The new site sucks. The old site was better. I don't care what goes on behind the scenes for how content is managed, but the generated layout is crap. So it seems "CMS" means Content Mangling System.
And look at that sponser ad... "Microsoft Hosting Provider of the year... Rackspace.Com"... the place 20% of my spam comes from... the place that totally ignores all spam complaints and lets spammers continue operating.
So yeah, I can understand why the fork; SSC are doing things that really annoy me. But Theo didn't call his OS N3TBSD when he forked away from NetBSD; he picked a new name and called it OpenBSD. So I do think those who decided to make their own should have at least come up with a new name.
Scores are what we expect to get when the game is about the score. Football is about what the score is. Pittsburgh just about won the game today when they made a touchdown that put them ahead near the end of the game. But then Cincinnati turned around and scored a last minute touchdown. The score is what counts.
Those who think that the score is what counts in computer security are part of the problem. The score is nothing more than a lead. Track record counts for more in actuality, but even that doesn't matter. Bad administration can make any system totally insecure. Really good administration can push a system to exceed its default capabilities.
So if you want a score, then play the game and see who gets cracked and who doesn't. There's your real score. What PHBs are trying to do is get the score finalized before the game (actually running the system and keeping the crackers and other unauthorized intruders out) even begins.
Security cannot be determined from simply doing a suite of tests, and determining that it must be secure if the tester was unable to break in. The biggest variable that affects security is the administration of the machines... and this applies to all systems, BSD, Linux, Solaris... and yes, even MS Windows. Even OpenBSD clearly states their history of security (note, they never claim that is is secure, only that it has been to a certain degree) is based on the default install. Change it in any way, and all bets are off.
Security is not a thing you can just buy. Likewise it cannot be an attribute or property of a thing you can buy (or download). Security is in how you go about every aspect of the way you work, and not just in computers and networks. Social engineering is still a very workable way to access what you are not authorized to access. Poor passwords are incredibly common, for example (spammers are now using password guessing successfully to log into SMTP AUTH and MSA mail ports to submit their garbage... they already have your userid). People are the weak link.
So... IMHO... the Common Criteria Scheme is nothing more than a bunch of feel-good paperwork for PHBs. Unfortunately, it's what PHBs want to see, so vendors like Red Hat do need to play into this BS just to get some sales. But it doesn't tell you squat about real security.
As soon as we can eliminate the need to jump from the data network over to the old depricated voice network, then we can do all voice on an IP to IP basis, with encryption. That can help eliminate one of the big nasty problems in progressing in technology: politicians trying to stick their fingers in it.
If you really are aware of the limitations of computers (such as the fact that most do not allow setting the dpi), then why are you pressing the point about point size? Most of us already know this. We also know its still pointless to use point size until the computers in use are fixed.
Of course there are lots of things that are broken with end user computers and their browsers. Doesn't mean we need to be snobs about it. Design for the real world while at the same time work to get the real world changed (and live with the slowness in getting it changed).
I for one would like a less obese browser that still does things the way they used to do. I still have to use Netscape 4.77 instead of Firebird 0.7 most of the time because the latter is still too buggy, too slow, and too big. Sometimes Firebird is the preferred choice at a site, but it's a pain to use compared to the older version of Netscape. And with CSS broken in Netscape 4.77, I'm still designing without it... while hoping they get things fixed soon (could use your help in getting that done).
The number of clicks that it takes for me to get frustrated and quit depends on several factors. One of them is how busy I am at the time. Another is how slow the site loads up (for example it might be way too slow on my dialup access if it has a lot of images). Now if I am over at the university playing volunteer for some research being done, I'm sure I won't be very busy and will get some great download speeds on the campus gigabit network, so I'd say that there I'd probably be able to do 2 or 3 clicks a second and not be frustrated with a bad search until maybe around 100 clicks. But back home on my slow dialup (no DSL/cable out here in the boonies), I'm quite likely to get frustrated after just 3 clicks, or maybe even fewer in some cases.
So has that research been tainted by factors affected by doing the research?
I saw a TV segment several years ago where some group was doing a test. They were examining things like pop-up ads. They used hidden cameras in some people's homes (presumably with someone else's permission) which showed some people who get very frustrated, and even angry, when ads pop up in place of what they wanted to get. They compared it to people undergoing similar tests in an academic setting where there was essentially no level of frustration. I think either the sample was selected wrong (e.g. only people who don't get frustrated are willing to go to a campus and be studied), or the study was influenced (the calm campus testing area environment, without the kids screaming in the other room).
But... that said... I think the curve that shows 50% get frustrated after 9 clicks to probably not be too far off. The question is, do you want to alienate 50% of the people by using a 9 click policy, or just 10% with a 5 click policy?
The study does point out a good issue. It doesn't matter if you can get to every piece of information in as few as 3 clicks, if the site is so badly organized and presented that people can't figure out that shortest path quickly as they take it. If they get misled and go down the wrong path, your 4 level web tree does no good.
With the narrow channel bandwidths, TDOA is not going to work very well. But if you can get the phone to simultaneously transmit on 2 widely separated frequencies (maybe 1 on each end of the allocated spectrum), you could probably get it narrowed down to 10 meters if they are wide enough apart. AOA will do much better, despite being fuzzy at long distances, for routine tracking, but not to 10 meters.
I think I need to get a tin foil hat for my cell phone.
Better yet, swap phones with someone else. Not only will they have someone else to target, but the tracking records for your phone will likely show it actually moving around elsewhere at the time of the crime.
A universal digital video standard would only specify how information and content would be formatted into a stream or file. It would specify things like what byte offset is where to get the number of pixels wide for a frame. Whether some device can, or cannot, display or convert a given pixel width does not break its ability to conform to it. For example if the width was 1000000 pixes and the height was 750000 pixels, the device could at least understand what that means, and know that it requires more memory than it has, and simply refuse to even try to display thatr content. But it would at least be conforming. This would not make devices cost 4 times as much. In fact it would allow a full range of devices from tiny wrist watch devices to elaborate stadium display systems. You might be limited by a given device due to built in resources like memory, and you therefore may not be able to display some newer content that requires more resources to function. Perhaps you need to add more memory. Perhaps you need to have a faster CPU to crank through the encryption fast enough to handle some content's higher frame rate. But the standard would not be the cause of the incompatibility... the standard would make it clear the device's level of resources isn't capable.
So that means you might have bought a device that can't display the new super ultra definition that media producers start doing in 2013. So you'll have to buy a new one. But that's not the fault of the standard, which if done right would be able to handle that super ultra definition video content.
You don't have to currently have the technical capability to handle a higher scale to define a standard capable of things at such a scale. By having 32 bits for width and height, you can have video frame sizes of over 4 billion definable. Nothing in 2003 will desplay it in full resolution. Probably nothing will even attempt to convert it (quite a lot of crypto processing needed to get the video and quite a lot of memory needed to work with it). Surely nobody will seriously produce anything like that. But if someone did, at least a standards conforming device would understand the parameters are beyond its capability.
We need LESS in firmware, not more. A true operating system doesn't even need a BIOS or firmware. Not until the IBM PC came out was there ever much of a firmware capability other than to provide a means to load the chosen operating system. I remember so many times manually toggling in the bootstrap loader on the front panel of a DEC PDP-8 computer, and on IBM mainframes dialing in the IPL device on the front panel and pressing IPL (there was control firmware in the channels that carried out the I/O to do this, but that firmware ran even with the OS running). What more does firmware that runs the CPU instructions need to do but read in the bootstrap from the desired device and jump to it?
The ideal firmware will start your OS and get the f*** out of the way.
One risk that will exist with adding more to the BIOS/firmware is that it will be just that much more to break that can't be easily patched like an OS can. All technology is flawed, including all software. It's just a matter of degree and... more importantly... a matter of contingency planning.
Sure, most devices need some kind of firmware to run them. Disk drives are probably the best known example, as well as controller cards. I suspect there will eventually be DRM on sound cards and video cards to allow viewing encrypted media content (that would be passed along verbatim by the CPU) and that will surely be in firmware. But what else is really needed in the main system?
Why they don't have a universal digital video standard has often puzzled me. It would basically be a digital stream that provided means to specify the pixel width and height, pixel size ratio, scanning method, scanning rate, color plane depths... and thus support a digitization of everything from standard film frame rates and traditional video standards to high definition TV, and anything in between that anyone wanted to use (and video display devices can convert and/or display quite a wide range of standards these days). I have not understood why it is that they never did something like this until I realized that the people in charge of deciding things like that are not true geeks.
IPv6 does indeed have a nice link local address space. And the MAC address is included in it when it makes up its own address. I already use 169.254.*.* with the low order 16 bits of the MAC address to get a somewhat similar effect in IPv4 space (although I basically just use it as a backdoor address in case I fubar a config on a remote box).
However, I have seen machines that do not have a specific IPv6 address configured automatically get one in a "public" (I think it was on 6bone, in this case) address space, and it still had its MAC address in there. Things like DHCP won't need a MAC to IP address map or lease database anymore. All that the machine will need to get is the high order address prefix and then it's online.
What would the rate be based on? Would it be based on actual download/trade/share traffic? Or would it be based on total traffic volume? If an ISP passes the charges on to their customers (how can they not do so?), how is it divided up among customers? Will it be by connection capacity? Actual bandwidth used? Or will they monitor and see how much is actually illegal music (assuming they can crack the next generation encrypted protocols which I doubt they can)?
Merely having a copy of music is not the same as listening to it. Someone who has a collection of 20 songs they regularly listen to is actually getting as much benefit as someone who has a collection of a million songs but regularly listens to about 20 of them (though he might have a larger ISP bill). Maybe the rate should be based on the maximum capacity to listen to music, which tops out at 168 hours a week. So why not a fixed price per person regardless of how much they download, since they can't listen to more than a certain amount (unless they listen to 2 or more songs concurrently)?
If an ISP has to pay the tax for its volume of traffic, then what if one of their customer's is re-selling internet services? Do they also have to pay the same tax? I've seen cases where ISP reselling is at least 4 levels deep, and I'm sure there are deeper cases. If each layer has to pay the tax, then you are being double or triple or quadruple taxed or worse. Are they going to make sure the tax is fair? But if fairness is to be a part of this, then what about all the people that don't download, trade, or share music? Most business customers don't do that, and I suspect half the consumer base doesn't, either. So who gets screwed?
If the holes are smaller than about 1/20th wavelength, then the microwaves won't leak through, but you'll still be able to see in (light has a much smaller wavelength than those holes). The window in your oven door does have holes, right? If not, that probably explains why your brain is toast.
I read your post as having a different parent. I'm sorry.
No problem.
But I went ahead and loaded up your page with the same setup as the others just to see what it looks like. The JPEG is here. It looks rather weighted to the left side to me. Lots of unused real estate on the right.
You can specify a much smaller percentage. OK, add a minimum pixel size to that, too. But the key is to allow the browser to expand it if it needs it. If a single word needs more space, it's better to expand the box instead of letting the text spill, as seen here (note the words "Subscribe?", "Askslashdot", and "Developers" in the left menu).
And what do you do when the User-agent header is not sent, as would be the case for a proxy cache trying to maximize the number of hits, since it is required that cache hits must match the User-agent exactly if it is sent. Unfortunately, I've seen a few sites where the site code crashes when the User-agent is missing, and in a couple cases, actually gave me crash dump information I'm sure the webmaster would not have wanted anyone to see (e.g. a database access password).
Isn't that what the whole principle is about... specify the sizes not in terms of pixels (which the ALA/Slashdot example did wrong), but instead in terms of percentages? Got a site to show where it's all done exactly right?
Certain when web designs think inside the box (that they learned back in graphical arts school when the medium was 8.5x11 inch company catalogs), they too often do use pixel measurements and don't allow elements to float in size (as they are supposed to on the web). I tried pushing the limits on your page [link, jpeg, gif]. The left menu didn't expand even when I resized to full screen. But at least the text wrapped around correctly, which did not happen on the ALA/Slashdot [link, jpeg, gif] example (in that case, the text spilled out of the box and overlapped). There is a problem with text overlapping vertically, but I think that is a browser bug (Firebird 0.7).
Their layout.css is actually broken. It uses a fixed number of pixels for the widths of various things like the side menu area. It should, instead, use a percentage, and allow the browser to freely adapt the sizes to accomodate font size changes that the user have have legitimate reasons to override. Pixels are not all the same size, and people often need different fonts.
I tried the example pages in two browsers, Netscape 4.77 and Firebird 0.7. In NS, it does the "fail gracefully" OK. In FB, when I use the font settings I have to use to be able to read all text due to a combination of pixel density, monitor size, and vision requirements, a few things are "off size". They wouldn't be if margins were allowed to float.
Many web designers come from graphical arts training in other media, where sizes are generally tightly controlled, and pixels are not the usual measure. When they come to dealing with the web, they bring these limitations to a new medium which can (and should) work within a varying range of sizes and pixel densities (it makes showing things like icons in images rather difficult). I still see way too many web sites which only render on the left half of the page (sometimes they do manage to center it, but sill waste a huge chunk of space which could better be used to show more things in larger, easier to read for me, fonts).
You don't have to be a programmer at all to see copying had occurred.
Nope. You have to have both sets of source code. Now suppose you find identical code. How do you tell which direction the copying was done?
My analogy is [that's] like a bank robber with posse in pursuit swinging back by the bank and throwing the money back in.
The law does go lenient on criminals that turn themselves in. And in most cases it is very lenient when it is an obvious case of a mistake (not that a bank robbery would be, which is where Darl's analogy breaks down). In cases of intellectual property, where it can be shown the infringement was unintentional, courts very often are lenient, letting the "perpetrator" off easy, usually with just actual economic damages and legal costs (these things can vary depending on how well the defendant cooperates).
So let's suppose IBM did contribute SCO intellectual property to Linux, as alleged. The case is against IBM directly, so IBM could be liable for at least the economic losses and legal costs, and maybe more if it can be show there were things like intent.
But what about the rest of the Linux Community? In a normal case, specific infringments would be identified. Linus will most certainly tear that part of the code out and new original development will take place lightning fast, and a new version of the 2.4 kernel (maybe even the 2.2 kernel) will be out in a few weeks. The 2.6 kernel will end up being squeaky clean.
All SCO will get is past infringement losses, possibly limited to not more than would have been earned for that piece of crap they dare call Unix. What they would never get... will never get... is revenue for anything in the future. They would make some money, but they would not have solid future revenues which is what actually drives up equity values. It's future earnings (on everyone else's real work) that they are trying to lock in for themselves (which they can't do if Linus tears out any questionable code, which he is sure to do once it becomes known as such).
Slashdot Mirror
The new site sucks. The old site was better. I don't care what goes on behind the scenes for how content is managed, but the generated layout is crap. So it seems "CMS" means Content Mangling System.
And look at that sponser ad ... "Microsoft Hosting Provider of the year ... Rackspace.Com" ... the place 20% of my spam comes from ... the place that totally ignores all spam complaints and lets spammers continue operating.
So yeah, I can understand why the fork; SSC are doing things that really annoy me. But Theo didn't call his OS N3TBSD when he forked away from NetBSD; he picked a new name and called it OpenBSD. So I do think those who decided to make their own should have at least come up with a new name.
Scores are what we expect to get when the game is about the score. Football is about what the score is. Pittsburgh just about won the game today when they made a touchdown that put them ahead near the end of the game. But then Cincinnati turned around and scored a last minute touchdown. The score is what counts.
Those who think that the score is what counts in computer security are part of the problem. The score is nothing more than a lead. Track record counts for more in actuality, but even that doesn't matter. Bad administration can make any system totally insecure. Really good administration can push a system to exceed its default capabilities.
So if you want a score, then play the game and see who gets cracked and who doesn't. There's your real score. What PHBs are trying to do is get the score finalized before the game (actually running the system and keeping the crackers and other unauthorized intruders out) even begins.
Security cannot be determined from simply doing a suite of tests, and determining that it must be secure if the tester was unable to break in. The biggest variable that affects security is the administration of the machines ... and this applies to all systems, BSD, Linux, Solaris ... and yes, even MS Windows. Even OpenBSD clearly states their history of security (note, they never claim that is is secure, only that it has been to a certain degree) is based on the default install. Change it in any way, and all bets are off.
Security is not a thing you can just buy. Likewise it cannot be an attribute or property of a thing you can buy (or download). Security is in how you go about every aspect of the way you work, and not just in computers and networks. Social engineering is still a very workable way to access what you are not authorized to access. Poor passwords are incredibly common, for example (spammers are now using password guessing successfully to log into SMTP AUTH and MSA mail ports to submit their garbage ... they already have your userid). People are the weak link.
So ... IMHO ... the Common Criteria Scheme is nothing more than a bunch of feel-good paperwork for PHBs. Unfortunately, it's what PHBs want to see, so vendors like Red Hat do need to play into this BS just to get some sales. But it doesn't tell you squat about real security.
As soon as we can eliminate the need to jump from the data network over to the old depricated voice network, then we can do all voice on an IP to IP basis, with encryption. That can help eliminate one of the big nasty problems in progressing in technology: politicians trying to stick their fingers in it.
If you really are aware of the limitations of computers (such as the fact that most do not allow setting the dpi), then why are you pressing the point about point size? Most of us already know this. We also know its still pointless to use point size until the computers in use are fixed.
Of course there are lots of things that are broken with end user computers and their browsers. Doesn't mean we need to be snobs about it. Design for the real world while at the same time work to get the real world changed (and live with the slowness in getting it changed).
I for one would like a less obese browser that still does things the way they used to do. I still have to use Netscape 4.77 instead of Firebird 0.7 most of the time because the latter is still too buggy, too slow, and too big. Sometimes Firebird is the preferred choice at a site, but it's a pain to use compared to the older version of Netscape. And with CSS broken in Netscape 4.77, I'm still designing without it ... while hoping they get things fixed soon (could use your help in getting that done).
The number of clicks that it takes for me to get frustrated and quit depends on several factors. One of them is how busy I am at the time. Another is how slow the site loads up (for example it might be way too slow on my dialup access if it has a lot of images). Now if I am over at the university playing volunteer for some research being done, I'm sure I won't be very busy and will get some great download speeds on the campus gigabit network, so I'd say that there I'd probably be able to do 2 or 3 clicks a second and not be frustrated with a bad search until maybe around 100 clicks. But back home on my slow dialup (no DSL/cable out here in the boonies), I'm quite likely to get frustrated after just 3 clicks, or maybe even fewer in some cases.
So has that research been tainted by factors affected by doing the research?
I saw a TV segment several years ago where some group was doing a test. They were examining things like pop-up ads. They used hidden cameras in some people's homes (presumably with someone else's permission) which showed some people who get very frustrated, and even angry, when ads pop up in place of what they wanted to get. They compared it to people undergoing similar tests in an academic setting where there was essentially no level of frustration. I think either the sample was selected wrong (e.g. only people who don't get frustrated are willing to go to a campus and be studied), or the study was influenced (the calm campus testing area environment, without the kids screaming in the other room).
But ... that said ... I think the curve that shows 50% get frustrated after 9 clicks to probably not be too far off. The question is, do you want to alienate 50% of the people by using a 9 click policy, or just 10% with a 5 click policy?
The study does point out a good issue. It doesn't matter if you can get to every piece of information in as few as 3 clicks, if the site is so badly organized and presented that people can't figure out that shortest path quickly as they take it. If they get misled and go down the wrong path, your 4 level web tree does no good.
With the narrow channel bandwidths, TDOA is not going to work very well. But if you can get the phone to simultaneously transmit on 2 widely separated frequencies (maybe 1 on each end of the allocated spectrum), you could probably get it narrowed down to 10 meters if they are wide enough apart. AOA will do much better, despite being fuzzy at long distances, for routine tracking, but not to 10 meters.
I think I need to get a tin foil hat for my cell phone.
You gave your cell number to your mother?
Better yet, swap phones with someone else. Not only will they have someone else to target, but the tracking records for your phone will likely show it actually moving around elsewhere at the time of the crime.
A universal digital video standard would only specify how information and content would be formatted into a stream or file. It would specify things like what byte offset is where to get the number of pixels wide for a frame. Whether some device can, or cannot, display or convert a given pixel width does not break its ability to conform to it. For example if the width was 1000000 pixes and the height was 750000 pixels, the device could at least understand what that means, and know that it requires more memory than it has, and simply refuse to even try to display thatr content. But it would at least be conforming. This would not make devices cost 4 times as much. In fact it would allow a full range of devices from tiny wrist watch devices to elaborate stadium display systems. You might be limited by a given device due to built in resources like memory, and you therefore may not be able to display some newer content that requires more resources to function. Perhaps you need to add more memory. Perhaps you need to have a faster CPU to crank through the encryption fast enough to handle some content's higher frame rate. But the standard would not be the cause of the incompatibility ... the standard would make it clear the device's level of resources isn't capable.
So that means you might have bought a device that can't display the new super ultra definition that media producers start doing in 2013. So you'll have to buy a new one. But that's not the fault of the standard, which if done right would be able to handle that super ultra definition video content.
You don't have to currently have the technical capability to handle a higher scale to define a standard capable of things at such a scale. By having 32 bits for width and height, you can have video frame sizes of over 4 billion definable. Nothing in 2003 will desplay it in full resolution. Probably nothing will even attempt to convert it (quite a lot of crypto processing needed to get the video and quite a lot of memory needed to work with it). Surely nobody will seriously produce anything like that. But if someone did, at least a standards conforming device would understand the parameters are beyond its capability.
We need LESS in firmware, not more. A true operating system doesn't even need a BIOS or firmware. Not until the IBM PC came out was there ever much of a firmware capability other than to provide a means to load the chosen operating system. I remember so many times manually toggling in the bootstrap loader on the front panel of a DEC PDP-8 computer, and on IBM mainframes dialing in the IPL device on the front panel and pressing IPL (there was control firmware in the channels that carried out the I/O to do this, but that firmware ran even with the OS running). What more does firmware that runs the CPU instructions need to do but read in the bootstrap from the desired device and jump to it?
The ideal firmware will start your OS and get the f*** out of the way.
One risk that will exist with adding more to the BIOS/firmware is that it will be just that much more to break that can't be easily patched like an OS can. All technology is flawed, including all software. It's just a matter of degree and ... more importantly ... a matter of contingency planning.
Sure, most devices need some kind of firmware to run them. Disk drives are probably the best known example, as well as controller cards. I suspect there will eventually be DRM on sound cards and video cards to allow viewing encrypted media content (that would be passed along verbatim by the CPU) and that will surely be in firmware. But what else is really needed in the main system?
Why they don't have a universal digital video standard has often puzzled me. It would basically be a digital stream that provided means to specify the pixel width and height, pixel size ratio, scanning method, scanning rate, color plane depths ... and thus support a digitization of everything from standard film frame rates and traditional video standards to high definition TV, and anything in between that anyone wanted to use (and video display devices can convert and/or display quite a wide range of standards these days). I have not understood why it is that they never did something like this until I realized that the people in charge of deciding things like that are not true geeks.
IPv6 does indeed have a nice link local address space. And the MAC address is included in it when it makes up its own address. I already use 169.254.*.* with the low order 16 bits of the MAC address to get a somewhat similar effect in IPv4 space (although I basically just use it as a backdoor address in case I fubar a config on a remote box).
However, I have seen machines that do not have a specific IPv6 address configured automatically get one in a "public" (I think it was on 6bone, in this case) address space, and it still had its MAC address in there. Things like DHCP won't need a MAC to IP address map or lease database anymore. All that the machine will need to get is the high order address prefix and then it's online.
What would the rate be based on? Would it be based on actual download/trade/share traffic? Or would it be based on total traffic volume? If an ISP passes the charges on to their customers (how can they not do so?), how is it divided up among customers? Will it be by connection capacity? Actual bandwidth used? Or will they monitor and see how much is actually illegal music (assuming they can crack the next generation encrypted protocols which I doubt they can)?
Merely having a copy of music is not the same as listening to it. Someone who has a collection of 20 songs they regularly listen to is actually getting as much benefit as someone who has a collection of a million songs but regularly listens to about 20 of them (though he might have a larger ISP bill). Maybe the rate should be based on the maximum capacity to listen to music, which tops out at 168 hours a week. So why not a fixed price per person regardless of how much they download, since they can't listen to more than a certain amount (unless they listen to 2 or more songs concurrently)?
If an ISP has to pay the tax for its volume of traffic, then what if one of their customer's is re-selling internet services? Do they also have to pay the same tax? I've seen cases where ISP reselling is at least 4 levels deep, and I'm sure there are deeper cases. If each layer has to pay the tax, then you are being double or triple or quadruple taxed or worse. Are they going to make sure the tax is fair? But if fairness is to be a part of this, then what about all the people that don't download, trade, or share music? Most business customers don't do that, and I suspect half the consumer base doesn't, either. So who gets screwed?
If the holes are smaller than about 1/20th wavelength, then the microwaves won't leak through, but you'll still be able to see in (light has a much smaller wavelength than those holes). The window in your oven door does have holes, right? If not, that probably explains why your brain is toast.
That microwave oven of yours is leaking. Your brain is well done by now.
No problem.
But I went ahead and loaded up your page with the same setup as the others just to see what it looks like. The JPEG is here. It looks rather weighted to the left side to me. Lots of unused real estate on the right.
You can specify a much smaller percentage. OK, add a minimum pixel size to that, too. But the key is to allow the browser to expand it if it needs it. If a single word needs more space, it's better to expand the box instead of letting the text spill, as seen here (note the words "Subscribe?", "Askslashdot", and "Developers" in the left menu).
And what do you do when the User-agent header is not sent, as would be the case for a proxy cache trying to maximize the number of hits, since it is required that cache hits must match the User-agent exactly if it is sent. Unfortunately, I've seen a few sites where the site code crashes when the User-agent is missing, and in a couple cases, actually gave me crash dump information I'm sure the webmaster would not have wanted anyone to see (e.g. a database access password).
Isn't that what the whole principle is about ... specify the sizes not in terms of pixels (which the ALA/Slashdot example did wrong), but instead in terms of percentages? Got a site to show where it's all done exactly right?
Certain when web designs think inside the box (that they learned back in graphical arts school when the medium was 8.5x11 inch company catalogs), they too often do use pixel measurements and don't allow elements to float in size (as they are supposed to on the web). I tried pushing the limits on your page [link, jpeg, gif]. The left menu didn't expand even when I resized to full screen. But at least the text wrapped around correctly, which did not happen on the ALA/Slashdot [link, jpeg, gif] example (in that case, the text spilled out of the box and overlapped). There is a problem with text overlapping vertically, but I think that is a browser bug (Firebird 0.7).
Their layout.css is actually broken. It uses a fixed number of pixels for the widths of various things like the side menu area. It should, instead, use a percentage, and allow the browser to freely adapt the sizes to accomodate font size changes that the user have have legitimate reasons to override. Pixels are not all the same size, and people often need different fonts.
I tried the example pages in two browsers, Netscape 4.77 and Firebird 0.7. In NS, it does the "fail gracefully" OK. In FB, when I use the font settings I have to use to be able to read all text due to a combination of pixel density, monitor size, and vision requirements, a few things are "off size". They wouldn't be if margins were allowed to float.
Many web designers come from graphical arts training in other media, where sizes are generally tightly controlled, and pixels are not the usual measure. When they come to dealing with the web, they bring these limitations to a new medium which can (and should) work within a varying range of sizes and pixel densities (it makes showing things like icons in images rather difficult). I still see way too many web sites which only render on the left half of the page (sometimes they do manage to center it, but sill waste a huge chunk of space which could better be used to show more things in larger, easier to read for me, fonts).
Nope. You have to have both sets of source code. Now suppose you find identical code. How do you tell which direction the copying was done?
The law does go lenient on criminals that turn themselves in. And in most cases it is very lenient when it is an obvious case of a mistake (not that a bank robbery would be, which is where Darl's analogy breaks down). In cases of intellectual property, where it can be shown the infringement was unintentional, courts very often are lenient, letting the "perpetrator" off easy, usually with just actual economic damages and legal costs (these things can vary depending on how well the defendant cooperates).
So let's suppose IBM did contribute SCO intellectual property to Linux, as alleged. The case is against IBM directly, so IBM could be liable for at least the economic losses and legal costs, and maybe more if it can be show there were things like intent.
But what about the rest of the Linux Community? In a normal case, specific infringments would be identified. Linus will most certainly tear that part of the code out and new original development will take place lightning fast, and a new version of the 2.4 kernel (maybe even the 2.2 kernel) will be out in a few weeks. The 2.6 kernel will end up being squeaky clean.
All SCO will get is past infringement losses, possibly limited to not more than would have been earned for that piece of crap they dare call Unix. What they would never get ... will never get ... is revenue for anything in the future. They would make some money, but they would not have solid future revenues which is what actually drives up equity values. It's future earnings (on everyone else's real work) that they are trying to lock in for themselves (which they can't do if Linus tears out any questionable code, which he is sure to do once it becomes known as such).
Damn you, now I'm not going to be able to get that tune out of my head all day. :-)