The "loadable bundles" method of modularization seems far superior to the use of DLLs that need to be registered, and require the computer to be rebooted, in order to install. The new UI is good-looking, but the lack of customization features is disappointing. As always, Apple brings a great product to the table--nonetheless, I still refuse to buy one of their products.
In my mind, the benefits of an open system and a larger user base make the WinTel platform superior for product development. If Apple were smart, they would try to make it easier to port Windows applications to OS X.
More application developers write for Windows than for the Mac, and bridging the gap between the two platforms and promoting more software development would do far more to improve the Mac platform than simply making their machines technically superior. It would be a pleasure to write for Mac, but I am unwilling to bear the extra cost of developing for two platforms and rewriting a lot of code. Apple, pave a path for us to migrate along and we will come...
Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't...
on
At The Crossroads
·
· Score: 1
The primary problem with Internet legislation that has been passed up to this point is that it is deeply rooted in the use of analogies made to existing case law. For example, proponents of Internet censorship argue that porn on the Internet should be regulated to the same degree that it is in a book store or newsstand. What they neglect to take into account is that you must actively "click-through" to a website while placing a porn magazine in public view would force even those who do not want to see it, to be confronted with it.
In the aforementioned example, the use of analogy makes the legislation more concrete, as it can "inherit" (sorry about the OOP "analogy":-) the case law from prior litigation. However, it also places an undue burden on Internet pornographers who need to conform to laws that should not affect their medium.
The only alternative is to create a whole new bod of case-law as it pertains to the Internet. The problem with this approach is that more litigation would be neccessary to clearly define the legislation and its application. This would place an undue burden on small-business websites as they would be forced to hire a legal team in order to fend off lawsuits that could otherwise be avoided.
You're damned if you do abd damned if you don't establish a new class of legislation. What are we to do?
Between IBM's announcement and SGI's growing support for the LInux platform, it seems that Linux is rapidly carving a place for itself as the *NIX of choice for high-end computing environments. Using a standard platform like Linux that has developed an independent following will give both companies a difinitive advantage over Sun and their Solaris platform. Ultimately, Sun will be forced to follow suit.
I wonder how difficult it is to port legacy AIX applications to Linux, though. I see this as the only obstacle to the adoption of Linux on IBM mainframes; people do not want to abandon their legacy applications.
While splitting Microsoft into smaller pieces may seem like a convenient way to reduce the influence of the company, the fact is that it is only a temporary solution. Microsoft's management structure would not really be altered by a breakup, as only the very top managers bridge the gap between the applications, Internet, and OS divisions now. In addition, a breakup could ultimately make the company stronger.
3Com's profitably spun-off its palm-computing unit, ATT's spun-off wireless division is now worth more than the rest of ATT combined (!), and other companies are planning similar offerings. Most of the time, these breakups (as with Bell) make the new, independent divisions more powerful than before. For example, the applications division is currently prevented from porting Office to UNIX because of the OS's divisions' desire to maintain Windows as a platform. Left free to port Office, a division of Microsoft could easily become the dominant Linux application provider in addition to maintaining a virtual monopoly on Windows productivity apps.
Instead of simply breaking the company up, DOJ needs to more closely regulate MS's internal policy. MS should be suspended from pursuing mergers and acquisitions for a period of a year or more and their licensing agreements should come under greater scrutiny. We, as tax payers, have funded DOJ's investigation up to this point, let's ensure that they do the job right.
Unlike the patents that are being requested for human genes (millions of years of existance somehow doesn't qualify as "prior art"???), the patents that are requested for crops are unique genetic combinations developed by the company that is requesting the patent. How is building what is effectively a new species or sub-species of plant by cross-breeding existing varieties any different from using simple mechanisms that already exist in order to build patentable complex machines.
Somebody needs to set up a distributed network of anonymous web proxies. That would allow people who are behind content filters installed by either their parents or a tyrranical communist regime (I know that the two are very much alike). This would allow users to view pages that would otherwise be banned by making it seem as if it came from a benign domain.
They seriously think that there is a market for a $150,000 machine ( plus maintenance) that only makes burgers and pancakes?!? You can pay a single fast-food cook for over 8 years for that amount--and he will cook everything on the menu.
I wonder whether their site will receive the attention that it did when they first collected the images. Do you realize that they could almost fund an entire space mission if they sold advertising on the JPL page where info on Mars missions is offered? Last time, they had over 90,000,000 hits in just over one week!
Oh, wait, the government only gets money from private industry from taxes and they do not even do a good job at collecting those!
What types of modifications did you have to make to your legacy software in order to allow it to run on the cluster? About how many man-hours were expended in this reprogramming effort?
When evaluating possible system designs, what made you choose a Beowulf cluster for this project over SGI-based systems? Was it simply a matter of cost of cost or were their other factors involved in that decision?
It is about time. The overarching question is whether this change in policy and a corresponding change in US policy would really have any effect in the use of encryption. The highest level of encryption used in e-commerce is 128-bit, which even the US government now allows to be exported. Higher-level encryption products, notably PGP, are available free to everybody over the Internet provided that they *say* they are from the US.
Besides, all of the major encryption standards were developed in the US, so the EU's decision will not really affect distribution of the well-known algorithms (except RSA, whose patent will run out and whose algorithm could be integrated without permission into a European company's product).
For once, it's EU that is leading the way. Technologically, we're (US) ahead--but, we seem to be farthest behind when it comes to developing appropriate policy in regards to new technologies.
Ensuring that every person has at least one computer is only the first step. For almost 5 years, we have been promised Internet-enabled appliances, security systems, etc only to find limited product offerings. THe huge growth in PC ownership that will result from these offerings, combined with the availability of low-cost PCs should provide a huge market for these appliances with otherwise limited market potential.
Since every person will have the option of being connected a majority of the day, the demand for household products with TCP/IP communication should facilitate acceptance. In addition to a lack of demand, the current perception of such items as "geeky" or "unneccessary" has prevented them from becoming accepted. Computers are becoming not only accepted by mainstream society (as they are now), but perceived as *essential*. Internet enabled devices are the logical outgrowth of that sentiment.
Hopefully, the next wave of the e-conomy will move away from e-commerce and into Internet appliances, household items.
Is it just me or does the consant flow of patent applications and new processor/storage technologies coming out of IBM remind you of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC in their heyday. It seems like the next generation of high-performance processors will need to include technology licensed from IBM in order to remain competitive. Are we seeing the rebirth of IBM?
Personally, I do not like the idea of purchasing a unit like this. Wireless phone networks are rapidly evolving and the phone is likely to be rendered obsolete long before the MP3 player becomes obsolete. Besides, it forces you to use the smae phone network in order for the phone to continue being useful. This trend towards integration should slow when people realize that their being forced into a lengthened exclusive contract with a single vendor in order to keep the phone useful.
Penthouse has every right to go after people who distribute information that they obtained through special premium access to Penthouse's site. The problem with current software licensing is that it treats all software as confidential information obtained through a one to one relationship with the company that produces it and subjects its use to a contractual relationship. This is clearly misguided (and I have a project in the works that will *prove* that people do not treat EULAs as contracts), because the nature of software distribution more closely resembles distribution of a mass-produced good not subject to this regulation.
However, when a user is granted special permissions to a site or company network, there is a level of customization that should subject the user to a contract as to how the information can be distributed. Otherwise, I would sign up for an account with Penthouse and use my username/password to reformat their content while displaying my ads. The law needs to recognize the distinction betweem custom content/services and mass produced software.
Stepping in on the side of the users in this case will discredit us. We need to choose our battles carefully.
I think that very few people would argue for piracy. It is generally accepted that copyright holders deserve to receive some financial benefit from the work that they produce. However, that is not the issue that is relevant to the Napster fiasco.
Napster never encourages or acts as an accomplice to music piracy in any form. It is simply an open forum that allows for the distribution of music files, plain and simple. Since none of the files that are exchanged ever reside on Napster's servers, they are in never in possession of pirated music. While some users utilize Napster's network for legitimate MP3 distribution, some abuse it and pirate music. The fact is that Napster, who is merely providing a service that can be used for legal, ethical, activity is being blamed for the abuse of some of its users.
The RIAA should pick a fight with pirates directly, not use Napster as a convenient scapegoat.
There is a reason why the game companies are only passively enforcing their copyright. The fact is that if people's access to games that really have little or no current commercial potential causes a copanies brand to be associated with "history" or "gaming traditon," it is beneificial for the company to leave these sites alone. They are effectively helping to build a lasting brand image that exists apart from a \ny single successful game. For example, people know of "Atari" even though they have not had a commercial success since the early 1980's.
Those PIII Xeons will be outrageously expensive. In addition, they still suffer from having a slower bus speed than the Athlons that reduces PCI-device access times (graphics cards). Are there any popular machines that will support more than 4 of these like there used to be with the PPros? That would be an amazing system.
I wonder if these politicians are really arrogant enough to believe that their decisions will have any bearing on how the Internet actually evolves. Even if they do ban the use of peer-to-peer file sharing tools, people will continue to use them anywy. With the anonymity offered by public proxy servers, and the distributed nature of Gnutella and FreeNet, the government cannot enforce regulations on file transfers even if they tried. Not even the bankruptcy of Napster would have any effect on the culture that has developed around file sharing. Let the politicians appease the people with $$$ while we continue doing what we've been doing.
I wonder how portable the applications are across all BSD platforms. While OS X is now built around the BSD kernel, there are Mac-specific extensions that developers must call to write programs for the Mac. The ultimate benefit of BSD-everywhere(TM) would be if applications required little or no modification to compile for the Mac OS or standard BSD system. It would be nice to see a host of FreeBSD applications that are simply ports of productivity apps for the Mac. The end result could be the acceptance of UNIX as a consumer platform, explicitly instead of implicitly.
The Red Hat Certification exam sounds similar to Cisco, in that their is both a standard and lab component to it. While this generally increases the level of difficulty, it also causes the exam prices to be unusually high. While MS exams (tests only) are $100, Cisco's cost significantly more. One question: does the course/exam have to be given together or can you only register for the exam and take it at SP? How much does it cost?
It is about time that a Linux vendor realize the value of offering distro-specific certification. However, what is the benefit for the average sysadmin? Is their a salary difference between UNIX admins w/o the certificaiton and UNIX admins that do have it?
I would recommend that you get a high speed DSL/Cable connection to your home and use one of the free DNS providers to ensure that people can always reach your IP from a domain. Many cable/phone companies have explicit provisions that prevent you from operating a server using the connection, but you should be able to find one in your area that does not. This way, you are your own host and you are thus solely responsible for your content.
If this solution is not practical, check out Russian hosting companies. They are immune from US/UK censorship and are generally reasonably priced. I am in the process of designing a similar site and have decided to go with a well-known US ISP. If they decide to take down my site, it will result in bad publicity directed towards them that will probably accomplish more, as far as drawing attention to the problem of Internet censorship, than the site itself.
Good luck, and post the URL on/. when it is completed!
What nobody seems to realize is that the companies that collect private data have an even greater incentive to safeguard the data than people themselves. While many people (including myself) are willing to divulge certain information to companies in exchange for rewards, the database of information that companies such as DoubleClick collect is one of their most valuable assets.
If advertisers obtain information from their database, than the value of the database (which, until that point was proprietary) depreciates. Why would an advertiser pay a premium for DoubleClick's advertising when they can send ads direct to the people in the database, themselves. Since companies do not want their investments to depreciate, they will go to great lengths to protect that information--often doing more to protect the information than the people in the database, themselves.
The major problem with DoubleClick is not that they might have our information. It is simply that they are collecting it without explicit consent that upsets me. I have no doubt that any information thy do have is safe in their hands and that paranoia is not warranted.
Slashdot Mirror
The "loadable bundles" method of modularization seems far superior to the use of DLLs that need to be registered, and require the computer to be rebooted, in order to install. The new UI is good-looking, but the lack of customization features is disappointing. As always, Apple brings a great product to the table--nonetheless, I still refuse to buy one of their products.
In my mind, the benefits of an open system and a larger user base make the WinTel platform superior for product development. If Apple were smart, they would try to make it easier to port Windows applications to OS X.
More application developers write for Windows than for the Mac, and bridging the gap between the two platforms and promoting more software development would do far more to improve the Mac platform than simply making their machines technically superior. It would be a pleasure to write for Mac, but I am unwilling to bear the extra cost of developing for two platforms and rewriting a lot of code. Apple, pave a path for us to migrate along and we will come...
The primary problem with Internet legislation that has been passed up to this point is that it is deeply rooted in the use of analogies made to existing case law. For example, proponents of Internet censorship argue that porn on the Internet should be regulated to the same degree that it is in a book store or newsstand. What they neglect to take into account is that you must actively "click-through" to a website while placing a porn magazine in public view would force even those who do not want to see it, to be confronted with it.
:-) the case law from prior litigation. However, it also places an undue burden on Internet pornographers who need to conform to laws that should not affect their medium.
In the aforementioned example, the use of analogy makes the legislation more concrete, as it can "inherit" (sorry about the OOP "analogy"
The only alternative is to create a whole new bod of case-law as it pertains to the Internet. The problem with this approach is that more litigation would be neccessary to clearly define the legislation and its application. This would place an undue burden on small-business websites as they would be forced to hire a legal team in order to fend off lawsuits that could otherwise be avoided.
You're damned if you do abd damned if you don't establish a new class of legislation. What are we to do?
Between IBM's announcement and SGI's growing support for the LInux platform, it seems that Linux is rapidly carving a place for itself as the *NIX of choice for high-end computing environments. Using a standard platform like Linux that has developed an independent following will give both companies a difinitive advantage over Sun and their Solaris platform. Ultimately, Sun will be forced to follow suit.
I wonder how difficult it is to port legacy AIX applications to Linux, though. I see this as the only obstacle to the adoption of Linux on IBM mainframes; people do not want to abandon their legacy applications.
While splitting Microsoft into smaller pieces may seem like a convenient way to reduce the influence of the company, the fact is that it is only a temporary solution. Microsoft's management structure would not really be altered by a breakup, as only the very top managers bridge the gap between the applications, Internet, and OS divisions now. In addition, a breakup could ultimately make the company stronger.
3Com's profitably spun-off its palm-computing unit, ATT's spun-off wireless division is now worth more than the rest of ATT combined (!), and other companies are planning similar offerings. Most of the time, these breakups (as with Bell) make the new, independent divisions more powerful than before. For example, the applications division is currently prevented from porting Office to UNIX because of the OS's divisions' desire to maintain Windows as a platform. Left free to port Office, a division of Microsoft could easily become the dominant Linux application provider in addition to maintaining a virtual monopoly on Windows productivity apps.
Instead of simply breaking the company up, DOJ needs to more closely regulate MS's internal policy. MS should be suspended from pursuing mergers and acquisitions for a period of a year or more and their licensing agreements should come under greater scrutiny. We, as tax payers, have funded DOJ's investigation up to this point, let's ensure that they do the job right.
Unlike the patents that are being requested for human genes (millions of years of existance somehow doesn't qualify as "prior art"???), the patents that are requested for crops are unique genetic combinations developed by the company that is requesting the patent. How is building what is effectively a new species or sub-species of plant by cross-breeding existing varieties any different from using simple mechanisms that already exist in order to build patentable complex machines.
Somebody needs to set up a distributed network of anonymous web proxies. That would allow people who are behind content filters installed by either their parents or a tyrranical communist regime (I know that the two are very much alike). This would allow users to view pages that would otherwise be banned by making it seem as if it came from a benign domain.
They seriously think that there is a market for a $150,000 machine ( plus maintenance) that only makes burgers and pancakes?!? You can pay a single fast-food cook for over 8 years for that amount--and he will cook everything on the menu.
I wonder whether their site will receive the attention that it did when they first collected the images. Do you realize that they could almost fund an entire space mission if they sold advertising on the JPL page where info on Mars missions is offered? Last time, they had over 90,000,000 hits in just over one week!
Oh, wait, the government only gets money from private industry from taxes and they do not even do a good job at collecting those!
What types of modifications did you have to make to your legacy software in order to allow it to run on the cluster? About how many man-hours were expended in this reprogramming effort?
When evaluating possible system designs, what made you choose a Beowulf cluster for this project over SGI-based systems? Was it simply a matter of cost of cost or were their other factors involved in that decision?
Now students can pass notes around the world without the teaching catching them, instead of just across the classroom. Hurray for progress!
It is about time. The overarching question is whether this change in policy and a corresponding change in US policy would really have any effect in the use of encryption. The highest level of encryption used in e-commerce is 128-bit, which even the US government now allows to be exported. Higher-level encryption products, notably PGP, are available free to everybody over the Internet provided that they *say* they are from the US.
Besides, all of the major encryption standards were developed in the US, so the EU's decision will not really affect distribution of the well-known algorithms (except RSA, whose patent will run out and whose algorithm could be integrated without permission into a European company's product).
For once, it's EU that is leading the way. Technologically, we're (US) ahead--but, we seem to be farthest behind when it comes to developing appropriate policy in regards to new technologies.
Ensuring that every person has at least one computer is only the first step. For almost 5 years, we have been promised Internet-enabled appliances, security systems, etc only to find limited product offerings. THe huge growth in PC ownership that will result from these offerings, combined with the availability of low-cost PCs should provide a huge market for these appliances with otherwise limited market potential.
Since every person will have the option of being connected a majority of the day, the demand for household products with TCP/IP communication should facilitate acceptance. In addition to a lack of demand, the current perception of such items as "geeky" or "unneccessary" has prevented them from becoming accepted. Computers are becoming not only accepted by mainstream society (as they are now), but perceived as *essential*. Internet enabled devices are the logical outgrowth of that sentiment.
Hopefully, the next wave of the e-conomy will move away from e-commerce and into Internet appliances, household items.
Is it just me or does the consant flow of patent applications and new processor/storage technologies coming out of IBM remind you of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC in their heyday. It seems like the next generation of high-performance processors will need to include technology licensed from IBM in order to remain competitive. Are we seeing the rebirth of IBM?
Personally, I do not like the idea of purchasing a unit like this. Wireless phone networks are rapidly evolving and the phone is likely to be rendered obsolete long before the MP3 player becomes obsolete. Besides, it forces you to use the smae phone network in order for the phone to continue being useful. This trend towards integration should slow when people realize that their being forced into a lengthened exclusive contract with a single vendor in order to keep the phone useful.
Penthouse has every right to go after people who distribute information that they obtained through special premium access to Penthouse's site. The problem with current software licensing is that it treats all software as confidential information obtained through a one to one relationship with the company that produces it and subjects its use to a contractual relationship. This is clearly misguided (and I have a project in the works that will *prove* that people do not treat EULAs as contracts), because the nature of software distribution more closely resembles distribution of a mass-produced good not subject to this regulation.
However, when a user is granted special permissions to a site or company network, there is a level of customization that should subject the user to a contract as to how the information can be distributed. Otherwise, I would sign up for an account with Penthouse and use my username/password to reformat their content while displaying my ads. The law needs to recognize the distinction betweem custom content/services and mass produced software.
Stepping in on the side of the users in this case will discredit us. We need to choose our battles carefully.
I think that very few people would argue for piracy. It is generally accepted that copyright holders deserve to receive some financial benefit from the work that they produce. However, that is not the issue that is relevant to the Napster fiasco.
Napster never encourages or acts as an accomplice to music piracy in any form. It is simply an open forum that allows for the distribution of music files, plain and simple. Since none of the files that are exchanged ever reside on Napster's servers, they are in never in possession of pirated music. While some users utilize Napster's network for legitimate MP3 distribution, some abuse it and pirate music. The fact is that Napster, who is merely providing a service that can be used for legal, ethical, activity is being blamed for the abuse of some of its users.
The RIAA should pick a fight with pirates directly, not use Napster as a convenient scapegoat.
Obviously, you discovered what is eating up all of those spare cycles on *my* SMP machine :-).
There is a reason why the game companies are only passively enforcing their copyright. The fact is that if people's access to games that really have little or no current commercial potential causes a copanies brand to be associated with "history" or "gaming traditon," it is beneificial for the company to leave these sites alone. They are effectively helping to build a lasting brand image that exists apart from a \ny single successful game. For example, people know of "Atari" even though they have not had a commercial success since the early 1980's.
Those PIII Xeons will be outrageously expensive. In addition, they still suffer from having a slower bus speed than the Athlons that reduces PCI-device access times (graphics cards). Are there any popular machines that will support more than 4 of these like there used to be with the PPros? That would be an amazing system.
I wonder if these politicians are really arrogant enough to believe that their decisions will have any bearing on how the Internet actually evolves. Even if they do ban the use of peer-to-peer file sharing tools, people will continue to use them anywy. With the anonymity offered by public proxy servers, and the distributed nature of Gnutella and FreeNet, the government cannot enforce regulations on file transfers even if they tried. Not even the bankruptcy of Napster would have any effect on the culture that has developed around file sharing. Let the politicians appease the people with $$$ while we continue doing what we've been doing.
I wonder how portable the applications are across all BSD platforms. While OS X is now built around the BSD kernel, there are Mac-specific extensions that developers must call to write programs for the Mac. The ultimate benefit of BSD-everywhere(TM) would be if applications required little or no modification to compile for the Mac OS or standard BSD system. It would be nice to see a host of FreeBSD applications that are simply ports of productivity apps for the Mac. The end result could be the acceptance of UNIX as a consumer platform, explicitly instead of implicitly.
The Red Hat Certification exam sounds similar to Cisco, in that their is both a standard and lab component to it. While this generally increases the level of difficulty, it also causes the exam prices to be unusually high. While MS exams (tests only) are $100, Cisco's cost significantly more. One question: does the course/exam have to be given together or can you only register for the exam and take it at SP? How much does it cost?
It is about time that a Linux vendor realize the value of offering distro-specific certification. However, what is the benefit for the average sysadmin? Is their a salary difference between UNIX admins w/o the certificaiton and UNIX admins that do have it?
Thanks for the review.
I would recommend that you get a high speed DSL/Cable connection to your home and use one of the free DNS providers to ensure that people can always reach your IP from a domain. Many cable/phone companies have explicit provisions that prevent you from operating a server using the connection, but you should be able to find one in your area that does not. This way, you are your own host and you are thus solely responsible for your content.
/. when it is completed!
If this solution is not practical, check out Russian hosting companies. They are immune from US/UK censorship and are generally reasonably priced. I am in the process of designing a similar site and have decided to go with a well-known US ISP. If they decide to take down my site, it will result in bad publicity directed towards them that will probably accomplish more, as far as drawing attention to the problem of Internet censorship, than the site itself.
Good luck, and post the URL on
What nobody seems to realize is that the companies that collect private data have an even greater incentive to safeguard the data than people themselves. While many people (including myself) are willing to divulge certain information to companies in exchange for rewards, the database of information that companies such as DoubleClick collect is one of their most valuable assets.
If advertisers obtain information from their database, than the value of the database (which, until that point was proprietary) depreciates. Why would an advertiser pay a premium for DoubleClick's advertising when they can send ads direct to the people in the database, themselves. Since companies do not want their investments to depreciate, they will go to great lengths to protect that information--often doing more to protect the information than the people in the database, themselves.
The major problem with DoubleClick is not that they might have our information. It is simply that they are collecting it without explicit consent that upsets me. I have no doubt that any information thy do have is safe in their hands and that paranoia is not warranted.