The issue is not whether or not AOL actually has to pay for extra bandwidth or servers. I'm sure that AOL/Timewarner could add servers/bandwidth at will and have it be a blip on their bottom line.
The issue is that AOL gets to do whatever it wants with it's own bandwidth. That means that when they released the TOC protocol and provided servers for it, all they did was imply that it is ok to use the TOC protocol. This has NO bearing on the oscar protocol or servers. Even if it doesn't actually cost AOL an extra nickel for people to use oscar servers, it is still AOL's bandwidth to use (or not) as they see fit.
The author of this article made a ridiculous statement that TOC is not an acceptable substitute for access because you can't get buddy icons or files. Since when are buddy icons a necessity for instant messenging? I have been using various toc clients for a long time and I never even noticed any problems, because I can freely chat with all of my friends.
The author also indicates that AOL never (intentionally) tried to shut down 3rd party clients, only 3rd party SERVICES (like the msn/yahoo SERVERS) from accessing their systems. I have no problems with this strategy, nowhere is it written that you have to give your competitors access to any of your computing resources. Even if such access is "free of cost."
if "the point" is to have an easy to maintain user environment, then terminal services are still better and directly compete with this system. there are no distance limitations (subject to network restrictions), no possiblility of video degradation or other "new technology strangeness."
Price considerations aside, you still have to put *something* on the user's desktop (keyboard, monitor, mouse) and throwing a thin client with no hard drive or other maintenance issues is not that far of a leap. In addition you get all the benefits of software distribution and remote control of user's desktops (with the citrix software anyways). And you don't have to have a data center class closet within 200 feet of the user. The same terminal servers can be used by people across wan or dialin links, which can be a lifesaver for those bandwidth heavy apps.
I have yet to see a corporate environment that would be better served by lots of powerhungry, administrator-labor-intensive rackmount PCs than by a terminal server setup.
I definitely see these rackmounts as better than "desktops on desks", but still not as good as effective as other solutions.
This sounds like a cool concept, but Windows Terminal Services is a far more efficient solution for most cases. Setup a rack of dual processor terminal services machines and you deploy thin terminals *anywhere* you have power and network connectivity.
After you take licensing costs into account a full terminal server solution (with citrix/load-balanced servers) probably costs as much as buying lots of desktops, but you have a system that can be managed from a central data center.
Now, I could definitely use a rack system like this for my home experiments...
Right. The shooters at columbine have no responsibility for their actions, they were conditioned to shoot all their classmates and then commit suicide. Their parents are not to blame either, because no amount of "parenting" could prevent the automatic brainwashing that happens when you play Doom.
As a matter of fact, since millions of kids play these overly violent games everyday, we can now understand why millions of kids take guns to school and shoot millions of other, non-videogame-playing children and then kill themselves every day.
These people bringing the lawsuit are on the right track, they mailed John Carmack personally to demand that he personally prohibit any person under 17 from playing his game. He is a genius coder, he must be able to figure out a way to do it. Senseless auto-killing brainwashing ought only be reserved for those over 18.
cool, I'll have to try webmin. Linuxconf is a total joke (what fool thought that putting a "quit" button on the bottom of each screen to go to the next made sense??). Memorizing N conf file formats gets tedious real fast, it would be nice to have a good GUI way to remotely admin unix machines.
the whole union thing is a reaction against the inhumane excesses of Corporations against working people. Every stupid "union rule" you see today is in place because in the pre-union past, companies abused their power. The next time you wonder why something can't get done after 5 pm, remember that years ago companies would force workers to toil 16+ hours a day with no extra compensation or get fired.
Of course, unions today are nearly as bad as the Evil Corporations, but at least they hate each other and strike a sort of balance.
Corporations are out only to improve their bottom line, and that means perpetrating any and every abuse possible. Our economic and legal system makes this so (shareholder lawsuits and just plain greed). The union system we have today is a DIRECT consequence of that behavior.
Microsoft, for example, plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system, Windows XP, according to the report.
This looks like the software built into XP (Windows Media Player) will suck for ripping MP3s, but will rock for recording Windows Media Format files. This does NOT affect third party programs like MusicMatch, etc. except for the fact that people may not want to buy or download another music program if XP already has one (think I.E. vs Netscape).
However if people are already used to the MP3 scene and have invested lots of time creating a collection (and buying portable mp3 players) then this tactic may not work as expected. If Microsoft did start messing with third party software then I would expect that antitrust lawyers would have a field day.
which part of "double-byte asian font" did you take to mean "chinese"? Centuries of evolution in English make the two words dramatically different, you know:-P.
ok it's in totally poor taste to reply to one's own post but I just found this link: storing ssh host keys in dns
do a google search for ssh key dns and you'll get lots of hits. This is probably the best way to manage large sets of ssh hostkeys, assuming you have your DNS house in order.
good luck!
ssh is a communications encryption scheme. Kerberos is an authentication mechanism. they solve totally different problems. If he added Kerberos auth to his network (which may already be the case) he would still run into problems with ssh bitching about unknown keys.
Backing up and restoring ssh keys is a very good idea, but this still does not address the issue of large scale manageability. What happens when you add a new server? What if you want to revoke a key for security purposes?
Rolling your own solution is probably the only way. The mass "scp keyfile to all machines" trick is sort of inelegant but effective. Ideally you would have a system that reads key info from DNS. I remember hearing something about extensions to BIND to do something like this, but I don't recall the details. If you do go hacking DNS (and thus also hacking the ssh client) then you have to make sure your DNS is also authenticated properly... bleh it's late and I'm not making any more sense.:)
after reading the/. blurb, the link in the blurb, and another "explanatory" link from there, I still have no clue what the hell this guy did or is accused of. Can anyone provide a short description or useful link?
Michael, get the feeling you are trying to avoid "editorialization flames", but a better description or link would be appreciated.
OK Jon, there has never been just one type of movie. And there aren't just three, contrary to your article. What about dramas? There's about a dozen different genres, and as many types of heroes, in dramatic films alone.
I'm not sure which Katz post you are referring to, since nowhere did he say only 3 genres exist. He does talk about the various types of modern action films and how they seem to have evolved. It's an interesting commentary if you use your own critical thinking to try and extract value from it.
Oh, and the technology hero? He's not that new anyway. The first techie hero was Noah. Think about it.
The post was about FILMS, not about "biblical action techno geeks." Citing Noah as a contradiction to Katz's modern Hollywood action genre is just broken. Leave out the literature and historical references and you'll be better prepared to deal with this post.
I can see what Katz is getting at, though I don't agree with all of his commentary. Newer action movie templates are being developed, but that doesn't mean that the old ones will go away. There will always be a place for the "old school" asskicking hero.
Jon, this is tiresome.
KatzBashing (tm) is so 20th century. If you are going to follow the KatzBashing herd, at least try to be on target.
What does he say? The same stuff he says he didn't say. Start typing to make a document. Start drawing with a pen tablet to make a drawing.
He is describing one system he designed that operates in that fashion. He doesn't say that all computers should operate in that way, just that once he designed one like that, and it worked. He used that as an example of how designers should break away from conventional thinking. fFr all we know the system he referred to was a simple experimental prototype. Hardly contradictory stuff for a researcher.
An operating system, even the saccharine Mac or Windows desktop, is the program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle
with the application. It does nothing for you, wastes your time, is unnecessary."
I see no contradictions here. He is describing the "operating system" concept as it has been sold to us. What is the "Windows Operating System" to most users? It's the Start Menu, the nested menus, the dancing paperclip. In short, the cruft you have to slog through before you start typing your paper or drawing your next masterpiece. He is purposely describing what an OS is from a user's perspective, not from a computer scientist's.
How can he blame his critics for saying such things?
A great many of the derogatory comments I read here came from people who failed to see that when he says "an operating system" he is usually referring to the user interface of that operating system (average user perspective), not the collection of system calls and programs that provide access to hardware (computer scientist perspective). If you can keep straight in your head that he is a UI researcher, most of what he says makes sense, or at least makes you think.
I think he is saying that he will not "license" the program to you unless you agree to the GPL. He is not describing the GPL, he is telling you that this program is available to you ONLY if you agree to the GPL.
this is similar to what most software companies do: if you don't agree to the terms of the license you cannot use the software.
So the odds of hitting a redundant pair is 1 in 5,238,440.
I think the point of the report was that while to a statistician the probabilities are good, in reality we have to take into account that whatever caused the first wire to deteriorate would probably cause the second one to deteriorate too.
So the real chance of a system and it's redundant pair failing can be much higher if you never investigate why the first one failed, and whether that same condition applies to it's pair.
Hey, nobody is forcing you to run Nautilus. There is no reason to call these guys "bozos" just because they make something you'd rather not use.
If you'd rather run twm at 1600x1200, 4 bit color "just to get at your files fast" then go for it! Or download the nautilus source and fix it yourself. Either way, don't trash these guys for providing more FREE options.
New legislation is probably the best way to get out of this DMCA mess. The Supreme Court might also rule that Congress created the "fair use" concept and can thus take it away with laws like the DMCA. There may not be a whole lot the Court will do, if they choose to see this as a Legislative issue.
While I agree that there will always have to be an option to shut off code verification, the problem lies in what the default settings for whistler will be.
If MS decides that code signing will be on by default, and that to disable it you have to go through a convoluted series of clicks and/or registry hacks, there may be a problem. We could find that suddenly "unsigned" applications will cause scary looking error messages to be popped up on, say, your grandmother's screen. What will most people think when an error dialog pops up warning them that this application may be a virus and could damage the computer? 90% of home users will instead look for apps that don't display any error messages on install.
This could be a situation similar to the "Designed for Windows 95/98/2000" logo process, which Microsoft uses to gain leverage over software developers. The logo program has had a lot of success among users who might otherwise mistakenly buy a Playstation CD or Nintendo cartridge for their PC (that's most users folks). Except that now it's not just a graphic on your packaging.
My bet is that code signing will be necessary to get the "Designed for Windows 200x" logo, and that developers who don't follow the party line will be at a serious disadvantage in the marketplace. MS may be moving towards a console-esque software scheme (xbox, anyone?), where they get money for every "certified" application sold. And even if some hacker found some way around the signing process, a legitimate software company probably couldn't use it due to DMCA "anticircumvention".
So the question is not whether it will be optional, but will it be on by default, and who gets to sign the code?
if they are doing the effects for all three films at once, how will they handle newer technology/faster computers as they release the films?
Undoubtedly by the time the third film hits the screen, the computer animation "state of the art" will have progressed 1 or 2 generations beyond what was used to create the first. How can the director resist "improving" the effects as hardware becomes cheaper and better?
Even if he keeps the same hardware, another year or two of render time could make for significantly more advanced fx.
The other 5% are doing it as a part of their technical consulting, and that's against the "for home and personal use only" clauses of the terms of service. If you're a business, you are invited to use more professional-grade features. You're eating bandwidth, and they have to charge for it.
"Using port 25" does not magically eat bandwidth. Doing any kind of work from home does not automatically eat bandwidth. If they want to limit the heavy users they should implement some traffic-shaping system so that the actual people who are abusing the connection are appropriately limited, not people who happen to be using a particular IP port.
Why does "port 25" equal "bandwidth heavy user who should pay more" while the local script kiddie who spends 10 hours a day downloading mp3z/warez is OK?
The real reason they are blocking these ports is simply to have an excuse to charge more money where they think they can get away with it. Don't be fooled by their "saving the bandwidth" arguments.
This is sort of off topic, but I would suggest that the entire Slashdot editor crew take a class on basic journalism and/or ethics. Perhaps some work at a local college newspaper to gain experience would be good too.
Many of the errors and misleading headlines here definitely look like the work of people who are smart but sometimes inexperienced/misguided. A committment to quality on the part of the editorship would go a long way to reducing the negative feedback you guys get.
Don't get me wrong, I love slashdot and I know its hard work to put out a fast moving site like this. I am only offering this as constructive criticism. Get a copy of "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. Make a commitment to avoid basic errors like duplicate stories, and READ the articles before you post. Avoid overly sensationalistic headlines.
You don't HAVE to print story submission text verbatim, remember that an "editor" is supposed to clean stuff up.
Anyways, you guys do run a cool website, and I hope you decide to take it to the next level of quality so you can gain the respect you deserve.
Slashdot Mirror
The issue is that AOL gets to do whatever it wants with it's own bandwidth. That means that when they released the TOC protocol and provided servers for it, all they did was imply that it is ok to use the TOC protocol. This has NO bearing on the oscar protocol or servers. Even if it doesn't actually cost AOL an extra nickel for people to use oscar servers, it is still AOL's bandwidth to use (or not) as they see fit.
The author of this article made a ridiculous statement that TOC is not an acceptable substitute for access because you can't get buddy icons or files. Since when are buddy icons a necessity for instant messenging? I have been using various toc clients for a long time and I never even noticed any problems, because I can freely chat with all of my friends.
The author also indicates that AOL never (intentionally) tried to shut down 3rd party clients, only 3rd party SERVICES (like the msn/yahoo SERVERS) from accessing their systems. I have no problems with this strategy, nowhere is it written that you have to give your competitors access to any of your computing resources. Even if such access is "free of cost."
Price considerations aside, you still have to put *something* on the user's desktop (keyboard, monitor, mouse) and throwing a thin client with no hard drive or other maintenance issues is not that far of a leap. In addition you get all the benefits of software distribution and remote control of user's desktops (with the citrix software anyways). And you don't have to have a data center class closet within 200 feet of the user. The same terminal servers can be used by people across wan or dialin links, which can be a lifesaver for those bandwidth heavy apps.
I have yet to see a corporate environment that would be better served by lots of powerhungry, administrator-labor-intensive rackmount PCs than by a terminal server setup.
I definitely see these rackmounts as better than "desktops on desks", but still not as good as effective as other solutions.
After you take licensing costs into account a full terminal server solution (with citrix/load-balanced servers) probably costs as much as buying lots of desktops, but you have a system that can be managed from a central data center.
Now, I could definitely use a rack system like this for my home experiments...
As a matter of fact, since millions of kids play these overly violent games everyday, we can now understand why millions of kids take guns to school and shoot millions of other, non-videogame-playing children and then kill themselves every day.
These people bringing the lawsuit are on the right track, they mailed John Carmack personally to demand that he personally prohibit any person under 17 from playing his game. He is a genius coder, he must be able to figure out a way to do it. Senseless auto-killing brainwashing ought only be reserved for those over 18.
cool, I'll have to try webmin. Linuxconf is a total joke (what fool thought that putting a "quit" button on the bottom of each screen to go to the next made sense??). Memorizing N conf file formats gets tedious real fast, it would be nice to have a good GUI way to remotely admin unix machines.
Of course, unions today are nearly as bad as the Evil Corporations, but at least they hate each other and strike a sort of balance.
Corporations are out only to improve their bottom line, and that means perpetrating any and every abuse possible. Our economic and legal system makes this so (shareholder lawsuits and just plain greed). The union system we have today is a DIRECT consequence of that behavior.
This looks like the software built into XP (Windows Media Player) will suck for ripping MP3s, but will rock for recording Windows Media Format files. This does NOT affect third party programs like MusicMatch, etc. except for the fact that people may not want to buy or download another music program if XP already has one (think I.E. vs Netscape).
However if people are already used to the MP3 scene and have invested lots of time creating a collection (and buying portable mp3 players) then this tactic may not work as expected. If Microsoft did start messing with third party software then I would expect that antitrust lawyers would have a field day.
which part of "double-byte asian font" did you take to mean "chinese"? Centuries of evolution in English make the two words dramatically different, you know :-P.
do a google search for ssh key dns and you'll get lots of hits. This is probably the best way to manage large sets of ssh hostkeys, assuming you have your DNS house in order. good luck!
Backing up and restoring ssh keys is a very good idea, but this still does not address the issue of large scale manageability. What happens when you add a new server? What if you want to revoke a key for security purposes?
Rolling your own solution is probably the only way. The mass "scp keyfile to all machines" trick is sort of inelegant but effective. Ideally you would have a system that reads key info from DNS. I remember hearing something about extensions to BIND to do something like this, but I don't recall the details. If you do go hacking DNS (and thus also hacking the ssh client) then you have to make sure your DNS is also authenticated properly... bleh it's late and I'm not making any more sense. :)
Michael, get the feeling you are trying to avoid "editorialization flames", but a better description or link would be appreciated.
jeez, what were they running? WinCE?
I'm not sure which Katz post you are referring to, since nowhere did he say only 3 genres exist. He does talk about the various types of modern action films and how they seem to have evolved. It's an interesting commentary if you use your own critical thinking to try and extract value from it.
Oh, and the technology hero? He's not that new anyway. The first techie hero was Noah. Think about it.
The post was about FILMS, not about "biblical action techno geeks." Citing Noah as a contradiction to Katz's modern Hollywood action genre is just broken. Leave out the literature and historical references and you'll be better prepared to deal with this post.
I can see what Katz is getting at, though I don't agree with all of his commentary. Newer action movie templates are being developed, but that doesn't mean that the old ones will go away. There will always be a place for the "old school" asskicking hero. Jon, this is tiresome.
KatzBashing (tm) is so 20th century. If you are going to follow the KatzBashing herd, at least try to be on target.
He is describing one system he designed that operates in that fashion. He doesn't say that all computers should operate in that way, just that once he designed one like that, and it worked. He used that as an example of how designers should break away from conventional thinking. fFr all we know the system he referred to was a simple experimental prototype. Hardly contradictory stuff for a researcher.
An operating system, even the saccharine Mac or Windows desktop, is the program you have to hassle with before you get to hassle with the application. It does nothing for you, wastes your time, is unnecessary."
I see no contradictions here. He is describing the "operating system" concept as it has been sold to us. What is the "Windows Operating System" to most users? It's the Start Menu, the nested menus, the dancing paperclip. In short, the cruft you have to slog through before you start typing your paper or drawing your next masterpiece. He is purposely describing what an OS is from a user's perspective, not from a computer scientist's.
How can he blame his critics for saying such things?
A great many of the derogatory comments I read here came from people who failed to see that when he says "an operating system" he is usually referring to the user interface of that operating system (average user perspective), not the collection of system calls and programs that provide access to hardware (computer scientist perspective). If you can keep straight in your head that he is a UI researcher, most of what he says makes sense, or at least makes you think.
this is similar to what most software companies do: if you don't agree to the terms of the license you cannot use the software.
I think the point of the report was that while to a statistician the probabilities are good, in reality we have to take into account that whatever caused the first wire to deteriorate would probably cause the second one to deteriorate too.
So the real chance of a system and it's redundant pair failing can be much higher if you never investigate why the first one failed, and whether that same condition applies to it's pair.
IBM will also offer TransNote models for both right-handed and left-handed writers.
DYSLEXICS, UNTIE!
If you'd rather run twm at 1600x1200, 4 bit color "just to get at your files fast" then go for it! Or download the nautilus source and fix it yourself. Either way, don't trash these guys for providing more FREE options.
New legislation is probably the best way to get out of this DMCA mess. The Supreme Court might also rule that Congress created the "fair use" concept and can thus take it away with laws like the DMCA. There may not be a whole lot the Court will do, if they choose to see this as a Legislative issue.
If MS decides that code signing will be on by default, and that to disable it you have to go through a convoluted series of clicks and/or registry hacks, there may be a problem. We could find that suddenly "unsigned" applications will cause scary looking error messages to be popped up on, say, your grandmother's screen. What will most people think when an error dialog pops up warning them that this application may be a virus and could damage the computer? 90% of home users will instead look for apps that don't display any error messages on install.
This could be a situation similar to the "Designed for Windows 95/98/2000" logo process, which Microsoft uses to gain leverage over software developers. The logo program has had a lot of success among users who might otherwise mistakenly buy a Playstation CD or Nintendo cartridge for their PC (that's most users folks). Except that now it's not just a graphic on your packaging.
My bet is that code signing will be necessary to get the "Designed for Windows 200x" logo, and that developers who don't follow the party line will be at a serious disadvantage in the marketplace. MS may be moving towards a console-esque software scheme (xbox, anyone?), where they get money for every "certified" application sold. And even if some hacker found some way around the signing process, a legitimate software company probably couldn't use it due to DMCA "anticircumvention".
So the question is not whether it will be optional, but will it be on by default, and who gets to sign the code?
Turtles armed with machine guns would be pretty tough to hunt. No thanks!
Undoubtedly by the time the third film hits the screen, the computer animation "state of the art" will have progressed 1 or 2 generations beyond what was used to create the first. How can the director resist "improving" the effects as hardware becomes cheaper and better?
Even if he keeps the same hardware, another year or two of render time could make for significantly more advanced fx.
balls of steel.
"Using port 25" does not magically eat bandwidth. Doing any kind of work from home does not automatically eat bandwidth. If they want to limit the heavy users they should implement some traffic-shaping system so that the actual people who are abusing the connection are appropriately limited, not people who happen to be using a particular IP port.
Why does "port 25" equal "bandwidth heavy user who should pay more" while the local script kiddie who spends 10 hours a day downloading mp3z/warez is OK?
The real reason they are blocking these ports is simply to have an excuse to charge more money where they think they can get away with it. Don't be fooled by their "saving the bandwidth" arguments.
Many of the errors and misleading headlines here definitely look like the work of people who are smart but sometimes inexperienced/misguided. A committment to quality on the part of the editorship would go a long way to reducing the negative feedback you guys get.
Don't get me wrong, I love slashdot and I know its hard work to put out a fast moving site like this. I am only offering this as constructive criticism. Get a copy of "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. Make a commitment to avoid basic errors like duplicate stories, and READ the articles before you post. Avoid overly sensationalistic headlines.
You don't HAVE to print story submission text verbatim, remember that an "editor" is supposed to clean stuff up.
Anyways, you guys do run a cool website, and I hope you decide to take it to the next level of quality so you can gain the respect you deserve.