After going through my post once more, I realize it came off as a bit confusing. Let me rephrase:
Peering is when two entities exchange routing information and traffic, whereas transit is strictly end-to-end as far as the entity providing it goes. I.e. if entities A and B have a peering agreement, A can use B's network to reach third party C and B can use A's network to reach third party D; whereas if A had a transit connection to B, B would only use it to send data meant for A's network (and A would also not be able to "see" any routes beyond the default gateway of B).
Peering is when two entities exchange routing information and traffic, whereas transit is strictly end-to-end as far as the entity providing it goes. I.e. if entities A and B have a peering agreement, A can use B's network to reach third party C; whereas if A had a transit connection to B, B would only use it to send data meant for A's network (and A would also not be able to "see" any routes beyond the default gateway of B).
There are instances of paid peering between ISPs, so paying isn't a strictly a transit-thing.
Red Hat has a history of supplying packages with flaky patches. One of the kernel updates for RHEL5.1 was supplied with a backported patch for an NFS-related problem which ended up breaking caching, introducing serious performance issues that made NFS almost unusable when working with multiple files/directories. Red Hat was quick to come up with a patch after the bug had been reported - however, it only applied cleanly to their testing kernel (candidate for the next RHEL update) and refused to introduce it in the mainline kernel package, which forced us to backport the fix ourselves and keep local revisions for about half a year.
Apparently, an issue of similar origin (i.e. bug introduced by Red Hat-specific patch) is currently affecting 3ware/Areca RAID performance when used in conjunction with the RHEL5.2 mainline kernel and Red Hat is refusing to release a maintenence update to correct the error. Won't be fun for those who've got such hardware and are bound by support contracts to use only Red Hat-supplied kernels.
Ten years ago you would see Nvidia GPUs in everything from low- to high-end. Today, not so much - Intel dominates the low-end spectrum, with ATI hanging onto a somewhat insignificant market share. The Larrabee is Intel moving upmarket. Sure, it might not perform as well the latest Nvidia or ATI high-end GPU but it might be enough in terms of performance or have other benefits (better OSS support) to win some of Nvidia's current market share over. Considering it's supposedly the Pentium architecture recycled, it's also reasonable to assume the design will be relatively cost-effective and allow Intel to sell at very competitive prices while still maintaining healthy profit margins.
It's a classic case of disruption. Intel enters and Nvidia is happy to leave because there's a segment above that's much more attractive to pursue. Continue along the same lines until there's nowhere for Nvidia to run, at which point the game ends - circle of disruption complete. See also Silicon Graphics, Nvidia's predecessor in many ways.
ISPs do not have common carrier status. This has been discussed before, but supposedly US law distinguishes between voice and data -- voice having common carrier status, data not.
A few months prior to the release of RHEL 5.2, they released a kernel update (2.6.18-53.1.6.el5) in which they had added a patch for an issue that could make a system oops upon when files with names of a certain character were present on NFS shares. However, this patch also contained a bug which broke NFS lookup caching and subsequently crippled NFS performance to the point of NFS being completely unusable when working with multiple smaller files. They released a patch for it, but it would only apply cleanly to their testing kernel (which would later become the kernel shipped with 5.2) and they refused to backport it to their then-stable kernel. Shortly after, the vmsplice flaw was found forcing people to update and bring this bug upon them.
For us it wasn't that big a problem since we're using CentOS and don't have anything requiring us to use standard RHEL packages (so we backported the patch and built our own kernel package), but a large amount of corporate RHEL users are required to use only standard RHEL system packages because of service contracts with hardware vendors and hence they could do little to remedy this bug.
As we were among the first to report this and post about it on mailing lists, we received a lot of communication from corporate RHEL users/sysadmins asking us for help on this, further proving that this was a major issue that should have been addressed right away and not post-poned to the next major release.
... is because they're based on the 'technology first, everything else second' formula that's been the defacto standard for PC game development since the late nineties, which was the point where the costs were starting to rise and publishers losing interest in being innovative, instead opting for easy tried-and-true-but-with-more-powerful-technology cash-ins. This worked as long as people were interested in upgrading their hardware not only for games but also to improve their overall computer usage experience, but since the advent of Windows XP (plus service packs) and the P4/Athlon XP generation of CPUs many users have found themselves able to carry out their computer-related activities well enough not to need further upgrades.
The PC gaming market is effectively destroying itself by sticking to this paradigm, because the amount of people who own top-end hardware isn't going to increase - someone who plays games and is looking to buy a PC today isn't going to opt for one with a fancy GPU from Nvidia or ATI that's able to run top-end PC games because even if a particular game isn't available for anything but the PC you can for most part find console games with comparable technology and playability. The PC doesn't have the technological advantage it used to have over consoles or at least it doesn't play as much of a role anymore because even if Crysis looks nicer than, say, Gears of War, for most people the latter is going to be good enough. Graphics in games have advanced to the point where they have become a commodity, and when people will no longer latch on to your game because it's technologically superior because your competitors offer something that might be somewhat inferior but still good enough you have get to them by other means. So far the gaming industry's reacted kind of similar to the music industry (where the music is a commodity as it's all seemingly factory produced) in the face of this - more focus on branding and controlling news- and retail outlets (hence the increase lately in reports of "professional reviewers" being restricted in terms of what they're allowed to print in reviews).
What most of PC game developers or former PC game developers refuse to admit to is that there's a huge market beyond the one that finds your technology the most appealing aspect of your game. The Sims and subsequent sequels proved it existed. People who shuffle The Sims, WoW etc. into their own categories as phenomenon that cannot be repeated simply don't understand that these games were and continue to be successful because they appeal to people by having good gameplay, which is far more universal than having cutting edge technology. And contrary to what these people think, their success can be repeated - but in order to do so you need innovative and creative gameplay and creating such takes talent; something the video game industry as a whole is surprisingly devoid of.
The host keys on my two file servers, generated while they were still running sarge, were OK according to the perl script provided by Debian to verify whether a key is weak or not. If you were previously running sarge and have upgraded to etch but haven't issued new keys after upgrading, you're fine (as least as far as your host keys go).
The host keys on my recently installed etch workstation were detected as being weak, however.
For people who're not up to speed on laser classifications, a level 3 laser is one that outputs between 5-500 mW and a level 4 goes beyond 500 mW. Already at 100 mW the laser is strong enough to make you blind in less than a millisecond. These laser pointers are not like the ones you'll find in common shops, these can inflict serious damage on people and should be handled with the same care as you'd handle a weapon (which they arguably could be classified as).
Blizzard's not exactly the best example when looking for innovation. Sure, they've made some solid games, but all of the ones I'm familiar with (that is, most of the major ones save WoW as I don't do multiplayer-only) were awfully derivative; the RTS stuff from Dune 2/C&C, Diablo from Rogue/Nethack etc.
Agreed. I can't help but feel the new algorithm that implements searching bookmarks/page titles/etc. for results when you type in the address bar is aimed at the "I am incompetent when it comes to technical things and don't understand the concept of URLs"-type people; the like to whom the Internet is the blue IE logo on their desktops.
URLs are the key to http IMO - they're the ones to keep in memory as they're unique, unlike page titles and bookmarks. When I type "sla" in the address bar, I want slashdot.org, not some random blog post with the term 'slashdot' in the title I happened to pass by at some point.
At the end, what pisses me off the most about this whole deal is not being able to revert to the old behavior. That kind of forced nurturing is what I'd expect from Microsoft, not Mozilla.
Slashdot Mirror
After going through my post once more, I realize it came off as a bit confusing. Let me rephrase:
Peering is when two entities exchange routing information and traffic, whereas transit is strictly end-to-end as far as the entity providing it goes. I.e. if entities A and B have a peering agreement, A can use B's network to reach third party C and B can use A's network to reach third party D; whereas if A had a transit connection to B, B would only use it to send data meant for A's network (and A would also not be able to "see" any routes beyond the default gateway of B).
Not entirely correct, but almost.
Peering is when two entities exchange routing information and traffic, whereas transit is strictly end-to-end as far as the entity providing it goes. I.e. if entities A and B have a peering agreement, A can use B's network to reach third party C; whereas if A had a transit connection to B, B would only use it to send data meant for A's network (and A would also not be able to "see" any routes beyond the default gateway of B).
There are instances of paid peering between ISPs, so paying isn't a strictly a transit-thing.
Red Hat has a history of supplying packages with flaky patches. One of the kernel updates for RHEL5.1 was supplied with a backported patch for an NFS-related problem which ended up breaking caching, introducing serious performance issues that made NFS almost unusable when working with multiple files/directories. Red Hat was quick to come up with a patch after the bug had been reported - however, it only applied cleanly to their testing kernel (candidate for the next RHEL update) and refused to introduce it in the mainline kernel package, which forced us to backport the fix ourselves and keep local revisions for about half a year.
Apparently, an issue of similar origin (i.e. bug introduced by Red Hat-specific patch) is currently affecting 3ware/Areca RAID performance when used in conjunction with the RHEL5.2 mainline kernel and Red Hat is refusing to release a maintenence update to correct the error. Won't be fun for those who've got such hardware and are bound by support contracts to use only Red Hat-supplied kernels.
Ten years ago you would see Nvidia GPUs in everything from low- to high-end. Today, not so much - Intel dominates the low-end spectrum, with ATI hanging onto a somewhat insignificant market share. The Larrabee is Intel moving upmarket. Sure, it might not perform as well the latest Nvidia or ATI high-end GPU but it might be enough in terms of performance or have other benefits (better OSS support) to win some of Nvidia's current market share over. Considering it's supposedly the Pentium architecture recycled, it's also reasonable to assume the design will be relatively cost-effective and allow Intel to sell at very competitive prices while still maintaining healthy profit margins.
It's a classic case of disruption. Intel enters and Nvidia is happy to leave because there's a segment above that's much more attractive to pursue. Continue along the same lines until there's nowhere for Nvidia to run, at which point the game ends - circle of disruption complete. See also Silicon Graphics, Nvidia's predecessor in many ways.
ISPs do not have common carrier status. This has been discussed before, but supposedly US law distinguishes between voice and data -- voice having common carrier status, data not.
A few months prior to the release of RHEL 5.2, they released a kernel update (2.6.18-53.1.6.el5) in which they had added a patch for an issue that could make a system oops upon when files with names of a certain character were present on NFS shares. However, this patch also contained a bug which broke NFS lookup caching and subsequently crippled NFS performance to the point of NFS being completely unusable when working with multiple smaller files. They released a patch for it, but it would only apply cleanly to their testing kernel (which would later become the kernel shipped with 5.2) and they refused to backport it to their then-stable kernel. Shortly after, the vmsplice flaw was found forcing people to update and bring this bug upon them. For us it wasn't that big a problem since we're using CentOS and don't have anything requiring us to use standard RHEL packages (so we backported the patch and built our own kernel package), but a large amount of corporate RHEL users are required to use only standard RHEL system packages because of service contracts with hardware vendors and hence they could do little to remedy this bug. As we were among the first to report this and post about it on mailing lists, we received a lot of communication from corporate RHEL users/sysadmins asking us for help on this, further proving that this was a major issue that should have been addressed right away and not post-poned to the next major release.
There's still AT&T, you know.
... is because they're based on the 'technology first, everything else second' formula that's been the defacto standard for PC game development since the late nineties, which was the point where the costs were starting to rise and publishers losing interest in being innovative, instead opting for easy tried-and-true-but-with-more-powerful-technology cash-ins. This worked as long as people were interested in upgrading their hardware not only for games but also to improve their overall computer usage experience, but since the advent of Windows XP (plus service packs) and the P4/Athlon XP generation of CPUs many users have found themselves able to carry out their computer-related activities well enough not to need further upgrades.
The PC gaming market is effectively destroying itself by sticking to this paradigm, because the amount of people who own top-end hardware isn't going to increase - someone who plays games and is looking to buy a PC today isn't going to opt for one with a fancy GPU from Nvidia or ATI that's able to run top-end PC games because even if a particular game isn't available for anything but the PC you can for most part find console games with comparable technology and playability. The PC doesn't have the technological advantage it used to have over consoles or at least it doesn't play as much of a role anymore because even if Crysis looks nicer than, say, Gears of War, for most people the latter is going to be good enough. Graphics in games have advanced to the point where they have become a commodity, and when people will no longer latch on to your game because it's technologically superior because your competitors offer something that might be somewhat inferior but still good enough you have get to them by other means. So far the gaming industry's reacted kind of similar to the music industry (where the music is a commodity as it's all seemingly factory produced) in the face of this - more focus on branding and controlling news- and retail outlets (hence the increase lately in reports of "professional reviewers" being restricted in terms of what they're allowed to print in reviews).
What most of PC game developers or former PC game developers refuse to admit to is that there's a huge market beyond the one that finds your technology the most appealing aspect of your game. The Sims and subsequent sequels proved it existed. People who shuffle The Sims, WoW etc. into their own categories as phenomenon that cannot be repeated simply don't understand that these games were and continue to be successful because they appeal to people by having good gameplay, which is far more universal than having cutting edge technology. And contrary to what these people think, their success can be repeated - but in order to do so you need innovative and creative gameplay and creating such takes talent; something the video game industry as a whole is surprisingly devoid of.
The host keys on my two file servers, generated while they were still running sarge, were OK according to the perl script provided by Debian to verify whether a key is weak or not. If you were previously running sarge and have upgraded to etch but haven't issued new keys after upgrading, you're fine (as least as far as your host keys go). The host keys on my recently installed etch workstation were detected as being weak, however.
For people who're not up to speed on laser classifications, a level 3 laser is one that outputs between 5-500 mW and a level 4 goes beyond 500 mW. Already at 100 mW the laser is strong enough to make you blind in less than a millisecond. These laser pointers are not like the ones you'll find in common shops, these can inflict serious damage on people and should be handled with the same care as you'd handle a weapon (which they arguably could be classified as).
Blizzard's not exactly the best example when looking for innovation. Sure, they've made some solid games, but all of the ones I'm familiar with (that is, most of the major ones save WoW as I don't do multiplayer-only) were awfully derivative; the RTS stuff from Dune 2/C&C, Diablo from Rogue/Nethack etc.
Agreed. I can't help but feel the new algorithm that implements searching bookmarks/page titles/etc. for results when you type in the address bar is aimed at the "I am incompetent when it comes to technical things and don't understand the concept of URLs"-type people; the like to whom the Internet is the blue IE logo on their desktops.
URLs are the key to http IMO - they're the ones to keep in memory as they're unique, unlike page titles and bookmarks. When I type "sla" in the address bar, I want slashdot.org, not some random blog post with the term 'slashdot' in the title I happened to pass by at some point.
At the end, what pisses me off the most about this whole deal is not being able to revert to the old behavior. That kind of forced nurturing is what I'd expect from Microsoft, not Mozilla.