And just to reply to this aspect of your idiocy, as well -
Postfix and Sendmail (and qmail, and exim, and several others) all have the same capabilities. They all send and receive mail. Given that their feature sets are relatively equal, then ease of use comes into play.
If I walked in with a mail server that didn't receive mail, and was only capable of sending 10 messages a minute, but had an amazingly simple 10 line config file, would *you* use it?
Ease of use equates to a better product *IF* the two products are otherwise equal, like you said.
If I gave you a webserver, and said, it's incapable of SSL, CGI, and the module API is still in its infancy, but the config file is only 10 lines, would you use it over Apache? No, of course not.
Ease of use is a checkmark to put in the plus column. However, just because a program is easy to use, does not mean that we should throw out all the harder to use programs, even if they're better from a security / technology / scalability / whatever aspect.
If you like tomcat, and don't use apache, BRAVO! That's what choice is all about - that's the spirit of open source software! I happen to have no clue how to use tomcat, so I use apache! But, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Tomcat sucks because I can't master it in five minutes. I'm sure tomcat is an excellent program. It's just not for me. And if my origional post's grandparent post had said "I don't like apache - I find the config file too confusing, so I choose to use something else", everyone would have said "Bravo!". But, instead, he chose to find the flaw in the software, not in his understanding of it.
And I'm furthermore not saying that the apache complainers aren't smart enough. I'd say that most people, even the aforementioned ancestor post, who read slashdot are at least moderately intelligent. My problem is only when people say "I can't understand it, so it must suck". To me, that's either lazy or stupid. If you can't understand it, you have two choices - change your gameplan (find a different webserver), or study it until you understand. I have no respect for complainers. If you are complaining because you don't want to switch to a new gameplan, you're stupid. If you're complaining because you don't want to put the work into learning, you're lazy. I don't have room for either of those people.
1.) The Apache foundation hasn't "fixed" the config file issue because they (like most other serious web admins) don't consider it a problem - they consider it a strength.
2.) If you "understand it just fine", why are you still confused by it.
3.) Your user id indicates that you've not been around slashdot long enough to see one of my now hundred or more replies to people who tell me it was dumb to pick a username from the guy from hackers. I'm tempted not to even bother, but just for the sake of arguement, for the hundredth time, I was aware that it was lame when I chose my user ID. I didn't care then, and I don't care now, with the exception that morons keep thinking they're smart by pointing it out. I chose the name because it's tounge-in-cheek, and because I'm willing to admit that I am entertained by the movie hackers.
My website is down because the server that it was hosted on is down. I had a co-located server, but my interest in running that website continually fell off as the usefulness of it was supplanted by myspace (everyone who hung out on my web forums moved to myspace). All it was doing was hosting my webmail (using qmail, vmailmgr, courrier, vpop, and squirrelmail - all of which have config files *shudder*). So, when the onboard IDE controller died, I decided not to care, and went about the business of living my life, rearing my child, furthering my career, etc. So, if you're blaiming a dead ide controller on the Apache Foundation, be my guest.
Don't let it bother you, though. You're just like everyone else - even me occasionally - spouting off about shit you know nothing about, and expecting other people on slashdot to respect you for it. This time you got caught.
I agree with you. I love vi. My point was that most of those are what the sheeple would call "advanced features", i.e. most people point, type, and print.
Well, I figured someone else had given a real answer to this, but reading the other 6 responses at this point, no one has.
SpikeTV is the "First Network for Men", a slight at Lifetime and Oxygen, two networks that focus programming on women. It's kind of the "only white men aren't in a minority, and that makes us feel like a minority" thing.
Anyway, SpikeTV used to be "TNN", or "The Nashville Network". It's programming origionally was very country-music-culture oriented. That's hard to explain to someone from outside the US - I have no idea how "country music" is understood or digested in the UK. But, we have a channel over here called CMT, which is MTV for Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, also known as the special olympics of television. TNN, prior to becoming SpikeTV, had an odd mix of country music videos, documenteries on country music stars, hoe-downs (the redneck version of MTV's The Grind, i guess), and country themed shows like Bass Fishing and Dukes Of Hazzard reruns, "Walker, Texas Ranger", and others, as well as the WWF-slash-WWE's Monday Night RAW (professional wrestling).
Someone bought TNN, or whatever, and decided to change the format. The first thing I remember them doing is purchasing the syndication rights to "Star Trek - TNG", and when they did, they ran all-day marathons of TNG - seriously, from 9-am to 3-am (almost all US stations show infomertials in late night), nothing but episode after episode of Star Trek (it was heaven). They slowly moved away from the redneck-only programing, and now they air an eclectic mix. Their current lineup highlights are TNG, Deep Space 9, syndicated episodes of CSI:Crime Scene Investigation (the first 4 or 5 seasons only), Ultimate Fighter (pro wrestling, but people actually try to beat the fuck out of each other), and TNA Wrestling (WWE's competitor - WWE for some reason has jumped ship back to USA, where they will be more censored and pre-emped for dog shows several times this year alone).
There are other shows they air, like MXC, Cops, and a variety of others, but there's still several hours of both TNG and CSI each day.
Hope this helps.
Why, yes, I am between jobs at the moment. I start my new one on Monday, and I've been sitting at home with the wife and 18 month old for 3 weeks now.
On the other hand, Apache is incredibly flexible: You can use it as a proxy, it does ssl, it fronts for Java Web servers, it rewrites URLs, it authenticates, it slices, it dices and I'm probably just scratching the surface.
You're exactly right, and your parent poster is exactly wrong. Attention, Please, Everyone:
EASE OF USE DOES NOT INDICATE A BETTER PRODUCT.
Apache is incredibly powerful. There's a reason it's the most popular webserver in use today, by far. And, with most linux distros, it's relatively easy to configure given the default configuration file.
The grandparent poster seems to suffer from the "I can't figure out how to do it in 5 minutes, therefore it's too hard" syndrome. Well, guess what? Work harder, or find a webserver that's easier to configure. For starters, there are any number of graphical (and ironically, web based) configuration utilities for apache. See ApacheGUI, Apacheconf, and Webmin. Aside from that, if the big bad config file scares you, maybe IIS is for you - you know, checkboxes and dropdown menus and insecurities.
But, seriously, the ratio of (Size and complexity of apache config file) to (complexity of the program) is very reasonable. I worked at a linux / solaris based webhosting company for almost 3 years. It took me about 2 or 3 months before I was completely comfortable working with almost all facets of httpd.conf. I understood the general idea in about a week, and there are still some parts that I'm fuzzy on, or don't get, or would need to google, but a couple of years ago, I could have almost written a config file by hand. They're seriously not that long, if you take out the commented sections (which are, of course, there to hold your hand). By contrast, I only scratched the surface of the sendmail config file.
Basically, my post boils down to: You can understand the basics of the apache webserver in an hour with a tutorial, google, and a test box to play with. Most of the time, the default options will work for you. There is almost no end to the amount of apache documentation available for you. And there's no need to understand the intensely complex aspects of the webserver outside of specific instances. For basic usage (as with most programs), stick close to the defaults, and google for answers to any questions you have.
Just because You, grandparent-poster, can't understand the apache config file in 5 minutes doesn't mean that the whole project should be scrapped. Every part of the config file serves a purpose. Any new project you create will need to have all the variables in the current project defined, or it will be less capable than apache. Please, take the time to learn what you're doing, and come up with real problems that need real solutions.
Just as an aside: vi versus Notepad.exe - Which is better? vi is more cryptic, by far. vi takes longer to learn vi doesn't look as nice Notepad is very easy to use Notepad is graphical
However, once you take the time to learn vi, you'll see that it's difficulty in learning, once surmounted, leads to a much more powerful, capable text editor.
I'm QUITE impressed. Seriously. The last I'd heard, Dell had to create what were basically different product lines in order to be able to sell computers with linux, so that they could keep all "Dimensions" and "inspirons" branded as computers that came with windows.
What? Which particular OS are you forced to use? We've bought Dell's with Linux at the company I work for.
Buy a consumer desktop from Dell without an OS and we'll talk.
On anything considered a "server", you can buy it with linux... but if it's meant for end user, it's windows, or microsoft stops giving them deep discounts.
Yeah, I can't see why I'd need metadata on my music files.
It's very simple. My file server has a samba shared folder called "audio". Everything in this folder is either an ogg, an mp3, or a wav file. Underneath the Music folder, there's a folder called "bands" and a folder called "standup", a folder called "classical" and a folder called "other" and a folder called "playlists". Under the bands folder, everything is organized via artist\album title\artist-albumtitle-##-tracktitle.
I mean, I'm obsessive compulsive, and I know people like me tend to create a system and stick with it, and furthermore, have a hard time understanding why it's done any differently... but... why would it ever be done any differently?
I don't even use ID3 tags. For any music I have that has them, I turn off the ID3 tag display in winamp (I tell it to just display %filename% or whatever for oggs). All the "metadata" i need is in the directory structure and filename.
Why re-invent the wheel?
X:\audio\bands\GWAR\America Must Be Destroyed\Gwar - America Must be Destroyed - 01 - Ham on the Bone.ogg
Yeah, I completely flipped out on sunday and wrote this comment in order to try and stop people from spreading this one. It just doesn't make any sense. It's dumb, dumb, dumb. I was thinking to myself, there's a reason slashdot hasn't posted a story about it - because it's a conspiracy theory, and it deserves no press time.
I don't mean most cities were built with multi-lane expressways in mind in the 1800's. What I mean is that it's a lot easier to tear down a 100 year old factory building in the middle of Boston, or 6 blocks of sub-standard housing in downtown memphis, in order to build a 10-lane expressway, than it would be to, say, knock over the Arc de Triumph, or move the kremlin 10 feet to the right, or widen the london bridge, or sacrifice the roman forum in order to build more transit.
Younger was my point. We're still able (or were in the 60's and 70's) to tear down old buildings that no one gives a crap about in the name of progress.
Yes, I care about history. I have my undergraduate degree in history, truth be told. But, when something's a hundred years old, you can usually figure out everything you ever wanted to know about it, and preserve the knowledge, if not the structure. When a building is 1500 years old, even if it was an old outhouse, it's a lot harder to tear down.
It's like eddie izzard said: "I'm from europe... where the history comes from." We're just too young to have such deep attachments to things that they can't be cast aside in the name of progress. That's why our road system is able to bring people from 30, 40, 50 miles around into work everyday.
I lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is 51 miles from D.C., and I knew scores of people who drove to Alexandira, McLean, Dulles, D.C., even Bethesda on a daily basis. My Father used to drive from Fredericksburg to Fort Lee, which is south of Richmond (70 miles one way) 4 days a week. My in-laws live in Claymont, D.E., and commute to Philidelphia and Wilmington, but know people that commute from, get this, Philidelphia to New York on a several-times-weekly basis (though most of those take amtrack).
Encouraging mass transit is the right thing to do - and we do it with HOV lanes, commuter rails (Like the Virginia Rail Express), tax credits for hybrids, etc etc. My point was really that were still at the point where rewarding good behavior should be used rather than punishing bad behavior.
I recently was hired by the CS department at a major university, and they're looking into a way to replace the rows and rows of desktops in a cs lab with a fewer amount of servers, while at the same time, being able to give their students access to the entire OS. Getting one dedicated server per student wouldn't fly, but something like this running vmware, or a small cluster running usermode linux would allow for quite a few small virtual machines.
I'm intrigued.
Plus, there's nothing like the warm embrace of Sun hardware. It costs arms and legs; but there's no substitute for the stability of sunOS+sun hardware. When I worked in webhosting a couple of years ago, we had quite a few Sparc IPC's, IPX's, and Sparcstation 1's (12, 20, and 40 Mhz, respectively, i think), chugging away as static content servers, dns servers, and a variety of other functions.
However, the arguement is that Europe "taxes the bejesus" out of their gasoline in order to encourage mass transit and energy saving vehicles.
In the U.S., while in principle this would be a good idea, there just isn't the urbanization that there is in Europe. European cities aren't built for car commuting - hell most of them had to be upgraded for horses 1400 years ago. Narrow, winding streets, and cobblestones, do not encourage cars. In the U.S., everything is younger, and most of it is built to accomidate cars, with wider streets, etc. As a result, the U.S. has always had that huge suburban and rural population that drives into work. In many places, there just isn't a mass transit option. I lived in metropolitan Memphis for a long time; there's no mass transit to speak of there, other than an aweful bus system. It's too close to the mississippi and too close to the water table for a subway (no one has a basement in Memphis). But, you know what they do have? A "beltway" (I-240) and a LOT of parking.
It's only feasable to use mass transit for everything if you live in one of the cities like Washington, DC, which has an excellent metro system and inbound rail system, or New York, who's subway system, while not pretty, can get you anywhere you need to go.
Driving places is a culture in America. Very few of us live close enough to walk, or even bike, to work. A friend of mine told me about an exchange student from Estonia whom he befriended, and how when they went to D.C. one day, and Dimitri saw the "Springfield Interchange" (the Mixing Bowl), it flipped him out. A road that's seven lanes wide in each direction, with flyover ramps going everywhere, people merging at 60 miles an hour 10 feet apart... it was like nothing he'd ever seen before.
Raising taxes on gas to $6-$8/gal in the U.S. would crush the economy. We're just not built for it. We're slowly emphasizing mass transit and there's been a small movement towards local community envolvement (i.e. not driving 50 miles to work, but working where you live), and we'll get there... but let's not get drastic.
Does an omlette have a chicken inside of it? Well, it's got eggs; therefore it must have a chicken in it.
Look, I'm not defending sony's rootkit. All I'm saying is that finding a satic compiled string in the binary just proves that there's a static string in the binary. If it has a symbol from lame in the binary, likely that symbol is there to compare against programs that you may run on your computer to make sure you're not firing up an MP3 ripper/encoder. Again, there's no logical reason for lame-the-encoding-program to be in the rootkit. Lame is the kind of thing sony is trying to prevent you from running.
My reasoning is: If it contains any string from LAME it is used for comparason in order to find lame on your system. I assume, based on logic, that there is no reason an MP3 encoder, or any part thereof, would be included on a CD designed not to be ripped and/or encoded.
Your reasoning is: There must be a conspiracy. Why is X, Y, or Z there?
I've already answered your question, but you continue to try to find evidence to support your conspiracy theory. Round and round we go.
Jesus Christ, let's put this one to rest ONCE AND FOR ALL so that we all stop seeing this in every thread slashdot has, wheher it's related to Sony or not!!
Sony is evil. Their rootkit is evil. It's probably illegal, it's definately immoral.
BUT it's ENTIRE PURPOSE is to prohibit you from ripping and encoding and sharing the music contained therein. THAT'S WHAT IT'S BUILT FOR. In furtherance of this goal, it looks for common programs that are used to rip and encode CDs so that it can prevent you from using them.
IT HAS "LAME" in the code because it's looking for LAME on your computer in order to PREVENT YOU FROM USING IT. The static strings are probably compiled into the program in order that the program can compare the strings against other programs on your computer to determine if said programs are, in fact, ripping/encoding software that use LAME!
Sony would have nothing to gain by putting any part of an MP3 ENCODER (!!!) on a CD which they're trying to prevent you from encoding, it just doesn't make sense. Please STOP SEEING CONSPIRACIES around every corner, and think for yourselves. cat/dev/ram | strings | grep -i llama doesn't mean that there are llamas in your memory, does it?
Thank you, now let's NEVER see this stupid idea again!
I'm sorry, I think they misspelled "It provides a service cheaper than the establishment, and someone would be losing money".
For instance, the company that manages Phone, Ethernet, and Cable (yes, one company does all three) in the apartment where I live has a policy that you can't use Skype or any other homebrew voip technology. They say it affects the quality of their network and introduces security risks. What the reality is is they don't want to purchase more bandwidth, and they already sell telephone service, so they don't want you to be able to skirt their fees.
Slashdot Mirror
And just to reply to this aspect of your idiocy, as well -
Postfix and Sendmail (and qmail, and exim, and several others) all have the same capabilities. They all send and receive mail. Given that their feature sets are relatively equal, then ease of use comes into play.
If I walked in with a mail server that didn't receive mail, and was only capable of sending 10 messages a minute, but had an amazingly simple 10 line config file, would *you* use it?
~W
Ease of use equates to a better product *IF* the two products are otherwise equal, like you said.
If I gave you a webserver, and said, it's incapable of SSL, CGI, and the module API is still in its infancy, but the config file is only 10 lines, would you use it over Apache? No, of course not.
Ease of use is a checkmark to put in the plus column. However, just because a program is easy to use, does not mean that we should throw out all the harder to use programs, even if they're better from a security / technology / scalability / whatever aspect.
If you like tomcat, and don't use apache, BRAVO! That's what choice is all about - that's the spirit of open source software! I happen to have no clue how to use tomcat, so I use apache! But, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Tomcat sucks because I can't master it in five minutes. I'm sure tomcat is an excellent program. It's just not for me. And if my origional post's grandparent post had said "I don't like apache - I find the config file too confusing, so I choose to use something else", everyone would have said "Bravo!". But, instead, he chose to find the flaw in the software, not in his understanding of it.
And I'm furthermore not saying that the apache complainers aren't smart enough. I'd say that most people, even the aforementioned ancestor post, who read slashdot are at least moderately intelligent. My problem is only when people say "I can't understand it, so it must suck". To me, that's either lazy or stupid. If you can't understand it, you have two choices - change your gameplan (find a different webserver), or study it until you understand. I have no respect for complainers. If you are complaining because you don't want to switch to a new gameplan, you're stupid. If you're complaining because you don't want to put the work into learning, you're lazy. I don't have room for either of those people.
~W
Sigh.
1.) The Apache foundation hasn't "fixed" the config file issue because they (like most other serious web admins) don't consider it a problem - they consider it a strength.
2.) If you "understand it just fine", why are you still confused by it.
3.) Your user id indicates that you've not been around slashdot long enough to see one of my now hundred or more replies to people who tell me it was dumb to pick a username from the guy from hackers. I'm tempted not to even bother, but just for the sake of arguement, for the hundredth time, I was aware that it was lame when I chose my user ID. I didn't care then, and I don't care now, with the exception that morons keep thinking they're smart by pointing it out. I chose the name because it's tounge-in-cheek, and because I'm willing to admit that I am entertained by the movie hackers.
My website is down because the server that it was hosted on is down. I had a co-located server, but my interest in running that website continually fell off as the usefulness of it was supplanted by myspace (everyone who hung out on my web forums moved to myspace). All it was doing was hosting my webmail (using qmail, vmailmgr, courrier, vpop, and squirrelmail - all of which have config files *shudder*). So, when the onboard IDE controller died, I decided not to care, and went about the business of living my life, rearing my child, furthering my career, etc. So, if you're blaiming a dead ide controller on the Apache Foundation, be my guest.
Don't let it bother you, though. You're just like everyone else - even me occasionally - spouting off about shit you know nothing about, and expecting other people on slashdot to respect you for it. This time you got caught.
~W
I agree with you. I love vi. My point was that most of those are what the sheeple would call "advanced features", i.e. most people point, type, and print.
Well, I figured someone else had given a real answer to this, but reading the other 6 responses at this point, no one has.
SpikeTV is the "First Network for Men", a slight at Lifetime and Oxygen, two networks that focus programming on women. It's kind of the "only white men aren't in a minority, and that makes us feel like a minority" thing.
Anyway, SpikeTV used to be "TNN", or "The Nashville Network". It's programming origionally was very country-music-culture oriented. That's hard to explain to someone from outside the US - I have no idea how "country music" is understood or digested in the UK. But, we have a channel over here called CMT, which is MTV for Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, also known as the special olympics of television. TNN, prior to becoming SpikeTV, had an odd mix of country music videos, documenteries on country music stars, hoe-downs (the redneck version of MTV's The Grind, i guess), and country themed shows like Bass Fishing and Dukes Of Hazzard reruns, "Walker, Texas Ranger", and others, as well as the WWF-slash-WWE's Monday Night RAW (professional wrestling).
Someone bought TNN, or whatever, and decided to change the format. The first thing I remember them doing is purchasing the syndication rights to "Star Trek - TNG", and when they did, they ran all-day marathons of TNG - seriously, from 9-am to 3-am (almost all US stations show infomertials in late night), nothing but episode after episode of Star Trek (it was heaven). They slowly moved away from the redneck-only programing, and now they air an eclectic mix. Their current lineup highlights are TNG, Deep Space 9, syndicated episodes of CSI:Crime Scene Investigation (the first 4 or 5 seasons only), Ultimate Fighter (pro wrestling, but people actually try to beat the fuck out of each other), and TNA Wrestling (WWE's competitor - WWE for some reason has jumped ship back to USA, where they will be more censored and pre-emped for dog shows several times this year alone).
There are other shows they air, like MXC, Cops, and a variety of others, but there's still several hours of both TNG and CSI each day.
Hope this helps.
Why, yes, I am between jobs at the moment. I start my new one on Monday, and I've been sitting at home with the wife and 18 month old for 3 weeks now.
~Will
On the other hand, Apache is incredibly flexible: You can use it as a proxy, it does ssl, it fronts for Java Web servers, it rewrites URLs, it authenticates, it slices, it dices and I'm probably just scratching the surface.
You're exactly right, and your parent poster is exactly wrong. Attention, Please, Everyone:
EASE OF USE DOES NOT INDICATE A BETTER PRODUCT.
Apache is incredibly powerful. There's a reason it's the most popular webserver in use today, by far. And, with most linux distros, it's relatively easy to configure given the default configuration file.
The grandparent poster seems to suffer from the "I can't figure out how to do it in 5 minutes, therefore it's too hard" syndrome. Well, guess what? Work harder, or find a webserver that's easier to configure. For starters, there are any number of graphical (and ironically, web based) configuration utilities for apache. See ApacheGUI, Apacheconf, and Webmin. Aside from that, if the big bad config file scares you, maybe IIS is for you - you know, checkboxes and dropdown menus and insecurities.
But, seriously, the ratio of (Size and complexity of apache config file) to (complexity of the program) is very reasonable. I worked at a linux / solaris based webhosting company for almost 3 years. It took me about 2 or 3 months before I was completely comfortable working with almost all facets of httpd.conf. I understood the general idea in about a week, and there are still some parts that I'm fuzzy on, or don't get, or would need to google, but a couple of years ago, I could have almost written a config file by hand. They're seriously not that long, if you take out the commented sections (which are, of course, there to hold your hand). By contrast, I only scratched the surface of the sendmail config file.
Basically, my post boils down to: You can understand the basics of the apache webserver in an hour with a tutorial, google, and a test box to play with. Most of the time, the default options will work for you. There is almost no end to the amount of apache documentation available for you. And there's no need to understand the intensely complex aspects of the webserver outside of specific instances. For basic usage (as with most programs), stick close to the defaults, and google for answers to any questions you have.
Just because You, grandparent-poster, can't understand the apache config file in 5 minutes doesn't mean that the whole project should be scrapped. Every part of the config file serves a purpose. Any new project you create will need to have all the variables in the current project defined, or it will be less capable than apache. Please, take the time to learn what you're doing, and come up with real problems that need real solutions.
Just as an aside: vi versus Notepad.exe - Which is better?
vi is more cryptic, by far.
vi takes longer to learn
vi doesn't look as nice
Notepad is very easy to use
Notepad is graphical
However, once you take the time to learn vi, you'll see that it's difficulty in learning, once surmounted, leads to a much more powerful, capable text editor.
~Will
I'm QUITE impressed. Seriously. The last I'd heard, Dell had to create what were basically different product lines in order to be able to sell computers with linux, so that they could keep all "Dimensions" and "inspirons" branded as computers that came with windows.
Wow. That's a big leap forward.
What? Which particular OS are you forced to use? We've bought Dell's with Linux at the company I work for.
Buy a consumer desktop from Dell without an OS and we'll talk.
On anything considered a "server", you can buy it with linux... but if it's meant for end user, it's windows, or microsoft stops giving them deep discounts.
~W
Mac & Windows have them built in, but they are a minority.
If by "minority" you mean "in use on over 95% of all desktops in the world", then yes, you're right.
~W
Algernon called; he wants his science back.
You're really into job security, aren't you?
Yeah, I can't see why I'd need metadata on my music files.
It's very simple. My file server has a samba shared folder called "audio". Everything in this folder is either an ogg, an mp3, or a wav file. Underneath the Music folder, there's a folder called "bands" and a folder called "standup", a folder called "classical" and a folder called "other" and a folder called "playlists". Under the bands folder, everything is organized via artist\album title\artist-albumtitle-##-tracktitle.
I mean, I'm obsessive compulsive, and I know people like me tend to create a system and stick with it, and furthermore, have a hard time understanding why it's done any differently... but... why would it ever be done any differently?
I don't even use ID3 tags. For any music I have that has them, I turn off the ID3 tag display in winamp (I tell it to just display %filename% or whatever for oggs). All the "metadata" i need is in the directory structure and filename.
Why re-invent the wheel?
X:\audio\bands\GWAR\America Must Be Destroyed\Gwar - America Must be Destroyed - 01 - Ham on the Bone.ogg
~Will
Fix.
Heroin Fix. Hit of acid.
Yeah, I completely flipped out on sunday and wrote this comment in order to try and stop people from spreading this one. It just doesn't make any sense. It's dumb, dumb, dumb. I was thinking to myself, there's a reason slashdot hasn't posted a story about it - because it's a conspiracy theory, and it deserves no press time.
But, then, they did post a story.
How unencouraging.
~W
I don't mean most cities were built with multi-lane expressways in mind in the 1800's. What I mean is that it's a lot easier to tear down a 100 year old factory building in the middle of Boston, or 6 blocks of sub-standard housing in downtown memphis, in order to build a 10-lane expressway, than it would be to, say, knock over the Arc de Triumph, or move the kremlin 10 feet to the right, or widen the london bridge, or sacrifice the roman forum in order to build more transit.
Younger was my point. We're still able (or were in the 60's and 70's) to tear down old buildings that no one gives a crap about in the name of progress.
Yes, I care about history. I have my undergraduate degree in history, truth be told. But, when something's a hundred years old, you can usually figure out everything you ever wanted to know about it, and preserve the knowledge, if not the structure. When a building is 1500 years old, even if it was an old outhouse, it's a lot harder to tear down.
It's like eddie izzard said: "I'm from europe... where the history comes from." We're just too young to have such deep attachments to things that they can't be cast aside in the name of progress. That's why our road system is able to bring people from 30, 40, 50 miles around into work everyday.
I lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is 51 miles from D.C., and I knew scores of people who drove to Alexandira, McLean, Dulles, D.C., even Bethesda on a daily basis. My Father used to drive from Fredericksburg to Fort Lee, which is south of Richmond (70 miles one way) 4 days a week. My in-laws live in Claymont, D.E., and commute to Philidelphia and Wilmington, but know people that commute from, get this, Philidelphia to New York on a several-times-weekly basis (though most of those take amtrack).
Encouraging mass transit is the right thing to do - and we do it with HOV lanes, commuter rails (Like the Virginia Rail Express), tax credits for hybrids, etc etc. My point was really that were still at the point where rewarding good behavior should be used rather than punishing bad behavior.
~Will
What if it conserves slightly more than a gigawatt? Say, maybe 1.21 gigawatts?
Will you travel back in time to eat your own words?!?
~W
What I'm thinking is VMWare-type virtualization.
I recently was hired by the CS department at a major university, and they're looking into a way to replace the rows and rows of desktops in a cs lab with a fewer amount of servers, while at the same time, being able to give their students access to the entire OS. Getting one dedicated server per student wouldn't fly, but something like this running vmware, or a small cluster running usermode linux would allow for quite a few small virtual machines.
I'm intrigued.
Plus, there's nothing like the warm embrace of Sun hardware. It costs arms and legs; but there's no substitute for the stability of sunOS+sun hardware. When I worked in webhosting a couple of years ago, we had quite a few Sparc IPC's, IPX's, and Sparcstation 1's (12, 20, and 40 Mhz, respectively, i think), chugging away as static content servers, dns servers, and a variety of other functions.
~W
However, the arguement is that Europe "taxes the bejesus" out of their gasoline in order to encourage mass transit and energy saving vehicles.
In the U.S., while in principle this would be a good idea, there just isn't the urbanization that there is in Europe. European cities aren't built for car commuting - hell most of them had to be upgraded for horses 1400 years ago. Narrow, winding streets, and cobblestones, do not encourage cars. In the U.S., everything is younger, and most of it is built to accomidate cars, with wider streets, etc. As a result, the U.S. has always had that huge suburban and rural population that drives into work. In many places, there just isn't a mass transit option. I lived in metropolitan Memphis for a long time; there's no mass transit to speak of there, other than an aweful bus system. It's too close to the mississippi and too close to the water table for a subway (no one has a basement in Memphis). But, you know what they do have? A "beltway" (I-240) and a LOT of parking.
It's only feasable to use mass transit for everything if you live in one of the cities like Washington, DC, which has an excellent metro system and inbound rail system, or New York, who's subway system, while not pretty, can get you anywhere you need to go.
Driving places is a culture in America. Very few of us live close enough to walk, or even bike, to work. A friend of mine told me about an exchange student from Estonia whom he befriended, and how when they went to D.C. one day, and Dimitri saw the "Springfield Interchange" (the Mixing Bowl), it flipped him out. A road that's seven lanes wide in each direction, with flyover ramps going everywhere, people merging at 60 miles an hour 10 feet apart... it was like nothing he'd ever seen before.
Raising taxes on gas to $6-$8/gal in the U.S. would crush the economy. We're just not built for it. We're slowly emphasizing mass transit and there's been a small movement towards local community envolvement (i.e. not driving 50 miles to work, but working where you live), and we'll get there... but let's not get drastic.
~W
Does an omlette have a chicken inside of it? Well, it's got eggs; therefore it must have a chicken in it.
Look, I'm not defending sony's rootkit. All I'm saying is that finding a satic compiled string in the binary just proves that there's a static string in the binary. If it has a symbol from lame in the binary, likely that symbol is there to compare against programs that you may run on your computer to make sure you're not firing up an MP3 ripper/encoder. Again, there's no logical reason for lame-the-encoding-program to be in the rootkit. Lame is the kind of thing sony is trying to prevent you from running.
~Will
My reasoning is: If it contains any string from LAME it is used for comparason in order to find lame on your system. I assume, based on logic, that there is no reason an MP3 encoder, or any part thereof, would be included on a CD designed not to be ripped and/or encoded.
Your reasoning is: There must be a conspiracy. Why is X, Y, or Z there?
I've already answered your question, but you continue to try to find evidence to support your conspiracy theory. Round and round we go.
Jesus Christ, let's put this one to rest ONCE AND FOR ALL so that we all stop seeing this in every thread slashdot has, wheher it's related to Sony or not!!
Sony is evil. Their rootkit is evil. It's probably illegal, it's definately immoral.
BUT it's ENTIRE PURPOSE is to prohibit you from ripping and encoding and sharing the music contained therein. THAT'S WHAT IT'S BUILT FOR. In furtherance of this goal, it looks for common programs that are used to rip and encode CDs so that it can prevent you from using them.
IT HAS "LAME" in the code because it's looking for LAME on your computer in order to PREVENT YOU FROM USING IT. The static strings are probably compiled into the program in order that the program can compare the strings against other programs on your computer to determine if said programs are, in fact, ripping/encoding software that use LAME!
Sony would have nothing to gain by putting any part of an MP3 ENCODER (!!!) on a CD which they're trying to prevent you from encoding, it just doesn't make sense. Please STOP SEEING CONSPIRACIES around every corner, and think for yourselves. cat
Thank you, now let's NEVER see this stupid idea again!
~Will
I'm sorry, I think they misspelled "It provides a service cheaper than the establishment, and someone would be losing money".
For instance, the company that manages Phone, Ethernet, and Cable (yes, one company does all three) in the apartment where I live has a policy that you can't use Skype or any other homebrew voip technology. They say it affects the quality of their network and introduces security risks. What the reality is is they don't want to purchase more bandwidth, and they already sell telephone service, so they don't want you to be able to skirt their fees.
"WE ask the questions around here!"
"FBI Who?"
"FBI"