They haven't put the Tyranids in yet... Although, the teaser they put in at the end of the singleplayer campaign hinted that the NEXT Warhammer would not just let you conquer one planet, but several! Maybe there'll be some Tyranids in that one...
Two words: "Skirmish Mode". You can set up an off-the-cuff battle between any combination of races, using any of numerous maps, pick from several races, set different game rules... It's infinitely configurable. You would never run out of weird situations to try.
I'd personally try to get the point where I could own Chaos as Tao under the hardest difficulty level. Of course this is nearly impossible; Chaos is TOUGH. I think it's like this:
The Eldar are the "cool kids" who take Theater and think they're better than everyone else.
The Tao are the nerds. Everyone picks on them, but they've got better technology and can strategize.
The Space Marines are the football team.
The Orcs are the delinquents, smoking cigs out back instead of going to Biology class.
The Imperial Guard are the Young Republicans.
And the Chaos Marines are the psycho satanists smoking cloves and playing Ozzy at top volume in the courtyard; they're planning to sacrifice the dean's cat to Nurgle after Saturday's rave.
You sound like one of those people who, back in high school, complained about the "smart kids" because they were always "getting attention" from the teacher. I suppose you think the correct lifestyle is one in which you are completely invisible, do nothing with your life, and vanish into obscurity and the corner bar.
I think you're lost. This is Slashdot. The sports pages are over there.
Previous generations had hobbies that let technologists use their skills in ways that gave them pleasure. For example, electrical engineers would tinker with Ham Radio sets, and build gadgets. Because at the time there was no internet, these hobbies tended to be personal and private, although there were some magazines that would allow submissions (and sharing of information).
Modern technologists are far less limited. They have the global internet and the open-source movement, plus a huge infrastructure for sharing information (like Sourceforge and Slashdot) available. It's like a hobbyist renaissance, or maybe the hobbyist version of the Enlightenment.
Who can resist participating? It's marvellous. Your average nerd (myself included) was picked on throughout his childhood, and surrounded by people who didn't share his interests. Now, suddenly, there's a whole world of people who would just LOVE to help you debug your networked application.
It's Nerdvana.
Saying it all derives from boredom is equivalent to saying you don't share our interests, and don't "get" them. It's not cool. We're not bored, we're INSPIRED.
And it's WAY more fun than what we have to do all day at work.
Ok... I've read some of the articles people have suggested to me and I agree that it looks very powerful and nice. But...
I'm still not convinced that there's any need to change everything every couple of years. The existing approach seems to work for almost everybody. The only thing I'm hearing that Linux doesn't do as well as ZFS would be RAIDs, right? So instead of changing the main kernel and affecting everyone, why not just roll a special RAID-specific kernel, give that one ZFS, and leave the main Linux kernel as-is?
In other words, if the main benefit of ZFS is that it gives you a better RAID, why not just roll a Linux distribution for RAIDs and build a custom kernel that's ZFS-friendly? Thus avoiding the whole controversy? Or, ha ha, use Open Solaris for RAIDS if ZFS is so important.
Ok, I'll admit, it looks powerful and the transaction approach looks like it might be a little safer than journalling. IF everything works as advertised.
But I'm still not comfortable with anybody chucking a set of constructs that have served linux (and unix) for many years in favor of something that's relatively new. I'm a little uncomfortable with the way the industry tries to re-invent everything every couple of years. And if the Linux kernel developers aren't crazy about it, considering how much more they know about Linux than I do, I'll just go ahead and trust them, I think.
Honestly, I think Linux is pretty solid the way it is. Maybe this would be good for special-purpose RAID systems. You can always compile your own kernel, you know. There's no real compelling need for anyone to change everybody's kernel just so you can do ZFS.
Why not do a ZFS-friendly kernel and make it available separately, instead of trying to change everything in the main kernel?
It's a valid question. Why does it have to be all or nothing?
No, you misunderstand. It's more like "I'm satisfied with the way Linux currently does things, and don't really see any pressing need for the powers that be to change it".
If ZFS doesn't buy me, individually, anything, why should I care about it?
And if most people don't care about it, why should the kernel be modified to support it? That's what this is about, right? That the kernel doesn't currently support ZFS?
The user population will, I'm sure, vote on this in one way or another. If enough people want ZFS, there will be ZFS. If not...
The real purpose of copyright is to make sure an author, artist, or musician can make a living from his body of work. That is, if I write a book and it's well received, I can make enough money to survive. This, in turn, frees me up to write more books and society as a whole benefits. Over the course of a lifetime, I could write twenty or thirty books, maybe even more. This is good for me, and good for society.
Without copyright, this is impossible. People are selfish; they won't pay for something unless they have to. So as a simple matter of fair play, we need copyright to preserve an author's right to make a living. We do this because we VALUE authors, we WANT them to make a living. We WANT to encourage them to continue to produce their work. It is a social good.
Lately, my government has extended copyright to 75 years past the death of the author. That'll allow an author's children and grandchildren to enjoy the benefit of his work, which isn't a bad thing. I hope to have children myself one day; it would be nice to be able to hand them a set of copyrights and leave them well situated in life. It's MY WORK, I can do with it as I please. Under this scheme, I can leave my copyrights to my children and make sure they're taken care of when I'm gone. This is also a social good.
None of you should have any problem with this. If you're capable of producing your own work, you will benefit from it in the same way all other authors and artists will.
I suspect that those of you who are up in arms over "copyright" are those who are incapable of producing your own, original work. What you really want is access to the works of OTHERS.
Sorry, kids... As Heinlein said, "TANSTAAFL" (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch).
Get to work. Write your own stuff. Get your own copyrights.
Ok; that's fair. I respect that; using it as a lingua franca could be interesting. BUT...
On reading more about it, it seems that ZFS rolls up filesystem, RAID, and volume management in one. I think I understand why people are objecting. Linux has a layered approach and this violates it by cramming everything into the filesystem. Each to his own, but I don't think I'd want to do that on my own systems. I'd rather have people keep working on and improving the pieces we've already got.
How? Philosophically, it's a filesystem. What does a filesystem do? Lets you work with files.
Reiser is a filesystem. So is ext3. I've been using them for a long time now, and have never noticed anything I needed to do that they would not do. They're both journalling, so I'm not going to lose data if there's a power loss... What else does a body need?
Are you looking for files to have sets of metadata associated with them, like in Mac OS/X? If so, I'd have to say I think the plain old Unix filename and permissions scheme is a lot more attractive.
Unless you can tell me something magical and special that ZFS does that Reiser and ext3 don't do, I'm going to have a really hard time getting enthusiastic about it. Something better than metadata, surely.
Will it get me laid? Will it clear up my skin and make my hair silky soft?
Well? Lay it on me. Why is ZFS so great? Honest question, no sarcasm.
It's basically a filesystem in use by Solaris. I don't know why anybody cares about it, we've got Reiser and ext3, right? Surely adding yet another filesystem to Linux isn't worth mucking up the kernel to support it...
Feh. People are nuts. It's ok, I love watching 'em fight. I've got my lobster fried rice and diet coke right here! Carry on!
Hello, I am Geek42, your server's admin. I'm generally responsible for Earth and its neighboring planets. I've entered this forum to answer some of the questions you must have after this unauthorized leak of proprietary game-server intel.
Now, it is true that we don't render reality when you're not paying attention to it, but this is only a performance enhancer designed to deal with the blockiness and inconsistent framerate we were having during the earlier part of the 20th century (in subjective game time). We did attempt to render everything at all times, and had some success during the late 1800's, but around the middle of World War I we had a major server crash. This happened right in the middle of a large battle which resulted in well over 100,000 customers' characters dropping dead right in the middle of the field! We had to retcon it as a massive gas attack, and it was extremely awkward and embarassing. Our writers refused to work with us for weeks! We had to bring in temps, which resulted in the treaty of Versailles, although that worked out nicely by giving us a whole additional "World War" storyline twenty years later (or so).
Regardless, it is true that when you're not looking at something in-game, it ceases to exist. For example, your asses do not actually exist except for when you look at them in mirrors or turn around to visually confirm their presence. We feed in tactile data when you grab them, of course, and when you're actively using them, but we gain some performance boost by not actually rendering them visually.
We've had some trouble with hackers fooling around with this subsystem, making themselves invisible and "putting the frighteners on folks" (as they say in the forums) and this has resulted in certain trolls claiming to be able to talk to spirits. Our staff has mixed feelings about this; some of us think that fortune tellers and other charlatans provide a valuable service in identifying the denser players among you, but other of us (myself included) sort of wish the hackers would knock it off. You know who you are. Especially YOU, Ted, with your pranks in the ladies' showers. Saturday was totally inappropriate! We almost had to issue refunds. Enough said.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is, you shouldn't let this interfere with your enjoyment of the MMORPG. Just because you know how the trick works doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, am I right?
By the way, our adjunct admins in Austria were NOT supposed to reveal this information, they know very well company policy prohibits it. They are being spoken to very harshly, I can assure you!
I'm authorized to assign those of you who are upset over this turn of events a one-time perk each, for instance, a temporary +100 on your dating skill level. Those of you who have already hooked up in-game can opt for the optional alternative "+50 BlowjobAfterWork" on your evening entertainment roll, although our implementation of that is kind of buggy and about 1/2 of the time, results in the assignment of a "ToiletUnclog" skill-building task. If you experience this problem, fill out the complaint form and you'll get another chance at the dice roll.
If you have any further questions, you can always check the FAQ, or the admin pages.
I don't agree; I think there's a lot to be said for protecting a child's innocence until he's passed puberty -- Lord knows they'll spend the rest of their life wanting to get that innocence back! It's one of the oldest themes in literature for a reason.
Let children play games designed for children and let adults play games designed for adults.
There's no reason to strip them of their naivete -- remember, you can't unring a bell.
I'm just a nerd, not part of the Slackware project per se, and although I dearly love Slackware, this opinion is purely my own and not designed to benefit anyone or any distro or anything except YOU who might really dig it.
Just for you, my very own iptables firewall script! If anyone notices anything I left out, please let me know and discuss!
(start here):
# Script by SADGEEKHERMIT, based on an earlier script I wrote for FreeBSD/ipfw. # This firewall script should be placed in/etc/rc.d and named "rc.firewall". # Assumptions: you're using iptables, and your computer is a workstation # which isn't making any services available to the web. Also you're paranoid.
# First, clean out the current ruleset. iptables --flush
# Now for the initial admin part.
# Policies (what isn't explicitly allowed is automatically denied): iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -P FORWARD DROP iptables -P OUTPUT DROP # Allow all local, loopback traffic: iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT # Block malformed "XMAS" and "NULL" packets: iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP # Block ping: iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j DROP # Permit DHCP!!! iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp ! -o lo --dport 67 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p udp ! -i lo --sport 67 -j ACCEPT # Permit DNS: iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp ! -o lo --dport 53 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p udp ! -i lo --sport 53 -j ACCEPT # Permit ICMP type "destination unreachable": iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type destination-unreachable -j ACCEPT
# Now for our internet access rules. These will explicitly permit # web browsing, passive-mode FTP, etc. # The way this works is, for every TCP port you want to use, # you add these two lines (replacing N with the port number): # iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport N -j ACCEPT # iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport N -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT # For a workstation/home computer, you'll want to make these ports available: # 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS), 110 (POP3), 143 (IMAP), and 25 (SMTP). # NOTE: Doing it this way means we don't have to explicitly block anything. # If we don't allow it, it's blocked. For example, if you're not on the loopback # interface (localhost, lo) you can't access X at all (tcp ports 6000-6020).
# Internet access rules: iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 80 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 80 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 443 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 443 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 110 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 110 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 143 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 143 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 25 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 25 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
# FTP RULES: # FTP is a special case. You would NEVER allow non-passive FTP, because # then you'd have to open up all YOUR high ports from 1024-65,535. Why even HAVE # a firewall? On the other hand, passive FTP is a lot safer; you're allowing traffic TO # port 21 on the remote server, and traffic TO and FROM high ports on the remote # server. This doesn't open up ANY local ports on this machine; it just means you # can talk to high ports on the remote machine, which isn't all that bad. # So here are the rules for PASSIVE MODE FTP: iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 21 -j ACCEPT iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 1024:65535 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 1024:65535 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
Your best bet is to start with Slackware 11, it's a manual distribution which will force you to actually get involved with it and learn how things work under the hood.
For example, you have to write your own iptables firewall script. But by doing this, you'll be able to understand the output of "iptables --list" on any distro out there and see what it's doing behind the scenes (for instance, amusingly, what holes does it leave open if any?).
Think of it this way (using a car analogy like the other guy, but more seriously):
If you learn to drive in a car with a five speed stick and a clutch, you'll be able to drive almost any wheeled vehicle on Earth with very little futzing around. It's almost like having a superpower.
But if you start out driving an automatic, you'll ONLY be able to drive automatic until somebody teaches you manual. And you won't have any reason to learn it, so you'll miss out on a potentially important skill.
It's better to start out with something challenging and switch to the easy stuff later.
Go Slackware, be a nerd like us! You'll thank me later.
Look, I love violent video games as much as the next guy. Ask anyone; I waste more time playing Doom3 and Battlefield: 2142 than anyone else I know.
HOWEVER...
I don't think violent video games belong in the hands of children, and I have no problem whatsoever with the government stepping in and restricting sales to people 18 and over. I think it's an excellent idea.
Take San Andreas, for example. Here's a game where you get to "enjoy" being a thugged-out L.A. gang banger, breaking into people's houses to steal their shit, fucking hookers, carjacking, killing cops, and doing every other psycho thing nobody sensible would ever do in real life. An adult will generally be able to play that game, work off some stress, laugh at the sheer over the top character of it, and not emulate it in any way.
Kids don't have that level of maturity yet. They're still learning what it means to be a member of our society. And I think it's in everyone's best interest to restrict them to media that will help them grow into mature, productive adults. The government has a valid interest in regulating this process, in at least attempting to enforce a positive outcome. At the very least, games for children should be relatively harmless, with no realistic violence.
Why is everyone so heated up over this? It's not like Spitzer's trying to take away your games. CHILL, people.
First of all, "web apps" do NOT mean "apps run by a third party you do not control". Most companies have their own web server, do they not? And there is NOTHING stopping them from putting a Java application server on it and serving up Struts applications to their employees.
If you rephrase the question as "Will companies begin hosting their own applications on their web servers and abandon the client-server model they were burdened with in the 1990's", then I'd say the answer is "yes". Definitely.
Take my shop for example. For over a decade, they were using Oracle 2000 forms (circa 1996). After I joined, we moved to 10G, and I built a couple of 10G application servers and made sure that the developers got the 10G tools. We rebuilt all our forms and reports and targeted web delivery; we put them on our new, shiny application servers. All of the data, the code, everything resides on the application server and our database. Our users have nothing installed on their PCs whatsoever (except for JInitiator, and our SSL cert).
The applications look exactly like the old ones, only they're delivered over the web via a browser. They work exactly the same way -- we were very careful about that.
Now, everything's the same -- we get exactly what we had before. Also we are in complete control of the application. We can prevent any individual user from accessing it at will, right at the firewall, and we can control permissions via database roles. We don't have to worry about users trying to fiddle around with software at their desktop, or messing with configuration files or something, because they've got nothing to play with.
Best of all, we don't have to roll anything out to anybody, because it's all server-side code.
Unless your users need to use something heavyweight like Photoshop, there's no reason whatsoever to roll applications out to the desktops. Sure, give them word processors, a web browser, and maybe an email client (although you can give them webmail too, ALSO on your web server!). But that's about it.
Provisioning their machines should be as easy as rolling out a standard image complete with web shortcuts to your site's tools.
It's the future, man. No doubt about it. Of course, HOME users will stick with regular applications if they're smart...
I have read your entire post and I still think you're totally full of it. The registry is a rotten idea, and flat files are a much better approach. I've already gone into my reasons for thinking so and I won't rehash them here. But I will say this:
You are way too bitter and on edge about this conversation. I think you need a vacation. Someplace quiet, with no computers around, maybe a beach. Seriously. Whatever it is you do in your admin job, you don't seem to enjoy it!
For the record, I'm an Oracle database administrator stuck using Winblows Server 2003; I'd much rather be on Linux servers, but hell, us DBA's didn't get to pick the platform. I also do Java development, web development, manage several application servers, work with a fairly big server farm... So, I'm probably at least as experienced as you are. Largest table: 11 million rows. Largest database: over 20GB of text data.
And my software has been running without a hitch, updating tens of thousands of rows at a time, without error for a long time now. It's easy to configure, easy to work with, and many VERY talented people have complimented me on it. It doesn't touch the registry, it uses flat files and XML.
As all software should.
Anyway, what are you still doing here! Go chill out for a while! The beach is calling you.
Slashdot Mirror
They haven't put the Tyranids in yet... Although, the teaser they put in at the end of the singleplayer campaign hinted that the NEXT Warhammer would not just let you conquer one planet, but several! Maybe there'll be some Tyranids in that one...
Come on, it's fun, even sans Tyranids...
Two words: "Skirmish Mode". You can set up an off-the-cuff battle between any combination of races, using any of numerous maps, pick from several races, set different game rules... It's infinitely configurable. You would never run out of weird situations to try.
I'd personally try to get the point where I could own Chaos as Tao under the hardest difficulty level. Of course this is nearly impossible; Chaos is TOUGH. I think it's like this:
The Eldar are the "cool kids" who take Theater and think they're better than everyone else.
The Tao are the nerds. Everyone picks on them, but they've got better technology and can strategize.
The Space Marines are the football team.
The Orcs are the delinquents, smoking cigs out back instead of going to Biology class.
The Imperial Guard are the Young Republicans.
And the Chaos Marines are the psycho satanists smoking cloves and playing Ozzy at top volume in the courtyard; they're planning to sacrifice the dean's cat to Nurgle after Saturday's rave.
It's College, writ large in outer space!
How can you not dig that...
You had no idea what I was talking about with respect to sets, did you?
If I could post graphics, I'd give you a Venn diagram.
Of course, I think you've clarified what subset you belong to. Maybe it's a moot point.
Set A is the set of sports fans.
Set B is the set of idiots who disliked the smart kids back in high school.
Set B is usually a subset of set A. While almost all high school idiots who dislike smart kids are sports fans, not all sports fans are idiots.
Why are you annoyed? Guilty conscience?
You sound like one of those people who, back in high school, complained about the "smart kids" because they were always "getting attention" from the teacher. I suppose you think the correct lifestyle is one in which you are completely invisible, do nothing with your life, and vanish into obscurity and the corner bar.
I think you're lost. This is Slashdot. The sports pages are over there.
Saying it's boredom cheapens it.
Previous generations had hobbies that let technologists use their skills in ways that gave them pleasure. For example, electrical engineers would tinker with Ham Radio sets, and build gadgets. Because at the time there was no internet, these hobbies tended to be personal and private, although there were some magazines that would allow submissions (and sharing of information).
Modern technologists are far less limited. They have the global internet and the open-source movement, plus a huge infrastructure for sharing information (like Sourceforge and Slashdot) available. It's like a hobbyist renaissance, or maybe the hobbyist version of the Enlightenment.
Who can resist participating? It's marvellous. Your average nerd (myself included) was picked on throughout his childhood, and surrounded by people who didn't share his interests. Now, suddenly, there's a whole world of people who would just LOVE to help you debug your networked application.
It's Nerdvana.
Saying it all derives from boredom is equivalent to saying you don't share our interests, and don't "get" them. It's not cool. We're not bored, we're INSPIRED.
And it's WAY more fun than what we have to do all day at work.
Ok... I've read some of the articles people have suggested to me and I agree that it looks very powerful and nice. But...
I'm still not convinced that there's any need to change everything every couple of years. The existing approach seems to work for almost everybody. The only thing I'm hearing that Linux doesn't do as well as ZFS would be RAIDs, right? So instead of changing the main kernel and affecting everyone, why not just roll a special RAID-specific kernel, give that one ZFS, and leave the main Linux kernel as-is?
In other words, if the main benefit of ZFS is that it gives you a better RAID, why not just roll a Linux distribution for RAIDs and build a custom kernel that's ZFS-friendly? Thus avoiding the whole controversy? Or, ha ha, use Open Solaris for RAIDS if ZFS is so important.
Why change Linux?
Ok, I'll admit, it looks powerful and the transaction approach looks like it might be a little safer than journalling. IF everything works as advertised.
But I'm still not comfortable with anybody chucking a set of constructs that have served linux (and unix) for many years in favor of something that's relatively new. I'm a little uncomfortable with the way the industry tries to re-invent everything every couple of years. And if the Linux kernel developers aren't crazy about it, considering how much more they know about Linux than I do, I'll just go ahead and trust them, I think.
Honestly, I think Linux is pretty solid the way it is. Maybe this would be good for special-purpose RAID systems. You can always compile your own kernel, you know. There's no real compelling need for anyone to change everybody's kernel just so you can do ZFS.
Why not do a ZFS-friendly kernel and make it available separately, instead of trying to change everything in the main kernel?
It's a valid question. Why does it have to be all or nothing?
No, you misunderstand. It's more like "I'm satisfied with the way Linux currently does things, and don't really see any pressing need for the powers that be to change it".
If ZFS doesn't buy me, individually, anything, why should I care about it?
And if most people don't care about it, why should the kernel be modified to support it? That's what this is about, right? That the kernel doesn't currently support ZFS?
The user population will, I'm sure, vote on this in one way or another. If enough people want ZFS, there will be ZFS. If not...
The real purpose of copyright is to make sure an author, artist, or musician can make a living from his body of work. That is, if I write a book and it's well received, I can make enough money to survive. This, in turn, frees me up to write more books and society as a whole benefits. Over the course of a lifetime, I could write twenty or thirty books, maybe even more. This is good for me, and good for society.
Without copyright, this is impossible. People are selfish; they won't pay for something unless they have to. So as a simple matter of fair play, we need copyright to preserve an author's right to make a living. We do this because we VALUE authors, we WANT them to make a living. We WANT to encourage them to continue to produce their work. It is a social good.
Lately, my government has extended copyright to 75 years past the death of the author. That'll allow an author's children and grandchildren to enjoy the benefit of his work, which isn't a bad thing. I hope to have children myself one day; it would be nice to be able to hand them a set of copyrights and leave them well situated in life. It's MY WORK, I can do with it as I please. Under this scheme, I can leave my copyrights to my children and make sure they're taken care of when I'm gone. This is also a social good.
None of you should have any problem with this. If you're capable of producing your own work, you will benefit from it in the same way all other authors and artists will.
I suspect that those of you who are up in arms over "copyright" are those who are incapable of producing your own, original work. What you really want is access to the works of OTHERS.
Sorry, kids... As Heinlein said, "TANSTAAFL" (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch).
Get to work. Write your own stuff. Get your own copyrights.
God helps those who help themselves.
Ok; that's fair. I respect that; using it as a lingua franca could be interesting. BUT...
On reading more about it, it seems that ZFS rolls up filesystem, RAID, and volume management in one. I think I understand why people are objecting. Linux has a layered approach and this violates it by cramming everything into the filesystem. Each to his own, but I don't think I'd want to do that on my own systems. I'd rather have people keep working on and improving the pieces we've already got.
But hey, just my opinion.
How? Philosophically, it's a filesystem. What does a filesystem do? Lets you work with files.
Reiser is a filesystem. So is ext3. I've been using them for a long time now, and have never noticed anything I needed to do that they would not do. They're both journalling, so I'm not going to lose data if there's a power loss... What else does a body need?
Are you looking for files to have sets of metadata associated with them, like in Mac OS/X? If so, I'd have to say I think the plain old Unix filename and permissions scheme is a lot more attractive.
Unless you can tell me something magical and special that ZFS does that Reiser and ext3 don't do, I'm going to have a really hard time getting enthusiastic about it. Something better than metadata, surely.
Will it get me laid? Will it clear up my skin and make my hair silky soft?
Well? Lay it on me. Why is ZFS so great? Honest question, no sarcasm.
Here's a wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS
It's basically a filesystem in use by Solaris. I don't know why anybody cares about it, we've got Reiser and ext3, right? Surely adding yet another filesystem to Linux isn't worth mucking up the kernel to support it...
Feh. People are nuts. It's ok, I love watching 'em fight. I've got my lobster fried rice and diet coke right here! Carry on!
Eyes... And testicles!
OH! MAH NADS!
Hello, I am Geek42, your server's admin. I'm generally responsible for Earth and its neighboring planets. I've entered this forum to answer some of the questions you must have after this unauthorized leak of proprietary game-server intel.
Now, it is true that we don't render reality when you're not paying attention to it, but this is only a performance enhancer designed to deal with the blockiness and inconsistent framerate we were having during the earlier part of the 20th century (in subjective game time). We did attempt to render everything at all times, and had some success during the late 1800's, but around the middle of World War I we had a major server crash. This happened right in the middle of a large battle which resulted in well over 100,000 customers' characters dropping dead right in the middle of the field! We had to retcon it as a massive gas attack, and it was extremely awkward and embarassing. Our writers refused to work with us for weeks! We had to bring in temps, which resulted in the treaty of Versailles, although that worked out nicely by giving us a whole additional "World War" storyline twenty years later (or so).
Regardless, it is true that when you're not looking at something in-game, it ceases to exist. For example, your asses do not actually exist except for when you look at them in mirrors or turn around to visually confirm their presence. We feed in tactile data when you grab them, of course, and when you're actively using them, but we gain some performance boost by not actually rendering them visually.
We've had some trouble with hackers fooling around with this subsystem, making themselves invisible and "putting the frighteners on folks" (as they say in the forums) and this has resulted in certain trolls claiming to be able to talk to spirits. Our staff has mixed feelings about this; some of us think that fortune tellers and other charlatans provide a valuable service in identifying the denser players among you, but other of us (myself included) sort of wish the hackers would knock it off. You know who you are. Especially YOU, Ted, with your pranks in the ladies' showers. Saturday was totally inappropriate! We almost had to issue refunds. Enough said.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is, you shouldn't let this interfere with your enjoyment of the MMORPG. Just because you know how the trick works doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, am I right?
By the way, our adjunct admins in Austria were NOT supposed to reveal this information, they know very well company policy prohibits it. They are being spoken to very harshly, I can assure you!
I'm authorized to assign those of you who are upset over this turn of events a one-time perk each, for instance, a temporary +100 on your dating skill level. Those of you who have already hooked up in-game can opt for the optional alternative "+50 BlowjobAfterWork" on your evening entertainment roll, although our implementation of that is kind of buggy and about 1/2 of the time, results in the assignment of a "ToiletUnclog" skill-building task. If you experience this problem, fill out the complaint form and you'll get another chance at the dice roll.
If you have any further questions, you can always check the FAQ, or the admin pages.
I said we shouldn't strip them of their naivete, I didn't say anything about feeding them bullshit.
Of course, Santa Claus works in my office, so your kids might be off base.
Seriously. There's a guy who looks just like him. Short, very fat, with a santa beard and hair. We're talking "splitting image".
It's spooky, actually.
Ugghh.... The man pages... Boy, did THAT take a long time. I was reading docs from all over the place, from security faqs to howtos to man pages...
:)
What an ordeal. But it was kinda fun. And I like my script!
I don't agree; I think there's a lot to be said for protecting a child's innocence until he's passed puberty -- Lord knows they'll spend the rest of their life wanting to get that innocence back! It's one of the oldest themes in literature for a reason.
Let children play games designed for children and let adults play games designed for adults.
There's no reason to strip them of their naivete -- remember, you can't unring a bell.
Firestarter? Umm... Ok, my bad, I didn't know about that. I ended up writing my own...
Well...
Still, you have to admit, it's not bad experience to write your own script... Um... Hey, look, over there! Is that free pizza?
(hides)
I'm just a nerd, not part of the Slackware project per se, and although I dearly love Slackware, this opinion is purely my own and not designed to benefit anyone or any distro or anything except YOU who might really dig it.
:)
Just thought I'd mention that!
Sorry for all the posts.
Just for you, my very own iptables firewall script! If anyone notices anything I left out, please let me know and discuss!
/etc/rc.d and named "rc.firewall".
(start here):
# Script by SADGEEKHERMIT, based on an earlier script I wrote for FreeBSD/ipfw.
# This firewall script should be placed in
# Assumptions: you're using iptables, and your computer is a workstation
# which isn't making any services available to the web. Also you're paranoid.
# First, clean out the current ruleset.
iptables --flush
# Now for the initial admin part.
# Policies (what isn't explicitly allowed is automatically denied):
iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
iptables -P OUTPUT DROP
# Allow all local, loopback traffic:
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT
# Block malformed "XMAS" and "NULL" packets:
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP
# Block ping:
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP
iptables -A OUTPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-reply -j DROP
# Permit DHCP!!!
iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp ! -o lo --dport 67 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p udp ! -i lo --sport 67 -j ACCEPT
# Permit DNS:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp ! -o lo --dport 53 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p udp ! -i lo --sport 53 -j ACCEPT
# Permit ICMP type "destination unreachable":
iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type destination-unreachable -j ACCEPT
# Now for our internet access rules. These will explicitly permit
# web browsing, passive-mode FTP, etc.
# The way this works is, for every TCP port you want to use,
# you add these two lines (replacing N with the port number):
# iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport N -j ACCEPT
# iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport N -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
# For a workstation/home computer, you'll want to make these ports available:
# 80 (HTTP), 443 (HTTPS), 110 (POP3), 143 (IMAP), and 25 (SMTP).
# NOTE: Doing it this way means we don't have to explicitly block anything.
# If we don't allow it, it's blocked. For example, if you're not on the loopback
# interface (localhost, lo) you can't access X at all (tcp ports 6000-6020).
# Internet access rules:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 80 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 443 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 110 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 110 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 143 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 143 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 25 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 25 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
# FTP RULES:
# FTP is a special case. You would NEVER allow non-passive FTP, because
# then you'd have to open up all YOUR high ports from 1024-65,535. Why even HAVE
# a firewall? On the other hand, passive FTP is a lot safer; you're allowing traffic TO
# port 21 on the remote server, and traffic TO and FROM high ports on the remote
# server. This doesn't open up ANY local ports on this machine; it just means you
# can talk to high ports on the remote machine, which isn't all that bad.
# So here are the rules for PASSIVE MODE FTP:
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 21 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp ! -o lo --dport 1024:65535 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! -i lo --sport 1024:65535 -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
Your best bet is to start with Slackware 11, it's a manual distribution which will force you to actually get involved with it and learn how things work under the hood.
a re-11.0-iso/)
For example, you have to write your own iptables firewall script. But by doing this, you'll be able to understand the output of "iptables --list" on any distro out there and see what it's doing behind the scenes (for instance, amusingly, what holes does it leave open if any?).
You can download the distro here, for free:
http://www.slackware.com/
(my favorite mirror is: http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slackware/slackw
There's a good book on it available here: http://www.slackbook.org/
Think of it this way (using a car analogy like the other guy, but more seriously):
If you learn to drive in a car with a five speed stick and a clutch, you'll be able to drive almost any wheeled vehicle on Earth with very little futzing around. It's almost like having a superpower.
But if you start out driving an automatic, you'll ONLY be able to drive automatic until somebody teaches you manual. And you won't have any reason to learn it, so you'll miss out on a potentially important skill.
It's better to start out with something challenging and switch to the easy stuff later.
Go Slackware, be a nerd like us! You'll thank me later.
Look, I love violent video games as much as the next guy. Ask anyone; I waste more time playing Doom3 and Battlefield: 2142 than anyone else I know.
HOWEVER...
I don't think violent video games belong in the hands of children, and I have no problem whatsoever with the government stepping in and restricting sales to people 18 and over. I think it's an excellent idea.
Take San Andreas, for example. Here's a game where you get to "enjoy" being a thugged-out L.A. gang banger, breaking into people's houses to steal their shit, fucking hookers, carjacking, killing cops, and doing every other psycho thing nobody sensible would ever do in real life. An adult will generally be able to play that game, work off some stress, laugh at the sheer over the top character of it, and not emulate it in any way.
Kids don't have that level of maturity yet. They're still learning what it means to be a member of our society. And I think it's in everyone's best interest to restrict them to media that will help them grow into mature, productive adults. The government has a valid interest in regulating this process, in at least attempting to enforce a positive outcome. At the very least, games for children should be relatively harmless, with no realistic violence.
Why is everyone so heated up over this? It's not like Spitzer's trying to take away your games. CHILL, people.
First of all, "web apps" do NOT mean "apps run by a third party you do not control". Most companies have their own web server, do they not? And there is NOTHING stopping them from putting a Java application server on it and serving up Struts applications to their employees.
If you rephrase the question as "Will companies begin hosting their own applications on their web servers and abandon the client-server model they were burdened with in the 1990's", then I'd say the answer is "yes". Definitely.
Take my shop for example. For over a decade, they were using Oracle 2000 forms (circa 1996). After I joined, we moved to 10G, and I built a couple of 10G application servers and made sure that the developers got the 10G tools. We rebuilt all our forms and reports and targeted web delivery; we put them on our new, shiny application servers. All of the data, the code, everything resides on the application server and our database. Our users have nothing installed on their PCs whatsoever (except for JInitiator, and our SSL cert).
The applications look exactly like the old ones, only they're delivered over the web via a browser. They work exactly the same way -- we were very careful about that.
Now, everything's the same -- we get exactly what we had before. Also we are in complete control of the application. We can prevent any individual user from accessing it at will, right at the firewall, and we can control permissions via database roles. We don't have to worry about users trying to fiddle around with software at their desktop, or messing with configuration files or something, because they've got nothing to play with.
Best of all, we don't have to roll anything out to anybody, because it's all server-side code.
Unless your users need to use something heavyweight like Photoshop, there's no reason whatsoever to roll applications out to the desktops. Sure, give them word processors, a web browser, and maybe an email client (although you can give them webmail too, ALSO on your web server!). But that's about it.
Provisioning their machines should be as easy as rolling out a standard image complete with web shortcuts to your site's tools.
It's the future, man. No doubt about it. Of course, HOME users will stick with regular applications if they're smart...
I have read your entire post and I still think you're totally full of it. The registry is a rotten idea, and flat files are a much better approach. I've already gone into my reasons for thinking so and I won't rehash them here. But I will say this:
You are way too bitter and on edge about this conversation. I think you need a vacation. Someplace quiet, with no computers around, maybe a beach. Seriously. Whatever it is you do in your admin job, you don't seem to enjoy it!
For the record, I'm an Oracle database administrator stuck using Winblows Server 2003; I'd much rather be on Linux servers, but hell, us DBA's didn't get to pick the platform. I also do Java development, web development, manage several application servers, work with a fairly big server farm... So, I'm probably at least as experienced as you are. Largest table: 11 million rows. Largest database: over 20GB of text data.
And my software has been running without a hitch, updating tens of thousands of rows at a time, without error for a long time now. It's easy to configure, easy to work with, and many VERY talented people have complimented me on it. It doesn't touch the registry, it uses flat files and XML.
As all software should.
Anyway, what are you still doing here! Go chill out for a while! The beach is calling you.
Beeeeeeeaaaaaach...