Actually, I'm curious if any racing people/fans will actually get excited over this. I find myself mixed on that one. They seem to be targeting the hard core realistic car sim crowd rather than arcade physics racing. Um, I bet there is a niche for this, but I don't know if it is large enough to support them.
I have been wondering about this for some time myself. I started playing Papyrus IndyCar & NASCAR Racing sims in the 90's, and later on got into EA Sports F1 '99-'02, which in my opinion is the best F1 simulation to date for the PC. It's amazing to me that since then there have not been any earth shattering racing simulations for the PC. Everyone is making more money writing console arcade-type games.
I can understand this. On the other hand, there is an entire subculture that lives out their dreams vicariously through racing simulations. I tried joining a NASCAR 2003 league once (the tryout was 2 laps at Loudon) and didn't make it because I was not stable enough through the turns. That track is difficult to excel at, but I saw others take those turns like professionals.
There is a driver (whose name I cannot recall) who grew up playing racing sims, and made it to NASCAR partly because all the practice in the video world translated well onto a real track. Even Dale Jr. has been known to race online; I've heard that he's put in a lot of sim time especially on the 2 road courses the league races on.
Certainly there is a market for serious driving simulations. The question is, how profitable is it?
Actually, I'm curious if any racing people/fans will actually get excited over this. I find myself mixed on that one. They seem to be targeting the hard core realistic car sim crowd rather than arcade physics racing. Um, I bet there is a niche for this, but I don't know if it is large enough to support them. I'd think that the niche for arcade physics or online multiplayer mario cart would be far larger than the sim racing people.
I have been wondering about this for some time myself. I started playing Papyrus IndyCar & NASCAR Racing sims in the 90's, and later on got into EA Sports F1 '99-'02, which in my opinion is the best F1 simulation to date for the PC. It's amazing to me that since then there have not been any earth shattering racing simulations for the PC. Everyone is making more money writing console arcade-type games.
I can understand this. On the other hand, there is an entire subculture that lives out their dreams vicariously through racing simulations. I tried joining a NASCAR 2003 league once (the tryout was 2 laps at Loudon) and didn't make it because I was not stable enough through the turns. That track is difficult to excel at, but I saw others take those turns like professionals.
There is a driver (whose name I cannot recall) who grew up playing racing sims, and made it to NASCAR partly because all the practice in the video world translated well onto a real track. Even Dale Jr. has been known to race online; I've heard that he's put in a lot of sim time especially on the 2 road courses the league races on.
Certainly there is a market for serious driving simulations. The question is, how profitable is it?
Your "oops" post even gets a score of 2.. how could that be?
Good answer; I accept your opinion. I've programmed mainly in C, C++, Delphi, VB6, VB+C#.Net, JavaScript and VBScript. My preference remains, perhaps because I come from these environments and am more comfortable with the notion of intentional variable usage.
I haven't used VIM in years; perhaps it's a wake up call. What is your preferred method for developing and testing JavaScript?
Have you ever attempted to code a real AJAX application? I would love AJAX if it weren't for JavaScript.
For some apps it doesn't hurt to use a scripting language with "less" features, but for larger applications with 20+ source files and tons of undocumented code, JavaScript simply stinks. It was not intended to be used in the manner it's being used today. I could make the same argument for VB.NET and it's a compiled language.
My opinion has nothing to do with JavaScript being a scripting language. Any language that doesn't require variable declarations becomes difficult to debug in large programs. I won't write a VB6 app without Option Declare in every file.
The biggest problem with JavaScript is that it will accept undeclared variables. In a large program, if you spell a variable incorrectly you will experience the "Object expected" error, or worse the code will continue to run and bomb later on something completely unrelated.
I don't think JavaScript is a terrible language, but compared to the languages I've used in the past it doesn't hold up. I was shocked to hear about client-side JavaScript and AJAX; I couldn't believe the next generation web-client programming model was based on a language that doesn't require variable declarations. It's a nightmare to debug.
It's your fault for getting locked in to proprietary products in the first place.
Nonsense. That decision could have been made years before the current Admin was hired. It's the fault of someone who is no longer accountable for their actions. I've been in this situation many times in my career. It's the nature of business; you're here now, therefore you do it. It doesn't matter what happened 5 years ago because the problem happening now is preventing people from getting their work done, which is burning money.
I've been running Windows as a desktop with a regular user account since NT4, way back in 1996. Don't give me any of this "it's not possible" bullshit.
If you want to run Cakewalk Sonar, then you must have administrator rights. There is professional-quality software that requires you to be an Admin, for reasons due to the intense requirements on the hardware.
I think you meant 'unfair' instead of 'inaccurate'. And that still sounds weird. Imagine a benchmark test that came out, showing Intel's newest processor to suck due to a bug. Would you buy Intel saying "yeah, but if you ignore the bug, it rocks"?
Apples and Oranges. And I meant "inaccurate". Fairness isn't an issue. Your analogy is flawed for the following reasons:
* Intel makes chips that are fundamentally still based on the x86 model, which has been around for over 20 years.
* Freenet is around 5 years old, and still not at version 1.0 yet.
* Intel doesn't benchmark chips that don't work; only chips that are working.
You've brushed aside the fact that developing an anonymous, decentralized network that is resilient to attack is hard, and much of the theory is untested in the real world, even though mathematically the idea seems perfect. Since you pay hundreds of dollars for an Intel chip, and Freenet is itself Free, what do you expect given that Freenet isn't actually complete? A perfect product? Give us an R&D budget equal to Intel and Freenet will work much faster than the current pace.
And where did I say benchmark? I said analysis, and what we wish to analyze is how Freenet is currently routing, for better and/or for worse. Once this is known decisions can be made to move Freenet towards a real release. What part of this is unhealthy? And can you even name one other P2P network that scales better than Freenet?
Entropy is dead and has been for a few months at this point. They decided that Freenet is broken and claimed they could do better. Time did tell.
The other point many people critical of Freenet make is that other P2P systems are much faster. One chap came into the Freenet channel and claimed Entropy is much better than Freenet because it's written in C++ and real fast. He didn't realize that Entropy development was dead and that the network consisted of about 20 peers. Nobody knows the precise number of Freenet nodes in the stable network, and any estimate I give is just a guess.
Ever since March 31st/April 1st of 2003, it's just been downhill.
Ah, The introduction of NGR. The idea is that classical routing was not scalable, so something else was needed if Freenet was to support more users. It didn't make sense when a splinter group broke off from the main project and used the infamous "build 692" to claim that new Freenet development was broken, since the old build works for the 50 or so people who were using it. We are now close to the point where a proper simulation of NGR and Freenet will tell us much about NGR itself, since I believe most of the terrible bugs have been fixed.
That assumes freenet works, AFAIK it's still fucking broken. Ian Clarke is playing too much politics with the project and the only coder that really understands freenet (Mathew Toseland) is swamped with ideas, day after day.. it just gets worse and worse... The donations seemed like a good idea, but after watching the DEV list for the last 18 months, I realize it's a failed project:(
Check out other development lists on popular projects (if they're public). You'll find that heated debates, arguments, and blatant personal attacks are very common. The Linux kernel list has years of flames between Linus, Alan and other major contributors.. but development continues, doesn't it?
Same in this case. There are two sets of debates on the Freenet lists. The first set includes those with a background in computer science, an understanding of programming, or an understanding of the theoretical concepts behind decentralized communications. The second (and much larger) set of people are primarily concerned with advancing their own positions within the project. Their ideas are based on false assumptions or a blatant ignorance of Freenet's goals. They will propose things that are completely opposite the goal of a "decentralized anonymous attack-resilient network" and then blame Ian's ego when their ideas are shot down (perhaps unapologetically by Ian himself, sometimes by others). No amount of hand-holding or compassion can convince this group that their ideas are simply incompatible.
All this aside, the stable releases have been working excellent for me and I am running a stock Freenet node; no tweaks. The introduction of NGR also came with lots of bugs, which (imo) is the main cause for the lackluster performance of Freenet. Now that it's working better, perhaps we can judge NGR on it's abilities (for better or worse) instead of the bugs which cause any analysis of Freenet itself to be inaccurate.
theres nothing from stopping you from d/l'ing and installing it yourself. this is easy if you put a deb-src line for unstable in your sources.list file. then it's just an apt-get -b source away.
Precisely the reason why I have been using it for so long.
I agree; however this isn't about filtering porn. This is about taking a certain amount of control away from the com, org, and net domains.
Originally I was all for the idea until I discovered that there wasn't going to be a.music one, like I read very early on in the process. At this point I'm not concerned with it much, except to say that it's a good thing to create more TLD's.
No offense but I've been on Undernet and IMO the users are less experienced than myself. I have been an avid Linux user since Slackware 2 (eww) and I've met very intelligent people on efNet that I learned a lot from, and I've also helped other promising script kiddies to get another life.
I'm going to miss efNet, but if it goes to shit where are the techies going? I'll see you there...;)
I find it disconcerting that my favorite band (Rage Against the Machine), which has openly admitted they don't mind people distributing their
music for free through Napster or other means, is on Epic Records, owned by Sony.
The more time I spend as a professional musician the more sick I become.
The artists themselves have little or no control over their own work. In many cases they unknowingly relinquish ownership of their material to simply "be signed". It is very difficult to get signed by any label, let alone a major one.
And so the sick thing is, if Sony called me on the phone and proposed to sign my band and release our debut albumn, I would jump at the chance. Sony's distribution alone would guarantee that millions of people will hear my music, and I'm referring to the so called "normal" channels, like radio and MTV.
To make it in the music world, you must be a business man. Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit is just that. His image is planned and targeted. He actually worked for a label before hitting it big with "Nookie".
I don't anticipate that my life as an unknown musician will be any easier due to napster. I still have to play the same tired game of half-selling my soul to a ridiculous group of suits who care little about my creative talents.
I can just imagine how shitty Microsoft's distribution of Linux will be. Umm, we all know that this is their eventual plan, yes? Embrace, extend, then break compatibility.
If people want Linux to take over Windows, they are going to have to accept that the companies that will be affected by this will also want to get on the bandwagon. It is simply self-preservation.
I do not want Linux to conquer the current Windows world. I could care less if the Linux userbase suddenly stopped growing.
Linux has accomplished all it needed to. And people are still working on it. It works great and better than Windows as a desktop, and developers are clamoring to get in on the action in fixing programs as well as creating new functionality. I feel that Linux's existence is already justified.
And now I am seeing anymosity towards RedHat. Why is this? Could it be that one of the companies who helped bring Linux to the fore-front is now being regarded as monopolistic because they are making money? People do have to do that you know.
There has always been anymosity towards anything proprietery and not open sourced in the Linux community. GNU/Linux is free and open sourced. Red Hat is closed source (and free as in beer only). I personally feel Debian is the only acceptable Linux distribution, because I am one of those Debian freaks.
Yet another reason why children and tennagers need a bill of rights, or at least be included in the one that we all supposedly benefit from.
Now that I think of it, I bet this is the precise reason why they don't have one. I am so sick of living in a country as ludicrous as this one. Is there a location on Earth where I can think for myself and my children?
If he acquired this technology by means of encryption exported from the USA, then it might give the FBI some level of credibility here. If he did, but could have just as easily acquired it from somewhere else, that credibility is just shot back down. In fact, he was actually in the United States, and could have easily acquired the technology domestically.
I couldn't agree more.
I suggest that the State Department provide a list of IP addresses which they want download refused for, and no more than that. It should be possible to get the addresses connecting "Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and others considered America's foes". This is sufficiently practical to manage and can be smoothly automated. Any more than that and I will certainly see it as excessive government interference in the private sector.
You're kidding, right? I hope so. Your first paragraph stated that any terrorist can easily gain access to encryption software through alternative channels, or even from within the US itself (it isn't hard to visit the US with the sole intention of blowing up the World Trade Center).
Then you casually describe a process that is sufficiently practical to manage and can be smoothly automated. Yeah, right. "Government" and "smoothly automated" should never go together. And even if our government is as capable as you feel it is, to then maintain a list of IP addresses that are from "problem" countries is impossible. And even if it was possible and feasable, it could be easily circumvented:
telnet to Europe.
Transfer files from <insert Evil country here> to Europe.
Transfer files from Europe to the US.
There is no real solution. Imposing zone-type laws on the Internet will not work in the long run. The Internet was not designed with security as the foremost thought. Reliability and more importantly a de-centralized topology were the goals.
That's not to say it will never happen.. I'm saying, don't hold your breath.
Their technical staffing takes back seat to their designers.. a trend I've noticed at a few of these "dot com" construction companies (I call them).
Since the selling point is the web page, the snappy design, and the cool retro graphics, the just-as-important technical aspect to a web site goes relatively unnoticed. They (non-techies) tend to think the design comes first, then the technical issues are simply ironed out.
Sometimes the technical issues are more complicated, and due to the nature of the web are actually tied with the interface itself. Web site development should take the technical side more seriously.
I'm slightly off topic, but the rant stems from my experience with Razorfish. I was told that they are unable to handle the production of anything "e-commerce" related. I stared in amazement and asked why to be told, "Razorfish focuses on design and not tech."
Well, hitting the URL http://www.homedepot.com/ redirects you to the page index1.html. This page uses Javascript (uggh) to determine whether the user (ironically) has Javascript enabled in their browser:
//Proceed only if the browser supports JavaScript. ..
Given this information, I can make the following statements:
They are using Broadvision. Anyone who's used this horrible piece of proprietery crap knows how uncomfortable and cumbersome it is to work with.
They are heavy on the Javascript. IIRC, Broadvision sends various Javascript functions to accomplish mostly what can be done without Javascript. An expert web designer can build a complex site without a heavy and almost necessary reliance on Javascript.
HTTP and HTML should both be extinct. Perhaps this is why Home Depot opted for the expensive Broadvision. I bet they also paid through the nose for a BV tech to be on site. Yipee!!
In all seriousness, this sort of thing can be avoided with a proper design. And the sheer difficulty of the whole process is nil.
You're the first person to post who has obviously read the article.
Here's what the author actually said in the article for those who cannot read:
Garfinkel said the main lesson of his new book, published by O'Reilly & Associates, is that students and faculty members cannot rely on themselves or on technology to protect their privacy when they use computer networks.
It's a nothing quote from an author I've grown to repect over the years with regards to UNIX security in particular. All the quote means is; networks are inherently insecure.
People start to *want* free software for their computers, sooner or later they'll take the step! This will only benefit the open-source movement, IMHO.
Don't confuse Free Software with Open-Sourced Software. They are entirely different.
Whenever I read, "company xyz has just open-sourced their foobar app!" I interpret it as, "We have no money to pay for development."
And more often than not, if you read the license agreement for Open-Sourced (and not Free) Software there is a clause that gives the company the right to re-claim the code and effectively make the applicaton "closed-source."
Slashdot is always ready to bash RMS whenever he speaks of Free Software vs. Open-Sourced Software, however it is painfully apparant that most of/. do not understand the fundamental difference between the two.
And by the way, the Linux kernel is indeed Free Software and Open-Source. So is Debian.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I'm curious if any racing people/fans will actually get excited over this. I find myself mixed on that one. They seem to be targeting the hard core realistic car sim crowd rather than arcade physics racing. Um, I bet there is a niche for this, but I don't know if it is large enough to support them.
I have been wondering about this for some time myself. I started playing Papyrus IndyCar & NASCAR Racing sims in the 90's, and later on got into EA Sports F1 '99-'02, which in my opinion is the best F1 simulation to date for the PC. It's amazing to me that since then there have not been any earth shattering racing simulations for the PC. Everyone is making more money writing console arcade-type games.
I can understand this. On the other hand, there is an entire subculture that lives out their dreams vicariously through racing simulations. I tried joining a NASCAR 2003 league once (the tryout was 2 laps at Loudon) and didn't make it because I was not stable enough through the turns. That track is difficult to excel at, but I saw others take those turns like professionals.
There is a driver (whose name I cannot recall) who grew up playing racing sims, and made it to NASCAR partly because all the practice in the video world translated well onto a real track. Even Dale Jr. has been known to race online; I've heard that he's put in a lot of sim time especially on the 2 road courses the league races on.
Certainly there is a market for serious driving simulations. The question is, how profitable is it?
Crap, I've replied to the wrong post. Ugh..
Actually, I'm curious if any racing people/fans will actually get excited over this. I find myself mixed on that one. They seem to be targeting the hard core realistic car sim crowd rather than arcade physics racing. Um, I bet there is a niche for this, but I don't know if it is large enough to support them. I'd think that the niche for arcade physics or online multiplayer mario cart would be far larger than the sim racing people.
I have been wondering about this for some time myself. I started playing Papyrus IndyCar & NASCAR Racing sims in the 90's, and later on got into EA Sports F1 '99-'02, which in my opinion is the best F1 simulation to date for the PC. It's amazing to me that since then there have not been any earth shattering racing simulations for the PC. Everyone is making more money writing console arcade-type games.
I can understand this. On the other hand, there is an entire subculture that lives out their dreams vicariously through racing simulations. I tried joining a NASCAR 2003 league once (the tryout was 2 laps at Loudon) and didn't make it because I was not stable enough through the turns. That track is difficult to excel at, but I saw others take those turns like professionals.
There is a driver (whose name I cannot recall) who grew up playing racing sims, and made it to NASCAR partly because all the practice in the video world translated well onto a real track. Even Dale Jr. has been known to race online; I've heard that he's put in a lot of sim time especially on the 2 road courses the league races on.
Certainly there is a market for serious driving simulations. The question is, how profitable is it?
Your "oops" post even gets a score of 2.. how could that be?
Good answer; I accept your opinion. I've programmed mainly in C, C++, Delphi, VB6, VB+C#.Net, JavaScript and VBScript. My preference remains, perhaps because I come from these environments and am more comfortable with the notion of intentional variable usage.
I haven't used VIM in years; perhaps it's a wake up call. What is your preferred method for developing and testing JavaScript?
Have you ever attempted to code a real AJAX application? I would love AJAX if it weren't for JavaScript.
For some apps it doesn't hurt to use a scripting language with "less" features, but for larger applications with 20+ source files and tons of undocumented code, JavaScript simply stinks. It was not intended to be used in the manner it's being used today. I could make the same argument for VB.NET and it's a compiled language.
My opinion has nothing to do with JavaScript being a scripting language. Any language that doesn't require variable declarations becomes difficult to debug in large programs. I won't write a VB6 app without Option Declare in every file.
The biggest problem with JavaScript is that it will accept undeclared variables. In a large program, if you spell a variable incorrectly you will experience the "Object expected" error, or worse the code will continue to run and bomb later on something completely unrelated.
I don't think JavaScript is a terrible language, but compared to the languages I've used in the past it doesn't hold up. I was shocked to hear about client-side JavaScript and AJAX; I couldn't believe the next generation web-client programming model was based on a language that doesn't require variable declarations. It's a nightmare to debug.
It's your fault for getting locked in to proprietary products in the first place.
Nonsense. That decision could have been made years before the current Admin was hired. It's the fault of someone who is no longer accountable for their actions. I've been in this situation many times in my career. It's the nature of business; you're here now, therefore you do it. It doesn't matter what happened 5 years ago because the problem happening now is preventing people from getting their work done, which is burning money.
I've been running Windows as a desktop with a regular user account since NT4, way back in 1996. Don't give me any of this "it's not possible" bullshit.
If you want to run Cakewalk Sonar, then you must have administrator rights. There is professional-quality software that requires you to be an Admin, for reasons due to the intense requirements on the hardware.
I think you meant 'unfair' instead of 'inaccurate'. And that still sounds weird. Imagine a benchmark test that came out, showing Intel's newest processor to suck due to a bug. Would you buy Intel saying "yeah, but if you ignore the bug, it rocks"?
Apples and Oranges. And I meant "inaccurate". Fairness isn't an issue. Your analogy is flawed for the following reasons:
* Intel makes chips that are fundamentally still based on the x86 model, which has been around for over 20 years.
* Freenet is around 5 years old, and still not at version 1.0 yet.
* Intel doesn't benchmark chips that don't work; only chips that are working.
You've brushed aside the fact that developing an anonymous, decentralized network that is resilient to attack is hard, and much of the theory is untested in the real world, even though mathematically the idea seems perfect. Since you pay hundreds of dollars for an Intel chip, and Freenet is itself Free, what do you expect given that Freenet isn't actually complete? A perfect product? Give us an R&D budget equal to Intel and Freenet will work much faster than the current pace.
And where did I say benchmark? I said analysis, and what we wish to analyze is how Freenet is currently routing, for better and/or for worse. Once this is known decisions can be made to move Freenet towards a real release. What part of this is unhealthy? And can you even name one other P2P network that scales better than Freenet?
Entropy is dead and has been for a few months at this point. They decided that Freenet is broken and claimed they could do better. Time did tell.
The other point many people critical of Freenet make is that other P2P systems are much faster. One chap came into the Freenet channel and claimed Entropy is much better than Freenet because it's written in C++ and real fast. He didn't realize that Entropy development was dead and that the network consisted of about 20 peers. Nobody knows the precise number of Freenet nodes in the stable network, and any estimate I give is just a guess.
Ever since March 31st/April 1st of 2003, it's just been downhill.
Ah, The introduction of NGR. The idea is that classical routing was not scalable, so something else was needed if Freenet was to support more users. It didn't make sense when a splinter group broke off from the main project and used the infamous "build 692" to claim that new Freenet development was broken, since the old build works for the 50 or so people who were using it. We are now close to the point where a proper simulation of NGR and Freenet will tell us much about NGR itself, since I believe most of the terrible bugs have been fixed.
That assumes freenet works, AFAIK it's still fucking broken. Ian Clarke is playing too much politics with the project and the only coder that really understands freenet (Mathew Toseland) is swamped with ideas, day after day.. it just gets worse and worse... The donations seemed like a good idea, but after watching the DEV list for the last 18 months, I realize it's a failed project :(
Check out other development lists on popular projects (if they're public). You'll find that heated debates, arguments, and blatant personal attacks are very common. The Linux kernel list has years of flames between Linus, Alan and other major contributors.. but development continues, doesn't it?
Same in this case. There are two sets of debates on the Freenet lists. The first set includes those with a background in computer science, an understanding of programming, or an understanding of the theoretical concepts behind decentralized communications. The second (and much larger) set of people are primarily concerned with advancing their own positions within the project. Their ideas are based on false assumptions or a blatant ignorance of Freenet's goals. They will propose things that are completely opposite the goal of a "decentralized anonymous attack-resilient network" and then blame Ian's ego when their ideas are shot down (perhaps unapologetically by Ian himself, sometimes by others). No amount of hand-holding or compassion can convince this group that their ideas are simply incompatible.
All this aside, the stable releases have been working excellent for me and I am running a stock Freenet node; no tweaks. The introduction of NGR also came with lots of bugs, which (imo) is the main cause for the lackluster performance of Freenet. Now that it's working better, perhaps we can judge NGR on it's abilities (for better or worse) instead of the bugs which cause any analysis of Freenet itself to be inaccurate.
theres nothing from stopping you from d/l'ing and installing it yourself. this is easy if you put a deb-src line for unstable in your sources.list file. then it's just an apt-get -b source away.
Precisely the reason why I have been using it for so long.
I agree; however this isn't about filtering porn. This is about taking a certain amount of control away from the com, org, and net domains.
Originally I was all for the idea until I discovered that there wasn't going to be a .music one, like I read very early on in the process. At this point I'm not concerned with it much, except to say that it's a good thing to create more TLD's.
If you get shunned by Efnet come to Undernet.
No offense but I've been on Undernet and IMO the users are less experienced than myself. I have been an avid Linux user since Slackware 2 (eww) and I've met very intelligent people on efNet that I learned a lot from, and I've also helped other promising script kiddies to get another life.
I'm going to miss efNet, but if it goes to shit where are the techies going? I'll see you there... ;)
I find it disconcerting that my favorite band (Rage Against the Machine), which has openly admitted they don't mind people distributing their music for free through Napster or other means, is on Epic Records, owned by Sony.
The more time I spend as a professional musician the more sick I become.
The artists themselves have little or no control over their own work. In many cases they unknowingly relinquish ownership of their material to simply "be signed". It is very difficult to get signed by any label, let alone a major one.
And so the sick thing is, if Sony called me on the phone and proposed to sign my band and release our debut albumn, I would jump at the chance. Sony's distribution alone would guarantee that millions of people will hear my music, and I'm referring to the so called "normal" channels, like radio and MTV.
To make it in the music world, you must be a business man. Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit is just that. His image is planned and targeted. He actually worked for a label before hitting it big with "Nookie".
I don't anticipate that my life as an unknown musician will be any easier due to napster. I still have to play the same tired game of half-selling my soul to a ridiculous group of suits who care little about my creative talents.
Oh no.. not again..
I can just imagine how shitty Microsoft's distribution of Linux will be. Umm, we all know that this is their eventual plan, yes? Embrace, extend, then break compatibility.
If people want Linux to take over Windows, they are going to have to accept that the companies that will be affected by this will also want to get on the bandwagon. It is simply self-preservation.
I do not want Linux to conquer the current Windows world. I could care less if the Linux userbase suddenly stopped growing.
Linux has accomplished all it needed to. And people are still working on it. It works great and better than Windows as a desktop, and developers are clamoring to get in on the action in fixing programs as well as creating new functionality. I feel that Linux's existence is already justified.
And now I am seeing anymosity towards RedHat. Why is this? Could it be that one of the companies who helped bring Linux to the fore-front is now being regarded as monopolistic because they are making money? People do have to do that you know.
There has always been anymosity towards anything proprietery and not open sourced in the Linux community. GNU/Linux is free and open sourced. Red Hat is closed source (and free as in beer only). I personally feel Debian is the only acceptable Linux distribution, because I am one of those Debian freaks.
Now that I think of it, I bet this is the precise reason why they don't have one. I am so sick of living in a country as ludicrous as this one. Is there a location on Earth where I can think for myself and my children?
I couldn't agree more.
I suggest that the State Department provide a list of IP addresses which they want download refused for, and no more than that. It should be possible to get the addresses connecting "Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and others considered America's foes". This is sufficiently practical to manage and can be smoothly automated. Any more than that and I will certainly see it as excessive government interference in the private sector.
You're kidding, right? I hope so. Your first paragraph stated that any terrorist can easily gain access to encryption software through alternative channels, or even from within the US itself (it isn't hard to visit the US with the sole intention of blowing up the World Trade Center).
Then you casually describe a process that is sufficiently practical to manage and can be smoothly automated. Yeah, right. "Government" and "smoothly automated" should never go together. And even if our government is as capable as you feel it is, to then maintain a list of IP addresses that are from "problem" countries is impossible. And even if it was possible and feasable, it could be easily circumvented:
There is no real solution. Imposing zone-type laws on the Internet will not work in the long run. The Internet was not designed with security as the foremost thought. Reliability and more importantly a de-centralized topology were the goals.
That's not to say it will never happen.. I'm saying, don't hold your breath.
Their technical staffing takes back seat to their designers.. a trend I've noticed at a few of these "dot com" construction companies (I call them).
Since the selling point is the web page, the snappy design, and the cool retro graphics, the just-as-important technical aspect to a web site goes relatively unnoticed. They (non-techies) tend to think the design comes first, then the technical issues are simply ironed out.
Sometimes the technical issues are more complicated, and due to the nature of the web are actually tied with the interface itself. Web site development should take the technical side more seriously.
I'm slightly off topic, but the rant stems from my experience with Razorfish. I was told that they are unable to handle the production of anything "e-commerce" related. I stared in amazement and asked why to be told, "Razorfish focuses on design and not tech."
Hmm..
Well, Linux isn't quite as UNIX as BSD is. Linux is it's own conception, designed to mimic a UNIX like operating system.
If you've worked on various flavors of UNIX (Solaris, BSD, AIX, DEC) then you realize Linux (thankfully) is in a class of it's own.
OTOH, pitting Linux against "UNIX" is stupid, so you do have a valid point after all (I changed my mind midway through the post).
Well, GET has a 255 character limit for the URL. POST is the only way to send data to a web server longer than this limit.
Well, hitting the URL http://www.homedepot.com/ redirects you to the page index1.html. This page uses Javascript (uggh) to determine whether the user (ironically) has Javascript enabled in their browser:
if ( browserSupp )
window.location = "/" + siteName + "/HDUS/EN_US/pg_start.jsp";
else
window.location = "noscript.html";
In pg_start.jsp, I can only speculate that a new session is created (the next URL has a session ID field) and various startup routines are executed.
When you arrive at the homepage, the URL contains something similar to this:
pg_diy.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1850957283.0963009276@ @@@&BV_EngineID=cal ieli dldjbemfcfkmcficgkj.0">
Given this information, I can make the following statements:
In all seriousness, this sort of thing can be avoided with a proper design. And the sheer difficulty of the whole process is nil.
Here's what the author actually said in the article for those who cannot read:
Garfinkel said the main lesson of his new book, published by O'Reilly & Associates, is that students and faculty members cannot rely on themselves or on technology to protect their privacy when they use computer networks.
It's a nothing quote from an author I've grown to repect over the years with regards to UNIX security in particular. All the quote means is; networks are inherently insecure.
We knew that.
People start to *want* free software for their computers, sooner or later they'll take the step! This will only benefit the open-source movement, IMHO.
Don't confuse Free Software with Open-Sourced Software. They are entirely different.
Whenever I read, "company xyz has just open-sourced their foobar app!" I interpret it as, "We have no money to pay for development."
And more often than not, if you read the license agreement for Open-Sourced (and not Free) Software there is a clause that gives the company the right to re-claim the code and effectively make the applicaton "closed-source."
Slashdot is always ready to bash RMS whenever he speaks of Free Software vs. Open-Sourced Software, however it is painfully apparant that most of /. do not understand the fundamental difference between the two.
And by the way, the Linux kernel is indeed Free Software and Open-Source. So is Debian.