For a start, it's not a Sendmail story; it's an NT story. More specifically, it's a Unix Flagship App being Made Available for NT story. For me, the relevant paragraph cites Sendmail as making NT "more scaleable and more secure". This is a big thing (as we all know), and a factor that may weigh heavily in the minds of NT admins considering migration. Which means there'll probably be a slew of 'traitor', 'sell-out', etc aimed at Sendmail, all of which cheerfully ignore the reality of business; companies are around to make money and the best way of doing that is to have your software work on as many machines as possible. This could well be a blow to Linux's increasing popularity as it addresses some fundamental concerns about NT. But that's no reason to blame Sendmail.
WHEREIN A.Coward (hereinafter referred to as 'the accused') claims first comment on the topic of 'Oracle' (hereinafter referred to as 'the topic') and WHEREIN I'm getting sick of this joke really quickly, so I'll just say this: Get your lawyer, bub. First post is mine and I'll defend it to the supreme court.
This was a pleasant surprise; I tend to think of any corporation as faceless and populated with bastards. One point, though: they say that they applied for their first software patent in 1991 as a pre-emptive measure; sort of like the germans copyrighting 'Linux'. Is this the best way of going about it? Even though they may have an enlightened policy on patent enforcement, they're still perpetuating the myth of the efficacy of software patents. An alternative strategy (not necessarily better) is to publish widely without patenting, while stating (very) publicly that that's what they're doing. Anyone who subsequently applied for a patent on (whatever) would be doing so on verrrrrry dodgy legal ground; there's no way they could claim with a straight face that they deserved the patent. Of course, legal battles are expensive, more so than patent applications...
If it is gone (and I'm hoping fervently that it isn't), then we've got a lot to thank Deep Space 1 for. The beeb lists four or five possibilities, and most of them could have been taken care of by the new technologies on DS1. If MCO did lose its way, it may be one of the last NASA craft to do so. Let's just hope that it's only in safe mode.
I think you are missing his point, I seem to remember an incident where quite a few people in a government building located in Okelahoma lost their lives due to a truckload of fertilizer. That's true. And what happens now when the feds get wind of anyone buying up a (pardon) shitload of fertilizer? They jump on them, hard. "Shit doesn't kill people, people kill people" is an argument I haven't heard; but then unlike guns there aren't a lot of people who mistakenly believe the individual has a constitutional right to bear arms. Why is it that I, a foreigner, know this when so many Americans don't?
I feel for companies you lose their sales to an errant web publisher. But to use the analogy that appeared in the article, what happens when you want to write a page about (say) the Spitting Cobra, including antidotes to its poison. If you take the information from a published source (just one item of information out of several hundred) would you still be breaking the law under a tougher copyright law?
But Seriously, why do we need this? If I have a cell phone and a cell modem can't I just link up via my laptop and frag away? I'm not sure this will catch on.I'd be very interested to see one though. It's not aimed at you. Here in Ireland you can't walk 50 metres down the street without encountering someone on a moby; these phones are already riddles with features. And given that most of them already have screens that are bigger than the keypads, it's inevitable that games be added. It's just one reason to pick a Nokia (say) over an Ericsson. I've got to say, I've got my heart set on a Nokia 7110, but if a phone comes out with Tetris, I'm getting that instead (assuming I don't have to phone anyone to use it).
Used it five times already today, and all I noticed was a few extra colours in the goooooooooooogle bar. Really got to pay attention. There's no point in saying -- but I will anyway -- that google has pretty much become the default engine for anyone who wants to find relevant results. Great stuff, and with a page that isn't cluttered with crap. Well done to all concerned.
I've had these pictures on my desktop for over a week. Ha. Actually, you can too, if you head on over to NASA and sign up for their email notification thingy; it'll let you know when there's a new story posted. It's seriously handy, and the stories are always meaty. Actually, I'm a vegetarian so I suppose I should say they're always full of protein and iron.
I've got to admit I'm having a hard time considering machines as anything other than machines. And, open-minded free-thinker that I like to imagine myself as, I can't see computers taking over to the extent that Jon seems to be envisioning. We are in danger of becoming too dependent on machines to the extent that one really big solar flare could kill off most of the developed world in a matter of weeks. But that says nothing about machines. Remember the end of Wells' The Time Machine? Technology did everything, and the remaining humans were apathetic, lassitudinous (is that a word?) beings incapable of anything. This is far more likely -- and far more worth consideration -- than the 'machines will take over' cry that's been popular since the first issue of 2000AD.
If you think of MS as a company that adds unwanted features to such an extent that it's too big to properly support, you'll probably be whispering 'deja vu' to yourself right now. Competition is opening up, and NSI want to add features so that people'll stay with them. Unfortunately, they're adding these features quickly so as not to miss the boat, little realising that half-assed, bug-ridden pseudo-features are the pretty much guaranteed to drive the masses away in hordes.
If you read this article, a suspicious number of links are to stories that were covered here recently. THings are about to get really circular; next week cnet'll have a story about this story about their story about... I need to sit down.
So basically you're looking for hard facts with no background and no speculation. I thought that the article was interesting; I didn't learn a great deal from it, but neither was I gnashing my teeth at the author's belabouring such obvious facts as 'stars emit ultraviolet light'. As for its 'target audience': The Nando Times contains sections on sports, politics, entertainment and business (amongst others). I'm willing to wager that a significant number of the people aren't aware of the properties of UV light. Just because it's in a 'tech' section doesn't mean its target audience is geeks and scientists.
To make that contest useful, they should run the program once and take whatever comes out. Nah. After all, you don't expect human writers to submit first drafts. Tweaking is inevitably required.
Okay, within a 500-word constraint it might do well, but that's only because in a story that short there's no room for developments. I've always felt that computers would (some day) do a decent job at drabbles (stories of exactly 100 words), but anything over a couple of thousands of words is bound to be distinguishable from the work of a hume. Of course, I try to be open as well as cynical, so I look forward to reading some of Brutus' offerings.
Remember the story that was mentioned about some black holes being pink that was mentioned here a while ago? For some reason, the phrase 'pink hole dripping cum' is remarkably popular with porn writers. So much so that I began to suspect that it was a wacky american in-joke, and there was a really popular band I hadn't heard of with that name.
I would be more interested in a site that generated actual domains names that don't appear in any dictionary, such as fojar.com and grack.com - they aren't words, and they aren't combinations of words.:) Once again, the shocking standard of american education shouts to the masses. I realise that we can't all have a gracking vocabulary, but I fojar on a regular basis; it's a perfectly cromulent activity.
A couple of years ago, before it turned into a total waste of paper, Wired's Jargon File mentioned 'domain dipping' as the practice of typing www.[whatever].com into your favourite browser (or IE). It's a practice I've enjoyed for quite a while, but as the web takes off it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. These days, www.[adjective][noun].com can provide useful sites, as can www.[verb][noun].com . Of course if the verb is 'blow' and the noun is 'job', it's probably not that employment site for meteorologists that you were looking for, but that's a risk you've got to take.
There was always the possibility, but no-one knew for sure that the water on europa was liquid. Tidal forces, scientists thought, would probably generate heat, but no-one knew for sure.
This is good, good, good news. The discovery of life on mars would be great, but it's possible (nay, probable) that this life would have the same origin as life on Earth. Europa, however, is way to far away for this to be probable. It's still finitely possible, but that's all. And, as we all know, life probably needs water. Life as we know it certainly does. If there is water on Europa, there may be life. If there's life on Europa, as far as I'm concerned it's ubiquitous.
But seriously, folks... I was reading O'Reilly's new tome on Perl Algorithms and I was struck by a point mentioned in this article; no-one cares about efficiency any more. Just let your PIII do the work. We've all heard (and probably given) rants on how VB et al will be the death of the program, but it's good to have Knuth around to remind us that programming can still be an art form.
Slashdot Mirror
For a start, it's not a Sendmail story; it's an NT story. More specifically, it's a Unix Flagship App being Made Available for NT story. For me, the relevant paragraph cites Sendmail as making NT "more scaleable and more secure". This is a big thing (as we all know), and a factor that may weigh heavily in the minds of NT admins considering migration.
Which means there'll probably be a slew of 'traitor', 'sell-out', etc aimed at Sendmail, all of which cheerfully ignore the reality of business; companies are around to make money and the best way of doing that is to have your software work on as many machines as possible.
This could well be a blow to Linux's increasing popularity as it addresses some fundamental concerns about NT. But that's no reason to blame Sendmail.
"When people hear that phrase we believe they think of AOL."
Looks like we better all be careful about using the phrase 'frivolous lawsuit'.
WHEREIN A.Coward (hereinafter referred to as 'the accused') claims first comment on the topic of 'Oracle' (hereinafter referred to as 'the topic') and WHEREIN I'm getting sick of this joke really quickly, so I'll just say this:
Get your lawyer, bub. First post is mine and I'll defend it to the supreme court.
This was a pleasant surprise; I tend to think of any corporation as faceless and populated with bastards.
One point, though: they say that they applied for their first software patent in 1991 as a pre-emptive measure; sort of like the germans copyrighting 'Linux'.
Is this the best way of going about it? Even though they may have an enlightened policy on patent enforcement, they're still perpetuating the myth of the efficacy of software patents.
An alternative strategy (not necessarily better) is to publish widely without patenting, while stating (very) publicly that that's what they're doing. Anyone who subsequently applied for a patent on (whatever) would be doing so on verrrrrry dodgy legal ground; there's no way they could claim with a straight face that they deserved the patent.
Of course, legal battles are expensive, more so than patent applications...
If it is gone (and I'm hoping fervently that it isn't), then we've got a lot to thank Deep Space 1 for.
The beeb lists four or five possibilities, and most of them could have been taken care of by the new technologies on DS1. If MCO did lose its way, it may be one of the last NASA craft to do so.
Let's just hope that it's only in safe mode.
I think you are missing his point, I seem to remember an incident where quite a few people in a government building located in Okelahoma lost their lives due to a truckload of fertilizer.
That's true. And what happens now when the feds get wind of anyone buying up a (pardon) shitload of fertilizer? They jump on them, hard. "Shit doesn't kill people, people kill people" is an argument I haven't heard; but then unlike guns there aren't a lot of people who mistakenly believe the individual has a constitutional right to bear arms.
Why is it that I, a foreigner, know this when so many Americans don't?
I feel for companies you lose their sales to an errant web publisher. But to use the analogy that appeared in the article, what happens when you want to write a page about (say) the Spitting Cobra, including antidotes to its poison. If you take the information from a published source (just one item of information out of several hundred) would you still be breaking the law under a tougher copyright law?
But Seriously, why do we need this? If I have a cell phone and a cell modem can't I just link up via my laptop and frag away? I'm not sure this will catch on.I'd be very interested to see one though.
It's not aimed at you. Here in Ireland you can't walk 50 metres down the street without encountering someone on a moby; these phones are already riddles with features. And given that most of them already have screens that are bigger than the keypads, it's inevitable that games be added. It's just one reason to pick a Nokia (say) over an Ericsson.
I've got to say, I've got my heart set on a Nokia 7110, but if a phone comes out with Tetris, I'm getting that instead (assuming I don't have to phone anyone to use it).
Used it five times already today, and all I noticed was a few extra colours in the goooooooooooogle bar. Really got to pay attention.
There's no point in saying -- but I will anyway -- that google has pretty much become the default engine for anyone who wants to find relevant results. Great stuff, and with a page that isn't cluttered with crap. Well done to all concerned.
Check out the Sanger Center's arguments against patenting. Worth a read.
I've had these pictures on my desktop for over a week. Ha.
Actually, you can too, if you head on over to NASA and sign up for their email notification thingy; it'll let you know when there's a new story posted. It's seriously handy, and the stories are always meaty.
Actually, I'm a vegetarian so I suppose I should say they're always full of protein and iron.
I've got to admit I'm having a hard time considering machines as anything other than machines. And, open-minded free-thinker that I like to imagine myself as, I can't see computers taking over to the extent that Jon seems to be envisioning.
We are in danger of becoming too dependent on machines to the extent that one really big solar flare could kill off most of the developed world in a matter of weeks. But that says nothing about machines.
Remember the end of Wells' The Time Machine? Technology did everything, and the remaining humans were apathetic, lassitudinous (is that a word?) beings incapable of anything. This is far more likely -- and far more worth consideration -- than the 'machines will take over' cry that's been popular since the first issue of 2000AD.
If you think of MS as a company that adds unwanted features to such an extent that it's too big to properly support, you'll probably be whispering 'deja vu' to yourself right now.
Competition is opening up, and NSI want to add features so that people'll stay with them. Unfortunately, they're adding these features quickly so as not to miss the boat, little realising that half-assed, bug-ridden pseudo-features are the pretty much guaranteed to drive the masses away in hordes.
If you read this article, a suspicious number of links are to stories that were covered here recently.
THings are about to get really circular; next week cnet'll have a story about this story about their story about...
I need to sit down.
So basically you're looking for hard facts with no background and no speculation.
I thought that the article was interesting; I didn't learn a great deal from it, but neither was I gnashing my teeth at the author's belabouring such obvious facts as 'stars emit ultraviolet light'.
As for its 'target audience': The Nando Times contains sections on sports, politics, entertainment and business (amongst others). I'm willing to wager that a significant number of the people aren't aware of the properties of UV light.
Just because it's in a 'tech' section doesn't mean its target audience is geeks and scientists.
Maybe you should provide journalists with a list of stuff you know so none of them wastes your time again.
To make that contest useful, they should run the program once and take whatever comes out.
Nah. After all, you don't expect human writers to submit first drafts. Tweaking is inevitably required.
Okay, within a 500-word constraint it might do well, but that's only because in a story that short there's no room for developments. I've always felt that computers would (some day) do a decent job at drabbles (stories of exactly 100 words), but anything over a couple of thousands of words is bound to be distinguishable from the work of a hume.
Of course, I try to be open as well as cynical, so I look forward to reading some of Brutus' offerings.
Remember the story that was mentioned about some black holes being pink that was mentioned here a while ago? For some reason, the phrase 'pink hole dripping cum' is remarkably popular with porn writers. So much so that I began to suspect that it was a wacky american in-joke, and there was a really popular band I hadn't heard of with that name.
I would be more interested in a site that generated actual domains names that don't appear in any dictionary, such as fojar.com and grack.com - they aren't words, and they aren't combinations of words. :)
Once again, the shocking standard of american education shouts to the masses. I realise that we can't all have a gracking vocabulary, but I fojar on a regular basis; it's a perfectly cromulent activity.
A couple of years ago, before it turned into a total waste of paper, Wired's Jargon File mentioned 'domain dipping' as the practice of typing www.[whatever].com into your favourite browser (or IE). It's a practice I've enjoyed for quite a while, but as the web takes off it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
These days, www.[adjective][noun].com can provide useful sites, as can www.[verb][noun].com . Of course if the verb is 'blow' and the noun is 'job', it's probably not that employment site for meteorologists that you were looking for, but that's a risk you've got to take.
There was always the possibility, but no-one knew for sure that the water on europa was liquid. Tidal forces, scientists thought, would probably generate heat, but no-one knew for sure.
This is good, good, good news.
The discovery of life on mars would be great, but it's possible (nay, probable) that this life would have the same origin as life on Earth.
Europa, however, is way to far away for this to be probable. It's still finitely possible, but that's all.
And, as we all know, life probably needs water. Life as we know it certainly does.
If there is water on Europa, there may be life. If there's life on Europa, as far as I'm concerned it's ubiquitous.
Cool link. Why's it on a BSD page?
They just migrate to Windows.
But seriously, folks... I was reading O'Reilly's new tome on Perl Algorithms and I was struck by a point mentioned in this article; no-one cares about efficiency any more. Just let your PIII do the work.
We've all heard (and probably given) rants on how VB et al will be the death of the program, but it's good to have Knuth around to remind us that programming can still be an art form.