He's presumably (hopefully?) talking about the zone file format.
And, so what if he was? How is that "DNS"? A dns config file could be easily kept as LDAP entries, or in a SQL database, or (god forbid) hexidecimal notation.
I've written a mini-application that keeps DNS zone file information in a database, to be managed by an access-restricted web thing-a-majig, to then parse into Bind 8.x format.
The config file format is largely irrelevant. It's the protocol that matters when you are talking DNS.
4) DNS has already proven that it scales well to just about any size, and
5) XML offers no particular advantage, since you could serve DVD ISOs over the DNS, and
6) moving to an "XML PROTOCOL" format would require the update of every single DNS server on the face of the earth, many of which are still running Bind 8.x, and some are still running BIND 4.X for god's sake,
Get real. djbdns' source is 100% available for you to look at and patch to your hearts content. If you find an error, send a fix to DJB and he'll add it after review.
"Available Source" !== "Free Software".
You can't redistribute changed, patched DJBDNS. You can't fork it if you figure something requires a fundamental change in design philosophy. You cannot distribute binaries. DJB release a new version every millenium or so - so when you set up Qmail or DJBDNS, you spend a week applying patches and testing them just to get things like Qmail-ldap to work.
You'll never, ever find a pre-made RPM for DJB-DNS. Thus, things like "yum update" can cause all sorts of grief, and will certainly NEVER result in an updated QMail!
Where in ANY of this did you get the idea that just because you can download DJB sources, that it's "Open" or "Free"?
If you were SERIOUS about "Open Source", perhaps you should read a bit on what it actually means?
Linux is making a case for itself as being "NOT Unix".
I saw an ad a while back in Ccmputer Reseller News that went something like: "Do we HAVE to use UNIX for our database?"...
The implication is that "everybody knows"... UNIX==EXPENSIVE. Linus is much, much cheaper, and you can save $X,000 using Linux.
Given its history of high price, vendor lockin, and balkinization, why would anything Linux even care about "being Unix"? Linux has buzz, Unix has a buzz. Which would you prefer?
Unix is a good ancestor to Linux. Remember, GNU is NOT UNIX!
Intel is now feeling some pain. They've built a brand around having more M/Ghz - which only matter superfically.
Being a multi-function device means that a CPU does multiple functions. As with ANY multi-function device, a model of CPU will do some things better than others.
X86 chips have traditionally been processing heavy, I/O weak, since hard, on-demand processing hsa been the driver of the X86 industry. (Video games, etc)
Contrast that with the Sun Sparc line of chips, or IBM's mainframe hardware, heavily optimized for I/O throughput. The needs of a rendering farm node are not well in alignment with the needs of a high-capacity file server.
Even within being "processing" demands, there is a wide, wide range. Floating point. Integer ops. Parallel proccessing. Different, even cross-compatible chips and chip lines will behave differently, performing better at some tasks than others.
But, for years now, Intel has been busy spending millions convincing the population that you can boil performance down to a single number, M/Ghz.
The cracks are beginning to show. AMD has made a solid business with "slower" (Mhz) ships that perform better. Their own Centrino line is "slower" but performs almost as well!
Intel needs to get a clue, and develop a set of benchmarks that truly show real-world performance. AMD has done quite a good job with their "+" rating. (EG, my desktop is an Athlon 2000+)
I give it 6 months, maybe a year. It'll be hard, but even Intel isn't so stupid as to put this off too long.
There's some integration of devices going on now, but it's always a crippled integration. The trend is encouraging, but I'm not sure it's ever really going to lead to anything.
Go back 5-7 years, and talk about motherboards instead of cell phones.
Then, you saw the beginnings of the integrated motherboard. PC Chips led this revolution - for $49 (wholesale) you could get a Socket 7 board with onboard IDE, FD, LPT, RS232, sound, and video!
Running a small computer repair shop at the time, I found the MB-571 to be an incredible value - they were reasonably fast, very cheap, and very reliable. I sold a crapload to upgrade old '386 and '486 systems to near P-II performance on the cheap.
"Oh, but MB with all that stuff will never replace fixed function parts! Not for 'mainstream' stuff, anyway..."
But the reality is that boards like these are not only out there still, but damn cheap. The horrid, 2-channel, 4 voice sound has been replaced with something I never find for lacking. The NIC on board is 100 Mb or 1000 Mb, the video is a mid-range chipset.
How does a sound card on the MB result in "crippled integration"?
I happen to have an HP 30 GB disk here. I would guess that higher capacity drives would be similar (most of the power use is spinning the disk and moving the heads back and forth)
It's a 7200 RPM drive. It's rated at 300 mA of 5V current, and 500mA of 12 V current. Volts * Amps = Watts.
A little math. A milliAmp is 1/1000 of an amp. So, we have.3*5 +.5*12 = 7.5 watts. 45 watts for 6 drives.
That's less than I'd thought it would be... did I miss anything?
It's late, so I'm pretty sure this will get lost in the din, but....
I was at a computer repair shop, and I noticed that all the counters were covered with cheap, commercial-grade carpet. It was a dry day, and I shocked myself several times just moving about.
So, I asked the guy (the owner) at the shop about this, and problems with ESD (Electro-Static Discharge) with the carpeted counter tops.
He laughed. On the counter was a high-dollar memory tester. He grabbed a then-expensive 4 MB 30 Pin SIMM and, holding it in one hand, walked around the room, dragging his feet. He did this until (No kidding) his own hair was beginning to stick up.
Then, holding one end of the SIMM, he walked over to a doorknob, and threw a 1", bright blue spark directly thru the simm to the doorknob.
He then calmly walked over to the memory tester, and ran tests on it. It ran for 5 minutes with a hitch.
I don't worry much about ESD, and haven't for years, with no trouble. The problems I have are with stressing the parts - putting undue stress on a MB when inserting a RAM stick, for example.
More to the point. Sometimes great hackers make the worst employees. They are hard to get along with, arrogant, and throw tantrums.
I've noticed that the people who are hardest to get along with are the ones most insecure about themselves. In my experience, people who are moody, arrogant, and throw tantrums generally produce the worst quality code. They are simply reacting on the truth that they are, in some fashion, aware of: they are really incompetent.
A true hacker is confident of his/her skills, and doesn't feel the need to prove his/her value by throwing tantrums. A true hacker really should be one of the higher-ups, and should hire coders for the mundane stuff.
"Why did my window go away?" X11 Window connection closed on SEGABRT "Why did it seg?" Deferencing invalid pointer 0x0 "Why was it invalid?" Pointer was assigned as return value of OpenForWrite function call "Why did the function return 0x0?" Drive D: does not exist
Actually, I've developed something not too different than this.
In my larger PHP projects, I use an error handler script that logs the sequence of errors in a memory array, allowing me to view the contents easily. The output looks something like this:
Error: Unable to save client information save_client.php:0 Error: Unable to execute save query client_class.php:0 Error: Statement 'Insert into client (name, address) values ('bobby', mc'gee)' could not be executed. pb_abs.php:0 Error: pgsql: Parse error near character 56 "mc'gee" in "Insert into client (name, address) values ('bobby', mc'gee)" pg_abs.php:227
Here, you can see the error output by a number of functions. At the top, the application layer, then the client handler class, then the database abstraction layer, and finally, the error thrown by the database itself.
(This error can only happen when I use a direct call to the database, something I'd rarely do)
If I were to hit this error in my browser on the development server, output like the above would be displayed at the top of the page before any output, making debugging very easy. A user on the production site would only see the last error, displayed in a tasteful way, which gives away nothing valuable.
I've developed this in the past 6 months or so... talk about making life easier!
You read that right. I wrote an email/website harvester. Once. In PHP on PostgreSQL, just to see what it would take. It took me about 6 hours, including the expressions and a bit of performance tuning.
It wasn't very well tuned at all, but when run, it found about 1,000 email addresses every hour on a PII-400, after filtering out the bogus addresses.
It would get caught in a harvester trap every now and then - which was easily overcome - it would only look thru 100 pages in a particular domain. There's plenty more.
I never did anything with it. Once I'd proven the concept to myself, I deleted the database.
This is just a consequence of the "frictionless" digital world - information is transmitted, collected, and manipulated easily, including information you might not consider to be "public".
As Scott McNealy once said: "Privacy is dead. Get over it!".
The software industry is maturing. It's also broadening. There are zillions of little niche markets well served by a bright high-level language programmer who's willing to listen.
(Hint: I'm one of those listening programmers - I'd like to think I'm bright)
Don't look at software in terms of "an industry" or as "a product". Look at it as a means to solve problems, and then work out terms where by solving problems, you get paid.
Software isn't the point anymore. The solution to the problem is the point. Look at IBM and their services department. They don't care about the software - why else would they deprecate their zillions of dollars invested in AIX and go with free Linux?
They sell services, and software is just the means. Why not use a community supported, free product?
In an immature market, having the product matters. Specs like N Mhz and M superBytes are important. In a mature market, the solution to X problem matters. Who gives a rat's ass about Mhz or superBytes?
So quit with the "software is manufactured" model of the 1980s and get on with the "software is a means to solve a problem" model of the 21st century! There's plenty of money to be made, you just have to tilt your head 45 degrees and look for the problems waiting to be solved!
Someone wake me when Apache 2.0 support stabilizes for production use. Yes, that includes the database drivers and other support libraries. It's been two years since Apache 2.0 went stable. I mean c'mon.
I figured that since Apache2.0 was an RPM on Fedora Core 1 that it was "stable". Boy, was that a mistake. I very quickly ran into a strange memory problem, where a php value passed via the httpd.conf would get passed randomly to other sites as well.
Caused no end of grief, until I rpm -e the apache binaries and compiled from 1.3.x sources...
Python has mature GTK/GNOME bindings and a much more developer-friendly syntax than PHP. Not to mention, it takes virtually no time to learn the language.
Why not use the right tool for the job?
I did - using PHP-GTK. I have a rather large, distributed, server-based application. The client programs are written in PHP-GTK, and periodically sync up with the server. Everything is in PHP, so getting the clients and servers to communicate was not only easy, they use the exact same functions and API to communicate.
This makes many types of compatability problems simply vanish. The project has grown and progressed smoothly and easily.
A "Garbage collector" is simply irrelevant to PHP. Memory management is taken care of for you. Oh, and the PHP online docs are second to none, and the language is clean, simple, and well laid out. Rather than spend any more time doing pointless research, I'd suggest you download it, compile it, and give it a whirl.
You have proven yourself to be a man of n... A very nice letter. Well written, simple, doesn't sound fanatical.
But, did you send it, on honest-to-god paper, with a real signature at the bottom, your home address, phone number, etc (to show you as a constituent) included?
An "Open Letter" on slashdot has the visibility (to Mr. Hatch) of a black hole on the other side of a nebula.
In other words, none at all. If you sent this, my hat goes off to you. If not, quit wasting time!
The basic problem with RSS is that it's a "pull" method - RSS clients have to make periodic requests "just to see". Also, there's no effective way to mirror content.
That's just plain retarded.
What they *should* do...
1) Content should be pushed from the source, so only *necessary* traffic is generated. It should be encrypted with a certificate so that clients can be sure they're getting content from the "right" server.
2) Any RSS client should also be able to act as a server, NTP style. Because of the certificate used in #1, this could be done easily while still ensuring that the content came from the "real" source.
3) Subscription to the RSS feed could be done on a "hand-off" basis. In other words, a client makes a request to be added to the update pool on the root RSS server. It either accepts the request, or redirects the client to one its already set up clients. Whereupon the process starts all over again. The client requests subscription to the service, and the request is either accepted or deferred. Wash, rinse, repeat until the subscription is accepted.
The result of this would be a system that could scale to just about any size, easily.
Anybody want to write it? (Unfortunately, my time is TAPPED!)
There's a sort of evolution here, at work. And, it appears that the GPL is winning out over BSD-style "free".
BSD's free resulted in Sun, IBM, HP, Compaq, DEC, and who knows what else distributing their own tweaked, incompatible version of Unix.
We all know where that went - *nix just about got swallowed up by Microsoft. Had MS actually produced a quality piece of software, we may well not be talknig about *nix at all.
Freedom is not absolute. It's a balance. If you are free to do whatever you want, then I'm not free, because you are free to kill me without reproach.
The BSD license is "more free" than the GPL, because the GPL has hooks in it that enforce what freedom is granted to you.
But, in the end, the BSD style "free" resulted in closed codebases that almost killed the Unix marketplace altogether.
The GPL attempts to put in some laws to prevent you from harming others with your freedoms. It's just another tweak in the balance point of freedom vs consequence.
Progress is in the eye of the beholder. Someone like me who is interested more in battery life and not getting my phone banned from certain buildings because it has a camera on it might not agree. Not to mention I like my phone to have a simple-to-navigate phonebook, which I use extensively, rather than a complex menu for games, utilities, overpriced slow Internet, settings, etc.
I hear you, brother!
I live by my cellphone, and have to be on call pretty much 24x7. So, being available by cell is very important to me.
When I bought my most recent cell phone, I asked for only two features:
A) Data cable so I could plug it into my laptop for 'net service in a pinch, and
B) Reception. Give me incredibly good reception.
I was directed to the Audiovox 9155 GPX, and I bought it. It's a bit bigger than most newer cell phones, and has a plain LCD screen, no downloadable ring tones, no video games, no camera.
It has a decent, quick addressbook, and incredible reception. Several times I've had people look at me with incredulity because I was blabbing away on a the ole' cell phone in areas that "didn't have any coverage at all".
I get reception on the lake. I climbed Mount Lassen in Northern Calif and had great reception at the top and at the base.
Here's when I realized how good I had it... my good friend Brian has a bike shop downtown. It's in a re-inforced concrete building. He uses the same cell company I do. (Verizon)
He's tried three different phones and not one of them works in his store. My phone, however, works fine, sounds fine, for both making and taking calls, anywhere in his store.
Oh, and it has above-average battery life.
Would I like a phone with a camera, PDA, ring tones, etc? Sure, but I won't give up my reception and battery life to get it.
Whatever you get, make sure you know what's important to you.
Slashdot Mirror
He's presumably (hopefully?) talking about the zone file format.
And, so what if he was? How is that "DNS"? A dns config file could be easily kept as LDAP entries, or in a SQL database, or (god forbid) hexidecimal notation.
I've written a mini-application that keeps DNS zone file information in a database, to be managed by an access-restricted web thing-a-majig, to then parse into Bind 8.x format.
The config file format is largely irrelevant. It's the protocol that matters when you are talking DNS.
1. Enjoy your job. 2. Make lots of money 3. Work within the law Choose any two.
Sad. So very sad that you actually might believe this. I have a job that pays very nicely doing work I love. Oh, and it's perfectly legal, too.
Start with what you love. Then, find a way to do it legally and profitably. Then do that!
Within ten years the DNS will have migrated to an XML format.
/. before, but this near takes the cake. DNS using XML?
I've heard some RETARDED statements on
Whatever you are smoking, I want some - 'cause it's clearly some REALLY GOOD SHIAT!
Given that:
1) DNS is a protocol, not a data format, and
2) XML is a data format, not a protocol, and
3) DNS is incredibly light and efficient, and
4) DNS has already proven that it scales well to just about any size, and
5) XML offers no particular advantage, since you could serve DVD ISOs over the DNS, and
6) moving to an "XML PROTOCOL" format would require the update of every single DNS server on the face of the earth, many of which are still running Bind 8.x, and some are still running BIND 4.X for god's sake,
I consider this to be HIGHLY UNLIKELY(tm) !!!!!
Get real. djbdns' source is 100% available for you to look at and patch to your hearts content. If you find an error, send a fix to DJB and he'll add it after review.
"Available Source" !== "Free Software".
You can't redistribute changed, patched DJBDNS. You can't fork it if you figure something requires a fundamental change in design philosophy. You cannot distribute binaries. DJB release a new version every millenium or so - so when you set up Qmail or DJBDNS, you spend a week applying patches and testing them just to get things like Qmail-ldap to work.
You'll never, ever find a pre-made RPM for DJB-DNS. Thus, things like "yum update" can cause all sorts of grief, and will certainly NEVER result in an updated QMail!
Where in ANY of this did you get the idea that just because you can download DJB sources, that it's "Open" or "Free"?
If you were SERIOUS about "Open Source", perhaps you should read a bit on what it actually means?
Linux is making a case for itself as being "NOT Unix".
I saw an ad a while back in Ccmputer Reseller News that went something like: "Do we HAVE to use UNIX for our database?"...
The implication is that "everybody knows"... UNIX==EXPENSIVE. Linus is much, much cheaper, and you can save $X,000 using Linux.
Given its history of high price, vendor lockin, and balkinization, why would anything Linux even care about "being Unix"? Linux has buzz, Unix has a buzz. Which would you prefer?
Unix is a good ancestor to Linux. Remember, GNU is NOT UNIX!
Intel is now feeling some pain. They've built a brand around having more M/Ghz - which only matter superfically.
Being a multi-function device means that a CPU does multiple functions. As with ANY multi-function device, a model of CPU will do some things better than others.
X86 chips have traditionally been processing heavy, I/O weak, since hard, on-demand processing hsa been the driver of the X86 industry. (Video games, etc)
Contrast that with the Sun Sparc line of chips, or IBM's mainframe hardware, heavily optimized for I/O throughput. The needs of a rendering farm node are not well in alignment with the needs of a high-capacity file server.
Even within being "processing" demands, there is a wide, wide range. Floating point. Integer ops. Parallel proccessing. Different, even cross-compatible chips and chip lines will behave differently, performing better at some tasks than others.
But, for years now, Intel has been busy spending millions convincing the population that you can boil performance down to a single number, M/Ghz.
The cracks are beginning to show. AMD has made a solid business with "slower" (Mhz) ships that perform better. Their own Centrino line is "slower" but performs almost as well!
Intel needs to get a clue, and develop a set of benchmarks that truly show real-world performance. AMD has done quite a good job with their "+" rating. (EG, my desktop is an Athlon 2000+)
I give it 6 months, maybe a year. It'll be hard, but even Intel isn't so stupid as to put this off too long.
Go back 5-7 years, and talk about motherboards instead of cell phones.
Then, you saw the beginnings of the integrated motherboard. PC Chips led this revolution - for $49 (wholesale) you could get a Socket 7 board with onboard IDE, FD, LPT, RS232, sound, and video!
Running a small computer repair shop at the time, I found the MB-571 to be an incredible value - they were reasonably fast, very cheap, and very reliable. I sold a crapload to upgrade old '386 and '486 systems to near P-II performance on the cheap.
"Oh, but MB with all that stuff will never replace fixed function parts! Not for 'mainstream' stuff, anyway..."
But the reality is that boards like these are not only out there still, but damn cheap. The horrid, 2-channel, 4 voice sound has been replaced with something I never find for lacking. The NIC on board is 100 Mb or 1000 Mb, the video is a mid-range chipset.
How does a sound card on the MB result in "crippled integration"?
Who would've thought that in the 24th century the communicator and the tricorder would be the same damn thing!?!?
I happen to have an HP 30 GB disk here. I would guess that higher capacity drives would be similar (most of the power use is spinning the disk and moving the heads back and forth)
.3*5 + .5*12 = 7.5 watts. 45 watts for 6 drives.
It's a 7200 RPM drive. It's rated at 300 mA of 5V current, and 500mA of 12 V current. Volts * Amps = Watts.
A little math. A milliAmp is 1/1000 of an amp. So, we have
That's less than I'd thought it would be... did I miss anything?
It's late, so I'm pretty sure this will get lost in the din, but....
I was at a computer repair shop, and I noticed that all the counters were covered with cheap, commercial-grade carpet. It was a dry day, and I shocked myself several times just moving about.
So, I asked the guy (the owner) at the shop about this, and problems with ESD (Electro-Static Discharge) with the carpeted counter tops.
He laughed. On the counter was a high-dollar memory tester. He grabbed a then-expensive 4 MB 30 Pin SIMM and, holding it in one hand, walked around the room, dragging his feet. He did this until (No kidding) his own hair was beginning to stick up.
Then, holding one end of the SIMM, he walked over to a doorknob, and threw a 1", bright blue spark directly thru the simm to the doorknob.
He then calmly walked over to the memory tester, and ran tests on it. It ran for 5 minutes with a hitch.
I don't worry much about ESD, and haven't for years, with no trouble. The problems I have are with stressing the parts - putting undue stress on a MB when inserting a RAM stick, for example.
More to the point. Sometimes great hackers make the worst employees. They are hard to get along with, arrogant, and throw tantrums.
I've noticed that the people who are hardest to get along with are the ones most insecure about themselves. In my experience, people who are moody, arrogant, and throw tantrums generally produce the worst quality code. They are simply reacting on the truth that they are, in some fashion, aware of: they are really incompetent.
A true hacker is confident of his/her skills, and doesn't feel the need to prove his/her value by throwing tantrums. A true hacker really should be one of the higher-ups, and should hire coders for the mundane stuff.
In my larger PHP projects, I use an error handler script that logs the sequence of errors in a memory array, allowing me to view the contents easily. The output looks something like this:
Error: Unable to save client information save_client.php:0
Error: Unable to execute save query client_class.php:0
Error: Statement 'Insert into client (name, address) values ('bobby', mc'gee)' could not be executed. pb_abs.php:0
Error: pgsql: Parse error near character 56 "mc'gee" in "Insert into client (name, address) values ('bobby', mc'gee)" pg_abs.php:227
Here, you can see the error output by a number of functions. At the top, the application layer, then the client handler class, then the database abstraction layer, and finally, the error thrown by the database itself.
(This error can only happen when I use a direct call to the database, something I'd rarely do)
If I were to hit this error in my browser on the development server, output like the above would be displayed at the top of the page before any output, making debugging very easy. A user on the production site would only see the last error, displayed in a tasteful way, which gives away nothing valuable.
I've developed this in the past 6 months or so... talk about making life easier!
You read that right. I wrote an email/website harvester. Once. In PHP on PostgreSQL, just to see what it would take. It took me about 6 hours, including the expressions and a bit of performance tuning.
It wasn't very well tuned at all, but when run, it found about 1,000 email addresses every hour on a PII-400, after filtering out the bogus addresses.
It would get caught in a harvester trap every now and then - which was easily overcome - it would only look thru 100 pages in a particular domain. There's plenty more.
I never did anything with it. Once I'd proven the concept to myself, I deleted the database.
This is just a consequence of the "frictionless" digital world - information is transmitted, collected, and manipulated easily, including information you might not consider to be "public".
As Scott McNealy once said: "Privacy is dead. Get over it!".
The software industry is maturing. It's also broadening. There are zillions of little niche markets well served by a bright high-level language programmer who's willing to listen.
(Hint: I'm one of those listening programmers - I'd like to think I'm bright)
Don't look at software in terms of "an industry" or as "a product". Look at it as a means to solve problems, and then work out terms where by solving problems, you get paid.
Software isn't the point anymore. The solution to the problem is the point. Look at IBM and their services department. They don't care about the software - why else would they deprecate their zillions of dollars invested in AIX and go with free Linux?
They sell services, and software is just the means. Why not use a community supported, free product?
In an immature market, having the product matters. Specs like N Mhz and M superBytes are important. In a mature market, the solution to X problem matters. Who gives a rat's ass about Mhz or superBytes?
So quit with the "software is manufactured" model of the 1980s and get on with the "software is a means to solve a problem" model of the 21st century! There's plenty of money to be made, you just have to tilt your head 45 degrees and look for the problems waiting to be solved!
Someone wake me when Apache 2.0 support stabilizes for production use. Yes, that includes the database drivers and other support libraries. It's been two years since Apache 2.0 went stable. I mean c'mon.
I figured that since Apache2.0 was an RPM on Fedora Core 1 that it was "stable". Boy, was that a mistake. I very quickly ran into a strange memory problem, where a php value passed via the httpd.conf would get passed randomly to other sites as well.
Caused no end of grief, until I rpm -e the apache binaries and compiled from 1.3.x sources...
I'll be moving slowly on this "upgrade"...
Python has mature GTK/GNOME bindings and a much more developer-friendly syntax than PHP. Not to mention, it takes virtually no time to learn the language.
Why not use the right tool for the job?
I did - using PHP-GTK. I have a rather large, distributed, server-based application. The client programs are written in PHP-GTK, and periodically sync up with the server. Everything is in PHP, so getting the clients and servers to communicate was not only easy, they use the exact same functions and API to communicate.
This makes many types of compatability problems simply vanish. The project has grown and progressed smoothly and easily.
A "Garbage collector" is simply irrelevant to PHP. Memory management is taken care of for you. Oh, and the PHP online docs are second to none, and the language is clean, simple, and well laid out. Rather than spend any more time doing pointless research, I'd suggest you download it, compile it, and give it a whirl.
I did, and I'm not looking back!
Mr. Hatch,
... A very nice letter. Well written, simple, doesn't sound fanatical.
You have proven yourself to be a man of n
But, did you send it, on honest-to-god paper, with a real signature at the bottom, your home address, phone number, etc (to show you as a constituent) included?
An "Open Letter" on slashdot has the visibility (to Mr. Hatch) of a black hole on the other side of a nebula.
In other words, none at all. If you sent this, my hat goes off to you. If not, quit wasting time!
It's amazingly easy. There's a little wizard here you can use to set up your DNS.
I did this for my domains in about 5 minutes.
Windows XP is only free if your time is worth nothing.
Does that include jail time?
You can't buy the machine with no OS, so you choose Linux (which is cheaper than Windows) and then just install your warezed copy of XP over the top.
I would have, but I couldn't. I just bought an Inspiron 600m. My choices were: XP Home, XP Professional, and no laptop.
So, I set it up with Fedora Core 1 as a dual-boot. It spends probably 98% of its life running Linux, KDE in dual-head mode. (Nice. Very, very nice!)
If I could have purchased the system w/o Windows to save a few bux, I would have - in a heartbeat - but that option just wasn't available to me.
Everybody knows some radios have great reception, and others won't pick up the broadcast from the radio tower looming overhead without a 6' antenna.
Why don't reviewers also measure reception?
I've seen plenty of feature-laden phones, but refuse to upgrade until I can verify it has reception comparable to my Audiovox 9155.
(Yes, that's my review at the bottom)
As I said, Photos are nice, and video games are fun, but when push comes to shove, a cell phone without reception is a paperweight.
How do these feature-laden PDA things measure up in reception? Which one has the best?
But in the end, SCO's 2nd biggest mistake was fucking with the auto industry. They have great lawyers and know how to use them.......
As opposed to the incompetent, understaffed legal team at IBM?
(/chuckles inwardly)
The basic problem with RSS is that it's a "pull" method - RSS clients have to make periodic requests "just to see". Also, there's no effective way to mirror content.
That's just plain retarded.
What they *should* do...
1) Content should be pushed from the source, so only *necessary* traffic is generated. It should be encrypted with a certificate so that clients can be sure they're getting content from the "right" server.
2) Any RSS client should also be able to act as a server, NTP style. Because of the certificate used in #1, this could be done easily while still ensuring that the content came from the "real" source.
3) Subscription to the RSS feed could be done on a "hand-off" basis. In other words, a client makes a request to be added to the update pool on the root RSS server. It either accepts the request, or redirects the client to one its already set up clients. Whereupon the process starts all over again. The client requests subscription to the service, and the request is either accepted or deferred. Wash, rinse, repeat until the subscription is accepted.
The result of this would be a system that could scale to just about any size, easily.
Anybody want to write it? (Unfortunately, my time is TAPPED!)
There's a sort of evolution here, at work. And, it appears that the GPL is winning out over BSD-style "free".
BSD's free resulted in Sun, IBM, HP, Compaq, DEC, and who knows what else distributing their own tweaked, incompatible version of Unix.
We all know where that went - *nix just about got swallowed up by Microsoft. Had MS actually produced a quality piece of software, we may well not be talknig about *nix at all.
Freedom is not absolute. It's a balance. If you are free to do whatever you want, then I'm not free, because you are free to kill me without reproach.
The BSD license is "more free" than the GPL, because the GPL has hooks in it that enforce what freedom is granted to you.
But, in the end, the BSD style "free" resulted in closed codebases that almost killed the Unix marketplace altogether.
The GPL attempts to put in some laws to prevent you from harming others with your freedoms. It's just another tweak in the balance point of freedom vs consequence.
Progress is in the eye of the beholder. Someone like me who is interested more in battery life and not getting my phone banned from certain buildings because it has a camera on it might not agree. Not to mention I like my phone to have a simple-to-navigate phonebook, which I use extensively, rather than a complex menu for games, utilities, overpriced slow Internet, settings, etc.
I hear you, brother!
I live by my cellphone, and have to be on call pretty much 24x7. So, being available by cell is very important to me.
When I bought my most recent cell phone, I asked for only two features:
A) Data cable so I could plug it into my laptop for 'net service in a pinch, and
B) Reception. Give me incredibly good reception.
I was directed to the Audiovox 9155 GPX, and I bought it. It's a bit bigger than most newer cell phones, and has a plain LCD screen, no downloadable ring tones, no video games, no camera.
It has a decent, quick addressbook, and incredible reception. Several times I've had people look at me with incredulity because I was blabbing away on a the ole' cell phone in areas that "didn't have any coverage at all".
I get reception on the lake. I climbed Mount Lassen in Northern Calif and had great reception at the top and at the base.
Here's when I realized how good I had it... my good friend Brian has a bike shop downtown. It's in a re-inforced concrete building. He uses the same cell company I do. (Verizon)
He's tried three different phones and not one of them works in his store. My phone, however, works fine, sounds fine, for both making and taking calls, anywhere in his store.
Oh, and it has above-average battery life.
Would I like a phone with a camera, PDA, ring tones, etc? Sure, but I won't give up my reception and battery life to get it.
Whatever you get, make sure you know what's important to you.