very difficult to alter/disguise (distance between eyes, etc)
Face recognition means squat.
A terrorist hell bent on hijacking a plane and flying it straight into a building killing everyone aboard including himself, would think nothing of reconstructive surgery if that's what it took. You *can* alter a face sufficiently that a computer would be unable to match it against a face in the database.
So what's the point of doing it at all? You might catch some petty criminals but not the hardened terrorists that the highly expensive system was introduced for in the first place.
Mozilla's Bugzilla is running on hardware designed to cope with the Mozilla development team, not the Mozilla development team + 100,000 Slashdot readers.
I don't doubt the physics of how to get a building to collapse but I doubt these guys planned it out in the detail you describe.
More likely they were just told to hit it dead center or thereabouts. It's not like highly excited, unskilled "pilots" flying a sluggish jet over other buildings could have been more precise anyway.
The thing is HURD was announced before Linux so RMS really has little excuse for the current state of the world.
I suspect that part of the reason he's so bitter about Linux ("call it GNU/Linux!") is because Linux took off like a rocket while HURD wallows in obscurity, never likely to be more than an evolutionary dead end.
That's not to say HURD is bad, it's just that Linux is and was more popular - partly because Linus is such a strong leader, partly because the kernel is so easy to get into and partly because it actually works dammit.
Someone please tell me why they'd be prepared to shell out thousands of dollars for something which is essentially crude mechanical device governed by a RNG and a state machine?
I've seen the AIBO being demonstrated and it's surprising how stupid it is and how tiresome it quickly becomes. It is certainly no replacement for a real dog and clearly won't be for a long, long time if ever.
Even assuming it ever does reach that point, are people really willing to spend more for fake dog than they would for a real one? Who would be so emotionally bankrupt?
There is nothing wrong with being agressive and inflamatory as long as you get your facts straight. MozillaQuest writes articles that are inaccurate or completely wrong because the guy hasn't bothered to check his facts out before venting. The most famous example was the Netscape denies using Mozilla code in Netscape 6.1 story which accused NS of stealing Mozilla code to make 6.1, failing to grasp that this is the whole point of the NS/Mozilla relationship.
Unless you need to run some honking database or memory hungry app there is little reason to use 64-bit Windows.
All you would get for your trouble is a crippling licence fee (courtesy of MS), a dearth of 64-bit applications & drivers, slower 32-bit execution and double the memory and disk requirements. These are hardly compelling reasons to "upgrade".
That is what should happen but it doesn't. Go to a country like Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia as I have done and look at the prices of original software, music and video. In most cases the prices for said software are actually higher when converted to USD than they are in the states.
I have not seen many concessions to the local market. VCDs are fairly cheap but that's about it.
With the exception of Japan, most people in asia earn much, much less money than in the west, yet the cost of CDs, DVDs and software is often higher.
The GDP for South Korea is $13,300 (according to the CIA World Factbook) compared to $33,900 in the US.
So is it any wonder then that such countries have more piracy? Relative to their wages, Koreans are paying 2 or 3 times as much for their music, videos and software. How many people in the US would pay $50 for a music CD or $100 for a DVD?
And South Korea is a relatively rich country. The GDP in places like Thailand, Indonesia or Vietnam is less than a tenth of the US. Imagine paying $400 for a computer game or $2500 for Windows XP.
No one in the right mind would, which is why piracy is so rife. If the music, video and software companies had any brains they would lower the cost of their products so that people could actually afford them.
Re:Let's start with rendering pages properly
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 2
No, the error handling does not stink. There is no browser in the world which will correct broken Javascript.
Re:Let's start with rendering pages properly
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 2
Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 render HTML & CSS extremely well. Where there is a problem it usually boils down to broken HTML, CSS or Javascript in the actual content and not a fault in the browser. A common fault is JS with code paths for IE (checking for document.all), Netscape 4.x (checking for document.layers) and other. Since Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 are deemed as Other because they support neither document.all or document.layers, it often runs into untested and broken JS.
But Asa, nightly releases are even more buggier than milestones (in general). This means to fix one security flaw you're having to run code which is even more likely to contain bugs.
And I didn't say NS came out with fixes any faster than Mozilla, I just said they provided limited support for a release. That means fixing the security holes and crash bugs without dragging in a new bunch of features with their own set of problems. I know Mozilla has come out with plenty of milestones between 6.0 and 6.1 but that's nothing to do with the point I was making.
This might work with a raw 0.9.2 build, but probably not 0.9.3 or anything later.
This is because changes to string classes, smart pointers, interfaces and so on mean the spellchecker module won't load correctly at runtime. It will fail because some export or other cannot be found in xpcom.dll or it may crash Mozilla outright.
Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 2
I've seen plenty of negative reviews of Mozilla and I may not have liked the conclusions I couldn't fault the reporting. If a reviewer doesn't Moz for one reason or another they should say why constructively instead of blanketing it in negative spin.
Mr Festa is certainly not constructive. He takes the known facts, trawls netscape.public.mozilla.general for some inflammatory remarks and sensationalises them into a highly negative article. There is nothing constructive or reasoned about it, it's a hatchet job pure and simple. I have seen it happen time and again which makes me think he doesn't just have opinions, he has an agenda.
You are wrong about this. Netscape 6.1 has been beaten on internally and by beta testers for the last three months to ensure the top crashing bugs are eliminated. No risky new code has been incorporated as is the case with main trunk development.
The net result of this is that NS 6.1 will be an extremely stable product, much more so than Mozilla in the next few milestones anyway. Having said that Mozilla is reasonably robust itself so its horses for courses.
I said choice was good not bad if you care to read the last paragraph.
Basically Mozilla is for people who don't mind trading off stability for cutting edge features. If a security flaw is found the choices you have are those I mentioned. Yes, you could download a nightly but that would be even more buggier than using a milestone.
The spellchecker engine in Mozilla isn't just a list of words. I don't know the details but I expect dictionary contains tables and trees to ensure rapid checking and catching of typo errors.
Sure you could write a checker in Mozilla that you read a big.txt file of 150,000 words but it would be as slow as hell. Someone will have to source a decent GPL spellchecker library or write one and a dictionary before Mozilla will have anything similar.
Re:Paul Festa -- not MSNBC
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Paul Festa has to be one of the most misinformed, biased reporters I have ever read.
I've seen numerous pieces he's written about Mozilla or Netscape where the facts have been grossly distorted and crucial details have been omitted or the wrong emphasis has been place. And all of this with large amounts of negative spin and sometimes even going as far as to accuse AOL of some major conspiracy or other.
Personally I think he's been slighted by Netscape in the dim and distant past and now he has an axe to grind. Certainly it's not about browsers because I get the distinct impression he would print the same mulch even if Mozilla was by far and away the better browser.
Netscape 6.1 has hardly any AOL specific extensions. There are a few dotted around such as Print Plus, Shop, My Netscape and in the default bookmark list of course but nothing like in 6.0 when they were hardcoded into the bottom bar. Most of them such as the Shop & My Netscape button can be removed from the UI via prefs.
Using 6.1 is actually quite a pleasant experience.
Re:sweet god in heaven
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 2
If you don't want all the value added crap, simply choose not to download and install it when the installer asks you. If you choose just to install the browser the download is only 7Mb.
Greater quality control. The commercial version is beat on a lot more than any Mozilla milestone meaning it should be more robust.
Some limited support. Netscape will more than likely release another minor update in a few months to catch any top crashers. It will also release updates for any security issues that arise. With Mozilla you must apply a patch or wait for the next milestone.
Instant messenger.. Netscape has AIM built in. Clever people may even figure out how to remove the advert from the bottom by editting the chrome.
Spell checker.. Moz doesn't have one of these due to the fact that the dictionary is licenced.
Bundled crap/goodies.. The installer can download and install RealPlayer, Shockwave, Net2Phone, WinAmp and some other stuff if you let it.
Netscape branding and version. Believe it or not but some people trust something more when its called 6.1 than 0.9.3.
Netscape Netcentre integration. Register when you open a new profile and the instance messenger, side panels and home page are all customised to your taste.
Obviously some people may not be perceive some of these things as advantages, but that is why Mozilla exists. You're free to choose either. Mozilla is free of the commercialism and out on the cutting edge but you will experience more crashes as a result of that.
Slashdot Mirror
Face recognition means squat.
A terrorist hell bent on hijacking a plane and flying it straight into a building killing everyone aboard including himself, would think nothing of reconstructive surgery if that's what it took. You *can* alter a face sufficiently that a computer would be unable to match it against a face in the database.
So what's the point of doing it at all? You might catch some petty criminals but not the hardened terrorists that the highly expensive system was introduced for in the first place.
100,000 bugs in total & mostly fixed - not 100,000 open bugs.
Mozilla's Bugzilla is running on hardware designed to cope with the Mozilla development team, not the Mozilla development team + 100,000 Slashdot readers.
Of course they wouldn't. Any proposal to add such a back door is just a cynical attempt to coast it into law using this atrocity as a pretext.
More likely they were just told to hit it dead center or thereabouts. It's not like highly excited, unskilled "pilots" flying a sluggish jet over other buildings could have been more precise anyway.
I suspect that part of the reason he's so bitter about Linux ("call it GNU/Linux!") is because Linux took off like a rocket while HURD wallows in obscurity, never likely to be more than an evolutionary dead end.
That's not to say HURD is bad, it's just that Linux is and was more popular - partly because Linus is such a strong leader, partly because the kernel is so easy to get into and partly because it actually works dammit.
This kind of game came out 16 years ago as C-Robots.
I've seen the AIBO being demonstrated and it's surprising how stupid it is and how tiresome it quickly becomes. It is certainly no replacement for a real dog and clearly won't be for a long, long time if ever.
Even assuming it ever does reach that point, are people really willing to spend more for fake dog than they would for a real one? Who would be so emotionally bankrupt?
There is nothing wrong with being agressive and inflamatory as long as you get your facts straight. MozillaQuest writes articles that are inaccurate or completely wrong because the guy hasn't bothered to check his facts out before venting. The most famous example was the Netscape denies using Mozilla code in Netscape 6.1 story which accused NS of stealing Mozilla code to make 6.1, failing to grasp that this is the whole point of the NS/Mozilla relationship.
Mike Angelo (who writes all the articles ) doesn't appear to know or understand what's going on in the project at all well.
One recent gem was where he accused Netscape of stealing Mozilla code for Netscape 6.1 and the coincidental release of Mozilla 0.9.2.1! What a dolt!
All you would get for your trouble is a crippling licence fee (courtesy of MS), a dearth of 64-bit applications & drivers, slower 32-bit execution and double the memory and disk requirements. These are hardly compelling reasons to "upgrade".
I have not seen many concessions to the local market. VCDs are fairly cheap but that's about it.
The GDP for South Korea is $13,300 (according to the CIA World Factbook) compared to $33,900 in the US.
So is it any wonder then that such countries have more piracy? Relative to their wages, Koreans are paying 2 or 3 times as much for their music, videos and software. How many people in the US would pay $50 for a music CD or $100 for a DVD?
And South Korea is a relatively rich country. The GDP in places like Thailand, Indonesia or Vietnam is less than a tenth of the US. Imagine paying $400 for a computer game or $2500 for Windows XP.
No one in the right mind would, which is why piracy is so rife. If the music, video and software companies had any brains they would lower the cost of their products so that people could actually afford them.
No, the error handling does not stink. There is no browser in the world which will correct broken Javascript.
Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 render HTML & CSS extremely well. Where there is a problem it usually boils down to broken HTML, CSS or Javascript in the actual content and not a fault in the browser. A common fault is JS with code paths for IE (checking for document.all), Netscape 4.x (checking for document.layers) and other. Since Mozilla and Netscape 6.1 are deemed as Other because they support neither document.all or document.layers, it often runs into untested and broken JS.
And I didn't say NS came out with fixes any faster than Mozilla, I just said they provided limited support for a release. That means fixing the security holes and crash bugs without dragging in a new bunch of features with their own set of problems. I know Mozilla has come out with plenty of milestones between 6.0 and 6.1 but that's nothing to do with the point I was making.
This is because changes to string classes, smart pointers, interfaces and so on mean the spellchecker module won't load correctly at runtime. It will fail because some export or other cannot be found in xpcom.dll or it may crash Mozilla outright.
Mr Festa is certainly not constructive. He takes the known facts, trawls netscape.public.mozilla.general for some inflammatory remarks and sensationalises them into a highly negative article. There is nothing constructive or reasoned about it, it's a hatchet job pure and simple. I have seen it happen time and again which makes me think he doesn't just have opinions, he has an agenda.
The net result of this is that NS 6.1 will be an extremely stable product, much more so than Mozilla in the next few milestones anyway. Having said that Mozilla is reasonably robust itself so its horses for courses.
Basically Mozilla is for people who don't mind trading off stability for cutting edge features. If a security flaw is found the choices you have are those I mentioned. Yes, you could download a nightly but that would be even more buggier than using a milestone.
Sure you could write a checker in Mozilla that you read a big .txt file of 150,000 words but it would be as slow as hell. Someone will have to source a decent GPL spellchecker library or write one and a dictionary before Mozilla will have anything similar.
I've seen numerous pieces he's written about Mozilla or Netscape where the facts have been grossly distorted and crucial details have been omitted or the wrong emphasis has been place. And all of this with large amounts of negative spin and sometimes even going as far as to accuse AOL of some major conspiracy or other.
Personally I think he's been slighted by Netscape in the dim and distant past and now he has an axe to grind. Certainly it's not about browsers because I get the distinct impression he would print the same mulch even if Mozilla was by far and away the better browser.
Using 6.1 is actually quite a pleasant experience.
If you don't want all the value added crap, simply choose not to download and install it when the installer asks you. If you choose just to install the browser the download is only 7Mb.
- Greater quality control. The commercial version is beat on a lot more than any Mozilla milestone meaning it should be more robust.
- Some limited support. Netscape will more than likely release another minor update in a few months to catch any top crashers. It will also release updates for any security issues that arise. With Mozilla you must apply a patch or wait for the next milestone.
- Instant messenger.. Netscape has AIM built in. Clever people may even figure out how to remove the advert from the bottom by editting the chrome.
- Spell checker.. Moz doesn't have one of these due to the fact that the dictionary is licenced.
- Bundled crap/goodies.. The installer can download and install RealPlayer, Shockwave, Net2Phone, WinAmp and some other stuff if you let it.
- Netscape branding and version. Believe it or not but some people trust something more when its called 6.1 than 0.9.3.
- Netscape Netcentre integration. Register when you open a new profile and the instance messenger, side panels and home page are all customised to your taste.
Obviously some people may not be perceive some of these things as advantages, but that is why Mozilla exists. You're free to choose either. Mozilla is free of the commercialism and out on the cutting edge but you will experience more crashes as a result of that.