People will pay for a browser because it's stable. Because it's standards compliant. Because it's fast. Because it's small and takes up few resources. Because it doesn't automatically shove portals and newsreaders, email programs, media suites, channel content or anything else down your throat. Oh, and because it's features aren't being dictated by a uber-corporation that could give a fick what you really want cause their advertisers/investors want you to have some inane crap that leads you to them. Free does not necessitate better.
Which, I guess, is as good a reason as any to never use Netscape's browser.
...then, on the other end of the scale, there's AssumeSort, a sorting approach that some friends of mine devised for a class assignment back in the day. The algorithm worked in (N) time in all cases, and operated under the assumption that the input string was already sorted. Due to the open-to-interpretation nature of the wording of the assignment this algorithm was written for, they got extra credit for blowing everybody else's chosen sorting algorithm out of the water. I'll leave it as an excercise for the reader to write the algorithm itself...
I challenge you to find a group of users who would be willing and financially able to buy and maintain the kind of server environment necessary to host and run a massively multiplayer online game. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of computers alone; not to mention the additional monthly cost of an OC3 line or three (or faster) running to your center, the tech staff required to run and maintain the servers, the game staff required to keep the game world from sinking into a mess of blithering spamming idiots that drive everybody else away from the game, and the development staff needed to constantly tweak, patch, and bug fix the bloody thing. Sound like something you and your buddies are up for?
Are you outraged that you pay a monthly subscription for cable? Internet access? Car insurance? Electricity? Gas? Does it seem to you that all you should really have to pay for is the wires they hook up to your house? Or do you have some understanding of the fact that these companies need a constant flow of money to continue providing you with the services you want? Had it ever occured to you that the very same example just might hold true in the case of a massively multiplayer online game?
By the way, Quake 3 isn't a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. It's essentially Doom with a nice little directory server built in so you can find plenty of net games easily. There's no need for a game server to be up 24/7, and you'll get the exact same gameplay if you log on under a different name or on a different server. Game #427 for you is no different from game #591; start at zero, frag, maybe cap a flag or two, tally up the scores at the end. Repeat. Q3 is a multiplayer online game, but the only thing "massive" about it is that there are tons of little nobody game servers out there.
You know what? I can think of one great example right off the top of my head as to why these companies need to charge subscription fees.
Remember Subspace?
If you don't, it was a very fun, very addictive top-down multiplayer space shooter developed by Virgin Interactive. It enjoyed a long and fairly public beta life, during which many concerns over subscription fees were voiced. Due in part to tester response, it was decided that Virgin would not charge on a monthly basis after you purchased the game itself. Upon hearing this news, the players were jubilant.
Almost immediately, though, things started going downhill. Servers couldn't handle the increased load of players, and the few people who ran full-time independent servers were usually running at maximum capacity. Virgin didn't have the cash flow to upgrade their servers or their lines fast enough to keep up with the game. Shortly after the release of the game, the game was cracked and distributed; Virgin had to deal with a fresh influx of players without the benefit of having additional money to take care of them. People started finding and exploiting bugs in the game; Virgin was ill-inclined to pay developers to fix bugs in a game that was now obviously not a money-maker. The game exploits turned into service attacks; towards the end of the "official" life of Subspace, it was not uncommon for there to be over 10% downtime of the game/login servers on any given day.
In the end, Virgin had to scrap Subspace entirely. The program was a total loss for them, and as far as I know, they haven't made another trip into the world of MMOG since. Sure, Subspace is still alive, driven by user-run servers and randomly available cracked EXEs, but rest assured that nothing more is going to happen with it.
I would have loved to have seen what Virgin had in store for Subspace 2; unfortunately, that'll never happen. As wonderful as the notion of free access is, when you need to support some serious, heavy-duty servers, high-speed, high-availability internet connections, a developer base to fix bugs and stop exploits, and a legion of in-game moderators and administrators to weed out the idiots who insist on ruining the experience for everyone else, you're talking big bucks. Without financial backing, the closest you'll ever come to massively multiplayer on-line gaming is the deathmatch action in Q3 and UT that so many people erroneously think is what MMOG really is.
Of course the current Linux community is relatively safe from viruses. Most Linux users know damn well what they're doing, understand the importance of password complexity, know how to properly set up and maintain their machine, check regularly for updates, the whole nine yards. Virii (and other hostile programs) will become a problem, though, once Linux becomes the system of choice for John Q. User. The vast, vast majority of computer users in this world are marginally comfortable with using Win95/MacOS; if something goes wrong, they either freak out and call their geek friend or push the big, shiny button and hope a reboot fixes it. The average desktop user is one of the single greatest liabilities in the battle against viruses and invasive programs; practically any OS today can be made safe from virii assuming that the person running the machine knows their stuff and has a fundamental understanding of how things work. The reason Win users get hosed by virii so often isn't necessarily a symptom of the fact that Win systems aren't as securable as Linux systems; rather, the vast, vast majority of virii, worms, trojans, and other hostile programs survive through the oversight and sheer stupidity of the average user. Maude P. Dingbat gets a file from her sister. Is her sister a trusted source? "Of course! She's my sister!" Don't think for a second that if Maude were running linux that she wouldn't go and do the exact same thing. Also, don't assume that Maude would have a properly configured Linux box. Also, don't assume that Maude would have downloaded the latest upgrade from Red Hat 6.0 to protect herself from things such as the glaring wu-ftp bug. Also, don't assume that Maude would have the sense not to run under a root-enabled account (it can be so pesky getting those darn access denied messages all the time!) Average users are stupid. They'll find a way around/ignore security precautions, because security precautions are generally more trouble than they're worth to the average user.
Even smart users are very often stupid. A password audit of my college's Math/CS network several years ago revealed that roughly 7% of the users (including 4 professors) were either using {username}, {usernameusername}, or {} as their passwords. These are people who know damn well the importance of computer security. Sure, you can put password auditing software in place, but the fact remains that people will always look for the path of least resistance when dealing with computers, and as security increases, convenience decreases.
Way back when, the Morris Internet Worm attacked systems that should have been secure; systems populated largely by at least semi-intelligent, semi-computer literate users. Though it was programmed with several bug exploits, the most successful attack it used by far was a simple dictionary password cracking routine. Knock knock, good to see ya, whoop--here's a load average of 50. Yes, systems security has progressed in leaps and bounds since this day, but system complexity has done the same. It's perfectly conceivable that another Worm-style program could come along and cripple the Internet--without even having to gain root access.
The point?
As more and more users flock to Linux as their desktop platform of choice, the mean intelligence/saavy of Linux users will drop, perhaps even as far as that of the mean intelligence of Windows users today.
The stupider the Linux community gets as a whole, the more people will do stupid things, like not resetting root passwords, or disabling security checks because they're a nuisance, or failing to update bugs and exploits as they're discovered and fixed.
The easier it will become to write a malicious program that relies less on technological prowess and more on the idiocy of the average user.
Remember, computers are wonderful tools, but they're just that. Tools. They're only as smart as the person using them. Bad, bad things can happen when tools start using tools.
Dude, Mozilla hasn't even been released yet; while it's not vaporware, it's not exactly shipping, either. I'm extremely eager to see Mozilla released; if it turns out to be a superior browser to IE5, you can bet I'll switch back in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the development and release have taken so embarassingly long that I'm beginning to wonder whether or not the Mozilla engine will be able to break back into the mainstream market. At this point, it needs to be an earth-shattering product.
The validity of this assertion rests entirely on the assumption that there is a "soul" that cannot be re-created. Technology will most likely someday be able to recreate or emulate the behavior of a single neuron; given enough time, effort, and power, it is entirely plausible that we could recreate a human brain. What is in question, though, is whether or not emotion, morality and spirituality are a function of the physical brain or whether there is some intangible (and non-duplicable) force that governs these aspects of human nature. Until this is proven one way or the other, though, it's a pretty safe bet to say that either guess is equally as valid as the other. My assertion that machines will someday surely weep over Shakespeare is no less zany than your notion of computers forever being "stupid".
Buy a stopwatch.
Travel back in time exactly 100 years.
Find the nearest well-educated scholar.
Tell this scholar that devices of silicon and metal will someday be able to transmit the likeness of a person halfway across the world in the blink of an eye and present it by spraying beams of electrons against a glass plate.
Start timer.
Stop timer when laughter stops.
Record findings.
Re:Talk about a waste of processor time.
on
Can Computers Pray?
·
· Score: 1
I think it would much more helpful to society if we dedicated these computers to discovering a solution to world hunger....
The computer to solve world hunger--I can see it now...
UberPuter v1.0. Awaiting user input.
> How can we solve world hunger?
Processing query...completed. Feed everybody.
> How can we feed everybody?
Processing query...completed. Find an unfed person. Place food in person's mouth; encourage chewing. Repeat for all unfed people. Run process every eight hours.
Well, it would be nice if there were universal compatability; if they originally built and tested the drivers on RH, though, it makes sense to release them for RH when they're ready. If they waited to release until they had all the major flavors accounted for, then you probably wouldn't be seeing them for another few months. Heck, if'n you're the industrious type, set up a RH machine, get the source, and port it yourself--that's what open source is all about, right?:]
I agree. I was enthralled by Doom when it came out all those years ago; Quake represented another big leap from sprites to 3D vector-based gameplay. With Quake 2, the chunkiness of Q1 was cleaned up a bit, but there was a distinct feeling that, well, you were still playing pretty much the same game. At that point in the industry timeline, though, such a game was still a very viable entry in the network play category, especially with things like capture the flag to make play interesting.
Now, we have Quake three, which has basically gone and done to Quake 2 what Quake 2 did to Quake 1; Point 'N' Frag, fast-paced deathmatch action, stunningly improved graphics, and optimized performance for network play. This in itself is nice; if the industry were at the same point it was when Quake 2 came out, I'd say that Quake 3 would be a major contender. The big diffierence this time around, though, is that there are many multi-player shooters out there that have more exciting and interesting gameplay than the stock Quake experience. Regardless of the fact that the Q3 tests have thus far been easily the most mind-blowingly beautiful demos I've seen, I'm far more likely to spend several hours playing Tribes or Rainbow 6 than racking up frags in a game of Q3. There are too many good squad-based shooters available today to make a primarily deathmatch-oriented game a strong contender. Now, I stand a good chance of eating my words if, when I finally get this danged thing downloaded, I find significant changes to the "Player X has taken the lead with 34 frags" mentality that has driven the Doom/Quake series for so long; I will eat my words gladly if this is the case. If not, though, I'll probably spend a few hours marvelling at the sheer beauty of the game before switching back to the thrill of a good game of Tribes.
If tapping a router were a matter of chasing down a packet, then yes, it would be a very difficult proposition. However, if the goernment wants to tap somebody's net connection, they'd probably do something along these lines.
Assuming the target in question is an individual running through an ISP, the tapper would probably go directly to that person's ISP, plug into the router, and listen to all the traffic going into and coming out of that person's connection. No need for the network hunt, no need for the Bond-style tracing equipment. It's amazingly straightforward.
As for encryption, the US authorities have two ways of getting you: assuming you're Joe Q. User, you'll either be using no encryption or light (40-bit) encryption. If they really want to, the Government can break through that in next to no time (a matter of weeks, at most.) If you're using more than 40-bit encryption, all they need to do is wait for one of your encrypted messages to leave the U.S. Then, they can either nail you on the spot for violating encryption export laws or wait for a few more messages to pile up to hit you. Once they do this, they can simply demand you decrypt the message (or suffer a less sympathetic stance in court.) If they want to get shady, they could even "alter" the ISP's routing table so that some of your packets just happen to bounce off a server in Lybia before moving on to your Grandma's house. Giving them a router tap only makes it easier.
Though I can't comment a great deal about the extended functionality of StarOffice, one line regarding extended featuresets in general caught me eye:
> The new features offered in Office 2000 however useless do seem to be more abundant.
The uselessness of features is generally true of about 95% of the functionality for any given user of an office suite. I agree that most of the features in O2K are decidedly not the type of functionality that the average person is interested in; it is important to note, however, that for each time that a user actually does use one of these obscure features, the following generally hold true:
That user experiences a major boost in productivity because an otherwise tedious or complex task has been automated or simplified;
A document that has used one of these obscure features can be edited by pretty much any other installation of that office suite (assuming either full install or ready access to the installation source);
The more a user can use the obscure internal functionality of an office suite, the fewer obscure function-specific applications the user will need to acquire, run, and distribute;
The fewer specialized applications an office needs, the less of a support headache that office is going to have.
Thus, the average word-processing user has little use for things like column layout options; multi-editor, multi-version markup tools; flowcharting; advanced statistical analysis tools; and other niche functionalities. To users who need that one little feature, though, the ability to use the same office suite as everybody else in the office saves incredible amounts of time, effort, and frustration.
Slashdot Mirror
Which, I guess, is as good a reason as any to never use Netscape's browser.
...then, on the other end of the scale, there's AssumeSort, a sorting approach that some friends of mine devised for a class assignment back in the day. The algorithm worked in (N) time in all cases, and operated under the assumption that the input string was already sorted. Due to the open-to-interpretation nature of the wording of the assignment this algorithm was written for, they got extra credit for blowing everybody else's chosen sorting algorithm out of the water. I'll leave it as an excercise for the reader to write the algorithm itself...
Are you outraged that you pay a monthly subscription for cable? Internet access? Car insurance? Electricity? Gas? Does it seem to you that all you should really have to pay for is the wires they hook up to your house? Or do you have some understanding of the fact that these companies need a constant flow of money to continue providing you with the services you want? Had it ever occured to you that the very same example just might hold true in the case of a massively multiplayer online game?
By the way, Quake 3 isn't a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. It's essentially Doom with a nice little directory server built in so you can find plenty of net games easily. There's no need for a game server to be up 24/7, and you'll get the exact same gameplay if you log on under a different name or on a different server. Game #427 for you is no different from game #591; start at zero, frag, maybe cap a flag or two, tally up the scores at the end. Repeat. Q3 is a multiplayer online game, but the only thing "massive" about it is that there are tons of little nobody game servers out there.
Remember Subspace?
If you don't, it was a very fun, very addictive top-down multiplayer space shooter developed by Virgin Interactive. It enjoyed a long and fairly public beta life, during which many concerns over subscription fees were voiced. Due in part to tester response, it was decided that Virgin would not charge on a monthly basis after you purchased the game itself. Upon hearing this news, the players were jubilant.
Almost immediately, though, things started going downhill. Servers couldn't handle the increased load of players, and the few people who ran full-time independent servers were usually running at maximum capacity. Virgin didn't have the cash flow to upgrade their servers or their lines fast enough to keep up with the game. Shortly after the release of the game, the game was cracked and distributed; Virgin had to deal with a fresh influx of players without the benefit of having additional money to take care of them. People started finding and exploiting bugs in the game; Virgin was ill-inclined to pay developers to fix bugs in a game that was now obviously not a money-maker. The game exploits turned into service attacks; towards the end of the "official" life of Subspace, it was not uncommon for there to be over 10% downtime of the game/login servers on any given day.
In the end, Virgin had to scrap Subspace entirely. The program was a total loss for them, and as far as I know, they haven't made another trip into the world of MMOG since. Sure, Subspace is still alive, driven by user-run servers and randomly available cracked EXEs, but rest assured that nothing more is going to happen with it.
I would have loved to have seen what Virgin had in store for Subspace 2; unfortunately, that'll never happen. As wonderful as the notion of free access is, when you need to support some serious, heavy-duty servers, high-speed, high-availability internet connections, a developer base to fix bugs and stop exploits, and a legion of in-game moderators and administrators to weed out the idiots who insist on ruining the experience for everyone else, you're talking big bucks. Without financial backing, the closest you'll ever come to massively multiplayer on-line gaming is the deathmatch action in Q3 and UT that so many people erroneously think is what MMOG really is.
Even smart users are very often stupid. A password audit of my college's Math/CS network several years ago revealed that roughly 7% of the users (including 4 professors) were either using {username}, {usernameusername}, or {} as their passwords. These are people who know damn well the importance of computer security. Sure, you can put password auditing software in place, but the fact remains that people will always look for the path of least resistance when dealing with computers, and as security increases, convenience decreases.
Way back when, the Morris Internet Worm attacked systems that should have been secure; systems populated largely by at least semi-intelligent, semi-computer literate users. Though it was programmed with several bug exploits, the most successful attack it used by far was a simple dictionary password cracking routine. Knock knock, good to see ya, whoop--here's a load average of 50. Yes, systems security has progressed in leaps and bounds since this day, but system complexity has done the same. It's perfectly conceivable that another Worm-style program could come along and cripple the Internet--without even having to gain root access.
The point?
- As more and more users flock to Linux as their desktop platform of choice, the mean intelligence/saavy of Linux users will drop, perhaps even as far as that of the mean intelligence of Windows users today.
- The stupider the Linux community gets as a whole, the more people will do stupid things, like not resetting root passwords, or disabling security checks because they're a nuisance, or failing to update bugs and exploits as they're discovered and fixed.
- The easier it will become to write a malicious program that relies less on technological prowess and more on the idiocy of the average user.
Remember, computers are wonderful tools, but they're just that. Tools. They're only as smart as the person using them. Bad, bad things can happen when tools start using tools.Dude, Mozilla hasn't even been released yet; while it's not vaporware, it's not exactly shipping, either. I'm extremely eager to see Mozilla released; if it turns out to be a superior browser to IE5, you can bet I'll switch back in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the development and release have taken so embarassingly long that I'm beginning to wonder whether or not the Mozilla engine will be able to break back into the mainstream market. At this point, it needs to be an earth-shattering product.
The computer to solve world hunger--I can see it now...
UberPuter v1.0. Awaiting user input.
> How can we solve world hunger?
Processing query...completed.
Feed everybody.
> How can we feed everybody?
Processing query...completed.
Find an unfed person. Place food in person's mouth; encourage chewing. Repeat for all unfed people. Run process every eight hours.
> q3test
Processing query...
Well, it would be nice if there were universal compatability; if they originally built and tested the drivers on RH, though, it makes sense to release them for RH when they're ready. If they waited to release until they had all the major flavors accounted for, then you probably wouldn't be seeing them for another few months. Heck, if'n you're the industrious type, set up a RH machine, get the source, and port it yourself--that's what open source is all about, right? :]
Now, we have Quake three, which has basically gone and done to Quake 2 what Quake 2 did to Quake 1; Point 'N' Frag, fast-paced deathmatch action, stunningly improved graphics, and optimized performance for network play. This in itself is nice; if the industry were at the same point it was when Quake 2 came out, I'd say that Quake 3 would be a major contender. The big diffierence this time around, though, is that there are many multi-player shooters out there that have more exciting and interesting gameplay than the stock Quake experience. Regardless of the fact that the Q3 tests have thus far been easily the most mind-blowingly beautiful demos I've seen, I'm far more likely to spend several hours playing Tribes or Rainbow 6 than racking up frags in a game of Q3. There are too many good squad-based shooters available today to make a primarily deathmatch-oriented game a strong contender. Now, I stand a good chance of eating my words if, when I finally get this danged thing downloaded, I find significant changes to the "Player X has taken the lead with 34 frags" mentality that has driven the Doom/Quake series for so long; I will eat my words gladly if this is the case. If not, though, I'll probably spend a few hours marvelling at the sheer beauty of the game before switching back to the thrill of a good game of Tribes.
Assuming the target in question is an individual running through an ISP, the tapper would probably go directly to that person's ISP, plug into the router, and listen to all the traffic going into and coming out of that person's connection. No need for the network hunt, no need for the Bond-style tracing equipment. It's amazingly straightforward.
As for encryption, the US authorities have two ways of getting you: assuming you're Joe Q. User, you'll either be using no encryption or light (40-bit) encryption. If they really want to, the Government can break through that in next to no time (a matter of weeks, at most.) If you're using more than 40-bit encryption, all they need to do is wait for one of your encrypted messages to leave the U.S. Then, they can either nail you on the spot for violating encryption export laws or wait for a few more messages to pile up to hit you. Once they do this, they can simply demand you decrypt the message (or suffer a less sympathetic stance in court.) If they want to get shady, they could even "alter" the ISP's routing table so that some of your packets just happen to bounce off a server in Lybia before moving on to your Grandma's house. Giving them a router tap only makes it easier.
> The new features offered in Office 2000 however useless do seem to be more abundant.
The uselessness of features is generally true of about 95% of the functionality for any given user of an office suite. I agree that most of the features in O2K are decidedly not the type of functionality that the average person is interested in; it is important to note, however, that for each time that a user actually does use one of these obscure features, the following generally hold true:
- That user experiences a major boost in productivity because an otherwise tedious or complex task has been automated or simplified;
- A document that has used one of these obscure features can be edited by pretty much any other installation of that office suite (assuming either full install or ready access to the installation source);
- The more a user can use the obscure internal functionality of an office suite, the fewer obscure function-specific applications the user will need to acquire, run, and distribute;
- The fewer specialized applications an office needs, the less of a support headache that office is going to have.
Thus, the average word-processing user has little use for things like column layout options; multi-editor, multi-version markup tools; flowcharting; advanced statistical analysis tools; and other niche functionalities. To users who need that one little feature, though, the ability to use the same office suite as everybody else in the office saves incredible amounts of time, effort, and frustration.$0.02,
Sundiata