New Alpha motherboard The UP1100 has been revealed at the Expo - partnered with a 21264 Alpha processor, it's aimed at Beowulf clusters, web servers and development and rendering boxes. API have also announced a partnership with QSW which will develop Linux supercomputers. Check out http://www.alpha-processor.com and http://www.quadrics.com
...or are you just so stupid that you don't get it that Microsoft doesn't like Linux? Microsoft porting a game to anything besides a Mac (they have various contracts with Apple to keep the Mac alive) would signal that we should be watching the core temperature of the Earth (read: Hell freezes over). Microsoft porting a game would be the same as them working with an open standard. They just won't do it, to force you to buy Windows. And DirectX. And you can register via Internet Explorer. And it gets the data files off of MSN. Etc. Microsoft products are all one big happy family. You have to get them all to get one. That is why Microsoft is so evil and manipulative. (Aside from all those bad things that they're getting sued for now, like pushing competitors and distributors around)
I think that this may be one of the key points in the new, developing Linux games market. Three dimensions and 360 movement (the combination of the two) has been missing from the Linux games market, and now this means the introduction of a quality, modern product that has everything needed to move Linux gaming into the twenty first century.
It's also great that more companies are joining in on the Linux gaming market. I think that with the additional stability and power provided by Linux, gaming can become an even more enthrilling experiance. Soon I hope to be able to never again see a BSOD while playing Half-Life or Tiberian Sun.
I think that this is one of the many steps that the new Linux gaming market is taking toward Linux becoming an equal competitor with Windows as a gaming platform. When that happens, what will you need Windows for again? This could be the final blow that crushes Microsoft once and for all. Except that Microsoft isn't paying attention. While Microsoft is tied up in the antitrust hearings, the Linux community may have finally achieved total superiority over Windows in all aspects. Or very near to it. This is a very exciting time. We may be ready to actualize the prophecy and take over the world.
With this announcement, Sun has taken the next step in sharing the responsibility for the development of the Java platform with other members of the international technology community. The formation of the ECs also underscores the software industry's dedication to the success of the JCP program and their commitment to ensuring that Java technology continues to rapidly develop in order to meet the needs of the networked economy. Moreover, the additional direction and expertise of the EC members will further assure the Java technology developer community that they will have access to the highest quality technology for.com computing.
monopoly n. a business or inter-related group of businesses which controls so much of the production or sale of a product or kind of product as to control the market, including prices and distribution.
So, Microsoft is a monopoly because IBM, a major member of the distribution is forced to distribute only Microsoft's operating system?
Salesman: MUAHAHAHAHA *salesman spontaneously combusts leaving me covered in bits of spleen* ME: ick.
Funny. Of course, it wouldn't happen that way. It would be more like this. Me: I want a computer. Salesman: OK, here's a nice IBM running Windows 98. Me: I don't like Windows, couldja sell me something else? (Now, this assumes that this isn't a PC only store. Due to consumer demand, more and more stores are becoming not only PC stores) Salesman: Sure, you can get this nice cherry flavored iMac. Me: No, I don't like Macintoshes. They are underdeveloped pieces of graphical junk that play to the lowest common denominator of the computing community. Do you have anything else? Salesman: Ummm... just a second... *Salesman runs off and finds the one member of the 20 person sales team that knows how to use a BSD varient* BSD Salesman: Do you want to use our repackaged distribution of BSD for only $50? (Note: No salesman in his right mind will tell you about a free operating system as free. That's not Microsoft's work, that's capitalism.) Me: No, I don't support the elitist additudes of the founders of BSD. Do you have anything else? *Salesman runs off to find one of the members of the sales team that groks Linux* Linux Salesman: Would you be interested in buying the Redhat distribution of the Linux operating system? Me: No, I don't support the anti-corporate near-anarchist additude of the Linux community. Do you have anything else? Salesman: Are you stupid or something? *salesman spontaneously combusts leaving me and the surrounding hardware covered in bits of spleen. All nearby Windows equipment GPFs.*
If 5% of the population (at least, of the population involved with technology) understand BSD, that means that one member of a 20 member sales team will understand it. And Linux has been getting a lot of press lately, so I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of the tech population has heard of it. Maybe 10% use it. Now, I haven't actually tried talking to a salesman, but tomorrow I'll go out and see what they know.
BTW, I don't disagree that Microsoft sucks. I just don't believe that creating a sucessful product, and trying to provide the (vastly computer illiterate, who wouldn't use Netscape anyway (how would they get it, if they didn't have internet access with something like explorer, and they didn't know how to use DOS-box FTP?)) market with tools to be able to use the product to its fullest extent.
Microsoft includes IE in the shell (not the OS) to make Windows 'Internet Ready'. It's all about marketing. Grok?
IANAL, but isn't that the goal of every company? To have total and complete market share? I'm not saying that Microsoft's marketing practices were at all legal or moral, but that they shouldn't be judged as a monopoly simply because consumers choose to use their product. Have they eliminated competition? Yeah, of course. By producing a better product they eliminate competition. If Linus had went back in time with a 2.x release of the Linux kernal and marketed it back when only 1.x was around, he would have been eliminating competition (decreasing the market share of the 1.x kernal)
They FORCED people to use IE to browse the web when Netscape was still selling their then viable product. They destroyed Java for their own uses, outside the license agreement.
Um, did Bill Gates personally come to your house with a submachinegun and FORCE you to use IE, or did he simply integrate a web browser into the operating system, leaving you FREE to install Nyetscape or any other browser that you want. Actually, cancel that. He integrated IE into the Shell, not into the OS. However, being that Windows is closed, very few members of the Linux community realize this, being that they typically do not take much interest in Windows unless they can bash Microsoft. Infact, it is possible to not even use 'Explorer' as your Windows shell. Check out your System.ini under shell=. There are several replacements that you can use, in addition to simply making an emacs port your shell (Which is rather fun;)
responsibility of the industry to provide a market in which freedom of computers AND operating systems are available to compete
I'm not sure if that legally stands, but it sounds right, so I'll start with it. Linux is competing with Microsoft. So is BSD, UNIX, FreeDOS, PCDOS, DrDOS, etc. Now, there is certainly competition among the physical computers. I mean, what are Apple, Sun, etc.? There is also competition among the operating systems, as I said before.
It's like reupholstering a couch, you can't install an OS without some degree of expertise, just ask my mom or my grandma
Personally, I found the Redhat Linux install relatively painless.. however, I understand that there are those that won't. Now, IBM is starting to package systems with Linux installed, Sun always had it's operating system, Apple has MacOS, so there are plenty of alternatives. If Microsoft picks up consumers by default, more power to them, it isn't illegal to make the most widely understood (possibly besides MacOS) operating system around. It's not monopolistic practices, it's just good marketing.
And yet you prove my point without my trying. You owned and maintained multiple machines. Does the average consumer do that? No. You owned and maintained multiple Operating Systems. Does the average consumer do that? No.
Are you some sort of pathetic idiot? I've read most of the posts here without feeling the need to reply, but you just take the cake. I mean, what the hell are you talking about?
Alright. Before this post gets hit as flamebait, let me make my point. A corporation, even if it has 100% of the target audiance buying from it, is not a monopoly until there aren't competitors. By owning a non-Microsoft operating system (what was it he had, five or six of them?) that were all competing with Microsoft's OS, Microsoft wasn't a monopoly. Microsoft doesn't send somebody over to your house with a shotgun and force you to use Windows. If you want to download Linux, or BSD, or buy BeOS or SCO Unix, or even run a port of AmigaOS or MacOS, or use FreeDOS or DrDOS or PCDos, or use any of a number of other operating systems, many of them free, then you have your choice. If you could use only Windows or only MSDOS and Windows, then Microsoft would be a monopoly. But there are plenty of alternatives. Just because the average consumer doesn't use these alternatives doesn't mean that they aren't there.
The knowledgeable people can always circumvent these problems, but we have trouble educating the masses, that's what the courts are there for.
WTF?! The courts are there to enforce the laws, not to educate the consumers. If Microsoft prevents Win3.1 from running over DrDos, then the courts apply the punishment. If Microsoft runs over your cat, then the courts apply the punishment. If Microsoft launches a sucessful marketing campaign and picks up a large percentage of the consumer market, then the courts aren't there to tell everybody the Microsoft is crap. The courts are there to enforce the law, not to counter sucessful marketing campaigns.
Come on, try to hack my 31337 firewall! Your firewall was pathetic. I haX0red r00t and am now doing an rm -rf on the root directory. Hmmmmmm. Now.. why is the sysadmin storming down the hall towards my office...?
Not a Windows programmer, one would hope. Once again, this would give a whole new meaning to Fatal Error.
Re:Now you've hit on one of my favorite topics
on
Too Old To Code?
·
· Score: 1
) interface an Apple II to a stopped-flow spectrophotometer, and 2) set up an Apple II controlled robotic system for circadian rhythm experiments Ooh. You know big words. Do you think that anybody reading/. knew whether those were medical machines or the latest physics experiment?
So we old farts are not necessarily out of date or technically illiterate! LOL! Wow. You know 8085 and Z80 assembly. You know how to interface Apple IIs. That is amazingly modern technology. I mean, what's a Pentium III when you can interface Apple IIs with the ENIAC?
technically incompetent Oh, now you insult us. Just because we're cutting edge and don't have the time to memorize the layout charts of the Apple II interfacer or work our way through the rigors of Z80 assembly, in the favor of taking networking courses and learning Perl, Python and Java means that we are technically incompetent and cannot possibly be compared to you. Well, you're right. We can't, because you're too old. You never caught on with the internet age and you're back there interfacing Apple IIs and writting operating systems in Z80 assembly.
like people never got fired for buying IBM Ummm... the traditional version is not buying the standard, and now IBM is starting to adopt Linux... but I assume that you were from the era when IBM, not MSFT, was the standard.
compared to some list of buzz words So, technical experiance in the field is worthless compared to your 'general knowledge'? You sound like you forgot to get on the bandwagon with the new technology and you're now complaining that you got left in the dust. Sorry, buddy. Maybe some third world governments still need their Apple IIs interfaced with their Z80 assembly card punchers (watch as you catch that Z80 assembly doesn't get read in on cards). In the new e.economy, we don't need the technically incompetent. We need cutting edge, not tried and true center.
The smallest installation of Linux with X that I've seen takes up 40 megs. Unacceptable. The smallest command line installation I've seen takes up a little less than a megabyte. Much better. The base install would probably have a most of/etc, a little of/dev, no/home or/opt and choice selections from/bin and/sbin. Maybe a GUI would be an addon. However, you have to imagine that someday, Palm computers might be the size of mainframes compared to what the size of computers would be then. (nanocomputers attached to nanobots). I think that a POSIX complaint filesystem, and multiuser support would be necessary, if only for daemons.
Middlesex University in the UK That would be with Donald Davies, idiot. Paul Baran at RAND made the same thing and got it to work. You're pretty stupid for pretending to be informed.
Also, a Brit invented the web Larry Roberts invented the concept of a 'web', dumbfuck. He's from Boston.
many researchers from different countries who made a contribution along the line. Obviously you are trying to eliminate nationalism and start a New World Order in which the UN will be in control of the globe. You must be stopped. I call on the Power of Slashdot to vanquish you before you can Destroy the World !!!
world have to pay taxes to the UK No, because nobody over there decided to patent the industrial ideas and processes. And those were developed by underfunded peasants, not by military professionals.
Well, laptops are relatively weak compared to what you can get into a desktop machine. Plus, anybody can go out and get a laptop. But only a true geek would spend the time to craft a mobile desktop machine. There's plain hack value of making something like that. And then this machine may well be easier to carry around then a laptop. I mean, for the purposes that this is going to be used for (LAN gaming), you would have to lug a fairly heavy laptop around, while you can just roll this in. Laptop's require you to actually hold them while you move, while this you just pull.
You mean, at the x-ray machines that have those huge labels on the front that say that everything besides scientific and high-speed film can go through? The same x-ray machines that have the nice little happy face next to the picture of a laptop? X-ray machines are fine on portable electronics except things that store information via x-ray (or something like that, can't remember). Magnetic data is fine.
However, it would be rather interesting to come into the airport dragging a gray box with several strange openings and buttons, refuse to have it x-rayed, and then not let them disassemble it for examination (what do you mean I can't take apart this hard drive thing? It might have a gun inside!). Got to try that sometime.
(Now, if the search engine provider doesn't respect the ROBOTS.TXT exclusions, I say go after them with legal means.) Wimp. When did the age of Technology for Technology end and the age of Technology for Profit begin? Sysadmins shouldn't go crying to the DOJ every time somebody they don't like pings their servers. A true Sysadmin would have just added a DENY tage to the httpd config file, rather than trying to complain to the courts.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone Yeah, but I was refering to the way in which they did it. I've seen those signs, but I wouldn't expect to walk into a store and suddenly be slapped with a lawsuit. eBay should have taken the technical solution, a deny flag in the webserver config file or something of the like, rather than a lawsuit. In addition, from their User Agreement,
You agree that you will not take any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure.
Now, since when was a web-bot, one process, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load? I'd bet that it makes up less than a half of a tenth of a thousandth of a percent of the traffic that eBay gets.
number of "advertisements" (feel free to use Visa, ipix imaging services, powered by sun) that ebay no doubt gets paid to put there. If what you actually said there is true, then they aren't losing any money at all, because nothing has to do with the user. What I'm guessing you meant to say was '...ebay no doubt gets paid when you click on'. Even so, eBay's not really losing money, just not gaining any, the same way that they wouldn't if you went to the page and didn't click on any of the ads. And since when does not clicking on any of the ads make them 'lose' money? How could they possibly 'lose' money because of a web-bot going through their page?
can determine how much wasted resources is too much There is no way to determine, because it isn't the point. The point is that this judge is limiting the use of a service available to the public because the public is using it. This isn't a legal problem, it's a technical one. And technically, it isn't even a problem, since the wasted time is so infadescimally small that you would never even be able to notice it. eBay is now forbidding certain people (web-bots, whatever) from using their service, simply because of using their service. It's not as if eBay is losing money. What's a few extra milliseconds? It's not as if anybody is launching a DDOS against them.
acceptable and not acceptable..or can you? Personally, I would draw the line between acceptable and non-acceptable the same place I draw it between benevolent and malevolent. If somebody is running a neat hacked-up web-bot to list stuff from my site, and it isn't too much for the server (5% of total work), then I'm fine. If they're trying to bring down my server through dozens and dozens of connection requests, then that's not good, and you can take legal action. The point is that eBay is overreacting to what is a technical obviousness overhyped to the upper staff, probably by some aspiring suck-up trying to get promoted.
...server side? Like, adding a deny... to their web server config file?
Aside from that, this is really a problem. I mean, not the individual story, but the additude that a company can simply deny somebody like this the right to use a service that they provide. If would be like if you owned a software shop, but you kicked the reviewers out everytime they wanted to write up a story about what you have there. It's just not right. I mean, most everybody on Slashdot should realize that the amount of server time these requests are taking up is less than the amount of time their legal department has spent looking into this. Less than the amount of time needed to post this, even. I mean, eBay isn't running on a 486 anymore. They can handle thousands of people a day, so what's wrong with a web-bot or two? Actually, web-bots, in addition to bringing more people to the site than a normal person connecting to the server would, are also much faster in completing their communication with the server, giving eBay more customers faster and quite possibly easing the load on their servers, by (if I read the story right) mirroring product data on another site. This isn't like somebody is launching a DDOS against eBay. This is a web-bot, for goodness sake! Why do they even care?
You Open-Sourcers think this is really great, implementing yet another scripting language into the already security-strained (Remember those scripted viruses?) web. Why don't you just take some time and learn a crossplatform language, like Java, that already does this? No, you have to have your favorite toy. What about when your favorite toy kills the hard drives of hundreds of major corporations worldwide and you are subjected to an investigation by the CIA because you assisted the 1337 haXorz that did it, how about then? When will you realize that another insecure coding language will wreak havok on the WORLD because you're too lazy to learn a decent language?!
Sorry about that. Just finished cleaning up the last bit of the ILOVEU virus. Apparently, some dumbass in sales forwarded a copy (yes, he saved it even after all of the media stuff) to his friend in marketing, who opened it, and, well, ouch. All we need is the super-powerful Perl becoming a scripted language.
Slashdot Mirror
New Alpha motherboard The UP1100 has been revealed at the Expo - partnered with a 21264 Alpha processor, it's aimed at Beowulf clusters, web servers and development and rendering boxes. API have also announced a partnership with QSW which will develop Linux supercomputers. Check out http://www.alpha-processor.com and http://www.quadrics.com
Just imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!
...or are you just so stupid that you don't get it that Microsoft doesn't like Linux? Microsoft porting a game to anything besides a Mac (they have various contracts with Apple to keep the Mac alive) would signal that we should be watching the core temperature of the Earth (read: Hell freezes over). Microsoft porting a game would be the same as them working with an open standard. They just won't do it, to force you to buy Windows. And DirectX. And you can register via Internet Explorer. And it gets the data files off of MSN. Etc. Microsoft products are all one big happy family. You have to get them all to get one. That is why Microsoft is so evil and manipulative. (Aside from all those bad things that they're getting sued for now, like pushing competitors and distributors around)
I think that this may be one of the key points in the new, developing Linux games market. Three dimensions and 360 movement (the combination of the two) has been missing from the Linux games market, and now this means the introduction of a quality, modern product that has everything needed to move Linux gaming into the twenty first century.
It's also great that more companies are joining in on the Linux gaming market. I think that with the additional stability and power provided by Linux, gaming can become an even more enthrilling experiance. Soon I hope to be able to never again see a BSOD while playing Half-Life or Tiberian Sun.
I think that this is one of the many steps that the new Linux gaming market is taking toward Linux becoming an equal competitor with Windows as a gaming platform. When that happens, what will you need Windows for again? This could be the final blow that crushes Microsoft once and for all. Except that Microsoft isn't paying attention. While Microsoft is tied up in the antitrust hearings, the Linux community may have finally achieved total superiority over Windows in all aspects. Or very near to it. This is a very exciting time. We may be ready to actualize the prophecy and take over the world.
If most clients didn't want Windows on their desktop OS, then Microsoft won't be a monopoly.
So Microsoft is forced into being a monopoly? That just doesn't sound right.
MS's stated motto of "Write Once, Crash Everywhere".
You know, I think it was more, "Crash Once, Write Everywhere". Have you ever looked at what Windows does to memory after a BSOD?
With this announcement, Sun has taken the next step in sharing the responsibility for the development of the Java platform with other members of the international technology community. The formation of the ECs also underscores the software industry's dedication to the success of the JCP program and their commitment to ensuring that Java technology continues to rapidly develop in order to meet the needs of the networked economy. Moreover, the additional direction and expertise of the EC members will further assure the Java technology developer community that they will have access to the highest quality technology for .com computing.
monopoly n. a business or inter-related group of businesses which controls so much of the production or sale of a product or kind of product as to control the market, including prices and distribution.
So, Microsoft is a monopoly because IBM, a major member of the distribution is forced to distribute only Microsoft's operating system?
Salesman: MUAHAHAHAHA *salesman spontaneously combusts leaving me covered in bits of spleen*
ME: ick.
Funny. Of course, it wouldn't happen that way. It would be more like this.
Me: I want a computer.
Salesman: OK, here's a nice IBM running Windows 98.
Me: I don't like Windows, couldja sell me something else?
(Now, this assumes that this isn't a PC only store. Due to consumer demand, more and more stores are becoming not only PC stores)
Salesman: Sure, you can get this nice cherry flavored iMac.
Me: No, I don't like Macintoshes. They are underdeveloped pieces of graphical junk that play to the lowest common denominator of the computing community. Do you have anything else?
Salesman: Ummm... just a second... *Salesman runs off and finds the one member of the 20 person sales team that knows how to use a BSD varient*
BSD Salesman: Do you want to use our repackaged distribution of BSD for only $50? (Note: No salesman in his right mind will tell you about a free operating system as free. That's not Microsoft's work, that's capitalism.)
Me: No, I don't support the elitist additudes of the founders of BSD. Do you have anything else? *Salesman runs off to find one of the members of the sales team that groks Linux*
Linux Salesman: Would you be interested in buying the Redhat distribution of the Linux operating system?
Me: No, I don't support the anti-corporate near-anarchist additude of the Linux community. Do you have anything else?
Salesman: Are you stupid or something? *salesman spontaneously combusts leaving me and the surrounding hardware covered in bits of spleen. All nearby Windows equipment GPFs.*
If 5% of the population (at least, of the population involved with technology) understand BSD, that means that one member of a 20 member sales team will understand it. And Linux has been getting a lot of press lately, so I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of the tech population has heard of it. Maybe 10% use it. Now, I haven't actually tried talking to a salesman, but tomorrow I'll go out and see what they know.
BTW, I don't disagree that Microsoft sucks. I just don't believe that creating a sucessful product, and trying to provide the (vastly computer illiterate, who wouldn't use Netscape anyway (how would they get it, if they didn't have internet access with something like explorer, and they didn't know how to use DOS-box FTP?)) market with tools to be able to use the product to its fullest extent.
Microsoft includes IE in the shell (not the OS) to make Windows 'Internet Ready'. It's all about marketing. Grok?
then you are trying actively to destroy others
;)
IANAL, but isn't that the goal of every company? To have total and complete market share? I'm not saying that Microsoft's marketing practices were at all legal or moral, but that they shouldn't be judged as a monopoly simply because consumers choose to use their product. Have they eliminated competition? Yeah, of course. By producing a better product they eliminate competition. If Linus had went back in time with a 2.x release of the Linux kernal and marketed it back when only 1.x was around, he would have been eliminating competition (decreasing the market share of the 1.x kernal)
They FORCED people to use IE to browse the web when Netscape was still selling their then viable product. They destroyed Java for their own uses, outside the license agreement.
Um, did Bill Gates personally come to your house with a submachinegun and FORCE you to use IE, or did he simply integrate a web browser into the operating system, leaving you FREE to install Nyetscape or any other browser that you want. Actually, cancel that. He integrated IE into the Shell, not into the OS. However, being that Windows is closed, very few members of the Linux community realize this, being that they typically do not take much interest in Windows unless they can bash Microsoft. Infact, it is possible to not even use 'Explorer' as your Windows shell. Check out your System.ini under shell=. There are several replacements that you can use, in addition to simply making an emacs port your shell (Which is rather fun
responsibility of the industry to provide a market in which freedom of computers AND operating systems are available to compete
I'm not sure if that legally stands, but it sounds right, so I'll start with it. Linux is competing with Microsoft. So is BSD, UNIX, FreeDOS, PCDOS, DrDOS, etc. Now, there is certainly competition among the physical computers. I mean, what are Apple, Sun, etc.? There is also competition among the operating systems, as I said before.
It's like reupholstering a couch, you can't install an OS without some degree of expertise, just ask my mom or my grandma
Personally, I found the Redhat Linux install relatively painless.. however, I understand that there are those that won't. Now, IBM is starting to package systems with Linux installed, Sun always had it's operating system, Apple has MacOS, so there are plenty of alternatives. If Microsoft picks up consumers by default, more power to them, it isn't illegal to make the most widely understood (possibly besides MacOS) operating system around. It's not monopolistic practices, it's just good marketing.
And yet you prove my point without my trying. You owned and maintained multiple machines. Does the average consumer do that? No. You owned and maintained multiple Operating Systems. Does the average consumer do that? No.
Are you some sort of pathetic idiot? I've read most of the posts here without feeling the need to reply, but you just take the cake. I mean, what the hell are you talking about?
Alright. Before this post gets hit as flamebait, let me make my point. A corporation, even if it has 100% of the target audiance buying from it, is not a monopoly until there aren't competitors. By owning a non-Microsoft operating system (what was it he had, five or six of them?) that were all competing with Microsoft's OS, Microsoft wasn't a monopoly. Microsoft doesn't send somebody over to your house with a shotgun and force you to use Windows. If you want to download Linux, or BSD, or buy BeOS or SCO Unix, or even run a port of AmigaOS or MacOS, or use FreeDOS or DrDOS or PCDos, or use any of a number of other operating systems, many of them free, then you have your choice. If you could use only Windows or only MSDOS and Windows, then Microsoft would be a monopoly. But there are plenty of alternatives. Just because the average consumer doesn't use these alternatives doesn't mean that they aren't there.
The knowledgeable people can always circumvent these problems, but we have trouble educating the masses, that's what the courts are there for.
WTF?! The courts are there to enforce the laws, not to educate the consumers. If Microsoft prevents Win3.1 from running over DrDos, then the courts apply the punishment. If Microsoft runs over your cat, then the courts apply the punishment. If Microsoft launches a sucessful marketing campaign and picks up a large percentage of the consumer market, then the courts aren't there to tell everybody the Microsoft is crap. The courts are there to enforce the law, not to counter sucessful marketing campaigns.
Come on, try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Your firewall was pathetic. I haX0red r00t and am now doing an rm -rf on the root directory. Hmmmmmm. Now.. why is the sysadmin storming down the hall towards my office...?
My driving instructor used to be a programmer...
Not a Windows programmer, one would hope. Once again, this would give a whole new meaning to Fatal Error.
) interface an Apple II to a stopped-flow spectrophotometer, and 2) set up an Apple II controlled robotic system for circadian rhythm experiments /. knew whether those were medical machines or the latest physics experiment?
Ooh. You know big words. Do you think that anybody reading
So we old farts are not necessarily out of date or technically illiterate!
LOL! Wow. You know 8085 and Z80 assembly. You know how to interface Apple IIs. That is amazingly modern technology. I mean, what's a Pentium III when you can interface Apple IIs with the ENIAC?
technically incompetent
Oh, now you insult us. Just because we're cutting edge and don't have the time to memorize the layout charts of the Apple II interfacer or work our way through the rigors of Z80 assembly, in the favor of taking networking courses and learning Perl, Python and Java means that we are technically incompetent and cannot possibly be compared to you. Well, you're right. We can't, because you're too old. You never caught on with the internet age and you're back there interfacing Apple IIs and writting operating systems in Z80 assembly.
like people never got fired for buying IBM
Ummm... the traditional version is not buying the standard, and now IBM is starting to adopt Linux... but I assume that you were from the era when IBM, not MSFT, was the standard.
compared to some list of buzz words
So, technical experiance in the field is worthless compared to your 'general knowledge'? You sound like you forgot to get on the bandwagon with the new technology and you're now complaining that you got left in the dust. Sorry, buddy. Maybe some third world governments still need their Apple IIs interfaced with their Z80 assembly card punchers (watch as you catch that Z80 assembly doesn't get read in on cards). In the new e.economy, we don't need the technically incompetent. We need cutting edge, not tried and true center.
Phrases like "due process" and "guilty until proven innocent" are coming to mind.
Phrases like "America isn't the center of the world" and "Legal systems vary by nation" are coming to mind.
The smallest installation of Linux with X that I've seen takes up 40 megs. Unacceptable. The smallest command line installation I've seen takes up a little less than a megabyte. Much better. The base install would probably have a most of /etc, a little of /dev, no /home or /opt and choice selections from /bin and /sbin. Maybe a GUI would be an addon. However, you have to imagine that someday, Palm computers might be the size of mainframes compared to what the size of computers would be then. (nanocomputers attached to nanobots). I think that a POSIX complaint filesystem, and multiuser support would be necessary, if only for daemons.
Middlesex University in the UK
That would be with Donald Davies, idiot. Paul Baran at RAND made the same thing and got it to work. You're pretty stupid for pretending to be informed.
Also, a Brit invented the web
Larry Roberts invented the concept of a 'web', dumbfuck. He's from Boston.
many researchers from different countries who made a contribution along the line.
Obviously you are trying to eliminate nationalism and start a New World Order in which the UN will be in control of the globe. You must be stopped. I call on the Power of Slashdot to vanquish you before you can Destroy the World !!!
world have to pay taxes to the UK
No, because nobody over there decided to patent the industrial ideas and processes. And those were developed by underfunded peasants, not by military professionals.
laptop?
Well, laptops are relatively weak compared to what you can get into a desktop machine. Plus, anybody can go out and get a laptop. But only a true geek would spend the time to craft a mobile desktop machine. There's plain hack value of making something like that. And then this machine may well be easier to carry around then a laptop. I mean, for the purposes that this is going to be used for (LAN gaming), you would have to lug a fairly heavy laptop around, while you can just roll this in. Laptop's require you to actually hold them while you move, while this you just pull.
x-rayed.
You mean, at the x-ray machines that have those huge labels on the front that say that everything besides scientific and high-speed film can go through? The same x-ray machines that have the nice little happy face next to the picture of a laptop? X-ray machines are fine on portable electronics except things that store information via x-ray (or something like that, can't remember). Magnetic data is fine.
However, it would be rather interesting to come into the airport dragging a gray box with several strange openings and buttons, refuse to have it x-rayed, and then not let them disassemble it for examination (what do you mean I can't take apart this hard drive thing? It might have a gun inside!). Got to try that sometime.
(Now, if the search engine provider doesn't respect the ROBOTS.TXT exclusions, I say go after them with legal means.)
Wimp. When did the age of Technology for Technology end and the age of Technology for Profit begin? Sysadmins shouldn't go crying to the DOJ every time somebody they don't like pings their servers. A true Sysadmin would have just added a DENY tage to the httpd config file, rather than trying to complain to the courts.
Yeah, but I was refering to the way in which they did it. I've seen those signs, but I wouldn't expect to walk into a store and suddenly be slapped with a lawsuit. eBay should have taken the technical solution, a deny flag in the webserver config file or something of the like, rather than a lawsuit. In addition, from their User Agreement,
Now, since when was a web-bot, one process, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load? I'd bet that it makes up less than a half of a tenth of a thousandth of a percent of the traffic that eBay gets.
number of "advertisements" (feel free to use Visa, ipix imaging services, powered by sun) that ebay no doubt gets paid to put there.
If what you actually said there is true, then they aren't losing any money at all, because nothing has to do with the user. What I'm guessing you meant to say was '...ebay no doubt gets paid when you click on'. Even so, eBay's not really losing money, just not gaining any, the same way that they wouldn't if you went to the page and didn't click on any of the ads. And since when does not clicking on any of the ads make them 'lose' money? How could they possibly 'lose' money because of a web-bot going through their page?
can determine how much wasted resources is too much
There is no way to determine, because it isn't the point. The point is that this judge is limiting the use of a service available to the public because the public is using it. This isn't a legal problem, it's a technical one. And technically, it isn't even a problem, since the wasted time is so infadescimally small that you would never even be able to notice it. eBay is now forbidding certain people (web-bots, whatever) from using their service, simply because of using their service. It's not as if eBay is losing money. What's a few extra milliseconds? It's not as if anybody is launching a DDOS against them.
acceptable and not acceptable..or can you?
Personally, I would draw the line between acceptable and non-acceptable the same place I draw it between benevolent and malevolent. If somebody is running a neat hacked-up web-bot to list stuff from my site, and it isn't too much for the server (5% of total work), then I'm fine. If they're trying to bring down my server through dozens and dozens of connection requests, then that's not good, and you can take legal action. The point is that eBay is overreacting to what is a technical obviousness overhyped to the upper staff, probably by some aspiring suck-up trying to get promoted.
"<r-xr-xr-x> Just try to edit me"
chmod 777 *
...server side? Like, adding a deny ... to their web server config file?
Aside from that, this is really a problem. I mean, not the individual story, but the additude that a company can simply deny somebody like this the right to use a service that they provide. If would be like if you owned a software shop, but you kicked the reviewers out everytime they wanted to write up a story about what you have there. It's just not right. I mean, most everybody on Slashdot should realize that the amount of server time these requests are taking up is less than the amount of time their legal department has spent looking into this. Less than the amount of time needed to post this, even. I mean, eBay isn't running on a 486 anymore. They can handle thousands of people a day, so what's wrong with a web-bot or two? Actually, web-bots, in addition to bringing more people to the site than a normal person connecting to the server would, are also much faster in completing their communication with the server, giving eBay more customers faster and quite possibly easing the load on their servers, by (if I read the story right) mirroring product data on another site. This isn't like somebody is launching a DDOS against eBay. This is a web-bot, for goodness sake! Why do they even care?
You Open-Sourcers think this is really great, implementing yet another scripting language into the already security-strained (Remember those scripted viruses?) web. Why don't you just take some time and learn a crossplatform language, like Java, that already does this? No, you have to have your favorite toy. What about when your favorite toy kills the hard drives of hundreds of major corporations worldwide and you are subjected to an investigation by the CIA because you assisted the 1337 haXorz that did it, how about then? When will you realize that another insecure coding language will wreak havok on the WORLD because you're too lazy to learn a decent language?!
Sorry about that. Just finished cleaning up the last bit of the ILOVEU virus. Apparently, some dumbass in sales forwarded a copy (yes, he saved it even after all of the media stuff) to his friend in marketing, who opened it, and, well, ouch. All we need is the super-powerful Perl becoming a scripted language.