That's not entirely true. In addition to their reference texts, Janes Information Group publishes the "Jane's Defence Weekly". They also publish interviews: at the time of this posting, they have one up with Shamil Basayev, one of the Chechen rebels' military leaders. It's special-purpose, to be sure, but it's definitely news.
I tried to give Cringely an even break here, but I just couldn't buy what he was saying here: too many contradictions. First, consider what he has to say about bad news being a better sell than good news:
The first says that people aren't really interested in good news, that bad news grabs our attention in a way good news never could. Frankly, I don't buy this. The second principle says we blame it all on the Associated Press. THIS I believe. (from paragraph 1)
The AP's other invention was sensation, and it came about for exactly the same reason. It was easier to sell stories about bad news than about good news. The more people who died or who were at risk of dying, the better. Bad news sells, which is why we cover so much bad news. (from paragraph 3)
So which is it, Cringely? I'm making the assumption that which news sells is a fair indication of interest, but I don't really think that's much of a stretch. Cringely seems to be more interested in accusing the AP than in addressing the fundamental root of the problem (bad news sells), which he alternates between denying and admitting within the space of three paragraphs.
Later, he criticizes the Sunday Times for printing an incorrect article on code-cracking:
The greater concern has to be with the Sunday Times, itself. How could they print this rubbish, which made little scientific sense? Alas, the traditional media have neither caught on nor caught up to what is happening in technology. (from paragraph 9)
...and then, criticizes Jane's for soliciting comments on its cyber-terrorism article
This is an interesting idea but ultimately flawed, I think. The only way to write the news is to write the news. You have to do it the best that you can then take the heat, because the censorship of the nerderati is still censorship. That's why newspapers make corrections. (from paragraph 10)
If I'm a magazine editor, and I receive a story submission which contains obvious factual errors, am I censoring the author by spiking the story? That's an editor's job, for god's sake. I don't accept the argument that it's better to let a poorly written article run and then apologize for it than to can it outright.
With that said, other/. readers have already pointed out that Cringely doesn't explain how asking for our opinion of the article is any different than other fact checking that the original author should have done. He merely asserts that we censored the article. This brings to mind the following question: if instead, it had been Cringely who previewed the original article (heavens forfend), and if he had panned it, and if Jane's had dropped the story: would Cringely be the one guilty of censorship?
My theory: Cringely has attacked in this column the concepts of journalistic objectivity, editorial judgement, and fact verification by third parties. Is it possible that he's afraid that if every artcile went through a review process like the Jane's CT article, he'd have nothing to gripe about?
Okay, my familiarity with asynchronous transfer mode leaves something to be desired. However, this much I'm reasonably sure of:
Any device on an ATM network is uniquely identified by a 20 byte address called an NSAP (for Network Service Access Point). The NSAP is established during a process called ILMI (Interim Local Management Interface), during which the station contacts the nearest switch. It's a little like DHCP: the end station says, "Hey, what's the prefix for my switch," and once it gets it, it tacks on its own ID to the end. That becomes the full NSAP address for the end station.
And, if I'm reading this article correctly, it's very similar to the way in which IPv6 assigns IP addresses. Which leads me to wonder why the author isn't raising a hue and cry about ATM, which has been with us for a few years now. The only thing I can conclude is that the author was more interested in raising some hell than in doing accurate reporting.
In addition to those already mentioned, I highly recommend "Essential System Administration." I don't know a [Li|U]nix admin who doesn't have a copy of this on his bookshelf.
Written by Aeleen Frisch, published by (you guessed it) O'Reilly and Associates.
Will the K8 have a chance in this arena?
on
K8 Details
·
· Score: 2
I'm taking it as something of a given that AMD hasn't really gotten a decent break on the Athlon. CNET's article points out that despite the fact that the Athlon chips have regluarly beaten the pants off Pentium IIIs, but they haven't been able to make a comperable dent in the market, largely due to their inability to procure parts. Hardly anyone is making Athlon mobos, which is a damn shame.
That being the case, what are the chances for the K8? They'll be intended for a much more limited market than the Athlons to begin with. I can't see a mobo manufacturer nervous about ponying up resouces to make Athlon stuff being sold on the K8. Throw in the tendency of corporate users to by the safest solution, and AMD may be screwed.
I really hope we're not in for yet another round of the "superior tech can't get an even break" game.
I agree whole-heartedly. My faculty advisor where I go to college is a frequent contributor to ACM publications. Accusing him of being a Microsoft mouthpiece would be about as ridiculous as making that accusation of Richard Stallman.
The electrical impulses that run throughout the brain are the result of highly complex chemical reactions. Overclocking a computer is, in a very real sense, like trying to run 100 pounds-per-inch of water through a pipe only rated for 90: it might work, but don't blame the manufacturer if you bust the thing.
Brains, on the other hand, are parts of bodies, which produce their own electricity (synthesized from nutrients and oxygen). Just adding more electricity to the mix would cause seizures, the possible disruption of autonomic processes (like your heartbeat), et cetera.
And, if you do it enough, you'll explode. But anyone who watched Max Headroom knows that.;)
Please don't take quotes out of context. I'm including a little more of the original post for comparison:
Instead, Forbes [magazine] has taken the easy way out: slam AntiOnline by insisting that Vranesevich has insufficient "street cred" and that he's litigious. No doubt Forbes would shy away from the same argument, applied to themselves: since Steve Forbes is a trust-funded, socially conservative wingnut, Forbes Magazine is obviously a rag.
The author was suggesting that trying to discredit a publication by making personal attacks on the author is inappropriate. The "wingnut" example was used to underscore the hypocracy of that position.
Of course, I happen to believe that Steve Forbes' politics are based on a sick cult of personality that follows extremely wealthy people around in a nation which values free market economics above all else. But those are just political views, and they aren't relevant to the issue of the quality of his magazine. Which was exactly Twit's point.
Respectfully (and without in any way addressing the content of your post), I submit to you that you're taking the moderation of your post a little personally. All the example you cite says is that one person with moderator access who read your post thought it was interesting: another thought that was overrating it. This is a far cry from "ruthlessly suppressing any religious message they don't agree with."
Of course, I can't comment on the opinion of the moderator who knocked your post down a rung. It wasn't me.
But hey, if you really believe in freedom of expression, then smile. After all, all the moderators are doing is expressing themselves by rating your (and my, and whomever else's) posts. If you don't care what they think, the answer is as simple as setting your threshold to -1.
...except that Microsoft just purchased Visio. Oops. MS was, at one point, trying to push their own image editing software (free with your purchase of FrontPage!), but it was so annoying to use that it never took off.
Doh... okay. Wrong amendment. Bonehead move on my part. However, I disagree strongly with the following assertion:
1: But, only muskets existed when that was written. They never knew that people would have machine guns(tm) and deadly-high-powered-assault-rifles(tm). By that logic, only books and newspapers would be protected by the First Amendment. Movies, TV, Radio and your beloved Internet would all be subject to regulation by the federal government.
And, by your logic, just because technology has brought weapons to mythical levels of destructive power, all "arms" should be covered equally under the Second Amendment. Does that mean that we should all have access to armor piercing rounds? Grenades? Anti-tank weaponry? Biological and chemical agents? Tactical nuclear devices?
At the risk of sounding heretical: if the authors of the Bill of Rights could have forseen today's weapons, and had said, "We think everyone should have access to nerve gas," (or whatever), screw them. We need better governance than that.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think the framers threw in that line about the "well regulated Militia?" Somehow, I can't see any of them saying, "Okay, now let's make sure that people can carry guns. While we're at it, we'll just idly throw in that a well regulated militia is a good thing."
The presence of the first half of the amendment isn't due to chattiness on the parts of the authors, or idle observation: it was to justify their reasoning.
In any case, while the Bill of Rights is arguably the most important legal document ever put to paper, it is still a document written by mortal men. It's not the word of God from on high: it's a statement of values by which the authors hoped to cast a fair and just federal government. It is as open to interpretation - and criticism - as any other document written by homo sapiens.
PHP is a terriffic system, but with the release of version 4 so close, I can't see putting tons of effort into getting stuff running in PHP3. This isn't really because of compatibility issues - PHP3 code should work near seamlessly with PHP4 - but the newest version will introduce state/session management directly into the language. Right now, you have to rely on other people's session managment classes to do that - there are some great ones out there, but it isn't really worth figuring them out now if they're going to be supported in the language soon anyway.
That said, I use PHP almost exclusively for web scripting these days. It has a steeper learning curve than CF, but it's also infinitely more flexable.
Moore's law does not apply uniquely to Intel processors. Moore happened to be an Intel co-founder, but his observation was intended to apply equally across all vendors. I refer you to Moore's 1997 comments on Moore's law.
You are, however, correct in that Moore's law is a predictor of transistor density. Some tech writer who felt the need to oversimplify must have been responsible for the transitor desnity=power thing.
As for the transistor density of the chip (and the conductive properties of the silicon at small densitites), that's secondary compared to the "how do we keep all these transitors from frying each other" problem. Heat gets to be a real issue.
...is that they pretty much contradict themselves. On the one hand, they have Dvorak saying that the only really useful place for Linux is on the super low-end.
Elsewhere in the magazine, there's what appears to be a crude attempt at a competitive review for Linux OEMs (they offer no Editor's choice here, and I thought the criteria were sketchy). In their review, they claim that if you're going to use Linux as a server, you're going to need "some serious hardware," or words to that effect.
How a magazine can publish two diametrically opposed views, and yet manage to be so incredibly wrong on both of them, is beyond me. This is the main reason I won't be renewing my subscription.
And then he talks about how it doesn't make sense to be religious about Free Software / Open Source when it's your business that counts, but the first thing you hear after that is how users got screwed because the product in question wasn't Open Source!
I'm not sure that's a fair interpretation of Udell's point. Certainly he makes the point that it's a bad idea to code exclusively for one DB, but that falls under the "putting all your eggs in the same basket" brand of conventional wisdom. The sentiment you seem to be picking up on - "Commercial software should be treated with some suspicion" - was voiced by one of the newsgroup contributors, and not by Udell, who seems much more amenable to closed source DBs.
OTOH, the police who "set him up" should also be convicted (soliciting a felony, or some such, I forget the exact term). It's probably a lesser offense, but it still appears to be a criminal act.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor do I wish to be.)
The law enforcement agents' actions are not likely to be criminal, at least by US standards. In the criminal sense, solicitation implies an intent to engage in an illegal transaction: in this case, statutory rape. We can safely say that the FBI didn't actually intend to have sex with Naughton, so they can use that argument much more convincingly than Trixie from 12th and Vine streets can.
The exception here is in the case of entrapment, where law enforcement essentially forces a "suspect" into performing an illegal action. This doesn't appear to be such a case.
Actually, it is, in some circumstances. It's called "criminal incompetence," but I don't know if there's any legal precedent in the computing industry. Anyone?
One of the fascinating things about contract law is that sometimes, the courts decide that a clause in the contract is unreasonable and will refuse to enforce it (or, will order one of the parties involved to disregard it). With that said, I should add that I know almost nothing about contract law.
Still, this sounds like it's on shaky ground. Obviously, it's a revolting contract provision whether it stands up in court or not, but it goes to such basic questions of free speech (shouldn't a group be able to use its own name to voice its opinions?) that I can't believe it would withold a serious court challenge.
In any case, I hope that artists (and buyers - this means you!) will see this as the flagrant attack on artist's rights that it is and boycott the label.
I'm looking at the Windows NT pricing information now: the Enterprise edition, full product with 25 client licenses, is about $4k. That's a lot of scratch. (Can't find pricing on additional licenses). So, I may be wrong here.
However: given that any deployment of SAP is a huge undertaking (what, with business processes that have to be reconsidered, consultants that have to be hired)... I'm going to stick with my hunch. Given all the ancillary costs involved, the OS is probably still a drop in the bucket.
Maybe. I still think it's pushing it, though. one of the chief barriers to entry for companies interested in SAP is the sheer cost involved (not to mention all the re-tooling of business processes), but changing the underlying OS of the system to Linux just wouldn't represent enough of a cost savings to make it a real factor.
In the enterprise computing market (especially for tasks like SAP deployment), Linux will have to win almost solely on technical merit.
But this brings up an interesting thought. If it's illegal to include a hyperlink to (hypothetically) http://joes_music.com/like_a_virgin.mp3, then can you get around this problem by printing the URL as plain text?
I'd have to say no.
The reason I don't think the argument would hold up is that no prosecutor would argue that this was a matter of citation: it's transmission of stolen goods. In the eyes of the law, this may be tantamount to telling all your friends about a good place to buy stolen merchandise. By doing so, you become a part of the distribution channel, and suddenly you're staring at an "aiding and abetting" charge.
I'm kinda repeating myself, though. I argued this better here.
affirmative defense. We're getting close to that, as some courts finally realize that a hyperlink has no essential difference from the bibliography section of a book and is entitled to the same legal protection.
I'm not disagreeing with you, however: I think that what the plaintiffs will argue is that this shouldn't be afforded the same legal status as a simple citation. Without having read the text of the lawsuit, or actually seeing the page in question, I can pretty easily think up an almost convincing argument. It might read something like this:
...the defendant created a resource for those with an interest in obtaining illegally recorded MP3's, themselves stolen goods, by pointing them to specific sites where they were stored. The links were provided not for reference purposes, but strictly for the purpose of aiding and abetting in the distribution of stolen property.
(end hypothetical excerpt)
Kinda scary. I can almost convince myself with an argument like that.
I'm wondering what kind of problems smaller e-commerce sites are going to have in setting up this kind of tax. A lot of small businesses hire contractors (who don't always know what they're doing, and may not always be around in a few months) to implement new taxes into their apps. Are small businesses going to have a grace period in order to bring their sites into compliance with new regulations?
Slashdot Mirror
That's not entirely true. In addition to their reference texts, Janes Information Group publishes the "Jane's Defence Weekly". They also publish interviews: at the time of this posting, they have one up with Shamil Basayev, one of the Chechen rebels' military leaders. It's special-purpose, to be sure, but it's definitely news.
So which is it, Cringely? I'm making the assumption that which news sells is a fair indication of interest, but I don't really think that's much of a stretch. Cringely seems to be more interested in accusing the AP than in addressing the fundamental root of the problem (bad news sells), which he alternates between denying and admitting within the space of three paragraphs.
Later, he criticizes the Sunday Times for printing an incorrect article on code-cracking:
...and then, criticizes Jane's for soliciting comments on its cyber-terrorism article
If I'm a magazine editor, and I receive a story submission which contains obvious factual errors, am I censoring the author by spiking the story? That's an editor's job, for god's sake. I don't accept the argument that it's better to let a poorly written article run and then apologize for it than to can it outright.
With that said, other /. readers have already pointed out that Cringely doesn't explain how asking for our opinion of the article is any different than other fact checking that the original author should have done. He merely asserts that we censored the article. This brings to mind the following question: if instead, it had been Cringely who previewed the original article (heavens forfend), and if he had panned it, and if Jane's had dropped the story: would Cringely be the one guilty of censorship?
My theory: Cringely has attacked in this column the concepts of journalistic objectivity, editorial judgement, and fact verification by third parties. Is it possible that he's afraid that if every artcile went through a review process like the Jane's CT article, he'd have nothing to gripe about?
Okay, my familiarity with asynchronous transfer mode leaves something to be desired. However, this much I'm reasonably sure of:
Any device on an ATM network is uniquely identified by a 20 byte address called an NSAP (for Network Service Access Point). The NSAP is established during a process called ILMI (Interim Local Management Interface), during which the station contacts the nearest switch. It's a little like DHCP: the end station says, "Hey, what's the prefix for my switch," and once it gets it, it tacks on its own ID to the end. That becomes the full NSAP address for the end station.
And, if I'm reading this article correctly, it's very similar to the way in which IPv6 assigns IP addresses. Which leads me to wonder why the author isn't raising a hue and cry about ATM, which has been with us for a few years now. The only thing I can conclude is that the author was more interested in raising some hell than in doing accurate reporting.
I just tried using their system configurator to put together a sub-$2K machine, but I wasn't able to drop the price below $2.5.
To /. their serv... um, check the prices for yourself, go here.
In addition to those already mentioned, I highly recommend "Essential System Administration." I don't know a [Li|U]nix admin who doesn't have a copy of this on his bookshelf.
Written by Aeleen Frisch, published by (you guessed it) O'Reilly and Associates.
I'm taking it as something of a given that AMD hasn't really gotten a decent break on the Athlon. CNET's article points out that despite the fact that the Athlon chips have regluarly beaten the pants off Pentium IIIs, but they haven't been able to make a comperable dent in the market, largely due to their inability to procure parts. Hardly anyone is making Athlon mobos, which is a damn shame.
That being the case, what are the chances for the K8? They'll be intended for a much more limited market than the Athlons to begin with. I can't see a mobo manufacturer nervous about ponying up resouces to make Athlon stuff being sold on the K8. Throw in the tendency of corporate users to by the safest solution, and AMD may be screwed.
I really hope we're not in for yet another round of the "superior tech can't get an even break" game.
I agree whole-heartedly. My faculty advisor where I go to college is a frequent contributor to ACM publications. Accusing him of being a Microsoft mouthpiece would be about as ridiculous as making that accusation of Richard Stallman.
You'd likely die.
;)
The electrical impulses that run throughout the brain are the result of highly complex chemical reactions. Overclocking a computer is, in a very real sense, like trying to run 100 pounds-per-inch of water through a pipe only rated for 90: it might work, but don't blame the manufacturer if you bust the thing.
Brains, on the other hand, are parts of bodies, which produce their own electricity (synthesized from nutrients and oxygen). Just adding more electricity to the mix would cause seizures, the possible disruption of autonomic processes (like your heartbeat), et cetera.
And, if you do it enough, you'll explode. But anyone who watched Max Headroom knows that.
The author was suggesting that trying to discredit a publication by making personal attacks on the author is inappropriate. The "wingnut" example was used to underscore the hypocracy of that position.
Of course, I happen to believe that Steve Forbes' politics are based on a sick cult of personality that follows extremely wealthy people around in a nation which values free market economics above all else. But those are just political views, and they aren't relevant to the issue of the quality of his magazine. Which was exactly Twit's point.
Respectfully (and without in any way addressing the content of your post), I submit to you that you're taking the moderation of your post a little personally. All the example you cite says is that one person with moderator access who read your post thought it was interesting: another thought that was overrating it. This is a far cry from "ruthlessly suppressing any religious message they don't agree with."
Of course, I can't comment on the opinion of the moderator who knocked your post down a rung. It wasn't me.
But hey, if you really believe in freedom of expression, then smile. After all, all the moderators are doing is expressing themselves by rating your (and my, and whomever else's) posts. If you don't care what they think, the answer is as simple as setting your threshold to -1.
...except that Microsoft just purchased Visio. Oops.
MS was, at one point, trying to push their own image editing software (free with your purchase of FrontPage!), but it was so annoying to use that it never took off.
And, by your logic, just because technology has brought weapons to mythical levels of destructive power, all "arms" should be covered equally under the Second Amendment. Does that mean that we should all have access to armor piercing rounds? Grenades? Anti-tank weaponry? Biological and chemical agents? Tactical nuclear devices?
At the risk of sounding heretical: if the authors of the Bill of Rights could have forseen today's weapons, and had said, "We think everyone should have access to nerve gas," (or whatever), screw them. We need better governance than that.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think the framers threw in that line about the "well regulated Militia?" Somehow, I can't see any of them saying, "Okay, now let's make sure that people can carry guns. While we're at it, we'll just idly throw in that a well regulated militia is a good thing."
The presence of the first half of the amendment isn't due to chattiness on the parts of the authors, or idle observation: it was to justify their reasoning.
In any case, while the Bill of Rights is arguably the most important legal document ever put to paper, it is still a document written by mortal men. It's not the word of God from on high: it's a statement of values by which the authors hoped to cast a fair and just federal government. It is as open to interpretation - and criticism - as any other document written by homo sapiens.
PHP is a terriffic system, but with the release of version 4 so close, I can't see putting tons of effort into getting stuff running in PHP3. This isn't really because of compatibility issues - PHP3 code should work near seamlessly with PHP4 - but the newest version will introduce state/session management directly into the language. Right now, you have to rely on other people's session managment classes to do that - there are some great ones out there, but it isn't really worth figuring them out now if they're going to be supported in the language soon anyway.
That said, I use PHP almost exclusively for web scripting these days. It has a steeper learning curve than CF, but it's also infinitely more flexable.
Moore's law does not apply uniquely to Intel processors. Moore happened to be an Intel co-founder, but his observation was intended to apply equally across all vendors. I refer you to Moore's 1997 comments on Moore's law.
You are, however, correct in that Moore's law is a predictor of transistor density. Some tech writer who felt the need to oversimplify must have been responsible for the transitor desnity=power thing.
As for the transistor density of the chip (and the conductive properties of the silicon at small densitites), that's secondary compared to the "how do we keep all these transitors from frying each other" problem. Heat gets to be a real issue.
...is that they pretty much contradict themselves. On the one hand, they have Dvorak saying that the only really useful place for Linux is on the super low-end.
Elsewhere in the magazine, there's what appears to be a crude attempt at a competitive review for Linux OEMs (they offer no Editor's choice here, and I thought the criteria were sketchy). In their review, they claim that if you're going to use Linux as a server, you're going to need "some serious hardware," or words to that effect.
How a magazine can publish two diametrically opposed views, and yet manage to be so incredibly wrong on both of them, is beyond me. This is the main reason I won't be renewing my subscription.
(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, nor do I wish to be.)
The law enforcement agents' actions are not likely to be criminal, at least by US standards. In the criminal sense, solicitation implies an intent to engage in an illegal transaction: in this case, statutory rape. We can safely say that the FBI didn't actually intend to have sex with Naughton, so they can use that argument much more convincingly than Trixie from 12th and Vine streets can.
The exception here is in the case of entrapment, where law enforcement essentially forces a "suspect" into performing an illegal action. This doesn't appear to be such a case.
Actually, it is, in some circumstances. It's called "criminal incompetence," but I don't know if there's any legal precedent in the computing industry. Anyone?
One of the fascinating things about contract law is that sometimes, the courts decide that a clause in the contract is unreasonable and will refuse to enforce it (or, will order one of the parties involved to disregard it). With that said, I should add that I know almost nothing about contract law.
Still, this sounds like it's on shaky ground. Obviously, it's a revolting contract provision whether it stands up in court or not, but it goes to such basic questions of free speech (shouldn't a group be able to use its own name to voice its opinions?) that I can't believe it would withold a serious court challenge.
In any case, I hope that artists (and buyers - this means you!) will see this as the flagrant attack on artist's rights that it is and boycott the label.
No, I'm not sure. Call it a strong hunch. =)
I'm looking at the Windows NT pricing information now: the Enterprise edition, full product with 25 client licenses, is about $4k. That's a lot of scratch. (Can't find pricing on additional licenses). So, I may be wrong here.
However: given that any deployment of SAP is a huge undertaking (what, with business processes that have to be reconsidered, consultants that have to be hired)... I'm going to stick with my hunch. Given all the ancillary costs involved, the OS is probably still a drop in the bucket.
Maybe. I still think it's pushing it, though. one of the chief barriers to entry for companies interested in SAP is the sheer cost involved (not to mention all the re-tooling of business processes), but changing the underlying OS of the system to Linux just wouldn't represent enough of a cost savings to make it a real factor.
In the enterprise computing market (especially for tasks like SAP deployment), Linux will have to win almost solely on technical merit.
I'd have to say no.
The reason I don't think the argument would hold up is that no prosecutor would argue that this was a matter of citation: it's transmission of stolen goods. In the eyes of the law, this may be tantamount to telling all your friends about a good place to buy stolen merchandise. By doing so, you become a part of the distribution channel, and suddenly you're staring at an "aiding and abetting" charge.
I'm kinda repeating myself, though. I argued this better here.
I'm not disagreeing with you, however: I think that what the plaintiffs will argue is that this shouldn't be afforded the same legal status as a simple citation. Without having read the text of the lawsuit, or actually seeing the page in question, I can pretty easily think up an almost convincing argument. It might read something like this:
Kinda scary. I can almost convince myself with an argument like that.
I'm wondering what kind of problems smaller e-commerce sites are going to have in setting up this kind of tax. A lot of small businesses hire contractors (who don't always know what they're doing, and may not always be around in a few months) to implement new taxes into their apps. Are small businesses going to have a grace period in order to bring their sites into compliance with new regulations?