the alpha testing groups. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys in the beta testing groups. These algorithms generate prime numbers which are used as valid keys on the test systems shipped to technical writers.
Et cetera.
Microsoft compiles information from Windowsupdate, third party software, websites, exploits, error reports, and anything else which communicates any bit of information that can be associated with the key in use on that system. Microsoft knows full well where the source of its piracy is--and it's not just some vaporous hackboi in Romania.
Arguing about it lends to Senators and Representatives spending their time arguing about it. Their arguing time is very expensive and, if the argument grows large enough, they may need to schedule a national conference to argue about it. That's even more expensive.
Implementation is expensive but, if they're really dead-set on going ahead with it, it cannot be avoided. The best thing for a taxpayer to do is to pay close attention to the companies which profit from the allocation of the new funds in the hope that they can make an private investment in those companies. The taxpayer will never see the corporate profit of his tax dollar but the private citizen may.
Enforcement is expensive. The best thing for a taxpayer to do is to comply as quickly and painlessly as possible to minimize the tax burden of enforcement. In the case of the Real ID system: just go and make sure you have yours. After you have yours then you can freely debate, until you're blue in the face, whether or not it is right or true for us to have them. Unless the goal is a coordinated DDoS of the court system there's no sense in avoiding a mandatory ID.
Profit. Think along the lines of profit. Minimize effort, minimize damage, maximize return. Do nothing if you have to.
Still, though, I would much rather see a complete decimation of the federal stranglehold on financial control of the nation. It would be better for the entire nation to spend a year in collapse and rediscover the virtue of decentralization than for the world to continue careening on the current crash course with inevitable disaster. How long before the Feds truly p--s off someone who is powerful enough to engineer a real worldwide calamity? Every day the feds consolidate more and more power, money, and control. It is only a matter of time before some Senator, or foreign ambassador, or military contractor somewhere steps on someone's toes in (accidentally, of course) precisely the wrong way. Without some sort of oversight, any company could violate neutrality without worrying about the laws If the 'net were truly managed as a free system, though, would anyone hear a lone tree falling in the forest? Near ubiquitous government control only ensures one thing: a single subcommittee causes a thousand trees to fall at a time. at least the committee's not your bad guy True. Each member of the committee constitute their own special kind of bad guy.
I will happily compile secure libraries, encryption algorithms, and maintain a basic level of privacy measures. I will never ever ever be deluded to think that "protected memory" is indeed protected, that "FIPS 140-1 level 1" is "the best one can get", or that "compliant" means anything other than sophisticated sounding advertising. This functionality (especially certified FIPS 140-1 or FIPS 140-2) would be nice to see in UNIX variants I'm sure that somewhere someone has made a program which you can pipe data to and from or which you can use as a wrapper around your network transactions (a la tcpwrapper). An additional application for this would be the ability to use hardware PKCS #11 tokens At one time railroad lines had two different track spacings and some roundhouses sported heavy machinery which could quickly change the wheelbases on locomotives and the train cars. Be careful of integration. There is profit motive in change (for the sake of change) and integration makes change very slow and painful.
Probably not. Which game recently had the political expose on game designers who were giving themselves and/or their social allies unfair game advantages? "Hacked accounts" are a convenient way of disguising those advantages similar to money laundering and it works both directions. It's also a source of profit like dropped Blackberrys or scratched CDs.
Sure, the subcommittee can recognize that the federal government won't pass laws regulating content and then, in the next week, they can dump billions in social security funds into private investment brokerages which invest in only organizations which maintain pro-Mormon, pro-Catholic, pro-Abortion, pro-Prohibition, pro-War websites. Or they can go home and privately invest only in companies which are pro-Duracell, pro-Pepsi, or pro-Guatemalen. Or they can wait for the next spending bill to come along and selectively filibuster any measures which are pro-Smoking, or pro-Cheetos, or pro-Ford.
Let's not allow the trees to obscure the forest. The only way to achieve net neutrality is to divest the government of their power to direct the flow of a significant portion of the GDP. As long as the federal government directly collects a significant portion of the GDP in tax money, and indirectly regulates the remainder, "net-neutrality" is nothing but lip service.
Many rants stay up. Some rants turn into front-page news. Deletion, based on arbitrary criteria, seems disingenuous.
Corporations are not all bad and neither are they all good. Every move is carefully planned and executed based upon a number of considerations--some of which may even be at odds against each other. Knowing how to appeal to the greatest number of consumers in the greatest number of market sectors is usually a sign of a company which is agile and successful.
There isn't much choice when the maker of the cheap, heavily advertised crap was so heavily subsidized with government funds and stock market favoritism that no competitor had a running chance in the market.
I don't think many people fully recognize what an impact government had on the software industry and the internet through the 90s. It was taxpayer money that provided a significant percentage of the capital for the companies which went big (or went broke). It was taxpayer money that provided a significant percentage of the capital to build the infrastructure. It was taxpayer money that provided a significant percentage of the research funding. On the other side of the counter it was taxpayer money which bought the products.
But it was only the directors, CxOs, VPs, and major stock holders who were allowed to walk away with the profits. Where is the taxpayer's cut?
When I'm voting on the firehose I look for several things:
- I usually vote down when people post enormous quotes from TFA in their summary
- I usually vote down if more than half the summary is a quote from TFA
- I usually vote down use of ""text text text"". Quote within quote style is important to programmers.
- I usually vote down if the summary is longer than two paragraphs
- I usually vote down if line breaks or quoting makes the summary look sloppy
- I usually vote down when full URL links are included as opposed to using an href
- I usually vote down if an href link covers entire sentences
- I usually vote down if the href'd words make up more than 10% of the summary text
- I usually vote down if the summary contains multiple spelling or grammar errors (c'mon peeps, I don't want to be a purist, but I value an effort for publication quality)
- I usually vote down if the summary reads like an advertisement
- I usually vote down if there does not seem to be a single main reference (ie. summaries, IMHO, are about one article and may contain auxiliary links but shouldn't read like a discussion in and of themselves)
- I usually vote down if I smell any scent of trollage
If I can pass through all of these while reading the summary I usually vote up by default. Journal entries are almost always voted up regardless of the applicability of the above criteria. I try to keep an eye on the topics to see if they match the headline and content though I've let a few slip.
I read the first few paragraphs of the article. It was some of the most disgusting crap I've ever read--lascivious, l3wd, suggestive in a creepy and unwholesome way, prurient. It would've been okay if the author dropped the whole "wouldn't you like to have a woman" objectification after the first paragraph. As it was I was left with the impression that the author exhibited a writing style which would be typical of a man who makes a hobby out of buying (and prides himself on the knowledge of) women's underwear just so that he can wear them on his head while viewing pr0n--and not necessarily becoming ually aroused while doing it either (look, I don't care if the guy does know the clothier's terminology of every piece of women's underwear, and I don't care if he does wear them on his head while viewing pr0n... but if he's wearing women's underwear and viewing pr0n then it should be part of a s3xual expression--not a written piece about Windows Vista). I usually call it "flaming" where the flamer is trying to pass off flagrantly obnoxious behavior as perfectly normal.
> If you destroy something, you're asking for trouble
I personally would choose not to use software which is known to contain lethal traps. I can't imagine, in a world full of software, that one particular developer with a personality issue (vigilanteism) could create a program which is so important that everyone must have it.
> He, and by extension the software he wrote is the only thing making the decision each step of the way
Don't use his software. Historically bad software (unless propped up by corporate or political interests) falls by the wayside.
I've always been in support of authors who attempt copy protection by any measure. If one wishes to play in the piracy game then they must accept, ahead of time, that there may be serious consequences. At the same time if the author chooses to waste his time fighting against pirates he doesn't even know then he must acknowledge that he's already lost.
It's a speed trap vs. radar detector game. Simple as that. The only problem I have is when the government uses taxpayer money to take sides (eg. RIAA/MPAA).
> Didn't I say this is NOT the US?
I acknowledge that you seem to have the more preferable situation.
> we have plenty of different candidates
Power is increasingly being consolidated at the federal level. While there are a plethora of candidates for local titles the major money movers are ted by Democrats and Republicans which are essentially two arms of the same body.
> not all think we should immediately surrender our rights
Those are the ones who never receive enough corporate or political backing to make their campaigns viable against the extremely well-funded Big Two.
It's either Coke or Pepsi or resign yourself to being a "crackpot". Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me--unless reputation means anything in the job market.
> half baked
And what would you use to back this up?
> vaguely insulting ramblings
Or this?
> Back to you, Kent
Are you impersonating someone for humor?
> it could be quite genuinely to fight terrorism or some such crap
Or it could be some crap.
> Vote 'em out
Polls do not include the option of "no candidate".
> PC Gaming is DEAD. It's only a matter of time before MMORPGs move to the consoles too
You have expressed the reason for the assertion. PC gaming is no longer about gaming. Gaming could be described as a system of rules around a logic puzzle. PC gaming is now about social networking and appeal (mostly visual).
Computers are the realm of intellectuals. PC games, the really good ones, were intense intellectual puzzles. A good transition to recognize is the shift in RPG style: from symbolic display to a concentration on realism. Times of Lore marked this event. Before ToL were games such as Ultima 3 and Phantasie (Nintendo had Zelda) and even earlier were the text based games such as Zork. After ToL were the AD&D games and, later, the anime (eg. Final Fantasy series) style realism RPGs.
Developmentally the earlier games had more intriguing game plots, puzzles, and intrigue. The later games were more visually appealing and spectacular.
> Remember the $40/Meg RAM
Used.
People do the same things with their computers today as they did 15 (even 20) years ago: play games, print, e-mail, read, write, collect media. While there is an argument to be made that OSD, due to higher resolutions and 3D algorithms, and networking have become more complex there simply is no efficient reason why the size of the codebase and the memory footprint has increased as much as it has.
There is a good reason: people remain employed.