I assume you have software firewalls running on all your systems, then? If you have more than one, you don't allow file sharing between them? Or you have a wired LAN on a separate subnet?
The biggest risk of running an unsecured WLAN isn't that other people will use your bandwidth, it's that they're on the same LAN as your own system(s). At that point they can access your shared folders, run packet sniffers and log passwords, etc. Whatever gateway you have to the Internet is not the only way into your computer anymore.
Unfortunately the ID crowd seems intent on winning via politics and public opinion, not scientific debate.
If they were willing to push for scientific acceptance first, then being taught in high school would follow. As it is, they're just trying to bypass the actual science.
This one reminds be of The 7th Guest. That game was made up entirely of puzzles that you had to solve to get into the basement, learn information, etc. The 3-D haunted mansion might have been the framework, but as far as gameplay went it was secondary to the puzzles.
JMS told a story in 2002 about how Karl Rove walked up to Bruce Boxleitner (who was at the White House with his wife, president of the Screen Actors Guild) and told him Babylon 5 was his favorite sci-fi show ever... "And the President thinks so too."
Of course, "Information wants to be free" originally was about gratis. The second, forgotten half of the phrase was "Information also wants to be expensive." It was meant to describe the conflict between the ever-easier, ever-cheaper methods to store and transmit information, and the ever-increasing value placed upon information by those who create and/or use it.
Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine---too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better. -- Stewart Brand
I know this is satire, but it underscores a fundamental contradiction in the way today's Republicans approach science and education.
On one hand, they rail about how we're falling behind in the technology industry and need to turn out a better-educated workforce. On the other hand, they try to cripple research and education.
Blocking or altering science to fit ideology is not going to give you an advantage anywhere. Not in education, not in economics, not in prestige. It's like framing a random suspect for a series of murders just to calm down the public while allowing the real killer to go free and keep killing.
After all, God forbid that we have scientists dictating the contents of science classes! That would be like having historians write history textbooks, or mathemeticians write math texts! Or worse, theologians determining the curriculum of Sunday school! Uh, wait a minute...
How many of those "laws" were named recently? I recall my high school chemistry teacher pointing out that, once science began to realize that today's scientific law is generally tomorrow's approximation, they stopped using the term "law."
Thus you have atomic theory, quantum theory, etc.
And that "law" of gravity? Superceded by the general *theory* of relativity.
Absolutely. A few years ago, someone posted to the razor-users mailing list that everything MoveOn.org sent out got tagged as spam by Razor. (Vipul's Razor is the original open-source client for what has since become CloudMark SpamNet.) The poster was concerned that Razor was unwittingly being turned into a censorship tool.
As I recall, it degenerated quickly into a... discussion of whether it was just people putting old addresses on auto-report, or whether the site was actually sending out unsolicited mail.
But the first instinct was, as you said, to call "conspiracy!"
I don't know about the previous poster, but I've repeatedly run into problems where the connection would hiccup during the installation, but the installer wouldn't notice that it needed to reconnect to the FTP server. At least twice I've set up a SuSE install to run overnight, only to wake up the next morning and find it stalled. And of course you can't pick up from the middle, you have to start all over again.
This is where it's an advantage to download an ISO that will at least get you a working system. You can use your favorite download manager to grab the ISO without worrying about connection issues. Then you can install it in one fell swoop, and by the time you download updates or additional software via YaST, you have an actual system with things like a cache folder, control over the network interface, access to other apps, etc.
Turn it around. Can anyone tell me that IE will render *every* web page perfectly? That IE 6.0 on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows CE will render pages identically to each other? (OK, that's being a bit pedantic on the "identical" aspect.)
No one is claiming these other browsers are perfect (well, no one who's being honest, anyway), but a lot of people believe they're *better*. As for whether they render pages the same way... well, that's what standards are *for.* And if implementations aren't perfect, at least they didn't stop working on the problem for three years.
Yeah, but you can download and install the iCab 3.0 beta without grabbing the source code and compiling it yourself. For Joe Average, that's a pretty big distinction.
(On a side note, iCab 2.9.8 was in beta for so long, I gave up checking and never noticed that a final version had been released. The last time I looked at it, its CSS support was dreadful. I mean worse than Netscape 4.0 dreadful. Reading that iCab 3.0 beta passed Acid2, and then grabbing a copy and seeing it for myself, was a real shock.)
Firefox 1.0 was released last October. Acid2 was released in April (or was it March?) and specifically designed to fail in the current version of every browser on the market.
Unfortunately, the Gecko branch for what will now be Firefox 1.5 was already semi-frozen, so while the next version of Firefox will handle Acid2 a bit better than the 1.0.x series, it won't pass it. It doesn't seem unreasonable that they'll have the fixes in place for Firefox 2.0.
Safari and Konqueror both have working versions in CVS, and Opera's development tree is getting very close (though since this is apparently part of a major overhaul of their rendering engine, I wouldn't expect anything until a hypothetical Opera 8.5 or 9.0).
The big surprise is iCab, a Mac-only browser that released an Acid2-compliant public beta just days before Konqueror got their development tree to pass it. So far, iCab is the only browser you can just download and install that passes Acid2.
If Browser A handles 60% of the spec and Browser B handles 80%, but neither passes Acid2, Browsr B is still better. Similarly, if Browser C passes 70% of the spec, but that 70% includes Acid2, Browser B could still be objectively considered "better."
Acid2 isn't about getting a perfectly compliant browser or even about handling standards as they are used today. It's about finding (currently) obscure parts of the specifications that today's browsers don't handle very well, and creating a test case for them with prestige attached. As more browsers pass Acid2, we (web designers) get more features to use on real-world sites.
Well, among other things, what's out in the first beta is less than impressive. Sure, there's a big list of stuff they've supposedly fixed already, but it's not going to be there until beta 2, and people are wondering if the final version is really going to be that much better.
If no computer came with a web browser, and you had to make an effort to obtain a browser, and there was nothing to steer you toward one browser over another, then that 80% would be valid. As it is, that 80% is a mix of people who really do like IE and people just use what came with their computer.
Not just "the" competition, but competition in general. Forget IE itself for a second, the big problem is monopoly. That's why MS can afford to be so sloppy.
So yes, let's convince people to use alternatives. There are "switch" campaigns all over, most of them focused on specific browsers, most of those on Firefox, since it has the most momentum. Sites like Browse Happy (IE is bad, use something else), or Stop IE (IE will eat your brain, use something else) or one I'm working on, Alternative Browser Alliance (monopoly is bad, use something else).
The trick is finding the right approach -- and that'll be different for each potential switcher.
Bad idea. Most people will just turn around and look at some other site. If you're really lucky, they'll post a whiny rant in their blog complaining about you.
When was the last time you installed Windows to be able to get at a single website?
Slashdot Mirror
I assume you have software firewalls running on all your systems, then? If you have more than one, you don't allow file sharing between them? Or you have a wired LAN on a separate subnet?
The biggest risk of running an unsecured WLAN isn't that other people will use your bandwidth, it's that they're on the same LAN as your own system(s). At that point they can access your shared folders, run packet sniffers and log passwords, etc. Whatever gateway you have to the Internet is not the only way into your computer anymore.
Unfortunately the ID crowd seems intent on winning via politics and public opinion, not scientific debate.
If they were willing to push for scientific acceptance first, then being taught in high school would follow. As it is, they're just trying to bypass the actual science.
This one reminds be of The 7th Guest. That game was made up entirely of puzzles that you had to solve to get into the basement, learn information, etc. The 3-D haunted mansion might have been the framework, but as far as gameplay went it was secondary to the puzzles.
In a similar vein, why do skeletons sometimes carry food?
JMS told a story in 2002 about how Karl Rove walked up to Bruce Boxleitner (who was at the White House with his wife, president of the Screen Actors Guild) and told him Babylon 5 was his favorite sci-fi show ever... "And the President thinks so too."
Who knew he was treating it as a guide book?
One thousand? You're thinking too small. It's only been up a few hours, and is likely to hit 2000 by the time I hit "submit."
Of course, "Information wants to be free" originally was about gratis. The second, forgotten half of the phrase was "Information also wants to be expensive." It was meant to describe the conflict between the ever-easier, ever-cheaper methods to store and transmit information, and the ever-increasing value placed upon information by those who create and/or use it.
I know this is satire, but it underscores a fundamental contradiction in the way today's Republicans approach science and education.
On one hand, they rail about how we're falling behind in the technology industry and need to turn out a better-educated workforce. On the other hand, they try to cripple research and education.
Blocking or altering science to fit ideology is not going to give you an advantage anywhere. Not in education, not in economics, not in prestige. It's like framing a random suspect for a series of murders just to calm down the public while allowing the real killer to go free and keep killing.
After all, God forbid that we have scientists dictating the contents of science classes! That would be like having historians write history textbooks, or mathemeticians write math texts! Or worse, theologians determining the curriculum of Sunday school! Uh, wait a minute...
How many of those "laws" were named recently? I recall my high school chemistry teacher pointing out that, once science began to realize that today's scientific law is generally tomorrow's approximation, they stopped using the term "law."
Thus you have atomic theory, quantum theory, etc.
And that "law" of gravity? Superceded by the general *theory* of relativity.
Absolutely. A few years ago, someone posted to the razor-users mailing list that everything MoveOn.org sent out got tagged as spam by Razor. (Vipul's Razor is the original open-source client for what has since become CloudMark SpamNet.) The poster was concerned that Razor was unwittingly being turned into a censorship tool.
As I recall, it degenerated quickly into a... discussion of whether it was just people putting old addresses on auto-report, or whether the site was actually sending out unsolicited mail.
But the first instinct was, as you said, to call "conspiracy!"
I don't know about the previous poster, but I've repeatedly run into problems where the connection would hiccup during the installation, but the installer wouldn't notice that it needed to reconnect to the FTP server. At least twice I've set up a SuSE install to run overnight, only to wake up the next morning and find it stalled. And of course you can't pick up from the middle, you have to start all over again.
This is where it's an advantage to download an ISO that will at least get you a working system. You can use your favorite download manager to grab the ISO without worrying about connection issues. Then you can install it in one fell swoop, and by the time you download updates or additional software via YaST, you have an actual system with things like a cache folder, control over the network interface, access to other apps, etc.
And when has Slackware ever followed trends? ;-)
er, "cat names"
Shoulda hit preview.
I was wondering what would happen when SuSE got up to 10.0...
Mac OS 9 went to Mac OS X and cay names.
Red Hat 9 went to Fedora Core 1.
Mandrake and Conectiva 10 merged and went to Mandriva 2005.
Clearly, SuSE 10.x was doomed... though I seriously expected it to become Novell Linux 1 or Novel Linux 2006 or something.
Turn it around. Can anyone tell me that IE will render *every* web page perfectly? That IE 6.0 on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows CE will render pages identically to each other? (OK, that's being a bit pedantic on the "identical" aspect.)
No one is claiming these other browsers are perfect (well, no one who's being honest, anyway), but a lot of people believe they're *better*. As for whether they render pages the same way... well, that's what standards are *for.* And if implementations aren't perfect, at least they didn't stop working on the problem for three years.
Yeah, but you can download and install the iCab 3.0 beta without grabbing the source code and compiling it yourself. For Joe Average, that's a pretty big distinction.
(On a side note, iCab 2.9.8 was in beta for so long, I gave up checking and never noticed that a final version had been released. The last time I looked at it, its CSS support was dreadful. I mean worse than Netscape 4.0 dreadful. Reading that iCab 3.0 beta passed Acid2, and then grabbing a copy and seeing it for myself, was a real shock.)
Firefox 1.0 was released last October. Acid2 was released in April (or was it March?) and specifically designed to fail in the current version of every browser on the market.
Unfortunately, the Gecko branch for what will now be Firefox 1.5 was already semi-frozen, so while the next version of Firefox will handle Acid2 a bit better than the 1.0.x series, it won't pass it. It doesn't seem unreasonable that they'll have the fixes in place for Firefox 2.0.
Safari and Konqueror both have working versions in CVS, and Opera's development tree is getting very close (though since this is apparently part of a major overhaul of their rendering engine, I wouldn't expect anything until a hypothetical Opera 8.5 or 9.0).
The big surprise is iCab, a Mac-only browser that released an Acid2-compliant public beta just days before Konqueror got their development tree to pass it. So far, iCab is the only browser you can just download and install that passes Acid2.
Operawatch posted some info on Opera's progress toward Acid2 yesterday.
If Browser A handles 60% of the spec and Browser B handles 80%, but neither passes Acid2, Browsr B is still better. Similarly, if Browser C passes 70% of the spec, but that 70% includes Acid2, Browser B could still be objectively considered "better."
Acid2 isn't about getting a perfectly compliant browser or even about handling standards as they are used today. It's about finding (currently) obscure parts of the specifications that today's browsers don't handle very well, and creating a test case for them with prestige attached. As more browsers pass Acid2, we (web designers) get more features to use on real-world sites.
http://webkit.opendarwin.org/
Well, among other things, what's out in the first beta is less than impressive. Sure, there's a big list of stuff they've supposedly fixed already, but it's not going to be there until beta 2, and people are wondering if the final version is really going to be that much better.
If no computer came with a web browser, and you had to make an effort to obtain a browser, and there was nothing to steer you toward one browser over another, then that 80% would be valid. As it is, that 80% is a mix of people who really do like IE and people just use what came with their computer.
Not just "the" competition, but competition in general. Forget IE itself for a second, the big problem is monopoly. That's why MS can afford to be so sloppy.
So yes, let's convince people to use alternatives. There are "switch" campaigns all over, most of them focused on specific browsers, most of those on Firefox, since it has the most momentum. Sites like Browse Happy (IE is bad, use something else), or Stop IE (IE will eat your brain, use something else) or one I'm working on, Alternative Browser Alliance (monopoly is bad, use something else).
The trick is finding the right approach -- and that'll be different for each potential switcher.
Bad idea. Most people will just turn around and look at some other site. If you're really lucky, they'll post a whiny rant in their blog complaining about you.
When was the last time you installed Windows to be able to get at a single website?