Possibly you were trying to be funny, but a moderator seems to think you were trying to make an important point. So I'll respond as if that's the case.
The Extensibility of XHTML refers to a modular design that allows the standards folks to add new features to the language without breaking existing web pages. It has nothing to do with ad-hoc extensions by implementers. A principle design goal of XHTML is create a consistent user experience, regardless of browser. This is supposed to correct one of the big mistakes in the original HTML specifications, which assumed that nobody would care if browsers interpreted the same content differently.
When you quibble about "extensibility" you're pointing up the very problem XHTML is supposed to correct.
It needs to be pointed out that MSN is only going through the motions of XHTML support. Not only to they violate the letter, with their noncompliant codes. They violate the spirit, by continuing to use tables as a page formatting device.
It's also irritating that MSN continues to draw pages that are exactly 800 pixels wide. But that's not MSN's fault. Even if they were anxious to make their pages resolution-independent, CSS is still mysteriously lacking in support for non-pixel measurement.
You think people write Linux distros for the user? Get real! Most distros (especially Live CDs) are just exercises in technocoolness. "Hey look! It's a complete OS on a CD! Isn't that cool?"
I'm not knocking serious distros or Live CDs, which actually do serve a useful purpose. But most do not.
Back in the 70s, when most stereos were strange expensive bulky things with an ungodly number of vacuum tubes, there were High Fidelity fanatics who could bore you silly arguing over what was the best preamplifier was. They'd mortgage their house to buy some weird component that improved their sound system in ways that was only audible to themselves. Same mentality.
Does Italy regulate all passwords (hard to believe) or just the security practices of certain kinds of companies? If the law is aimed at companies that deal in information of interest to identity thieves, the rule makes a certain amount of sense. Not as much sense as doing away with passwords altogether.
Go back to the beginning of the discussion, where I referred to Russ using the word "idiot" on his web site. Since this name calling referred to something I (and a lot of other people) do, I think my comments were pretty restrained.
He continues to contend that open source is just a development methodology whereas free software has a philosophical basis.
I rarely agree with RMS, but for once I have to admit he has a point. RMS's projects are as much about changing social and legal assumptions as they are about making software. OS people just want to make software.
From where I stand, this is a point in favor of OS people. I've never been impressed with RMS's weird little theories. But voluntary cooperation and free access to source code does actually seem to get things done. These are ideas lots people can work with, even people who think that RMS's other ideas are pseudophilisophical bullshit.
So to RMS, the OS movement is this monster that has stolen some of his ideas, while rejecting the ideas he considers most important. But to most people, Open Source is Free Software without the BS.
Well, if you see "tantrum junkie" as a compliment, it's your karma. But you might consider whether it's fair to others to put your own ego gratification ahead of the interests of the OS people you claim to represent.
I think I get what you're trying to say on the email address issue. But would it kill you to actually say it? Try having a conversation with people who disagree with you, instead of just making vague pronouncements and throwing out rude names. It's extra work, but you might learn something.
Fanatics like ESR might do good to the cause in the early stages of revolution, but in the longer run, they will always prove to be an annoyance and will be dealt with.
I see ESR not so much a fanatic as a self-righteous twit. And from what little I know of Russ Nelson, he's not much better. From his web site:
I have {no patience} for idiots who think that they can {hide from spammers} by having their email address removed from public HTML pages. Fortunately, they usually forget that Google is {publishing their "secrets"}.
I've used curlies to indicate links, one of which is broken, another points to an obsolete Google cache, and the third points to an old mailing list item that doesn't explain anything. If you're going to call thousands of people "idiots", the least you can do is attempt to justify your low evaluation.
If this kind of tantrum junkie is the best spokesperson the open source movement can find, they're really in trouble!
Nonsense. If you don't trust your hosting provider to be around in a year, you shouldn't go near them. If your site is at all important to you, you need to look for a company with a solid reputation. If it has that, then you're perfectly safe paying them a year in advance. And if it doesn't, you're wasting all the money you do give them -- there's no point in having a web site if you can't count on its availability.
You ask questions the NYT reporter should have asked, but didn't. Instead, he interviewed Spamhaus and a bunch of other anti-spam activists, who are strong on zeal but short on facts.
NYT's technology coverage has really gone downhill. All their tech-literate people have moved on, and now most of the stories are written by your typical "technology reporter" whose computer background consists of playing with a PC. They get linked on Slashdot a lot more than they deserve to be.
I'm also a (mostly) satisfied DreamHost customer. I do wish they would try harder to keep their software up to date. (They're still on Perl 5.6.1, which is not only ancient, but which has severe taint mode issues.) And they do dumb stuff like serve their knowledge base over SSL. That said, I have to commend them for a really good control panel system, responsive suport, and extremely good uptime.
The problem with rating hosting providers is that there are so many of them. There are hundreds that consist of a couple of people and a single server. They might start out giving good service, but flake out when their business grows beyond their ability to manage it.
Another problem is that many providers sell a good product -- if your needs happen to match the way they do business. I used to work for a hosting provider that did by people who liked having 24/7 phone support, edit-it-yourself zone files, and other geek friendly features. But they basically screwed over customers who needed a simple "it just works" solutions for web, email, shopping carts, etc. I had some frustating experiences trying to give decent support to this kind of customer, always wishing I could say, "Look, you really need to switch to a more newbie-friendly provider."
But seriously, does a policy like this do anything but encourace people to write down their passwords?
It does have that effect. But there's a logical reason to want passwords to be tougher and non-permanent. They're obviously reacting to recent reports of security breaches due to stolen passwords. Slashdotters will recall a recent story about identity thieves that were able to steal data for thousands of people using a single stolen password.
The problem here is not that the security people are stupid. It's just that they're trying to secure an authentication system that's obsolete and fundamentally flawed. It's past time to ditch password-based authentication. If I had to secure a big network, I'd get everybody smart cards. Essentially impossible to forge, and if they're stolen you can cancel them immediately. But the crucial detail with a physical authentication device is that when it's stolen, you know it's stolen -- not true with passwords.
Of course this is not a cheap solution. Which motivates security people to try patchwork solutions like this one, even though the "solutions" often make the problem worse.
Passwords, as evil as they are, will not go away any time soon. So I might as well mention the product that I use to generate and store passwords: RoboForm.
I can't come up with the specific figures, but I seem to recall reading that Mac hardware profit margins are actually quite low. Macs still cost more than PCs, but the difference is mostly made up by the more expensive proprietary technology that Macs use.
That being said, I don't think anybody would buy a OS X designed to run on a commodity PC. Sure, the total cost would be much lower than for a PPC Mac, but who would buy it? Not Windows and Linux people, who would have to adapt to a totally different GUI. And certainly not Mac people, who are willing to pay a little extra for a cool-looking system.
Google is an advertising company. If their results are skewed, people might start using a competitor, and they lose out on ad revenues.
You're assuming they will act logically and with foresight. With Google, that's probably a safe assumption, but it hasn't been for other search engines. Infoseek, for example, got taken over by Disney, which turned it into a the "portal" go.com, and tried to con people into going to Disney-owned sites. To be fair, they did this with web page gimmicks, not by bogus search results. But users still didn't care for it. It helped destroy the portal, though not as much as Disney's failre to invest in ongoing search engine R&D.
Why no keyboard? Because it adds weight and bulk. Every ounce and square inch detracts slightly from a portable device's usability. It's a reasonable tradeoff to have a builtin keyboard if you have to be able to back and forth from laptop to tablet mode. But I don't. And as I said before, I don't consider laptop keyboards ergonomic.
Not sure if it helps or not, but my Dell came with both.
That's interesting, I can't ever recall seeing a Dell with a pointer stick. And Dell certainly doesn't advertise this feature. The only way to tell is squint real hard at the picture...
I know that may sound a little weird, but the tablet form factor is definitely stronger for mobility.
What should that sound weird? Tablets imitate the form factor of an old-fashioned clipboard. What disappoints me is that tablets haven't caught on among those who say, "I don't use a computer because a book/clipboard/newspaper/whatever is more convenient." Probably there are deeper technophobic issues.
I wouldn't want an M-200, though, since it tries to be both a tablet and a notebook. If I go over to the tablet side, I'm going all the way.
Slashdot Mirror
You got your story wrong. UPN cancelled the show to prevent a DDOS attack.
There was a time when I liked time travel stories. Now it's the last refuge of hack writers. Too bad.
Now that I think it through, that was a pretty brainless comment. I take it back.
The Extensibility of XHTML refers to a modular design that allows the standards folks to add new features to the language without breaking existing web pages. It has nothing to do with ad-hoc extensions by implementers. A principle design goal of XHTML is create a consistent user experience, regardless of browser. This is supposed to correct one of the big mistakes in the original HTML specifications, which assumed that nobody would care if browsers interpreted the same content differently.
When you quibble about "extensibility" you're pointing up the very problem XHTML is supposed to correct.
It needs to be pointed out that MSN is only going through the motions of XHTML support. Not only to they violate the letter, with their noncompliant codes. They violate the spirit, by continuing to use tables as a page formatting device.
It's also irritating that MSN continues to draw pages that are exactly 800 pixels wide. But that's not MSN's fault. Even if they were anxious to make their pages resolution-independent, CSS is still mysteriously lacking in support for non-pixel measurement.
I'm not knocking serious distros or Live CDs, which actually do serve a useful purpose. But most do not.
Back in the 70s, when most stereos were strange expensive bulky things with an ungodly number of vacuum tubes, there were High Fidelity fanatics who could bore you silly arguing over what was the best preamplifier was. They'd mortgage their house to buy some weird component that improved their sound system in ways that was only audible to themselves. Same mentality.
Or maybe the focus groups that are Hollywood's excuse for mindless movies.
Does Italy regulate all passwords (hard to believe) or just the security practices of certain kinds of companies? If the law is aimed at companies that deal in information of interest to identity thieves, the rule makes a certain amount of sense. Not as much sense as doing away with passwords altogether.
Go back to the beginning of the discussion, where I referred to Russ using the word "idiot" on his web site. Since this name calling referred to something I (and a lot of other people) do, I think my comments were pretty restrained.
So calling people "idiots" is classy, and pointing out namecalling and sloppy ideas is trolling? Whatever.
I'm pretty sure Ayn Rand was never a librarian.
From where I stand, this is a point in favor of OS people. I've never been impressed with RMS's weird little theories. But voluntary cooperation and free access to source code does actually seem to get things done. These are ideas lots people can work with, even people who think that RMS's other ideas are pseudophilisophical bullshit.
So to RMS, the OS movement is this monster that has stolen some of his ideas, while rejecting the ideas he considers most important. But to most people, Open Source is Free Software without the BS.
They're all true. But they're terminally depressing to those of us with bad jobs, or no job at all!
I think I get what you're trying to say on the email address issue. But would it kill you to actually say it? Try having a conversation with people who disagree with you, instead of just making vague pronouncements and throwing out rude names. It's extra work, but you might learn something.
You mean she didn't? "Fair-dust farts" seems an apt description of Objectivism.
If this kind of tantrum junkie is the best spokesperson the open source movement can find, they're really in trouble!
Nonsense. If you don't trust your hosting provider to be around in a year, you shouldn't go near them. If your site is at all important to you, you need to look for a company with a solid reputation. If it has that, then you're perfectly safe paying them a year in advance. And if it doesn't, you're wasting all the money you do give them -- there's no point in having a web site if you can't count on its availability.
NYT's technology coverage has really gone downhill. All their tech-literate people have moved on, and now most of the stories are written by your typical "technology reporter" whose computer background consists of playing with a PC. They get linked on Slashdot a lot more than they deserve to be.
The problem with rating hosting providers is that there are so many of them. There are hundreds that consist of a couple of people and a single server. They might start out giving good service, but flake out when their business grows beyond their ability to manage it.
Another problem is that many providers sell a good product -- if your needs happen to match the way they do business. I used to work for a hosting provider that did by people who liked having 24/7 phone support, edit-it-yourself zone files, and other geek friendly features. But they basically screwed over customers who needed a simple "it just works" solutions for web, email, shopping carts, etc. I had some frustating experiences trying to give decent support to this kind of customer, always wishing I could say, "Look, you really need to switch to a more newbie-friendly provider."
The problem here is not that the security people are stupid. It's just that they're trying to secure an authentication system that's obsolete and fundamentally flawed. It's past time to ditch password-based authentication. If I had to secure a big network, I'd get everybody smart cards. Essentially impossible to forge, and if they're stolen you can cancel them immediately. But the crucial detail with a physical authentication device is that when it's stolen, you know it's stolen -- not true with passwords.
Of course this is not a cheap solution. Which motivates security people to try patchwork solutions like this one, even though the "solutions" often make the problem worse.
Passwords, as evil as they are, will not go away any time soon. So I might as well mention the product that I use to generate and store passwords: RoboForm.
That being said, I don't think anybody would buy a OS X designed to run on a commodity PC. Sure, the total cost would be much lower than for a PPC Mac, but who would buy it? Not Windows and Linux people, who would have to adapt to a totally different GUI. And certainly not Mac people, who are willing to pay a little extra for a cool-looking system.
Spoiler alert!
Why no keyboard? Because it adds weight and bulk. Every ounce and square inch detracts slightly from a portable device's usability. It's a reasonable tradeoff to have a builtin keyboard if you have to be able to back and forth from laptop to tablet mode. But I don't. And as I said before, I don't consider laptop keyboards ergonomic.
I wouldn't want an M-200, though, since it tries to be both a tablet and a notebook. If I go over to the tablet side, I'm going all the way.