Banner ads, shopping links, etc, etc. These are aimed at the user. This is really cool (tm) for the average joe blow that wants to buy something. As for the banner ads, maybe he's one of those people that just has a deep-seeded loathing of banner advertising. Really, I don't mind them. It's a good way to make money without actually *doing* anything and I understand that. They aren't overly intrusive, they just kinda chill at the top or the bottom.
Second, this guy really has no right to be pissed off at Netscape unless he's a member of the Mozilla project. You don't *pay* for Netscape, it's free (as in beer) software. I think the saying is "you get what you pay for."
Free (as in speech) software carries with it the ability for such conglomerates to come along and use it for pretty much whatever they want to. You can't be mad at them for doing this, because they are explicitly *allowed* to by the software creators.
I would be suprised if Netscape/AOL/Time Warning/Mirabilis/Nullsoft/Winamp/whatever *didn't* do something like this, but I'm not suprised that they did, nor do I think it's wrong, nor do I blame them for doing so.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Yeah, I tried to invent a completely impartial committee that had lots of power over an election.
Maybe the committee could be made of a panel of judges or something, some type of system that maintains checks and balances.
Or perhaps the judicial branch could review committee decisions if they were made in bad faith. And make it an expedited process. No one wants to sit in court because some damn committee said you couldn't run a commericial.
Sigh, I just don't know. I can't think of a system that ensures general fairness.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I hereby declare myself a Presidential candidate. I will use my campaign funds to purchase a really neat computer system which I will use to talk to my voters via Quake III servers.
I didn't think I had to say that you couldn't just declare your canidacy and receive a check for the lump sum and then drop out of the race. But apparently I do have to explain every single nuance of my proposal.
Expenditures would have to be cleared by the presidential committee, and then the committee pays for it.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
DISCLAIMER: These are my immediate thoughts, feel free to point out any problems with my ideas, propose alternate solutions, etc. I'm open to intriguing political discussion.
Anyhow, on with the show:
Campaign funding sucks. Given enough money, one person could do just about anything they wanted within the laws of physics.
Campaign funding should be a static amount allocated by the government and *every* Presidential canidate should receive equal amounts. There should be no campaign spending that does not come from this alotment. This will ensure that each canidate gets equal opportunity finances. How you apply your alotted finances to your campaign is up to you.
All presidential canidates should participate in debates and be given equal opportunities to speak, grill the other canidates, etc, etc.
Basically, we need civil rights for the government. It's political racism, it's segregation of the parties. The people need to understand that the democratic and republican parties are not the only two parties, nor are they neccessarily the two best parties. The only reason the democratic and republican parties control the election is because they have the money and they have the popularity.
Slander should be forbidden. Even discussing another canidate in advertisement should be forbidden. Commercials that proclaim "mr. doe says he is against an income tax, but look, he signed this pledge to institute a 47857% income tax in 97 states" should be forbidden. To run such a commercial would disqualify you from the race. Advertising should proclaim only what the canidate believes and stands for, his stance on the issue, not anyone else's.
The electoral college is a hassle. Abolish it or change it. The president should be chosen by popular vote, directly or indirectly. If not abolition, electoral votes should be split according to state popular vote.
Anyhow, these are just a few of the things I see wrong with the US republic, oh, excuse me, "democracy."
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
w3m, the console web browser that can format tables, frames, etc, was written by Akinori Ito. He includes support for kanji. I know because there is a #ifdef PC_KANJI that is misplaced every time I go to download and compile it without japanese character support.
I believe there is also a xterm counterpart for kanji.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Actually, I would probably regard a foreigner's comments higher than an American's response because I like to hear what people in different (and probably way more efficient) governments.
This should read:
Actually, I would probably regard a foreigner's comments higher than an American's response because I like to hear what people in different (and probably way more efficient) governments think.
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
What irritates me is that you apparently regard useless comments from Americans as high as useful comments from foreigners. Why?
Okay, I don't understand how you could have gotten that from what I said. True, I did make it sound like if you were American and didn't have anything important to say that you were welcome to say it.
That's not what I meant. It's just that I've seen articles posted about American issues and I find foreigners posting such responses as "slashdot sucks, nobody cares about the US" or "Americans suck, why is this crap on here? we don't care" or "this has nothing to do with half of the people that read slashdot, rob sucks!"
Obviously, if you have something you want to say that would contribute to the discussion (ie, it's insightful, or you want to share your opinions on the presidential canidates even though you aren't American), please do!
Actually, I would probably regard a foreigner's comments higher than an American's response because I like to hear what people in different (and probably way more efficient) governments.
Sometimes I get really upset at the way foreigners look at America. Sometimes people from other countries will sterotype Americans. I'm American, I just don't want to be sterotyped.
One of my most interesting discussions on slashdot about American government was with someone from the UK.
So, anyhow, if I came off as insulting to you, my apologies.
Thanks,
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
No, if you actually read the disclaimer, it states "If you aren't American and don't have anything to say that would contribute to the discussion, please don't say anything at all."
The action, "please don't say anything at all" applies to the individuals that meat the following requirements as stated in the disclaimer:
1) You are not American
2) You intend to say something that would NOT contribute to the discussion
So, basically, it applies to you, since you aren't American (vranx.de) and demonstrated that you didn't intend on contributing to the conversation.
Next time actually read before you get all pissy.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
DISCLAIMER: If you aren't American and don't have anything to say that would contribute to the discussion, please don't say anything at all.
IIRC from the many history classes I've had, The framers of the Constitution set out to prevent such party systems. The whole idea was against the party system, it wasn't supposed to happen that way, but it did.
And it worked remarkably well. It was an OK bad thing, it didn't turn out to be the terribly anti-democratic system it was perceived to be.
Now I understand why so many saw the party system as a bad thing early on. It just took 200 years for it to devolve into the mud-slinging crap contest it is nowadays.
We are cruising for a revolution.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
This is so cool, I remember when I started using Tripwire about 3 years ago and it irked me that the source wasn't open.
I had been running it on a RH 4.2 box. I was trying to use the version that was linked against libc5 (the only binary they had at the time) on a RH5.0 box, and was told I would have to wait several months before they released a new version that would link against glibc (aka libc6).
Source code gives a whole new meaning to free software.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I remember reading from ESR's page that he'll speak for free just about anywhere as long as someone puts him up somewhere (preferably somewhere that doesn't suck, even a guest bedroom would be perfect). Just think, you could have ESR sleeping in your house!;)
And he doesn't like to fly coach on long flights, but you shouldn't have that problem as he lives in Pennsylvania, fairly close to the Lehigh Valley area if I am not mistaken.
But if you're going to have anyone speak, you gotta get ESR.
And maybe you can invite RMS, but only to kill him when he gets there. =)
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I've used a wireless keyboard and mouse from logitech. IIRC, it wasn't infrared, but radio, so you didn't have to have line-of-sight to use it. It had a pretty good range, prolly 15-20 feet, but it would skip letters every now and then. It's extremely annoying to be typing and have random letters just not show up, it's like having a sticky key or something.
The mouse was very cool because you could put it just about anywhere and not worry about the cord. I don't mind keyboard cords as much as I mind mouse cords, they get in the way more because the device has to be moved around, unlike the stationary keyboard.
Both of the devices would sometimes "loose" their signal or frequency, and you'd have to reset it (re-handshake, i suppose) by pressing a button on the base. All in all, it was pretty neat, but I'd really like to have a wireless radio optical mouse that worked flawlessly.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I really wish people could get their goddamn terminology straight. Misuse of terms confuses the entire issue.
Are we talking strictly hacking or cracking? Cracking, I, of course, can see, but hacking?? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's like saying you're not allowed to build certain things with your legos, you're only allowed to build the ones in the instruction manual. What fun would that be?
I could imagine my childhood if I was only allowed to build the racecar or helicopter instead of the cool mothership with 47 laser guns and huge engines and afterburners and wings and little compartments made out of those pieces that had hinges on it so I could keep prisoners in...
Oh yeah, but anyhow, yeah. I read the article now.:) Cracking is merely an application of hacking, much like technology is merely an application of science. Things like bugtraq are an important part of the community. The act of cracking shouldn't be illegal, but if the end result is that some information was stolen with the intent to use it in some way, shape, or form, then I believe they should be held responsible.
If this continues, they are adopting security by obscurity, which, as we all know, never works.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Okay, well am I correct in saying that Direct3D has many more extensions that expose nifty features of the hardware?
The image that I concocted through reading about OpenGL vs Glide vs Direct3D was that OpenGL hasn't had many extensions to do very common tasks like Direct3D does. Ie, (and this is completely hypothetical, I'm not sure if it is supported this way or not) you want to do volumetric fog, it takes one function call in Direct3D and 17 in OpenGL.
Is this perception wrong?
Not a graphics guy,
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Just because this idea is so damn arrogant, I'm going to buy one of these.
As a kid, I never had a console, it was always a PC (well, I had an Atari way back when with Burger Time, Qbert, and Zaxxon, but it got replaces with a screaming 4.7 mhz 8088)
It would be so awesome to actually own a console (which I really should buy sometime, I miss console games), and buying one that ran Linux would be so much sweeter.
I hope the Indrema (damn cool name too) kicks the crap out of the Xbox (Indrema is a cooler name than Xbox, Xbox was kinda cool but now it's dumb).
I think that Linux needs a good competitor to DirectX though. OpenGL just doesn't cut it, it hasn't kept up with any of the other APIs. Someone needs to step up and make an awesome 3d api for Linux, something that will match Direct3D and outperform it and support cool stuff like full-screen antialiasing.
I just wish I knew something about graphics, I'm more of a console guy myself, writing a program that linked with svgalib and changing the mode to 640x480x256 is the extent of my graphical work;)
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I wouldn't want my kids going down to the library to research something on the Internet and, knowing how searches bring up nonsense 98% of the time, pulling up some elephant sex porn site or something equally as disturbing. Then they'll come home and ask you about it, then what are you going to say?
Now, as far as the "feature that allows parents to automatically check, with one click, what sites your kids have visited lately," I believe it's called the HISTORY. Go buy NetNanny or filtered access from your provider, or, better yet, don't let your kids use the Internet.
I remember seeing this piece of software that could actually block images based on the amount of skin tones in it. It truly was a remarkable piece of software. It wasn't able to block everything, but it got most of the more raunchy images.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Slashdot Mirror
Is that what NT stands for?
I always thought it was naked turkies. Go figure.
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
NAT translation?
Network Address Translation translation?
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I have two points I'd like to make.
Banner ads, shopping links, etc, etc. These are aimed at the user. This is really cool (tm) for the average joe blow that wants to buy something. As for the banner ads, maybe he's one of those people that just has a deep-seeded loathing of banner advertising. Really, I don't mind them. It's a good way to make money without actually *doing* anything and I understand that. They aren't overly intrusive, they just kinda chill at the top or the bottom.
Second, this guy really has no right to be pissed off at Netscape unless he's a member of the Mozilla project. You don't *pay* for Netscape, it's free (as in beer) software. I think the saying is "you get what you pay for."
Free (as in speech) software carries with it the ability for such conglomerates to come along and use it for pretty much whatever they want to. You can't be mad at them for doing this, because they are explicitly *allowed* to by the software creators.
I would be suprised if Netscape/AOL/Time Warning/Mirabilis/Nullsoft/Winamp/whatever *didn't* do something like this, but I'm not suprised that they did, nor do I think it's wrong, nor do I blame them for doing so.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Yeah, I tried to invent a completely impartial committee that had lots of power over an election.
Maybe the committee could be made of a panel of judges or something, some type of system that maintains checks and balances.
Or perhaps the judicial branch could review committee decisions if they were made in bad faith. And make it an expedited process. No one wants to sit in court because some damn committee said you couldn't run a commericial.
Sigh, I just don't know. I can't think of a system that ensures general fairness.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I hereby declare myself a Presidential candidate. I will use my campaign funds to purchase a really neat computer system which I will use to talk to my voters via Quake III servers.
I didn't think I had to say that you couldn't just declare your canidacy and receive a check for the lump sum and then drop out of the race. But apparently I do have to explain every single nuance of my proposal.
Expenditures would have to be cleared by the presidential committee, and then the committee pays for it.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
DISCLAIMER: These are my immediate thoughts, feel free to point out any problems with my ideas, propose alternate solutions, etc. I'm open to intriguing political discussion.
Anyhow, on with the show:
Campaign funding sucks. Given enough money, one person could do just about anything they wanted within the laws of physics.
Campaign funding should be a static amount allocated by the government and *every* Presidential canidate should receive equal amounts. There should be no campaign spending that does not come from this alotment. This will ensure that each canidate gets equal opportunity finances. How you apply your alotted finances to your campaign is up to you.
All presidential canidates should participate in debates and be given equal opportunities to speak, grill the other canidates, etc, etc.
Basically, we need civil rights for the government. It's political racism, it's segregation of the parties. The people need to understand that the democratic and republican parties are not the only two parties, nor are they neccessarily the two best parties. The only reason the democratic and republican parties control the election is because they have the money and they have the popularity.
Slander should be forbidden. Even discussing another canidate in advertisement should be forbidden. Commercials that proclaim "mr. doe says he is against an income tax, but look, he signed this pledge to institute a 47857% income tax in 97 states" should be forbidden. To run such a commercial would disqualify you from the race. Advertising should proclaim only what the canidate believes and stands for, his stance on the issue, not anyone else's.
The electoral college is a hassle. Abolish it or change it. The president should be chosen by popular vote, directly or indirectly. If not abolition, electoral votes should be split according to state popular vote.
Anyhow, these are just a few of the things I see wrong with the US republic, oh, excuse me, "democracy."
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm voting for this guy, he makes some damn good points.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
w3m, the console web browser that can format tables, frames, etc, was written by Akinori Ito. He includes support for kanji. I know because there is a #ifdef PC_KANJI that is misplaced every time I go to download and compile it without japanese character support.
I believe there is also a xterm counterpart for kanji.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Tivo doesn't care about hacks. In fact, they encourage it.
After all, it's yours, you bought it, money exchanged hands, you are perfectly within your right to do whatever you want to with it.
In fact, I bet that some of the more interesting hacks (such as this one) could result in Tivo calling the individual(s) up and offering them a job.
That's the way it should work. Tivo is a-okay in my book.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Actually, I would probably regard a foreigner's comments higher than an American's response because I like to hear what people in different (and probably way more efficient) governments.
This should read:
Actually, I would probably regard a foreigner's comments higher than an American's response because I like to hear what people in different (and probably way more efficient) governments think.
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
What irritates me is that you apparently regard useless comments from Americans as high as useful comments from foreigners. Why?
Okay, I don't understand how you could have gotten that from what I said. True, I did make it sound like if you were American and didn't have anything important to say that you were welcome to say it.
That's not what I meant. It's just that I've seen articles posted about American issues and I find foreigners posting such responses as "slashdot sucks, nobody cares about the US" or "Americans suck, why is this crap on here? we don't care" or "this has nothing to do with half of the people that read slashdot, rob sucks!"
Obviously, if you have something you want to say that would contribute to the discussion (ie, it's insightful, or you want to share your opinions on the presidential canidates even though you aren't American), please do!
Actually, I would probably regard a foreigner's comments higher than an American's response because I like to hear what people in different (and probably way more efficient) governments.
Sometimes I get really upset at the way foreigners look at America. Sometimes people from other countries will sterotype Americans. I'm American, I just don't want to be sterotyped.
One of my most interesting discussions on slashdot about American government was with someone from the UK.
So, anyhow, if I came off as insulting to you, my apologies.
Thanks,
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
No, if you actually read the disclaimer, it states "If you aren't American and don't have anything to say that would contribute to the discussion, please don't say anything at all."
The action, "please don't say anything at all" applies to the individuals that meat the following requirements as stated in the disclaimer:
1) You are not American
2) You intend to say something that would NOT contribute to the discussion
So, basically, it applies to you, since you aren't American (vranx.de) and demonstrated that you didn't intend on contributing to the conversation.
Next time actually read before you get all pissy.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
DISCLAIMER: If you aren't American and don't have anything to say that would contribute to the discussion, please don't say anything at all.
IIRC from the many history classes I've had, The framers of the Constitution set out to prevent such party systems. The whole idea was against the party system, it wasn't supposed to happen that way, but it did.
And it worked remarkably well. It was an OK bad thing, it didn't turn out to be the terribly anti-democratic system it was perceived to be.
Now I understand why so many saw the party system as a bad thing early on. It just took 200 years for it to devolve into the mud-slinging crap contest it is nowadays.
We are cruising for a revolution.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Ironically, wiposucks.(com|net|org) are all taken.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
This is so cool, I remember when I started using Tripwire about 3 years ago and it irked me that the source wasn't open.
I had been running it on a RH 4.2 box. I was trying to use the version that was linked against libc5 (the only binary they had at the time) on a RH5.0 box, and was told I would have to wait several months before they released a new version that would link against glibc (aka libc6).
Source code gives a whole new meaning to free software.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I remember reading from ESR's page that he'll speak for free just about anywhere as long as someone puts him up somewhere (preferably somewhere that doesn't suck, even a guest bedroom would be perfect). Just think, you could have ESR sleeping in your house! ;)
And he doesn't like to fly coach on long flights, but you shouldn't have that problem as he lives in Pennsylvania, fairly close to the Lehigh Valley area if I am not mistaken.
But if you're going to have anyone speak, you gotta get ESR.
And maybe you can invite RMS, but only to kill him when he gets there. =)
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Hey, Mr President, you wanna smoke a blunt?
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I've used a wireless keyboard and mouse from logitech. IIRC, it wasn't infrared, but radio, so you didn't have to have line-of-sight to use it. It had a pretty good range, prolly 15-20 feet, but it would skip letters every now and then. It's extremely annoying to be typing and have random letters just not show up, it's like having a sticky key or something.
The mouse was very cool because you could put it just about anywhere and not worry about the cord. I don't mind keyboard cords as much as I mind mouse cords, they get in the way more because the device has to be moved around, unlike the stationary keyboard.
Both of the devices would sometimes "loose" their signal or frequency, and you'd have to reset it (re-handshake, i suppose) by pressing a button on the base. All in all, it was pretty neat, but I'd really like to have a wireless radio optical mouse that worked flawlessly.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
I really wish people could get their goddamn terminology straight. Misuse of terms confuses the entire issue.
:) Cracking is merely an application of hacking, much like technology is merely an application of science. Things like bugtraq are an important part of the community. The act of cracking shouldn't be illegal, but if the end result is that some information was stolen with the intent to use it in some way, shape, or form, then I believe they should be held responsible.
Are we talking strictly hacking or cracking? Cracking, I, of course, can see, but hacking?? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. That's like saying you're not allowed to build certain things with your legos, you're only allowed to build the ones in the instruction manual. What fun would that be?
I could imagine my childhood if I was only allowed to build the racecar or helicopter instead of the cool mothership with 47 laser guns and huge engines and afterburners and wings and little compartments made out of those pieces that had hinges on it so I could keep prisoners in...
Oh yeah, but anyhow, yeah. I read the article now.
If this continues, they are adopting security by obscurity, which, as we all know, never works.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Okay, well am I correct in saying that Direct3D has many more extensions that expose nifty features of the hardware?
The image that I concocted through reading about OpenGL vs Glide vs Direct3D was that OpenGL hasn't had many extensions to do very common tasks like Direct3D does. Ie, (and this is completely hypothetical, I'm not sure if it is supported this way or not) you want to do volumetric fog, it takes one function call in Direct3D and 17 in OpenGL.
Is this perception wrong?
Not a graphics guy,
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Why then, are OpenGL and Direct3D two different APIs?
If Direct3D is just a wrapper for OpenGL, then everyone in the entire industry is stupid.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Go see Mission to Mars, just try not to kill yourself afterwards.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Just because this idea is so damn arrogant, I'm going to buy one of these.
;)
As a kid, I never had a console, it was always a PC (well, I had an Atari way back when with Burger Time, Qbert, and Zaxxon, but it got replaces with a screaming 4.7 mhz 8088)
It would be so awesome to actually own a console (which I really should buy sometime, I miss console games), and buying one that ran Linux would be so much sweeter.
I hope the Indrema (damn cool name too) kicks the crap out of the Xbox (Indrema is a cooler name than Xbox, Xbox was kinda cool but now it's dumb).
I think that Linux needs a good competitor to DirectX though. OpenGL just doesn't cut it, it hasn't kept up with any of the other APIs. Someone needs to step up and make an awesome 3d api for Linux, something that will match Direct3D and outperform it and support cool stuff like full-screen antialiasing.
I just wish I knew something about graphics, I'm more of a console guy myself, writing a program that linked with svgalib and changing the mode to 640x480x256 is the extent of my graphical work
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Public Internet access should be filtered.
I wouldn't want my kids going down to the library to research something on the Internet and, knowing how searches bring up nonsense 98% of the time, pulling up some elephant sex porn site or something equally as disturbing. Then they'll come home and ask you about it, then what are you going to say?
Now, as far as the "feature that allows parents to automatically check, with one click, what sites your kids have visited lately," I believe it's called the HISTORY. Go buy NetNanny or filtered access from your provider, or, better yet, don't let your kids use the Internet.
I remember seeing this piece of software that could actually block images based on the amount of skin tones in it. It truly was a remarkable piece of software. It wasn't able to block everything, but it got most of the more raunchy images.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Gives a whole new meaning to viruses, eh? Not only will your data be screwed, but your whole computer is gonna die!
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."