If you're at all interested in WWIV, I'm pretty sure you can find the source floating around. I think I've got a copy of it somewhere. Of course, I can imagine that a lot of work would go into porting from DOS based app to a *nix based app that could be telneted into...
I understand that benchmarks aren't the most reliable source of information, but even selling chips by bogomips would certainly be better than this. What you propose would be like talking about car motors and adressing EVERYTHING about them but their horsepower.
Sounds a lot like telemarketers. The ones that don't block caller ID return garbage numbers that the telco insists aren't connected. Obviously the ISP is taking kickbacks for covering the tracks of spammers.
Here's one.. write the original app for Linux (or BSD or whatever) and then use VMWare or something when it needs to be deployed on NT/2k. You get the benefits of being able to run on multiple platforms and only writing the code once, while only slightly extending the testing cycle.
I guess you could work the other way, and start writing for NT, and making sure it runs under WINE, but since this is slashdot, I fig'd targeting Linux would work best (IE get modded up to a point where anybody will read it).
... as long as the problem set isn't highly biased towards the capabilities of a particular language. If all the problems involve patern matching, students who understand Perl are going to wipe the floor with those using C. If everything involves writing GUIs, those who know VB and Java will run the show. Either limit it to a handful of languages that are relatively similar in power, or find problems that are particularly abstract and won't be trivialized by a particular languages features.
Remember that these are HS students, not college students. They may have all the hands-on experience in the world but, at best, they'll have had one year of 'proper' CS training. Try to base the problems around the set of abilities they should have (you don't find HS math competitions requiring knowledge of differential equations..) and find interesting ways of applying it.
Best would be problems that essentially need be solved -outside- of code, and can't be brute-forced. Trained monkeys can write code but problem solving doesn't come so easy to them.
I don't know about the other systems, but the XBox is based on a P3-733. I can't really see them producing a CPU, considering all the options available (AMD, Intel, Cyrix, Transmeta...)
What seems really strange to me is that he wants to have 64GB or RAM but only wants 4 CPUs. Of course, I'm assuming that whatever research is being done here involves some major number crunching abilities, and having only 4 CPUs, even at 2GHz, just doesn't deliver on that point.
Maby Microsoft just figures if they put out yet another lame Java implimentation, they'll be able to say "We support Java, why would we try replacing it?".
Honestly, I don't know this Cringley guy from Adam, but I don't see any reason to give him credibility. I mean, the link goes through PBS. Now, PBS is considered a good source for relatively unbiased information, but they are -not- exactly considered a major powerhouse when it comes to reporting on current events, technical or not.
I understand that for some purposes, a T1 is superior to a DSL line, like when you need QOS guarantees, but unless your livelihood depends on the link, a high-bandwidth, business DSL line might be more appropriate. QOS, distance to the CO and the desire to run voice channels are probably the 3 biggest reasons for picking a T1 these days, but if none of those are serious concerns, you could save yourself a lot of money by not getting a T1.
I remember when having a US Robotics modem was a sure ticket to being considered elite, but nowadays, even having your own T1 doesn't even really get you much in the way of bragging rights.
Hrmm... why don't we all go out and buy a copy of the powerpuff DVD so that we can get in on the class-action lawsuit. Seeing the size of 'damages' that companies claim when they get infected, we should have no problem getting free DVDs for life. +)
A friend of mine works for a company that started a project with Cloudscape, and from what he's told me, it's worse than working with flat text files. I can't remember the details of the project, but based on what he told me, cloudscape is -not- the place to look for your answers.
Maybe instead of an SQL database, a slightly more low-level, Berkeley DB library type solution might work for you.
If you're using the stock Mandrake kernel and -just- changing the motherboard, you should just be able to reboot and go to town since it's already got damned near everything compiled in or available as a module. If you've gone and compiled a custom kernel, you just need to make one that's correct for your new mobo and boot from that.
Even changing mobos on windows isn't -that- bad. I've got my dad's machine still running the factory win95 install (he refuses to let me reinstall or upgrade) after both a mobo and HDD upgrade. All you need to do is go to the device manager and remove devices before you shutdown the final time. When you come back up it'll re-recognize all the devices, and you're good to go.
Titling an article "Open source programmers stink at error handling" is an inflamatory statement. Regardless of what is actually in the body of the article, you can't place it in a Linux/OSS oriented site without expecting that exact type of reaction from the/. crew. Hell, he probably called it what he did -hoping- to get a front page mention on slashdot.
On my machine, IE (in win98) crashes about twice as often as Mozilla (in Linux) does. If MS wants to ensure the optimal user experience they should block their own browser.
Where I come from, simple and cheap equate to good. Not only with women, but also software solutions. Here's my take on how to solve your little dilema...
Simply have a script running on the server that periodically (ie less than 1s intervals) sends a single short time-out ping to the other end of the line. If the other side fails to respond, kill the route and interface, and if possible, shut down and lock up the server, since a failed reply strongly suggests that the link has been compromised.
If you feel like putting more work into the project, you can watch for unwelcome network traffic. Sending out various broadcast requests and looking for their response, as well as things like windows network broadcasts, and again killing the link if unacceptable results are found will give you an added level of security.
While most of the above physical solutions are clearly outside of your budget, considering you're talking to slashdot and not a properly bonded security consultant, using fiber will make it significantly more difficult for the link to be compromised without detection. Running IPSEC(over IPSEC over...), or better yet not using ethernet & TCP/IP will add an aditional layer of confusion for any potential attackers.
I could go on and on with various ideas, but I think I've said enough. If you really want more of my ideas, I'd be willing to talk for a case of beer and a hooker. If money's tight, I'll settle for a cheap hooker, just don't skimp on the beer, its where my magical powers come from. ^_^
Don't neglect to make the distinction between the format and the encoder. Both formats are well enough documented that writing a player is a trivial (in the mathematical sense) exercise, but writing encoders is an exercise left to the reader.
Right now, this only really applies to MP3s, but when vorbis becomes more widely accepted I'm sure we'll see commercial MP3 encoders ported over to the new format.
Stupid question, but how much do the vorbis encoder and the lame encoder have in common?
Without plugin support, a Linux version of winamp would be useless to me. All the music on my drive is either ogg or a tracked format (.mod,.xm,.it,.s3m), none of which can be played without plugins. Adititionally, the modplayer plugin for winamp essentially sucks monkey nads, while the much less sucking modplug engine is used in the plugin for XMMS'.
Slashdot Mirror
If you're at all interested in WWIV, I'm pretty sure you can find the source floating around. I think I've got a copy of it somewhere. Of course, I can imagine that a lot of work would go into porting from DOS based app to a *nix based app that could be telneted into...
I understand that benchmarks aren't the most reliable source of information, but even selling chips by bogomips would certainly be better than this. What you propose would be like talking about car motors and adressing EVERYTHING about them but their horsepower.
Sounds a lot like telemarketers. The ones that don't block caller ID return garbage numbers that the telco insists aren't connected. Obviously the ISP is taking kickbacks for covering the tracks of spammers.
Here's one.. write the original app for Linux (or BSD or whatever) and then use VMWare or something when it needs to be deployed on NT/2k. You get the benefits of being able to run on multiple platforms and only writing the code once, while only slightly extending the testing cycle.
I guess you could work the other way, and start writing for NT, and making sure it runs under WINE, but since this is slashdot, I fig'd targeting Linux would work best (IE get modded up to a point where anybody will read it).
In my experience it's hard to get anything that could be described as "acceptable" from a Logitech Quickcam.
... as long as the problem set isn't highly biased towards the capabilities of a particular language. If all the problems involve patern matching, students who understand Perl are going to wipe the floor with those using C. If everything involves writing GUIs, those who know VB and Java will run the show. Either limit it to a handful of languages that are relatively similar in power, or find problems that are particularly abstract and won't be trivialized by a particular languages features.
Remember that these are HS students, not college students. They may have all the hands-on experience in the world but, at best, they'll have had one year of 'proper' CS training. Try to base the problems around the set of abilities they should have (you don't find HS math competitions requiring knowledge of differential equations..) and find interesting ways of applying it.
Best would be problems that essentially need be solved -outside- of code, and can't be brute-forced. Trained monkeys can write code but problem solving doesn't come so easy to them.
...and paying for a compiler licence would be peanuts for Redhat/Suse/Mandrake...
I don't know about the other systems, but the XBox is based on a P3-733. I can't really see them producing a CPU, considering all the options available (AMD, Intel, Cyrix, Transmeta...)
Well, if you're talking about HDDs, they're usually marketed using base-10 sizes. That's why they have the small print saying "1 MB = 1000000 Bytes"
What seems really strange to me is that he wants to have 64GB or RAM but only wants 4 CPUs. Of course, I'm assuming that whatever research is being done here involves some major number crunching abilities, and having only 4 CPUs, even at 2GHz, just doesn't deliver on that point.
Maby Microsoft just figures if they put out yet another lame Java implimentation, they'll be able to say "We support Java, why would we try replacing it?".
Honestly, I don't know this Cringley guy from Adam, but I don't see any reason to give him credibility. I mean, the link goes through PBS. Now, PBS is considered a good source for relatively unbiased information, but they are -not- exactly considered a major powerhouse when it comes to reporting on current events, technical or not.
I understand that for some purposes, a T1 is superior to a DSL line, like when you need QOS guarantees, but unless your livelihood depends on the link, a high-bandwidth, business DSL line might be more appropriate. QOS, distance to the CO and the desire to run voice channels are probably the 3 biggest reasons for picking a T1 these days, but if none of those are serious concerns, you could save yourself a lot of money by not getting a T1.
I remember when having a US Robotics modem was a sure ticket to being considered elite, but nowadays, even having your own T1 doesn't even really get you much in the way of bragging rights.
Hrmm... why don't we all go out and buy a copy of the powerpuff DVD so that we can get in on the class-action lawsuit. Seeing the size of 'damages' that companies claim when they get infected, we should have no problem getting free DVDs for life. +)
A friend of mine works for a company that started a project with Cloudscape, and from what he's told me, it's worse than working with flat text files. I can't remember the details of the project, but based on what he told me, cloudscape is -not- the place to look for your answers.
Maybe instead of an SQL database, a slightly more low-level, Berkeley DB library type solution might work for you.
If you're using the stock Mandrake kernel and -just- changing the motherboard, you should just be able to reboot and go to town since it's already got damned near everything compiled in or available as a module. If you've gone and compiled a custom kernel, you just need to make one that's correct for your new mobo and boot from that.
Even changing mobos on windows isn't -that- bad. I've got my dad's machine still running the factory win95 install (he refuses to let me reinstall or upgrade) after both a mobo and HDD upgrade. All you need to do is go to the device manager and remove devices before you shutdown the final time. When you come back up it'll re-recognize all the devices, and you're good to go.
Try Paperback, $7 each at your local KMart.
Titling an article "Open source programmers stink at error handling" is an inflamatory statement. Regardless of what is actually in the body of the article, you can't place it in a Linux/OSS oriented site without expecting that exact type of reaction from the /. crew. Hell, he probably called it what he did -hoping- to get a front page mention on slashdot.
On my machine, IE (in win98) crashes about twice as often as Mozilla (in Linux) does. If MS wants to ensure the optimal user experience they should block their own browser.
Where I come from, simple and cheap equate to good. Not only with women, but also software solutions. Here's my take on how to solve your little dilema...
Simply have a script running on the server that periodically (ie less than 1s intervals) sends a single short time-out ping to the other end of the line. If the other side fails to respond, kill the route and interface, and if possible, shut down and lock up the server, since a failed reply strongly suggests that the link has been compromised.
If you feel like putting more work into the project, you can watch for unwelcome network traffic. Sending out various broadcast requests and looking for their response, as well as things like windows network broadcasts, and again killing the link if unacceptable results are found will give you an added level of security.
While most of the above physical solutions are clearly outside of your budget, considering you're talking to slashdot and not a properly bonded security consultant, using fiber will make it significantly more difficult for the link to be compromised without detection. Running IPSEC(over IPSEC over...), or better yet not using ethernet & TCP/IP will add an aditional layer of confusion for any potential attackers.
I could go on and on with various ideas, but I think I've said enough. If you really want more of my ideas, I'd be willing to talk for a case of beer and a hooker. If money's tight, I'll settle for a cheap hooker, just don't skimp on the beer, its where my magical powers come from. ^_^
With a high-tech car like this, one would have to hope that their mechanic is not a fan of the BOFH
I think what you're looking for is something more along the lines of the infamous Blotto Box.
Don't neglect to make the distinction between the format and the encoder. Both formats are well enough documented that writing a player is a trivial (in the mathematical sense) exercise, but writing encoders is an exercise left to the reader.
Right now, this only really applies to MP3s, but when vorbis becomes more widely accepted I'm sure we'll see commercial MP3 encoders ported over to the new format.
Stupid question, but how much do the vorbis encoder and the lame encoder have in common?
Without plugin support, a Linux version of winamp would be useless to me. All the music on my drive is either ogg or a tracked format (.mod, .xm, .it, .s3m), none of which can be played without plugins. Adititionally, the modplayer plugin for winamp essentially sucks monkey nads, while the much less sucking modplug engine is used in the plugin for XMMS'.
2.4.11 : a kernel that will forever live in infamy.