Does anyone remember those toy cars that were powered by air? They looked like little dune buggies with a canister mounted where the driver would go. They had a little clear plastic piston engine, and you would pump them up with an included mini bicycle pump. A little push would start the engine and they'd put-put-put across the room - maybe 10 meters if you were lucky.
Those were very cool - and I remember at the time wondering if they could make real cars like that. I forgot about it until just now:)
I can't remember what they were called or who made them. Anyone?
I've always liked the idea of personal flying machines, but the fact is it's just not as good an idea as it sounds.
We take a lot of simplicity for granted when on the ground. You get a whole lot of stability for free; no worrying about pitch and roll - and yaw is far more precise. You get very efficient braking and holding for free too. No, air vehicles will be too difficult to control and too expensive to operate for a _very_ long time.
Is it possible to have a discussion of artistic merits on Slashdot? Let us see...
The thing that struck me most about it was how it made me feel like these incredibly dramatic events were just moments in some supreme-being's game. The idea is not new, but never before had I experienced such a precise sense of being a truly objective observer of society - where the goings-on may interest me but have to real effect.
The software you ship must work. RedHat 7 dies after three weeks. If Microsoft were to ship code like that they would be drawn and quartered in the press.
Actually, Win 95 had a bug in the system clock that caused it to die after 45 days (integer overflow). Although a few people have heard of this, they were not drawn and quartered, and their stock price did not fall. The fact is that you have fallen for the MS marketing hype too.
Verisign certs require you to use an intermediate CA cert
Right - and I did this. I carefully followed every set of instructions I could find, and then tried every random combination of configurations - still experienced problems when connecting via MSIE 5 (only some builds - for example W2K version works...).
Have you actually gotten Apache/mod_ssl/Verisign to work with _all_ versions of IE? If so, would you be willing to send me the snippet from your httpd.conf file?
I don't have any experience with Apache-SSL, so perhaps someone else can help there...
I recently installed Apache/mod_ssl at work and tried to use it with our existing Verisign certificate. Verisign has some weird double certificate system that caused connection errors with some builds of IE5 under mod_ssl. The same certificates worked under Apache/Stronghold. The mod_ssl FAQ has lots of information on connection problems with IE, but I tried every single suggestion and couldn't get it to work. I eventually switched to a Thawte certificate. That worked like a charm.
So - does anyone know if the problems I encountered were mod_ssl/verisign specific, or does Apache-SSL have the same issues?
There appears to be some confusion regarding Apache-SSL and mod_ssl. To set the record straight: mod_ssl is not a replacement for Apache-SSL - it is an alternative, in the same way that Apache is an alternative to Netscape/Microsoft servers, or Linux is an alternative to FreeBSD. It is a matter of personal choice as to which you run. mod_ssl is what is known as a 'split' - i.e. it was originally derived from Apache-SSL, but has been extensively redeveloped so the code now bears little relation to the original.
Apache-SSL continues to be developed and maintained, our main focus being on reliability, security and performance, rather than features and bells and whistles. I hope this makes things clear.
I think it's apparent from the tone that there is a healthy level of rivalry between the two projects:) The mod_ssl source code is peppered with quotes by the author of Apache-SSL that are intended (I think) to be unflattering... like:
/* ``I'll be surprised if others think that
what you are doing is honourable.''
-- Ben Laurie, Apache-SSL author */
or...
# ``What you are missing, I suppose, is that I'm not
# prepared to give equal rights to Ralf on the basis
# that he's spent a few hours doing what he thinks is
# better than what I've spent the last 4 years on,
# and so he isn't prepared to cooperate with me.''
# -- Ben Laurie, Apache-SSL author
Whoops, you're totally right, with regard to serving http. The BSD's were at the top for most of the tests, but Linux was the http king, and that's what the original question was, wasn't it:)
IIS may be faster. I actually don't know, because I've never used it. But I will say this: I worked at LinkExchange when we were the number one company in Internet reach (52%). That's right, more eyeballs than AOL, Yahoo, and MSN combined. And we did this using Apache; both for our site, and for our banner network.
Not to start a flame war, but there's also a chance that the performance bottleneck is Linux, and not Apache - LE was using FreeBSD. There's an excellent benchmark of various Unices, which may indicate as much. It well done, but doesn't get going until page 8 or so...
Anyways, be sure to take administrative costs and bandwith constraints before making a decision.
especially the 84' machine that althogh it had a 'nice' gui was VERY VERY S-L-O-W
What? I played with one of the original Mac128's (single floppy, no HD) just a year ago, and it was amazingly usable; almost as fast at it's simpler tasks as my goddamn PIII 500 with the bloated crap software I run now.
BTW, what was Apple "innovating" that caused their stock to plummet?
Well, this is somewhat speculation, but it seems to me like investors are nervous because of stuff like OSX and the G4 Cube.
Most companies don't rewrite their OS from scratch (I know it's got a BSD kernel, but that's just a good foundation). Also, pushing dual processors, firewire, gigabit ethernet, desktop video, creative hardware design... these are fairly gutsy moves for a mature corporation, and people seem to like to see them fail (I guess it justifies their own laziness?).
I'm not saying these are all necessarily good ideas, but I wish that companies got points for trying new things, since it's a sign of vitality, in my opinion. Instead, companies get points for being predictable.
On a factual level, the stock went down because they reported profit growth. Except it wasn't as much growth as analysts had predicted. Why that shows poorly on the company (they grow and their stock drops 52%?) I don't really know.
Gnutella is a very cool idea, and a decent little program, but it can't possibly survive true success. It's anonymity makes it vulnerable to the same problems as usenet. The average quality of Gnutella data is already far below Napster's, and it can only go lower. It will eventually be overrun with crap and spam.
People like to trump it up, but anonymity doesn't really work that well in large groups. It's the shared restaraunt bill problem; the hotmail spam problem; it's even the slashdot problem. Fact is, some level of accountability is required for a society to function.
If Gnutella had some sort of democratic "trust" system, so that people could build co-operative networks, it might have a chance.
Microsoft is pretty good at refining. I can't say that they really try anything that isn't reasonably safe, though.
I don't know much about SGI, but they do seem pretty cool. They do seem to charge an awful lot for their stuff (even more than Apple!?!).
I think Apple does get some credit for the GUI & WYSIWYG, because they brought it to market first, and at a time that no one else thought it was possible or useful. That's the kind of risk taking that I respect. Xerox did the research, but they didn't have the insight or guts to make a real product. If I remember correctly, the original Mac wasn't even that successful until quite a while after it came out.
It is sad that they are just now coming out with what seems like a real OS, but Apple basically fsked up everything for an entire decade starting in the mid eighties. I think they are back on track, and most of people's negative attitude toward the company is based on past mistakes.
You are right with regard to computers, but Apple also sells a lot of software and periphials (sp?). I think it makes perfect sense to be able to grab Final Cut Pro a few days after trying out my new iMac and deciding that iMovie doesn't offer enough control for me.
However, they chose to license it, making things even harder for anyone who comes after them to win in a court battle.
There is absolutely no truth to that statement. It's simply a lot faster and cheaper for them to license it. This makes no difference at all to the courts.
It sounds like you are confusing trademark and patent law.
I asked you to name a "viable company" and you come back with a list of industry standards. There's nothing remotely un-innovative about standards compliance.
The only company you named was Xerox, who, while admittedly did all the R&D for GUI wouldn't, couldn't, and didn't bring it to market. Instead, they sat on it for years and Apple purchased the idea (admittedly for far less than it was worth) and brought it to the table, which was my point.
I don't care whether firewire is successful or not. They're an actual company (not a research group, not an open source hacker) who is willing to take the risk on things like that. Incidentally, it is successful. Call it "Firewire", "I-Link", or "IEEE 1394", it's the standard for DV communications.
Using the BSD kernel in a user-level OS is a major step forward. It brings a lot of power and technology to the hands of developers who want to program user level apps.
And regardless of whether or not they needed to do one click shopping, what's wrong with doing it?
I think you (and most of the slashdot crowd) just get thrills off of playing armchair critic to the corporate world.
I understand what you're saying. I too don't mind seeing "what goes around comes around". However, I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that Apple "did wrong" by licencing from Amazon. You may not like it, but they couldn't offer that feature any other way.
Secondly, Apple stock went down because they are trying to innovate. They are trying new things. Market monkeys worry about new things. It's too bad that companies that try new things often get bitch-slapped. It just promotes the status-quo.
Even if you don't like what they are coming up with, you must admit that Apple is trying to move things forward. I hope they keep trying. Maybe someday I'll even use a Mac.
I challenge you to name another viable company that brings new ideas to the table as consistently as Apple. You don't even have to like them, but you must admit that they follow the lead of others far less than any company around.
Oh shit. They licenced something from Amazon (the only legal way to currently offer this feature). Let's flush them down the toilet.
seeing what happened to Apple's stock this week... well, I don't feel bad for them at all
I don't think I've ever heard such a strange disconnected take on morality before. Apple abides by US law which (like it or not) has been around for over a century, and you're glad their stock dropped? And the stock dropped for reasons entirely unrelated to this?
Like Apple or not, that type of statement is just childish. I'm glad to see that some people on the board realize that real companies don't have the freedom to give everyone the finger like the majority of the sit-at-home Slashdot crowd. You only have that freedom because of your anonymity. Try actually running a business and keeping that attitude. You're stock will end up as wallpaper.
Good luck, Apple. I'm glad some companies are taking the risk of doing innovative things. And no, 1-click shopping isn't one of them.
We're not at the level of the most forward thinking SciFi yet, but this is a pretty amazing step in that direction. If it doesn't excite you in the least, maybe you should go into a time capsule for a hundred years or so.
Oops. Ignore that URL at the top of my post. I'm on a Windows box and I forgot that it doesn't automatically copy on select. Heh. Now you know what was floating around in my clipboard. I just meant to quote you:
I've noticed this for a long time. Intel is the enemy, regardless of what they do.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2000/sep/18amazon. html
People often don't like things that do too well. It's like a lazy man's version of "king of the hill", where you complain about whoever currently occupies the spot. That accounts for the majority of Microsoft bashing too.
It doesn't matter whether Apple thinks the Amazon patent is reasonable or not. Apple wants to sell computers with one click, and (for some unfathomable reason) the US government has made it so that Apple has to pay Amazon for it.
Besides, what's a few million between companies like that?
Slashdot Mirror
Those were very cool - and I remember at the time wondering if they could make real cars like that. I forgot about it until just now :)
I can't remember what they were called or who made them. Anyone?
We take a lot of simplicity for granted when on the ground. You get a whole lot of stability for free; no worrying about pitch and roll - and yaw is far more precise. You get very efficient braking and holding for free too. No, air vehicles will be too difficult to control and too expensive to operate for a _very_ long time.
The thing that struck me most about it was how it made me feel like these incredibly dramatic events were just moments in some supreme-being's game. The idea is not new, but never before had I experienced such a precise sense of being a truly objective observer of society - where the goings-on may interest me but have to real effect.
Good stuff. Thanks for this refreshing article!
Actually, Win 95 had a bug in the system clock that caused it to die after 45 days (integer overflow). Although a few people have heard of this, they were not drawn and quartered, and their stock price did not fall. The fact is that you have fallen for the MS marketing hype too.
Right - and I did this. I carefully followed every set of instructions I could find, and then tried every random combination of configurations - still experienced problems when connecting via MSIE 5 (only some builds - for example W2K version works...).
Have you actually gotten Apache/mod_ssl/Verisign to work with _all_ versions of IE? If so, would you be willing to send me the snippet from your httpd.conf file?
Cheers.
I recently installed Apache/mod_ssl at work and tried to use it with our existing Verisign certificate. Verisign has some weird double certificate system that caused connection errors with some builds of IE5 under mod_ssl. The same certificates worked under Apache/Stronghold. The mod_ssl FAQ has lots of information on connection problems with IE, but I tried every single suggestion and couldn't get it to work. I eventually switched to a Thawte certificate. That worked like a charm.
So - does anyone know if the problems I encountered were mod_ssl/verisign specific, or does Apache-SSL have the same issues?
Cheers.
I think it's apparent from the tone that there is a healthy level of rivalry between the two projects :) The mod_ssl source code is peppered with quotes by the author of Apache-SSL that are intended (I think) to be unflattering... like:
-- Ben Laurie, Apache-SSL author */
or...
# ``What you are missing, I suppose, is that I'm not
# prepared to give equal rights to Ralf on the basis
# that he's spent a few hours doing what he thinks is
# better than what I've spent the last 4 years on,
# and so he isn't prepared to cooperate with me.''
# -- Ben Laurie, Apache-SSL author
Whoops, you're totally right, with regard to serving http. The BSD's were at the top for most of the tests, but Linux was the http king, and that's what the original question was, wasn't it :)
Oops.
Sorry.
This was taken from Apache's own Performance Notes Site.
IIS may be faster. I actually don't know, because I've never used it. But I will say this: I worked at LinkExchange when we were the number one company in Internet reach (52%). That's right, more eyeballs than AOL, Yahoo, and MSN combined. And we did this using Apache; both for our site, and for our banner network.
Not to start a flame war, but there's also a chance that the performance bottleneck is Linux, and not Apache - LE was using FreeBSD. There's an excellent benchmark of various Unices, which may indicate as much. It well done, but doesn't get going until page 8 or so...
Anyways, be sure to take administrative costs and bandwith constraints before making a decision.
What? I played with one of the original Mac128's (single floppy, no HD) just a year ago, and it was amazingly usable; almost as fast at it's simpler tasks as my goddamn PIII 500 with the bloated crap software I run now.
Well, this is somewhat speculation, but it seems to me like investors are nervous because of stuff like OSX and the G4 Cube.
Most companies don't rewrite their OS from scratch (I know it's got a BSD kernel, but that's just a good foundation). Also, pushing dual processors, firewire, gigabit ethernet, desktop video, creative hardware design... these are fairly gutsy moves for a mature corporation, and people seem to like to see them fail (I guess it justifies their own laziness?).
I'm not saying these are all necessarily good ideas, but I wish that companies got points for trying new things, since it's a sign of vitality, in my opinion. Instead, companies get points for being predictable.
On a factual level, the stock went down because they reported profit growth. Except it wasn't as much growth as analysts had predicted. Why that shows poorly on the company (they grow and their stock drops 52%?) I don't really know.
Just my 2cents.
And what have you got against goatse.cx? ;)
People like to trump it up, but anonymity doesn't really work that well in large groups. It's the shared restaraunt bill problem; the hotmail spam problem; it's even the slashdot problem. Fact is, some level of accountability is required for a society to function.
If Gnutella had some sort of democratic "trust" system, so that people could build co-operative networks, it might have a chance.
Microsoft is pretty good at refining. I can't say that they really try anything that isn't reasonably safe, though.
I don't know much about SGI, but they do seem pretty cool. They do seem to charge an awful lot for their stuff (even more than Apple!?!).
I think Apple does get some credit for the GUI & WYSIWYG, because they brought it to market first, and at a time that no one else thought it was possible or useful. That's the kind of risk taking that I respect. Xerox did the research, but they didn't have the insight or guts to make a real product. If I remember correctly, the original Mac wasn't even that successful until quite a while after it came out.
It is sad that they are just now coming out with what seems like a real OS, but Apple basically fsked up everything for an entire decade starting in the mid eighties. I think they are back on track, and most of people's negative attitude toward the company is based on past mistakes.
You are right with regard to computers, but Apple also sells a lot of software and periphials (sp?). I think it makes perfect sense to be able to grab Final Cut Pro a few days after trying out my new iMac and deciding that iMovie doesn't offer enough control for me.
There is absolutely no truth to that statement. It's simply a lot faster and cheaper for them to license it. This makes no difference at all to the courts.
It sounds like you are confusing trademark and patent law.
Of course, IANAL.
The only company you named was Xerox, who, while admittedly did all the R&D for GUI wouldn't, couldn't, and didn't bring it to market. Instead, they sat on it for years and Apple purchased the idea (admittedly for far less than it was worth) and brought it to the table, which was my point.
I don't care whether firewire is successful or not. They're an actual company (not a research group, not an open source hacker) who is willing to take the risk on things like that. Incidentally, it is successful. Call it "Firewire", "I-Link", or "IEEE 1394", it's the standard for DV communications.
Using the BSD kernel in a user-level OS is a major step forward. It brings a lot of power and technology to the hands of developers who want to program user level apps.
And regardless of whether or not they needed to do one click shopping, what's wrong with doing it?
I think you (and most of the slashdot crowd) just get thrills off of playing armchair critic to the corporate world.
Cheers.
Secondly, Apple stock went down because they are trying to innovate. They are trying new things. Market monkeys worry about new things. It's too bad that companies that try new things often get bitch-slapped. It just promotes the status-quo.
Even if you don't like what they are coming up with, you must admit that Apple is trying to move things forward. I hope they keep trying. Maybe someday I'll even use a Mac.
Oh shit. They licenced something from Amazon (the only legal way to currently offer this feature). Let's flush them down the toilet.
I don't think I've ever heard such a strange disconnected take on morality before. Apple abides by US law which (like it or not) has been around for over a century, and you're glad their stock dropped? And the stock dropped for reasons entirely unrelated to this?
Like Apple or not, that type of statement is just childish. I'm glad to see that some people on the board realize that real companies don't have the freedom to give everyone the finger like the majority of the sit-at-home Slashdot crowd. You only have that freedom because of your anonymity. Try actually running a business and keeping that attitude. You're stock will end up as wallpaper.
Good luck, Apple. I'm glad some companies are taking the risk of doing innovative things. And no, 1-click shopping isn't one of them.
I know sometimes I would :)
You can get almost definitely get around it just by having a confirm page, which in my humble opinion, is better UI anyway.
I've noticed this for a long time. Intel is the enemy, regardless of what they do.
Hope all is clear now.
People often don't like things that do too well. It's like a lazy man's version of "king of the hill", where you complain about whoever currently occupies the spot. That accounts for the majority of Microsoft bashing too.
In a way it reminds me of Orwell's Animal Farm.
Besides, what's a few million between companies like that?