if they really had a "we own everything write" assuming in or out of the office, then he can't release his software under the GPL... AOL already owns it the second his fingers hit the keyboard.
First, which "we" - is it Nullsoft or AOL/TW. Second, was this a sponsored or independant project. Third, what does his actual contract state. Fourth, profit, er I mean, if he had approval from a person higher in the organizational chart to release it under the GPL, the fault lies on them not Mr. Frankel.
At least it did see the light of day, and won't go into hiding anytime now.
Is AI as in symbolic AI (search-based etc.)? It seems to me that all sensible information categorization systems, even those built on top of fuzzy logic could reasonably be called AI. Google uses very sophisticated data-categorization algorithms, or at least it seems so based on my search results. Those are probably based on statistical classifiers and other such AI techniques.
I'm using Fuzzy Logic as just a way of branching true-false trees. Not so much a full-blown AI system, just (as you said) statistical qualifiers.
I don't view AI as "AI" -- it's mostly types of AI. To me, AI is something that is entirely abstract enough to handle tasks (Think self-configuring Universal Turing Machine) -- otherwise it's just statistical programs over very broad data sets.
I've done some work with neural networks (indirectly) and that was the general consensus there, as well... the mindset just stuck.
Just because he released it under the GPL doesn't necessarily mean it's legal. If all of the code he writes is owned by AOL, then AOL, as the copyright holder, must determine the license it's released under.
That depends if it was released under Nullsoft's name or AOL/TW. I'm not sure of the dynamics of that and I'm not motivated enough to go check.
Don't know how serious this may be, but if AOL wanted to, they might be able to sue for loss of IP due to the dumpage of WASTE into the GPL realm. That's the real bitch when you write code for a company. Unless you beg & plead with the lawyers (or your managers) to give you a little freedom, they own your stuff.
Corporate protection, as it was released by Nullsoft (or an acting party responsible in Nullsoft) so they'd basically have to sue themselves (or more accurately, their child.) Suing him as an individual would be just a bully act, and gain absolutely nothing. When I sign an employment contract, I make sure that what I work on outside of hours is mine. If I dont' bill them for it, it's mine. End of story. If they don't like that, I don't work there.
IIRC, at the time that WASTE was developed, Nullsoft was owned by AOL/Time Warner. This would mean that anything created by employees of Nullsoft had to be cleared with AOL.
That is true, but it depends upon if Nullsoft is an actual company. If it is a company, Nullsoft still will have the ability for copyright/ownership of it's projects. AOL/TW can just bitch, and press on the officers of Nullsoft, which is probably what happened.
If someone who was able to release a project released it, it was released legitimately... sort of. Either way, it was initial released as the GPL so it's hard to stop it.
Most employment contracts specifically state that any thing or idea created, conceived, developed, etc. while employeed becomes property of the employeer (in this case, AOL/Time Warner)
This is why he left, and he states it in his.plan. He's tired of his self-expression being completely controlled by AOL/TW and Nullsoft.
This has everything to do with WASTE and any other projects that AOL canned.
I think it has everything to do with the lack of independance of coding, not WASTE or any other particular project. Those are just symptoms of the problem.
I've worked for companies before that have draconian contracts, "Anything you think is our property! Hah!"
He's leaving because he doesn't like the "We own everything you write" clause in his employment contract. I'm not sure what the WASTE fiasco is anyway. WASTE is something Nullsoft produced, as long as it's under the GPL (Yes.) he can quit and still work on it, and nobody can (legally) care.
He's probably just pissed that what he works on gets the "Copyright AOL/Time Warner" header on it, and understandably so.
A file system with the power and flexibility of a relational database ceases to be a file system. What are things like "cp" supposed to mean? How do you transfer "a row" through a serial connection? What kind of transactional guarantees is it going to make; if it's going to make DBMS guarantees, it's too slow for many file system applications, and if it's not going to do that, is it really a DBMS?
I didn't say "relational database" -- I said "relational filesystem." As in, finding documents that are related to some other entity. I enjoy messing around in the Gimp. Sometimes I do work related images, other times it's just for fun. I'd like to put every image under $HOME/gimpwork. However, I like to find out which ones are for work and which job, for fun, etc.
I'd like to be able to say "ls --category=work $HOME/gimpwork" and show only those files. This doesn't require a database, it requires a few meta flags.
File copying is the same, ls is the same, everything is the same. Maybe just a wee bit slower.
If you want a database, just use a database. MySQL and various embedded databases are widely available on Linux now; no need to clutter up the kernel.
You wouldn't have to clutter the kernel. A system that I am envisioning could reside purely ontop of any existing filesystem. It could have a DB backend (but that would be overkill)
There are some logistics problems that would make it easier to be in a kernel module -- but assuming everybody would use the proper set of commands, it could keep everything in sync just fine without mucking in kernel space.
Having some form of AI such as in Haystack combined with a good view of categories and other metadata would be very useful in organizing data. Ideally there would be very little effort by the user to perform the organizing. The AI would do almost all the work and user could just browse.
I don't even think you need AI. Just fuzzy logic. We already know (for the most part) the filetypes, and all standard files will have a standard filetype identifier. All you need to do is find out what type of filetype you are working with and call a parser to try to collect key words (then score against a keyword matrix, like a vector search engine or something) and store the result.
Google algorithms would work better for data categorization than AI would. I've just never been a big AI-is-the-goal type of coder though. AI is a tool, it's great and all, but not necessary for a lot of tasks.
Now, of course linux trolls will whine and whatnot, but SQL Server is a killer DMBS, and this filesystem will be cool. Imagine how fast apps will start when they dont have to scour a half dozen directories for.dll files, but instead "SELECT location FROM files WHERE filename = 'msvcrt.dll' AND version = '7.8.29'"
A file system built on an SQL engine doesn't work... It's like putting a Viper engine in a Ford Focus. A simple meta-dbm attached to each node (and visa versa, an index on the meta-dbms... similar to how the iPod works) would work just fine. I've never saw the point of allowing an entire SQL engine on a filesystem.
Anyways, in a few decades someone will write a free-as-in-no-money version for lunix. So hold tight.
In fact, if fewer people pirated software, the market for software would be much smaller because fewer people would know how to use the software, and who pays $100 + to buy something they don't know how to use?
That's my issue right there. I'm not going to spend $2K on a software package that I haven't properly sampled. When I say properly sampled, I mean do an entire demo project in it. Like a compiler suite for Windows (Yay work!) -- I'm not going to fork out a few hundred+ just to see how the IDE works. I'll sample it out, make sure it does what I need and then buy it.
That's what I do 90% of the time. I think that QT has it down solid.
Sell support contracts and commercial licenses. I think most software could do well to follow it: $20-$100 for the Non-Commercial Use only edition, $2K for the Commercial Use.
Wow. Looking at the Haystack site with Mozilla looks awesome! I don't know if it's my version (1.4rc1) or some weird image setting, but the main image on the page stays stationary as I scroll around, but the clipping of the image changes. It's really hard to describe, but looks awesome.
That just annoyed me. It's just a div layer clipping hack, part of the CSS2 spec. I hate myself for knowing that (I am not a web-*) but I do...
IE can't handle alpha layers in PNGs yet, I'm not holding my breath for decent CSS2 support.
Is this just me? Do all of you want your programs shoved together in one large application?
You mean like a Window Manager? That's how I see this thing... it's like a Window Manager with applications embedded inside of it (think of a forced dock type thing.) It just handles whatever data you present it with (or the computer presents it with) automatically.
I didn't get any options on my cell phone (like text messaging) because I purchased a cell phone. I wanted a cell phone. To make calls. Nothing else.
My cell-phone has bluetooth, PDA functions, games, voice recording, voice dialing... that's the great thing about choice. You, nor I, are the entire market.
Not too much to ask, it doesn't even need to be truly a filesystem. Just overload all the file access commands (At this point, probably easier to just write a new filesystem)...
Group data by category, content, whatever. "Symlink" to the inodes, and you're off. We don't need AI for that and I think it would be a more complete solution. I don't see an AI engine that can correctly categorize my mp3's, I don't think I'd trust it for all of my data yet. Let's start small and get usable systems.
Spiffy program though, wish it weren't in Java... wish it weren't 42MB... wish it ran smoothly under Linux. I'll stop complaining now.
On a side note, Did anybody else find that scrolling image annoying and mentally confusing. Er, I'll really stop complaining now.
I agree. When a representative of a nation can lie through his behind, why can't a dying, insignificant company do the same? The Iraqi information minister ended up dead. Hopefully, everyone in SCO ends up behind bars.
Yes, however much to my chagrin, stupidity is not a crime...
The really scary thing is that she's a member of MENSA...
Not scary at all, I've met a few MENSA members in my life. The one thread they all seem to have is that they are all full of themselves, and all have accomplished just about jack shit with their lives, and all of them have conversations skills on par with autistic lemurs. My apologies to the lemurs.
The MENSA tests (at least the two I saw) are mostly bullshit anyway. If someone needs a pretensious organization to tell them they're good enough, good for them but please stop thinking MENSA is some great organization.
Just remember the Simpsons episode with the MENSA members.
Lucas , you have to give him credit for more -or-less starting(or refining) the whole mass-merchandising thing, but its so spun out of control and just tired
Actually it's completely out of Space Balls. That's the only thing I can think of.
What are they going to do, use smart bombs to deliver your packages? Otherwise, you're going to have to provide a lot of digits of precision on your coordinates. I think the delivery man would prefer a street name.
Down to the meter should be more than sufficient - but we're talking about delivery. There can be an automated process that takes the coordinates and slaps a street-label on it just fine. For doing global delivery, it would make the systems much easier. Just wait for slapping the label on there until it gets to it's destination post office.
If they really wanted to simplify postal coding/addressing they'd do something first about these damn addresses for people in South Korea, and a few other countries, which are like a whole paragraph long! Ever have to fill out those little customs forms? Yeah, you know how fun that can be.
Japan's addresses are easy enough to write, but hard as hell to find if you don't know the area. It's annoying as all hell, but from a western mind just doesn't make much sense.
I would prefer an address that is lat/long coordinates. I don't care what my street name is, that's handy for giving local directions. For delivery purposes, it seems so much easier to just say: Mr. Bill N47.52 W121.90
The article claims that these will be universal codes for all over the world, but what about for countries that don't use the standard western alphabet?
Just so you know, even if they don't use the standard western alphabet (Let's actually call it "Latin" as that's what it is) they still have use of it. I've yet to see a computer that can't produce latin characters.
Not to sound cynical here, but are you an American hell-bent on being non-Americanized?
This is the single most inspired and creative case mod I have ever seen. I see some posts from people scorning it. Maybe you would not want to own one, but that's only because it would be better off in a museum or something.
Which Museum?
"Museum for Proof that Geeks have too much Time on their Hands", or perhaps the "Museum for Geeks who can't get Laid"?
I think it's pretty cool in the same way that the Mech in the guys backyard is cool. I would never do it, I would never own it, I wouldn't go see it in a museum, but it's pretty cool.
Aside from the fact that ad hominem is the first tactic of the defeated, I'll respond to your questions...
Well, here's what it's like "arguing with you"
Me: X, Y, and Z is this way. You: No, because Z is more important than X!
It's kind of amusing, in a special olympics sort of way. You haven't even made a valid case against indirect damage. You just ignore it. Ignoring is the first tactic of the defeated.
* the rollbacks would not be needed How do you know? How can you prove that nobody used this knowledge. You can't. That is why they rolled the servers back.
* the update can be written without taking the servers down
They didn't need to take the servers down.
* the patch can be applied during the normal update cycle, which is not during prime time
A patch that shouldn't have needed to be applied in the first place could have, yes. You are going purely off of circumstantial evidence and saying "Well, UbiSoft would wait until they could do it and just hope that nobody else found out about it."
This is just idiotic. You think that UbiSoft (or anybody) that is running a game service is just going to sit back with knowledge that a bug of this magnitude is sitting there? Nope, it would happen very fast. Probably just as fast, and if it didn't, I would fire some people if I worked there.
* support personnel are not inundated with requests
Ok, I'll actually grant you this one. That is still an indirect effect of the attack though.
You need to understand the difference between direct and indirect.
How do you know this? How would UBISoft know this? They only caused mass devistation on one server, who knows what they did on the rest? Or were about to do? When someone breaks one system on your cluster, you *have* to bring them all down immediately.
Hey! You can actually come around to a logical conclusion. How would UbiSoft know they didn't need to rollback their servers? You win a prize! They rolled back to be sure, end of story.
At this point I can see that you're not rational, and I'm finished with this discussion.
Good, at least you finally managed to understand that UbiSoft had no way of knowing how much damage they did to themselves. You still haven't even understood an ounce of what I was saying anyway, so when you finish your high school English courses, come back and read this. Maybe then you can understand what I'm talking about.
Re:Bunch of nice people work there
on
A Tour of Pixar
·
· Score: 1
Whoopee, they figured it out before you did. That's not something that was given to them at birth it was a skill they arrived at at some point. Drawing is the ability to decompose an image down to a series of lines and plotting them out on paper. It's not easy. Spatial relationships have to be recognized etc. Those guys may have a better spatial recognition, that doesn't necessarily mean they're born with talent to draw as a result of that ability.
Right, and I guess that in your view point anybody could arrive at the same conclusions as Einstein, Currie, Newton, and a whole bunch of other people...
Talent means it comes natural. A natural ability. A gift. For example, I can fly stunt kites. I picked up a stunt kite and within 30 minutes was putting to shame people who had been doing it regularly for about 5 years. That's talent. Granted, it doesn't mean much, but it's talent.
Talent is not equal to skill.
Talent is something you are born with, a skill that seems imprinted on your brain without any work towards it. You hone your talent, and get skillful in weilding it.
With just practice and dedication, you can acheive good skill. With talent, you become an artist.
Slashdot Mirror
if they really had a "we own everything write" assuming in or out of the office, then he can't release his software under the GPL... AOL already owns it the second his fingers hit the keyboard.
First, which "we" - is it Nullsoft or AOL/TW. Second, was this a sponsored or independant project.
Third, what does his actual contract state.
Fourth, profit, er I mean, if he had approval from a person higher in the organizational chart to release it under the GPL, the fault lies on them not Mr. Frankel.
At least it did see the light of day, and won't go into hiding anytime now.
Is AI as in symbolic AI (search-based etc.)? It seems to me that all sensible information categorization systems, even those built on top of fuzzy logic could reasonably be called AI. Google uses very sophisticated data-categorization algorithms, or at least it seems so based on my search results. Those are probably based on statistical classifiers and other such AI techniques.
I'm using Fuzzy Logic as just a way of branching true-false trees. Not so much a full-blown AI system, just (as you said) statistical qualifiers.
I don't view AI as "AI" -- it's mostly types of AI. To me, AI is something that is entirely abstract enough to handle tasks (Think self-configuring Universal Turing Machine) -- otherwise it's just statistical programs over very broad data sets.
I've done some work with neural networks (indirectly) and that was the general consensus there, as well... the mindset just stuck.
Just because he released it under the GPL doesn't necessarily mean it's legal. If all of the code he writes is owned by AOL, then AOL, as the copyright holder, must determine the license it's released under.
That depends if it was released under Nullsoft's name or AOL/TW. I'm not sure of the dynamics of that and I'm not motivated enough to go check.
Don't know how serious this may be, but if AOL wanted to, they might be able to sue for loss of IP due to the dumpage of WASTE into the GPL realm. That's the real bitch when you write code for a company. Unless you beg & plead with the lawyers (or your managers) to give you a little freedom, they own your stuff.
Corporate protection, as it was released by Nullsoft (or an acting party responsible in Nullsoft) so they'd basically have to sue themselves (or more accurately, their child.) Suing him as an individual would be just a bully act, and gain absolutely nothing. When I sign an employment contract, I make sure that what I work on outside of hours is mine. If I dont' bill them for it, it's mine. End of story. If they don't like that, I don't work there.
IIRC, at the time that WASTE was developed, Nullsoft was owned by AOL/Time Warner. This would mean that anything created by employees of Nullsoft had to be cleared with AOL.
.plan. He's tired of his self-expression being completely controlled by AOL/TW and Nullsoft.
That is true, but it depends upon if Nullsoft is an actual company. If it is a company, Nullsoft still will have the ability for copyright/ownership of it's projects. AOL/TW can just bitch, and press on the officers of Nullsoft, which is probably what happened.
If someone who was able to release a project released it, it was released legitimately... sort of. Either way, it was initial released as the GPL so it's hard to stop it.
Most employment contracts specifically state that any thing or idea created, conceived, developed, etc. while employeed becomes property of the employeer (in this case, AOL/Time Warner)
This is why he left, and he states it in his
This has everything to do with WASTE and any other projects that AOL canned.
I think it has everything to do with the lack of independance of coding, not WASTE or any other particular project. Those are just symptoms of the problem.
I've worked for companies before that have draconian contracts, "Anything you think is our property! Hah!"
He's leaving because he doesn't like the "We own everything you write" clause in his employment contract. I'm not sure what the WASTE fiasco is anyway. WASTE is something Nullsoft produced, as long as it's under the GPL (Yes.) he can quit and still work on it, and nobody can (legally) care.
He's probably just pissed that what he works on gets the "Copyright AOL/Time Warner" header on it, and understandably so.
A file system with the power and flexibility of a relational database ceases to be a file system. What are things like "cp" supposed to mean? How do you transfer "a row" through a serial connection? What kind of transactional guarantees is it going to make; if it's going to make DBMS guarantees, it's too slow for many file system applications, and if it's not going to do that, is it really a DBMS?
I didn't say "relational database" -- I said "relational filesystem." As in, finding documents that are related to some other entity. I enjoy messing around in the Gimp. Sometimes I do work related images, other times it's just for fun. I'd like to put every image under $HOME/gimpwork. However, I like to find out which ones are for work and which job, for fun, etc.
I'd like to be able to say "ls --category=work $HOME/gimpwork" and show only those files. This doesn't require a database, it requires a few meta flags.
File copying is the same, ls is the same, everything is the same. Maybe just a wee bit slower.
If you want a database, just use a database. MySQL and various embedded databases are widely available on Linux now; no need to clutter up the kernel.
You wouldn't have to clutter the kernel. A system that I am envisioning could reside purely ontop of any existing filesystem. It could have a DB backend (but that would be overkill)
There are some logistics problems that would make it easier to be in a kernel module -- but assuming everybody would use the proper set of commands, it could keep everything in sync just fine without mucking in kernel space.
Having some form of AI such as in Haystack combined with a good view of categories and other metadata would be very useful in organizing data. Ideally there would be very little effort by the user to perform the organizing. The AI would do almost all the work and user could just browse.
I don't even think you need AI. Just fuzzy logic. We already know (for the most part) the filetypes, and all standard files will have a standard filetype identifier. All you need to do is find out what type of filetype you are working with and call a parser to try to collect key words (then score against a keyword matrix, like a vector search engine or something) and store the result.
Google algorithms would work better for data categorization than AI would. I've just never been a big AI-is-the-goal type of coder though. AI is a tool, it's great and all, but not necessary for a lot of tasks.
Now, of course linux trolls will whine and whatnot, but SQL Server is a killer DMBS, and this filesystem will be cool. Imagine how fast apps will start when they dont have to scour a half dozen directories for .dll files, but instead "SELECT location FROM files WHERE filename = 'msvcrt.dll' AND version = '7.8.29'"
A file system built on an SQL engine doesn't work... It's like putting a Viper engine in a Ford Focus. A simple meta-dbm attached to each node (and visa versa, an index on the meta-dbms... similar to how the iPod works) would work just fine. I've never saw the point of allowing an entire SQL engine on a filesystem.
Anyways, in a few decades someone will write a free-as-in-no-money version for lunix. So hold tight.
That was really damn funny, thank you.
In fact, if fewer people pirated software, the market for software would be much smaller because fewer people would know how to use the software, and who pays $100 + to buy something they don't know how to use?
That's my issue right there. I'm not going to spend $2K on a software package that I haven't properly sampled. When I say properly sampled, I mean do an entire demo project in it. Like a compiler suite for Windows (Yay work!) -- I'm not going to fork out a few hundred+ just to see how the IDE works. I'll sample it out, make sure it does what I need and then buy it.
That's what I do 90% of the time. I think that QT has it down solid.
Sell support contracts and commercial licenses. I think most software could do well to follow it: $20-$100 for the Non-Commercial Use only edition, $2K for the Commercial Use.
Wow. Looking at the Haystack site with Mozilla looks awesome! I don't know if it's my version (1.4rc1) or some weird image setting, but the main image on the page stays stationary as I scroll around, but the clipping of the image changes. It's really hard to describe, but looks awesome.
That just annoyed me. It's just a div layer clipping hack, part of the CSS2 spec. I hate myself for knowing that (I am not a web-*) but I do...
IE can't handle alpha layers in PNGs yet, I'm not holding my breath for decent CSS2 support.
Is this just me? Do all of you want your programs shoved together in one large application?
You mean like a Window Manager? That's how I see this thing... it's like a Window Manager with applications embedded inside of it (think of a forced dock type thing.) It just handles whatever data you present it with (or the computer presents it with) automatically.
I didn't get any options on my cell phone (like text messaging) because I purchased a cell phone. I wanted a cell phone. To make calls. Nothing else.
My cell-phone has bluetooth, PDA functions, games, voice recording, voice dialing... that's the great thing about choice. You, nor I, are the entire market.
Not too much to ask, it doesn't even need to be truly a filesystem. Just overload all the file access commands (At this point, probably easier to just write a new filesystem)...
Group data by category, content, whatever. "Symlink" to the inodes, and you're off. We don't need AI for that and I think it would be a more complete solution. I don't see an AI engine that can correctly categorize my mp3's, I don't think I'd trust it for all of my data yet. Let's start small and get usable systems.
Spiffy program though, wish it weren't in Java... wish it weren't 42MB... wish it ran smoothly under Linux. I'll stop complaining now.
On a side note, Did anybody else find that scrolling image annoying and mentally confusing. Er, I'll really stop complaining now.
I agree. When a representative of a nation can lie through his behind, why can't a dying, insignificant company do the same? The Iraqi information minister ended up dead. Hopefully, everyone in SCO ends up behind bars.
Yes, however much to my chagrin, stupidity is not a crime...
Talk about prison over-crowding if it were.
The really scary thing is that she's a member of MENSA...
Not scary at all, I've met a few MENSA members in my life. The one thread they all seem to have is that they are all full of themselves, and all have accomplished just about jack shit with their lives, and all of them have conversations skills on par with autistic lemurs. My apologies to the lemurs.
The MENSA tests (at least the two I saw) are mostly bullshit anyway. If someone needs a pretensious organization to tell them they're good enough, good for them but please stop thinking MENSA is some great organization.
Just remember the Simpsons episode with the MENSA members.
Wow, this guy really needs to get a life - this reads like a Dear Penthouse letter or something. For a lawyer, he has no tact....
You do realize that this guy wrote The Definitive Book Of Pick-up Lines and is proud of it?
What are you expecting, he's Tucker Max. Tucker Max speaks in the third person. Tucker Max fucks porn stars.
But if you are a girl and do that, Tucker Max calls you a drunken whore. Learn from Tucker Max, Tucker Max knows what women want.
DISS*"WOMAN"ATION!
Am I just an idiot or does that not make sense, aside from sounding really funny and engrish?
I dunno, "Tucker is died! Tucker is died!"
My girlfriend who has been speaking English for 3 years is tons better than that... sad, really.
Lucas , you have to give him credit for more -or-less starting(or refining) the whole mass-merchandising thing, but its so spun out of control and just tired
Actually it's completely out of Space Balls. That's the only thing I can think of.
"We're looking at now, sir."
Then the Yogurt merchandizing hall...
What are they going to do, use smart bombs to deliver your packages? Otherwise, you're going to have to provide a lot of digits of precision on your coordinates. I think the delivery man would prefer a street name.
Down to the meter should be more than sufficient - but we're talking about delivery. There can be an automated process that takes the coordinates and slaps a street-label on it just fine. For doing global delivery, it would make the systems much easier. Just wait for slapping the label on there until it gets to it's destination post office.
If they really wanted to simplify postal coding/addressing they'd do something first about these damn addresses for people in South Korea, and a few other countries, which are like a whole paragraph long! Ever have to fill out those little customs forms? Yeah, you know how fun that can be.
Japan's addresses are easy enough to write, but hard as hell to find if you don't know the area. It's annoying as all hell, but from a western mind just doesn't make much sense.
I would prefer an address that is lat/long coordinates. I don't care what my street name is, that's handy for giving local directions. For delivery purposes, it seems so much easier to just say:
Mr. Bill
N47.52 W121.90
The article claims that these will be universal codes for all over the world, but what about for countries that don't use the standard western alphabet?
Just so you know, even if they don't use the standard western alphabet (Let's actually call it "Latin" as that's what it is) they still have use of it. I've yet to see a computer that can't produce latin characters.
Not to sound cynical here, but are you an American hell-bent on being non-Americanized?
I don't know why a home user linux box even NEEDS a mail server.
I don't know why people drive in the left lane with their signal on going 10 miles an hour under the speed limit.
I don't know why people still are plagued by email viruses.
I don't know why a home user needs a 2.4Ghz CPU to check their email.
I don't know why you need to know why a home user needs an email server.
This is the single most inspired and creative case mod I have ever seen. I see some posts from people scorning it. Maybe you would not want to own one, but that's only because it would be better off in a museum or something.
Which Museum?
"Museum for Proof that Geeks have too much Time on their Hands", or perhaps the
"Museum for Geeks who can't get Laid"?
I think it's pretty cool in the same way that the Mech in the guys backyard is cool. I would never do it, I would never own it, I wouldn't go see it in a museum, but it's pretty cool.
Aside from the fact that ad hominem is the first tactic of the defeated, I'll respond to your questions...
Well, here's what it's like "arguing with you"
Me: X, Y, and Z is this way.
You: No, because Z is more important than X!
It's kind of amusing, in a special olympics sort of way. You haven't even made a valid case against indirect damage. You just ignore it. Ignoring is the first tactic of the defeated.
* the rollbacks would not be needed
How do you know? How can you prove that nobody used this knowledge. You can't. That is why they rolled the servers back.
* the update can be written without taking the servers down
They didn't need to take the servers down.
* the patch can be applied during the normal update cycle, which is not during prime time
A patch that shouldn't have needed to be applied in the first place could have, yes. You are going purely off of circumstantial evidence and saying "Well, UbiSoft would wait until they could do it and just hope that nobody else found out about it."
This is just idiotic. You think that UbiSoft (or anybody) that is running a game service is just going to sit back with knowledge that a bug of this magnitude is sitting there? Nope, it would happen very fast. Probably just as fast, and if it didn't, I would fire some people if I worked there.
* support personnel are not inundated with requests
Ok, I'll actually grant you this one. That is still an indirect effect of the attack though.
You need to understand the difference between direct and indirect.
How do you know this? How would UBISoft know this? They only caused mass devistation on one server, who knows what they did on the rest? Or were about to do? When someone breaks one system on your cluster, you *have* to bring them all down immediately.
Hey! You can actually come around to a logical conclusion. How would UbiSoft know they didn't need to rollback their servers? You win a prize! They rolled back to be sure, end of story.
At this point I can see that you're not rational, and I'm finished with this discussion.
Good, at least you finally managed to understand that UbiSoft had no way of knowing how much damage they did to themselves. You still haven't even understood an ounce of what I was saying anyway, so when you finish your high school English courses, come back and read this. Maybe then you can understand what I'm talking about.
Whoopee, they figured it out before you did. That's not something that was given to them at birth it was a skill they arrived at at some point. Drawing is the ability to decompose an image down to a series of lines and plotting them out on paper. It's not easy. Spatial relationships have to be recognized etc. Those guys may have a better spatial recognition, that doesn't necessarily mean they're born with talent to draw as a result of that ability.
Right, and I guess that in your view point anybody could arrive at the same conclusions as Einstein, Currie, Newton, and a whole bunch of other people...
Talent means it comes natural. A natural ability. A gift. For example, I can fly stunt kites. I picked up a stunt kite and within 30 minutes was putting to shame people who had been doing it regularly for about 5 years. That's talent. Granted, it doesn't mean much, but it's talent.
Talent is not equal to skill.
Talent is something you are born with, a skill that seems imprinted on your brain without any work towards it. You hone your talent, and get skillful in weilding it.
With just practice and dedication, you can acheive good skill. With talent, you become an artist.