But what about Windows? Why don't people say Microsoft(tm) Windows(c) NT(r) or whatever? It's always Windows, or NT, or 2000. Microsoft never gets any credit for all their hard work and millions of dollars spent developing the product everyone takes for granted. And don't forget the too numerous to mention innovations Microsoft has research for the good of the user. Many people can't even name their operating system, responding to 'what operating system do you run' questions with stuff like Office or Explorer. Almost all the software millions use every day goes by unrecognized. Microsoft has done a lot for the Windows community, and their EULA is beyond reproach and a model license for all software developers to follow. Just give them a break already, Microsoft may be too humble to demand people refer to the Windows operating system as 'Microsoft Windows' in recognition of their contributions to it, but have some respect and do it anyways.
I was just thinking of how great a compressed filesystem would be, even given the CPU performance hit, but then a bit of nastiness hit me... how do you handle the case where someone goes in and changes a middle byte in a 200 MB file and the recompressed block won't fit back into its place? Do you just end up rewriting the whole file? Or are blocks in a list and you have a fragmented file (but then what's the point of compressing files if you'll just end up wasting space anyways)? I don't think a patch is going to do it, a whole new filesystem would be needed. I wonder how current implementations do it (say in Windows 2000)?
They set up conditions for a definition of "free" and insist till the end of time that software is not "free" unless it follows the GPL (or some very close and related liscense). Personally, I think the GPL could never be called "free" because of how restrictive it is.
This comment is guaranteed to gather replies to the effect, of course it's free, it allows the users to do anything they like with the software, and if they modify it and release it to the public they have to release their changes in source as well for the betterment of all. (Of course this comment being prefaced with 'I'm sure to be modded down for this' is sure to be modded insanely up... I should consider doing that, it's almost guaranteed karma haven.) Well, good for the users I say. I also say screw the users, what about the developers? GPL software is anything but free for the developers (strictly developers, RMS will tell you users should be (and will become) developers as well). Here you have megabytes of perfectly good code floating around, and many libraries and snippets GPLed for no other reason than, well, everything else is GPLed, it's the easiest thing to do. Now anyone hoping to use such a piece of code must GPL their own software as well, and I bet at least half of GPLed software was licensed so without the author aspiring to any lofty goals of the FSF, most likely without the author having fully read or even understood the implications of GPL.
There's really no way you can infer that Carnivore won't work as intended (whatever it is intended to do...) from the fact that it took the FBI 15 years to catch a highly intelligent human operative.
There could in fact be a relationship in the effectiveness level of carnivore. If carnivore turns out to be highly effective it probably won't be catching the people smart enough to outwit it. It's easier to discern a pattern (and consequently avoid it) when oyu have a large amount of data to go on. So if 90% of the people sniffed out by carnivore are caught via email, well, gee, maybe I shouldn't be using email for my covert communications.
Can you imagine a court case some day that determines that all of the software you've developed falls under the GPL, and is now in the public domain?
What the heck does this mean?
Uh, well, first of all, GPL is not public domain. In fact, GPL is an answer against the public domain alternative as it allows you to free your software and still maintain rights to it. Check out http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/copyleft.html#WhatIsCo pyleft.
As to the vaguely implied possibility of the FSF or courts suddenly deciding to take away your GPLed software, have a look at the page describing how to GPL your software: http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC4. The key lies in the difference between a license and copyright. You license your software under GPL, but still maintain the copyright on it. You can in fact give up that right and transfer it to FSF (the link escapes me at the moment).
I imagine the FSF would step up to the plate. This action may or may not be followed by corporations with vested interests in the GPL (RedHat, Corel, IBM even) to join or chip in some money.
No it's not a stretch. Compressed a text file recently? Average ratio is at least 50%. Usenet posts as a whole contain mountains of redundant information. I'm assuming the 5TB includes headers here, because headers will be the most compressible parts. Still, the number of DVDs is irrelevant. Any institution that requires the full Usenet archives will have the resources to purchase a DVD jukebox with the needed capacity.
People who've posted technically own copyright on their postings.
This is hardly certain. When you post to Usenet, you're posting with the understanding that your information will be used by millions, used in ways you can't hope to prevent or police. By posting you (by definition, re NNTP RFCxxx) allow your message to be copied thousands of times by all kinds of systems as it makes its way across the Internet. No, I would say copyright ownership (if any) is not certain in the case at all.
Where does the map creator fall? They have to know what the engine can do and how the user can interact with it, they also have to make it look pretty and keep it challenging.
Something of a nitpick here... Map designers should not be (and these days are not) programmers. My mom has to know what Word can do, and has to know how make documents look pretty and to the point using Word, but she's neither a programmer nor an artist. It helps very much if the map designer knows what the engine can do and what CPU and memory constraints the project is operating under, but that's about it. Just picked a bad example for your point.
What is it about the market that makes it impossible for a company to focus on providing quality service, and let growth come when appropriate?
It's the consumers. All the common sense tells you consumers would choose the provider with better service. But time and time again we are shown that while all polls and surveys and market research say otherwise, consumers are simply not willing to pay more for better service, at least not in numbers significant enough to sustain a business. Sure they say good service is the most important thing they look for, but good service costs money and when it comes time to put up the money attitudes suddenly change. All things being equal, a company with worse/cheaper customer service will provide a given product at a lower cost (let's ignore CS outsourcing propaganda for a while here). Also, when people pay more for better service they expect more, and it doesn't take much to have them threatening to go somewhere else.
I think if you're looking for a good example of a nonlinear plot you have to look no further than the bargain bin in your local software outlet. Find Fallout 2.
The game is very much non-linear, in fact you can start the game, and try go to the last map (of course your character is so weak he'll probably die when someone looks at him the wrong way, but that's beside the point here, you _can_). Everything you do (good or bad) affects the gameplay (you can kill children, dig graves, be a prostitute (even star in a porno), but this will be reflected in your karma. Of course, there is no shortage of bad guys to associate with to help you though the game should you step into the dark side, but the game is definitely designed for 'good' players where you can collect some NPCs to fight with you. You can even kill key NPCs (well, there aren't any really key NPCs), do anything you want, do (or not do) any quests you happen to pick up, and actual plot is affected by your actions as well (limited dialogue, NPC stance and willingness to talk to you, etc). And, yes, the game ending is somewhat customized, summarizing the next few years' events after the game ends.
...like Starcraft or Sim City. In Starcraft, the learning curve is pretty, steep, but once you have that mastered the gameplay is in the strategy. It's learning the best tactics to beat the computer and/or your neighbor.
Wow, was that a majot brain fart or what... unless it really did take you so long to learn the strategy to Starcraft/Warcraft. Let me summarize it for you: build lots of guys really fast (which ones and how will come to you after a few games) attack your nearest enemy and take him out, take over his resources, proceed until the victory screen pops up. Alternate startegy against computer players: game of attrition (just make sure you have enough units/resources left to get across any barriers, like space/water; a pathetic stalemate situation like that should _never_ be possible in a game that can last hours).
Don't get me wrong, Starcraft can be _hard_, especially when the computer starts sending guys you can barely put a scratch in after 10 seconds into the game, or when other players gang up on you, and it's definitely _fun_ (Starcraft being my favourite RTS game, (until Fallout:Tactics comes out anyway, which sort of falls into the genre)), but it's hardly chock full of _strategy_.
There have been numerous bugs introduced in the recent nightly builds. I get the builds every 2-3 days, and I noticed the last couple of weeks have been really bad. Some builds are so broken I can't use Mozilla until the next day's comes out. Couple of the recent (showstopper to me) bugs:
download window code must have been changed. Lots. They don't close on finishing anymore, indeed, if I didn't see the downloaded icon showing up in the file list I wouldn't know it was done as all activity indicators are dead. And can we please have a minimize button on those friggin things, how hard can it possibly be?
text input field (textarea) navigation still doesn't work right... enter a bunch of text (for example on the slashdot comment post page) and try to place the cursor at the beginning of the first line. Ctrl-home? Nope. PgUp? Nope. I'm not going to argue about whether the UI choice was right, I personally think it wasn't. If the goal was to have uniform UI look and feel it has definitely failed so far, the Linux version has some Emacs key support, which doesn't work in Windows. The Windows version definitely does _not_ behave like any other Windows text input widget.
why can I not right-click a link in a child window (not the original one that was launched with the app) and select 'open link in new window'? Seems child windows don't like to open new windows _period_. You have to 'copy link location', ctrl-n (which surprisingly enough _does_ work) and paste in the url. This has been broken for the last two weeks at least, and is beginning to drive me insane. Even links with the 'target' tag set won't work.
Well, these are my every-day problems while browsing with latest Mozilla nightlies. YMMV
I'm not one for conspiracy theories... Look at the history of the 3D card market. nVidia has toppled 3Dfx with a better product in a fairly short period of time. You can't say they're a monopoly, even as thousands are reaching for one of their cards right now. There are feasible competitors, research is ongoing and the market is still growing. It's quite conceivable someone else will surpass nVidia. Sega is hardly at the top of their market, especially with rumours of their troubles and pending reorganization and change of focus.
However, there is definitely something to be said of the sum being greater that its individual parts and it's not like both companies don't have marketing and research resources.
Re:no wonder flashcom is bankrupt...
on
DSL Woes
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· Score: 1
This happens with companies large and small for some reason. When I moved to a new place I was paying utilities, but never got any electric bills (which with appliances, washer/drier, microwave, pooter on 24/7, big stereo was something of a blessing). However, exactly 6 months later received a bill for the past 6 months' service, to pay in one big chunk. Well, that hurt.
OTOH, my last web hosting company set up my account, sent me a bill for registering the domain (hey, it was 5 years ago) and insisted I pay it, then let me sit on their servers for 3 years without a single charge. One day they were rebuilding servers or auditing accounts and I got cut off, I guess they just couldn't figure out where to send the bill;)
Sometimes I have trouble seeing how some companies ever make any money, forgeting to change their customers and all.
Re:I still think the DSL companies are a conspirac
on
DSL Woes
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· Score: 1
I had my DSL line @ about 13k ft and got fairly decent speeds (~900 down/1.5 up), but the line was dropping a lot. The line wasn't even supposed to be installed it was so far away from the CO, but went ahead anyways. Eventually I got converted to MVL, which is more stable at large distances, it's symmatric but only 768k each way. Later I moved and now I'm getting 3.5M down/1.5M up, which is not nearly the top limit for regular DSL anyways... a co-worker is getting around 7M down @ less than 1000 feet distance.
So there are different DSL technologies (like MVL) that will go longer distances at the cost of some speed.
My point was that a 404 is not just a regular page, even if you customize it. Under IIS you can point it at any html page and it will show that instead. (Under apache you have much more freedom in what happens when a 404 comes up.) The fact remains, IIS does not _redirect_ to the custom page, it tags it along with the 404. So whether you customize it or not, the browser still sees a 404, not a regular page. Now, by my original comment I did not mean to get so involved in this and get so far off-topic...
All that said, I have yet to see a _useful_ custom 404 page. One guy had a 404 which displayed random witty messages to the effect 'this page is not here'... which sort of leads some credance to the W3C guys recommending a browser check if the page exists first and notify the user that when it does not.
Slashdot Mirror
Obligatory AYBABTU comment
But what about Windows? Why don't people say Microsoft(tm) Windows(c) NT(r) or whatever? It's always Windows, or NT, or 2000. Microsoft never gets any credit for all their hard work and millions of dollars spent developing the product everyone takes for granted. And don't forget the too numerous to mention innovations Microsoft has research for the good of the user. Many people can't even name their operating system, responding to 'what operating system do you run' questions with stuff like Office or Explorer. Almost all the software millions use every day goes by unrecognized. Microsoft has done a lot for the Windows community, and their EULA is beyond reproach and a model license for all software developers to follow. Just give them a break already, Microsoft may be too humble to demand people refer to the Windows operating system as 'Microsoft Windows' in recognition of their contributions to it, but have some respect and do it anyways.
I was just thinking of how great a compressed filesystem would be, even given the CPU performance hit, but then a bit of nastiness hit me... how do you handle the case where someone goes in and changes a middle byte in a 200 MB file and the recompressed block won't fit back into its place? Do you just end up rewriting the whole file? Or are blocks in a list and you have a fragmented file (but then what's the point of compressing files if you'll just end up wasting space anyways)? I don't think a patch is going to do it, a whole new filesystem would be needed. I wonder how current implementations do it (say in Windows 2000)?
This comment is guaranteed to gather replies to the effect, of course it's free, it allows the users to do anything they like with the software, and if they modify it and release it to the public they have to release their changes in source as well for the betterment of all. (Of course this comment being prefaced with 'I'm sure to be modded down for this' is sure to be modded insanely up... I should consider doing that, it's almost guaranteed karma haven.) Well, good for the users I say. I also say screw the users, what about the developers? GPL software is anything but free for the developers (strictly developers, RMS will tell you users should be (and will become) developers as well). Here you have megabytes of perfectly good code floating around, and many libraries and snippets GPLed for no other reason than, well, everything else is GPLed, it's the easiest thing to do. Now anyone hoping to use such a piece of code must GPL their own software as well, and I bet at least half of GPLed software was licensed so without the author aspiring to any lofty goals of the FSF, most likely without the author having fully read or even understood the implications of GPL.
There could in fact be a relationship in the effectiveness level of carnivore. If carnivore turns out to be highly effective it probably won't be catching the people smart enough to outwit it. It's easier to discern a pattern (and consequently avoid it) when oyu have a large amount of data to go on. So if 90% of the people sniffed out by carnivore are caught via email, well, gee, maybe I shouldn't be using email for my covert communications.
What the heck does this mean?
Uh, well, first of all, GPL is not public domain. In fact, GPL is an answer against the public domain alternative as it allows you to free your software and still maintain rights to it. Check out http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/copyleft.html#WhatIsCo pyleft.
As to the vaguely implied possibility of the FSF or courts suddenly deciding to take away your GPLed software, have a look at the page describing how to GPL your software: http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC4. The key lies in the difference between a license and copyright. You license your software under GPL, but still maintain the copyright on it. You can in fact give up that right and transfer it to FSF (the link escapes me at the moment).
I imagine the FSF would step up to the plate. This action may or may not be followed by corporations with vested interests in the GPL (RedHat, Corel, IBM even) to join or chip in some money.
Why is this funny, am I missing something?
No it's not a stretch. Compressed a text file recently? Average ratio is at least 50%. Usenet posts as a whole contain mountains of redundant information. I'm assuming the 5TB includes headers here, because headers will be the most compressible parts. Still, the number of DVDs is irrelevant. Any institution that requires the full Usenet archives will have the resources to purchase a DVD jukebox with the needed capacity.
And why exactly would LoC do such a thing?
This is hardly certain. When you post to Usenet, you're posting with the understanding that your information will be used by millions, used in ways you can't hope to prevent or police. By posting you (by definition, re NNTP RFCxxx) allow your message to be copied thousands of times by all kinds of systems as it makes its way across the Internet. No, I would say copyright ownership (if any) is not certain in the case at all.
I didn't know imperiling the production (future production no less) of _anything_ was a felony.
Something of a nitpick here... Map designers should not be (and these days are not) programmers. My mom has to know what Word can do, and has to know how make documents look pretty and to the point using Word, but she's neither a programmer nor an artist. It helps very much if the map designer knows what the engine can do and what CPU and memory constraints the project is operating under, but that's about it. Just picked a bad example for your point.
Yeah, you tell him!
It's the consumers. All the common sense tells you consumers would choose the provider with better service. But time and time again we are shown that while all polls and surveys and market research say otherwise, consumers are simply not willing to pay more for better service, at least not in numbers significant enough to sustain a business. Sure they say good service is the most important thing they look for, but good service costs money and when it comes time to put up the money attitudes suddenly change. All things being equal, a company with worse/cheaper customer service will provide a given product at a lower cost (let's ignore CS outsourcing propaganda for a while here). Also, when people pay more for better service they expect more, and it doesn't take much to have them threatening to go somewhere else.
The game is very much non-linear, in fact you can start the game, and try go to the last map (of course your character is so weak he'll probably die when someone looks at him the wrong way, but that's beside the point here, you _can_). Everything you do (good or bad) affects the gameplay (you can kill children, dig graves, be a prostitute (even star in a porno), but this will be reflected in your karma. Of course, there is no shortage of bad guys to associate with to help you though the game should you step into the dark side, but the game is definitely designed for 'good' players where you can collect some NPCs to fight with you. You can even kill key NPCs (well, there aren't any really key NPCs), do anything you want, do (or not do) any quests you happen to pick up, and actual plot is affected by your actions as well (limited dialogue, NPC stance and willingness to talk to you, etc). And, yes, the game ending is somewhat customized, summarizing the next few years' events after the game ends.
Well, I think it's a game worth checking out.
Wow, was that a majot brain fart or what... unless it really did take you so long to learn the strategy to Starcraft/Warcraft. Let me summarize it for you: build lots of guys really fast (which ones and how will come to you after a few games) attack your nearest enemy and take him out, take over his resources, proceed until the victory screen pops up. Alternate startegy against computer players: game of attrition (just make sure you have enough units/resources left to get across any barriers, like space/water; a pathetic stalemate situation like that should _never_ be possible in a game that can last hours).
Don't get me wrong, Starcraft can be _hard_, especially when the computer starts sending guys you can barely put a scratch in after 10 seconds into the game, or when other players gang up on you, and it's definitely _fun_ (Starcraft being my favourite RTS game, (until Fallout:Tactics comes out anyway, which sort of falls into the genre)), but it's hardly chock full of _strategy_.
Well, these are my every-day problems while browsing with latest Mozilla nightlies. YMMV
However, there is definitely something to be said of the sum being greater that its individual parts and it's not like both companies don't have marketing and research resources.
OTOH, my last web hosting company set up my account, sent me a bill for registering the domain (hey, it was 5 years ago) and insisted I pay it, then let me sit on their servers for 3 years without a single charge. One day they were rebuilding servers or auditing accounts and I got cut off, I guess they just couldn't figure out where to send the bill ;)
Sometimes I have trouble seeing how some companies ever make any money, forgeting to change their customers and all.
So there are different DSL technologies (like MVL) that will go longer distances at the cost of some speed.
Well, I certainly see which category you fall into... so whad'ya think of the Muddy Banks cd?
Bank robbers have been known to use bikes to make their getaway.
All that said, I have yet to see a _useful_ custom 404 page. One guy had a 404 which displayed random witty messages to the effect 'this page is not here'... which sort of leads some credance to the W3C guys recommending a browser check if the page exists first and notify the user that when it does not.
Netscape 1.2 was the 'breakthrough' version. It supported bgcolor, align, and (I believe) tables as well. Hmm, did it also do frames?