A common point. But buried behind it is another fact. We are all different. What is humane and efficient for one person is a nightmare for another. Mac GUI is a god send for some and is the anti-christ for others. When I am doing desktop work, windows (X or MS) is a comfortable environment in which to work. But, when I am doing server administration, text is the way to go.So even when we talk about a single individual, what is good and intuitive for one task is a nightmare for another.
...there should be someone simular that analyses the business impact of features, and provides guidance to help customers choose the features that will have the most positive impact on their business. I would add to this, that there needs to be someone from the customers side, who has knowledge of the business practices, who can help in the design of the user interface. I have seen functional software (and disfunctional software) which was a nightmare to use all because the user interface (which was technically functional) worked in a manner counter to the function of the end user. The examples which come to mind were a hotel software package and a point-of-sales package. Both were mostly functional, but their user interface was disfunctional relative to the tasks at hand.
You are right that it usually does not matter who reads your e-mail. But it does matter when it comes to who is using the paid for resource. As more things go wireless, unless there is some kind of major security improvement, we are going to see a monster of a problem. Just like it used to be ok to leave your house unlocked. The emphasis being on "used to be."To be honest, I am surprised that people have not started stealing power via a fuel cell system from live outlets on the outsides of homes.
I am surprised that it has not already been mentioned. There has to be some method of communication and control. Yes, there is the AI, but that only goes so far. There has to be a method of calling back a system, etc.As they say in security, it is not a matter of "if", it is just a matter of "when". Obviously, they will not tell the public how they or going to make their systems secure (security by obscurity), so there will be little outside testing (except by those with very good spies).
Actually, it is a pipe dream.Think about it. Software is compiled by IMPERFECT compilers, running on top of IMPERFECT user interfaces, running on top of IMPERFECT operating systems, all running on top of IMPERFECT hardware. Given the environment, it is a miracle that anything runs.While it may be possible to prove the correctness of a program's code, but once you throw it on top of IMPERFECT to the forth power all bets are off. Just think about Excel. There have been a couple of times where the program works fine (for the most part), but if you happen to have the wrong print driver installed then heaven help your data because mostlikely it was going to get eaten for lunch. There was a bug in the print drivers, but how much checking does an application have to do to ensure that standards that it relies upon are really being followed?On the topic of standards, for the sake of improved functionality, Microsoft does not even follow its own standards. Consider the naming convension. There is a long file name limit (I know because I run into it every time I attempt to make a CD of faculty documents). The CD-Burning software can not break the name rule, but MS allows users to break it right and left when naming the files. Another example would be IE's handling poor html. Pages which should bomb produce what appears to be functional content because MS does their own guessing about what you really ment (sounds like Florida's voting system). The point being, if there are not enforced standards, then what is the basis for proving what is being covered by the warranty?I think the idea of warranties that mean something is great, but MS has yet to provide an OS which is not full of bugs. So what do you expect from an end software programmer who is working on top of a pile that deep?
I can remember an "60 Minutes" episode back in the late 70's about a group that was getting patents on small chunks of code. Simple thinks like loops which counted. As has already been pointed out years ago, either IBM or MS has a patent on electronic journals/magazines. This past year, I have watched three of my software ideas get shot down by newly established patents. None of the ideas were earth shattering. Fact is all involved using current technology and software. But company X got a patent for using program types A, B, C, and D together as a package.It is possible to write a program from scratch and not be able to distribute it because the concept is patented. So are all the car manufacturers pay Mr. Car for the use of his initial concept?
Agreed.BUT... As I understand it. Even if no such contract was ever signed with the corperation. If they have an established history of going after any work, then they have a legal precidence for claiming it regardless of what is or is not in print. Right now, the system is tilted towards the corperation even if you have crossed all your T's and dotted all your I's.Just like the insurance business has the field tipped toward them in most states. If the insurance agent makes a mistake in their favor, they owe you nothing back. If the insurance agent makes a mistake in your favor, you are legally bound to pay the difference.In both cases, it is not right, but that is the way it is.
As stated in my initial post, the only data you need to keep are the pruned trees, not the entire table of possible moves. Thought there may be 32 pieces in play, there are only a restricted number or valid positions those pieces can end up in during real play. Of those positions, there is only one per given state of play which would be optimal. So even at the start of play where computer goes first, there truth is for that state, there is one optimal move. There are 20 possible moves for the computer's oponent. There is then only one optimal move per state.The method used for pruning the tree is to first remove from the database each branch which leads only to a loss. Then based on the remaining tree you would seek out branches which lead to guarenteed wins, etc.I agree that the initial database would be astronomically huge, but the pruned version would not be.
Yes. There is no need for AI after the data has been gathered. My guess is a program could be written to produce all possible real game moves. Then the tree of moves could be pruned based on moves which provide guarenteed wins. There would be two versions of the tree, Computer goes first, and Computer goes second.At this point, it would no longer be a matter of how powerful the computer was because it would get down to a single lookup in a db. Properly pruned trees would probably fit on a DVD. So any current box should be able to pay to a draw or a win every time. Computer against computer would always be a draw.As long as there are no limitations on storage and coding, I do not see how this approach is beatable.
You read it as Hemos asking about the open sourcing of oracle. I as well, do not read it as such. The analogy of the Ren. falls apart when you consider that the artists were known for their artistic skill. They were funded to produce pretty much whatever they wanted. That model does not fit coding. Even if it did, that design implies payment prior to product which would really be interesting today.Hemos can speak for himself, but I did not read his post as an invitation to discuss open sourcing oracle, especially in the light of the article and book being discussed.Besides, your language and tone in both posts are not oriented towards discussion. Sorry you are having a bad day.
In fact, I think there is only one way that history will give its due to Larry and Bill: These corporate giants must see the open source light, and they must blend the closed commercial world and the open intellectual world into an enlightened business solution that will last into the twenty-second century. The book and article are not about Oracle going OSS, as seen from this quote, it is about how Oracle strives to work with OSS. It is a good article and the sample first chapter tends to make me think I might pick it up when I have the time.The truth is Oracle (unlike Microsoft) has a good shot at running the money side of their business without change and still work with OSS. If they really want to do things up right, they might want to invest some heavy chunks of money into OSS which directly relates AND indirectly relates to their business. Stuff like what they have done with RedHat is only the tip of the iceburge with pockets as deep as Oracles.P.S. I agree with a previous poster, the moderators goofed in modding the initial post up so high when it is evident that the person did not read the article or the sample chapter.
Can we get some life support, this one is fading..
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Ximian gets new CEO
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· Score: 2
There was a time when I checked Helix/Ximian regularly. But there were two things which helped get me off it. First, upgrades which broke things. There is cutting edge and there is bloody mess edge. Too frequently the upgrades were from the latter group. Then after the Red Carpet problems, all was silent on the update front.Stability and regularity. I understand there is no controlling the time factor (other than delays). I also understand 0.x means not all there, but come on. Not all there used to mean something beyond a screen flash should have functioned.Hopefully a change at the helm will be a change for the better.
Compaq iPaq 3670 which "street" wise is listing for $650, can not be in too high a demand (other than people electronically rubber-necked to see a PDA with 64MB). Yet, the Compaq Direct site is choking.It is one thing for the small fries to get slashdot smashed. I think is it poor planning/design/whatever on the part of a company the size of Compaq to choke and sputter. RedHat with its new release of 7.1 is probably getting hammered harder, but atleast they are cleanly surviving it from what I can see (no I have not gotten a copy from any of the mirrors, even though I am watching them religiously for the images to appear).Companies, such as Compaq, should have a better idea of what kind of traffic they should be able to handle and should plan accordingly. Right now their web presence shows them to be a less than solid player.
Just like with HRS, when it comes to computer crimes, you are guilty until proven innocent. If it is believed by law enforcement that your computer is being used for any kind of illegal purpose, they come and take it all. To make matters worse, there is no magic line in the sand which says where what they can take stops. If you think I am paranoid, consider what is happening with MS and licenses. Companies are assumed guilty and must prove their innocence.Think of the students who were gaming in New York (and to think we once did squirt gun battles on campus). The equipment and stuff is taken until they have convinced themselves there is nothing hiding on it somewhere.In some sense it is like a cop stopping you because you are speeding, a dog sniffs out your wallet which is full of money and because the money smells like drugs you loose it. It does not matter that you just came from a flea market where all the transactions were in cash and you were selling used computer equipment, you are out the money. It occurs more regularly than you think, but it is ok because so far it has not happened to you. The US is not what it used to be because of the freedoms we have allowed to be taken away in the name of safety.
"Microsoft, for example, plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system, Windows XP, according to the report.""Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. (Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)"
This part sounds like an easy thing to overcome. The problem is...
"if MS somehow disabled or crippled the ability of other MP3 encoders to work under XP."
This sounds more like Microsoft's past practices. (1) Microsoft has in the past, for the benefit of its customers, crippled their OS in ways the caused odd failures with their windows product line. Those targeted were DR DOS, Novell DOS, and Borland, to name a few. (2) With Microsoft's current mode of updating, they do not need to ship a crippled XP, they can progressively over time reduce the ability of other MP3 encoders functionality. This would be done as part of their BUG fixes. Try to name a MS patch which has not broken something new. This set of patches will just happen to have a target.
The "art" of politics goes against everything it is supposed to be about. Rather than truly representing the people, it is a game of compromising values. The biggest players are not even in office. They are the media. It was a trip to hear clips taken during the Clinton scandel. Hearing them back to back over a matter of minutes showed just how much a change had taken place and the change was accomplished through the media. The first clips were of democrats stating that if there was any truth to the sex scandel then Clinton should be immediately removed from office, then there is the slow slide to the point of "everyone does it."Locally, we recently had elections where the incumbant lost. The incumbant lost because people were fed up with the spend and tax mentality of the city commission (yes, the actually spend the money before they even have a source for it). But to read the local paper you would think the election was about ecology and anti-republican whiplash from the presidential race. Check out the editorial page and you find in the small paragraphs a different picture than the front page stories. Everyone is complaining about the way things are being railroaded over the community without any real representation from our own elected officials. Still the media machine pounds forward with its lies. After a while people will start to accept the newspaper view and the people will adjust just like they did for Clinton.The media speaks loudest and thus we are silenced and demonized (no offence BSD).
Right title, but short on depth of answer.A potential solution lies with the OS. Part of the problem with the desktop OS environment right now is everything is working in a trusted environment. Hold on to your flame throwers, I know that the unix like OSes have greater security in this area than the windows boxes, but the truth is, it is still possible to crack a unix box from an internet based attack. That is a design flaw.Conceptually, there should be three levels of operation within a system. There is the core level where system level authority exists. There is a limited trust level where access is determined by user rights, task, and data accessed, and the third level should be a sandbox which has no rights to anything outside the sandbox. From this vantage point, a browser should be functioning in the sandbox. E-mail itself is part of the sandbox in that it is not trusted and should not have rights to access your address book, etc. Yes, this type of solution slows things down and requires the users taking a more active part in decided what an app can do, ie, a warning should come up when the browser attempts to modify c:\command.com (a very easy task for a browser when using netscape).Yes, this is an over simplification, but the point is the OSes have in the past sacrificed security for speed and ease of use. Maybe it is time to start cutting into the speed side of things to get a bit more security.
Just because something is good does not mean it will make a profit, just as something that makes a profit is not automatically good (other than the money it may produce). Redhat may be the popular distro to demonize because they have their eyes ont the money, but until we live in a society that automatically pays for "good ideas", the bottom dollar is the driving force.Microsoft and other big players have shown time and time again that lots of money will almost always win out over a great product which is not properly marketed. Think about the IBM PC Jr. I owned one. It was a one of IBM's biggest mistakes, but because of !! AWESOME !! marketting, what looked to be a dooming failure turned a profit. PcTools is an example who started out of the gates like lightening with great marketting strategy, but later got wiped off the face of the earth by Norton's better marketting and Microsoft's money.Linux and the free software environment have proven that you can not easily kill free software that is freely maintained, but the simple truth is it does cost people their time to develop and maintain the software.Personally, I think it is great that RedHat can help push Linux farther along while making money selling training and support (assuming the latest lawsuit does not wax the company). I liked what SourceXChange was trying to do, but you can't fund a business on likes. Remember, programmers have to eat too (even if it is mostly, pizza, mex, chineese, or something from a vending machine).
If ATM != proprietary, show me the standard that works with mixed vender's hardware. Besides, that was not what I ment with that sentance. Maybe I should have reversed the order for clarity (poorly designed proprietary system or ATM). ATM is a standard, which from what I have seen, has not really standardized enough to be what it was billed to be. The campus I am on decided at one point that the backbone had to be ATM, it was the only solution. Actually, it was not the only solution. There was a far cheaper solution with 100 which would have worked better than the ATM fiasco that happened. In the end, the ATM has been replaced by 100 and GIG. I would be the first to guess that the ATM failure was in part due to people with too little knowledge saying yes to what they thought was the gorilla that could handle the problem, only they could not handle the gorilla.
Re:the reason ... (money and ...)
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Tokyo.Disney.Net
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· Score: 1
Noting the "do it right" verses "do it super cheap" is important. As it stands, the design to do it right with ethernet is definitely higher than just throwing in a braindead wiring infrastructure. But there design probably costs less than an poorly designed ATM system or some other proprietary system. My point is, there are things that can be done with ethernet that people usually look to other solutions for because they do not spend the up front time thinking the problem through.I can think of many instances when people (IT and Management) jump because something sounds like the powerful (expensive) solution and ignore the well thought out solution.It is like saying, "We are going to use CISCO for our network backbone." People will start saying "Amen," just because it is CISCO. They never consider the long term cost (I am not putting CISCO down in this case, I am just using them as a bigname). The great thing regarding the Tokyo Disney setup is that the solution they chose will mostlikely be a good template when they upgrade later (assuming they documented their design and reasoning).
And the choir said amen.The difference between a child who crosses the line and one who does not is usually parents. One of the kids who should have crossed the line but did not was also one of the kids killed at Columbine. It was interesting reading how far she had gone before getting turned around (only to be killed).There is too much material out there that points to how wrong our system is with regards to the parent child relation, but it gets ignored because that would be meddling in people's lives. Instead, we in the US have allowed other types of meddling to go on unquestioned and in some cases "above the law." We have sacrificed family and values, thus we have sown the seeds of our own distruction.In raising my own 2 children, I have noticed that violence occurs most often when one them wants more attention. Violence is a mechanism regularly used by children to get the attention they want whether or not the attention they receive is positive or negative. Parents are usually the ones who can have the biggest influence on what happens next.
The reason for the initial post was not to start a disto debate, but to point out that the article posted could have been more informative if it had included more information regarding the election process and the candidates.The reason I dragged RedHat and SuSE into this was to note that news wise, the majority of the articles posted were no more informative than this article. Debian, RedHat, and SuSE have very different focus. Their common ground is a OS.I have thought of slashdot as a light techie sight which runs the gambit on what it is willing to address. The problem is that article posts have become less substance based and more just a quick slap of a fact (New Pres., New Version, etc.). This is not true of all articles, but this one was definitely lacking some basic gut support.
In looking over the past articles of Debian, RedHat, and SuSE (older stuff, search on distro name), I noticed that Debian had the most articles within the past year, while RedHat and SuSE each had about half the number of articles. I also noted that while the discussions of Debian related to the developers and the actual content of their distro, RedHat's and SuSE's articles were mainly version releases.My point being, there is a bit of a bias here. I agree with the post which has already been moderated off the list that the articles being posted seem to be showing a lopsided view. This article would have been more beneficial if it discussed the voting process and structure of Debian rather than just saying who won. This type of article posting is what gives slashdot a bad name. It would have been simple enough to add a link or two in the article which referenced some of the discussion of the candidate's views. At least then readers could also check out where Debian might be heading.The elections began on 06 March 2001. Platforms were posted by Ben Collins, Branden Robinson, and Bdale Garbee.
There have been many "failures" which have helped to kick things along in the right direction. NeXT or the Apple Lisa are a couple of examples of products that bit the dust, but which helped kick things forward at the same time. This system may also be a failure and at the same time it may be the kick in the head that causes someone else to say, "You know, that thing would have been great if..."
Don't discount the shoulders upon which we now stand no matter how little some of them may have risen above those before them (every little bit helps).
It sounds like you do no believe that the brits do anything other than run down to the local electronics shop, slap a bunch of stuff together and fire it off into space. I do not deny that space flight is dangerous, but the thought that a single component failure producing catastrophic results when talking about computer equipment is not bothering to think.
If they are doing anything like what NASA has done in the past, then there is not one, but three computers for each group of tasks. These three computers vote, if one is consistantly out of sync with the others it gets shut down.
I don't think that NASA has cornered the market on testing systems. As the public has even seen, Intel, and Motorola are not perfect. What the public does not tend to see are the less well known bugs which have existed and gone on with less public fanfare. The one I struggled with the most was a bug in the 386 chip which made it useless for network based semephors.
Equating Open source with bug ridden and unreliable is to look upon what is currently available with closed eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
A common point. But buried behind it is another fact. We are all different. What is humane and efficient for one person is a nightmare for another. Mac GUI is a god send for some and is the anti-christ for others. When I am doing desktop work, windows (X or MS) is a comfortable environment in which to work. But, when I am doing server administration, text is the way to go.So even when we talk about a single individual, what is good and intuitive for one task is a nightmare for another.
...there should be someone simular that analyses the business impact of features, and provides guidance to help customers choose the features that will have the most positive impact on their business. I would add to this, that there needs to be someone from the customers side, who has knowledge of the business practices, who can help in the design of the user interface. I have seen functional software (and disfunctional software) which was a nightmare to use all because the user interface (which was technically functional) worked in a manner counter to the function of the end user. The examples which come to mind were a hotel software package and a point-of-sales package. Both were mostly functional, but their user interface was disfunctional relative to the tasks at hand.
You are right that it usually does not matter who reads your e-mail. But it does matter when it comes to who is using the paid for resource. As more things go wireless, unless there is some kind of major security improvement, we are going to see a monster of a problem. Just like it used to be ok to leave your house unlocked. The emphasis being on "used to be."To be honest, I am surprised that people have not started stealing power via a fuel cell system from live outlets on the outsides of homes.
I am surprised that it has not already been mentioned. There has to be some method of communication and control. Yes, there is the AI, but that only goes so far. There has to be a method of calling back a system, etc.As they say in security, it is not a matter of "if", it is just a matter of "when". Obviously, they will not tell the public how they or going to make their systems secure (security by obscurity), so there will be little outside testing (except by those with very good spies).
Actually, it is a pipe dream.Think about it. Software is compiled by IMPERFECT compilers, running on top of IMPERFECT user interfaces, running on top of IMPERFECT operating systems, all running on top of IMPERFECT hardware. Given the environment, it is a miracle that anything runs.While it may be possible to prove the correctness of a program's code, but once you throw it on top of IMPERFECT to the forth power all bets are off. Just think about Excel. There have been a couple of times where the program works fine (for the most part), but if you happen to have the wrong print driver installed then heaven help your data because mostlikely it was going to get eaten for lunch. There was a bug in the print drivers, but how much checking does an application have to do to ensure that standards that it relies upon are really being followed?On the topic of standards, for the sake of improved functionality, Microsoft does not even follow its own standards. Consider the naming convension. There is a long file name limit (I know because I run into it every time I attempt to make a CD of faculty documents). The CD-Burning software can not break the name rule, but MS allows users to break it right and left when naming the files. Another example would be IE's handling poor html. Pages which should bomb produce what appears to be functional content because MS does their own guessing about what you really ment (sounds like Florida's voting system). The point being, if there are not enforced standards, then what is the basis for proving what is being covered by the warranty?I think the idea of warranties that mean something is great, but MS has yet to provide an OS which is not full of bugs. So what do you expect from an end software programmer who is working on top of a pile that deep?
I can remember an "60 Minutes" episode back in the late 70's about a group that was getting patents on small chunks of code. Simple thinks like loops which counted. As has already been pointed out years ago, either IBM or MS has a patent on electronic journals/magazines. This past year, I have watched three of my software ideas get shot down by newly established patents. None of the ideas were earth shattering. Fact is all involved using current technology and software. But company X got a patent for using program types A, B, C, and D together as a package.It is possible to write a program from scratch and not be able to distribute it because the concept is patented. So are all the car manufacturers pay Mr. Car for the use of his initial concept?
Agreed.BUT... As I understand it. Even if no such contract was ever signed with the corperation. If they have an established history of going after any work, then they have a legal precidence for claiming it regardless of what is or is not in print. Right now, the system is tilted towards the corperation even if you have crossed all your T's and dotted all your I's.Just like the insurance business has the field tipped toward them in most states. If the insurance agent makes a mistake in their favor, they owe you nothing back. If the insurance agent makes a mistake in your favor, you are legally bound to pay the difference.In both cases, it is not right, but that is the way it is.
As stated in my initial post, the only data you need to keep are the pruned trees, not the entire table of possible moves. Thought there may be 32 pieces in play, there are only a restricted number or valid positions those pieces can end up in during real play. Of those positions, there is only one per given state of play which would be optimal. So even at the start of play where computer goes first, there truth is for that state, there is one optimal move. There are 20 possible moves for the computer's oponent. There is then only one optimal move per state.The method used for pruning the tree is to first remove from the database each branch which leads only to a loss. Then based on the remaining tree you would seek out branches which lead to guarenteed wins, etc.I agree that the initial database would be astronomically huge, but the pruned version would not be.
Yes. There is no need for AI after the data has been gathered. My guess is a program could be written to produce all possible real game moves. Then the tree of moves could be pruned based on moves which provide guarenteed wins. There would be two versions of the tree, Computer goes first, and Computer goes second.At this point, it would no longer be a matter of how powerful the computer was because it would get down to a single lookup in a db. Properly pruned trees would probably fit on a DVD. So any current box should be able to pay to a draw or a win every time. Computer against computer would always be a draw.As long as there are no limitations on storage and coding, I do not see how this approach is beatable.
You read it as Hemos asking about the open sourcing of oracle. I as well, do not read it as such. The analogy of the Ren. falls apart when you consider that the artists were known for their artistic skill. They were funded to produce pretty much whatever they wanted. That model does not fit coding. Even if it did, that design implies payment prior to product which would really be interesting today.Hemos can speak for himself, but I did not read his post as an invitation to discuss open sourcing oracle, especially in the light of the article and book being discussed.Besides, your language and tone in both posts are not oriented towards discussion. Sorry you are having a bad day.
In fact, I think there is only one way that history will give its due to Larry and Bill: These corporate giants must see the open source light, and they must blend the closed commercial world and the open intellectual world into an enlightened business solution that will last into the twenty-second century. The book and article are not about Oracle going OSS, as seen from this quote, it is about how Oracle strives to work with OSS. It is a good article and the sample first chapter tends to make me think I might pick it up when I have the time.The truth is Oracle (unlike Microsoft) has a good shot at running the money side of their business without change and still work with OSS. If they really want to do things up right, they might want to invest some heavy chunks of money into OSS which directly relates AND indirectly relates to their business. Stuff like what they have done with RedHat is only the tip of the iceburge with pockets as deep as Oracles.P.S. I agree with a previous poster, the moderators goofed in modding the initial post up so high when it is evident that the person did not read the article or the sample chapter.
There was a time when I checked Helix/Ximian regularly. But there were two things which helped get me off it. First, upgrades which broke things. There is cutting edge and there is bloody mess edge. Too frequently the upgrades were from the latter group. Then after the Red Carpet problems, all was silent on the update front.Stability and regularity. I understand there is no controlling the time factor (other than delays). I also understand 0.x means not all there, but come on. Not all there used to mean something beyond a screen flash should have functioned.Hopefully a change at the helm will be a change for the better.
Compaq iPaq 3670 which "street" wise is listing for $650, can not be in too high a demand (other than people electronically rubber-necked to see a PDA with 64MB). Yet, the Compaq Direct site is choking.It is one thing for the small fries to get slashdot smashed. I think is it poor planning/design/whatever on the part of a company the size of Compaq to choke and sputter. RedHat with its new release of 7.1 is probably getting hammered harder, but atleast they are cleanly surviving it from what I can see (no I have not gotten a copy from any of the mirrors, even though I am watching them religiously for the images to appear).Companies, such as Compaq, should have a better idea of what kind of traffic they should be able to handle and should plan accordingly. Right now their web presence shows them to be a less than solid player.
Just like with HRS, when it comes to computer crimes, you are guilty until proven innocent. If it is believed by law enforcement that your computer is being used for any kind of illegal purpose, they come and take it all. To make matters worse, there is no magic line in the sand which says where what they can take stops. If you think I am paranoid, consider what is happening with MS and licenses. Companies are assumed guilty and must prove their innocence.Think of the students who were gaming in New York (and to think we once did squirt gun battles on campus). The equipment and stuff is taken until they have convinced themselves there is nothing hiding on it somewhere.In some sense it is like a cop stopping you because you are speeding, a dog sniffs out your wallet which is full of money and because the money smells like drugs you loose it. It does not matter that you just came from a flea market where all the transactions were in cash and you were selling used computer equipment, you are out the money. It occurs more regularly than you think, but it is ok because so far it has not happened to you. The US is not what it used to be because of the freedoms we have allowed to be taken away in the name of safety.
- "Microsoft, for example, plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system, Windows XP, according to the report.""Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. (Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)"
This part sounds like an easy thing to overcome. The problem is...- "if MS somehow disabled or crippled the ability of other MP3 encoders to work under XP."
This sounds more like Microsoft's past practices. (1) Microsoft has in the past, for the benefit of its customers, crippled their OS in ways the caused odd failures with their windows product line. Those targeted were DR DOS, Novell DOS, and Borland, to name a few. (2) With Microsoft's current mode of updating, they do not need to ship a crippled XP, they can progressively over time reduce the ability of other MP3 encoders functionality. This would be done as part of their BUG fixes. Try to name a MS patch which has not broken something new. This set of patches will just happen to have a target.The "art" of politics goes against everything it is supposed to be about. Rather than truly representing the people, it is a game of compromising values. The biggest players are not even in office. They are the media. It was a trip to hear clips taken during the Clinton scandel. Hearing them back to back over a matter of minutes showed just how much a change had taken place and the change was accomplished through the media. The first clips were of democrats stating that if there was any truth to the sex scandel then Clinton should be immediately removed from office, then there is the slow slide to the point of "everyone does it."Locally, we recently had elections where the incumbant lost. The incumbant lost because people were fed up with the spend and tax mentality of the city commission (yes, the actually spend the money before they even have a source for it). But to read the local paper you would think the election was about ecology and anti-republican whiplash from the presidential race. Check out the editorial page and you find in the small paragraphs a different picture than the front page stories. Everyone is complaining about the way things are being railroaded over the community without any real representation from our own elected officials. Still the media machine pounds forward with its lies. After a while people will start to accept the newspaper view and the people will adjust just like they did for Clinton.The media speaks loudest and thus we are silenced and demonized (no offence BSD).
Right title, but short on depth of answer.A potential solution lies with the OS. Part of the problem with the desktop OS environment right now is everything is working in a trusted environment. Hold on to your flame throwers, I know that the unix like OSes have greater security in this area than the windows boxes, but the truth is, it is still possible to crack a unix box from an internet based attack. That is a design flaw.Conceptually, there should be three levels of operation within a system. There is the core level where system level authority exists. There is a limited trust level where access is determined by user rights, task, and data accessed, and the third level should be a sandbox which has no rights to anything outside the sandbox. From this vantage point, a browser should be functioning in the sandbox. E-mail itself is part of the sandbox in that it is not trusted and should not have rights to access your address book, etc. Yes, this type of solution slows things down and requires the users taking a more active part in decided what an app can do, ie, a warning should come up when the browser attempts to modify c:\command.com (a very easy task for a browser when using netscape).Yes, this is an over simplification, but the point is the OSes have in the past sacrificed security for speed and ease of use. Maybe it is time to start cutting into the speed side of things to get a bit more security.
Just because something is good does not mean it will make a profit, just as something that makes a profit is not automatically good (other than the money it may produce). Redhat may be the popular distro to demonize because they have their eyes ont the money, but until we live in a society that automatically pays for "good ideas", the bottom dollar is the driving force.Microsoft and other big players have shown time and time again that lots of money will almost always win out over a great product which is not properly marketed. Think about the IBM PC Jr. I owned one. It was a one of IBM's biggest mistakes, but because of !! AWESOME !! marketting, what looked to be a dooming failure turned a profit. PcTools is an example who started out of the gates like lightening with great marketting strategy, but later got wiped off the face of the earth by Norton's better marketting and Microsoft's money.Linux and the free software environment have proven that you can not easily kill free software that is freely maintained, but the simple truth is it does cost people their time to develop and maintain the software.Personally, I think it is great that RedHat can help push Linux farther along while making money selling training and support (assuming the latest lawsuit does not wax the company). I liked what SourceXChange was trying to do, but you can't fund a business on likes. Remember, programmers have to eat too (even if it is mostly, pizza, mex, chineese, or something from a vending machine).
If ATM != proprietary, show me the standard that works with mixed vender's hardware. Besides, that was not what I ment with that sentance. Maybe I should have reversed the order for clarity (poorly designed proprietary system or ATM). ATM is a standard, which from what I have seen, has not really standardized enough to be what it was billed to be. The campus I am on decided at one point that the backbone had to be ATM, it was the only solution. Actually, it was not the only solution. There was a far cheaper solution with 100 which would have worked better than the ATM fiasco that happened. In the end, the ATM has been replaced by 100 and GIG. I would be the first to guess that the ATM failure was in part due to people with too little knowledge saying yes to what they thought was the gorilla that could handle the problem, only they could not handle the gorilla.
Noting the "do it right" verses "do it super cheap" is important. As it stands, the design to do it right with ethernet is definitely higher than just throwing in a braindead wiring infrastructure. But there design probably costs less than an poorly designed ATM system or some other proprietary system. My point is, there are things that can be done with ethernet that people usually look to other solutions for because they do not spend the up front time thinking the problem through.I can think of many instances when people (IT and Management) jump because something sounds like the powerful (expensive) solution and ignore the well thought out solution.It is like saying, "We are going to use CISCO for our network backbone." People will start saying "Amen," just because it is CISCO. They never consider the long term cost (I am not putting CISCO down in this case, I am just using them as a bigname). The great thing regarding the Tokyo Disney setup is that the solution they chose will mostlikely be a good template when they upgrade later (assuming they documented their design and reasoning).
And the choir said amen.The difference between a child who crosses the line and one who does not is usually parents. One of the kids who should have crossed the line but did not was also one of the kids killed at Columbine. It was interesting reading how far she had gone before getting turned around (only to be killed).There is too much material out there that points to how wrong our system is with regards to the parent child relation, but it gets ignored because that would be meddling in people's lives. Instead, we in the US have allowed other types of meddling to go on unquestioned and in some cases "above the law." We have sacrificed family and values, thus we have sown the seeds of our own distruction.In raising my own 2 children, I have noticed that violence occurs most often when one them wants more attention. Violence is a mechanism regularly used by children to get the attention they want whether or not the attention they receive is positive or negative. Parents are usually the ones who can have the biggest influence on what happens next.
The reason for the initial post was not to start a disto debate, but to point out that the article posted could have been more informative if it had included more information regarding the election process and the candidates.The reason I dragged RedHat and SuSE into this was to note that news wise, the majority of the articles posted were no more informative than this article. Debian, RedHat, and SuSE have very different focus. Their common ground is a OS.I have thought of slashdot as a light techie sight which runs the gambit on what it is willing to address. The problem is that article posts have become less substance based and more just a quick slap of a fact (New Pres., New Version, etc.). This is not true of all articles, but this one was definitely lacking some basic gut support.
In looking over the past articles of Debian, RedHat, and SuSE (older stuff, search on distro name), I noticed that Debian had the most articles within the past year, while RedHat and SuSE each had about half the number of articles. I also noted that while the discussions of Debian related to the developers and the actual content of their distro, RedHat's and SuSE's articles were mainly version releases.My point being, there is a bit of a bias here. I agree with the post which has already been moderated off the list that the articles being posted seem to be showing a lopsided view. This article would have been more beneficial if it discussed the voting process and structure of Debian rather than just saying who won. This type of article posting is what gives slashdot a bad name. It would have been simple enough to add a link or two in the article which referenced some of the discussion of the candidate's views. At least then readers could also check out where Debian might be heading.The elections began on 06 March 2001. Platforms were posted by Ben Collins, Branden Robinson, and Bdale Garbee.
There have been many "failures" which have helped to kick things along in the right direction. NeXT or the Apple Lisa are a couple of examples of products that bit the dust, but which helped kick things forward at the same time. This system may also be a failure and at the same time it may be the kick in the head that causes someone else to say, "You know, that thing would have been great if..."
Don't discount the shoulders upon which we now stand no matter how little some of them may have risen above those before them (every little bit helps).
It sounds like you do no believe that the brits do anything other than run down to the local electronics shop, slap a bunch of stuff together and fire it off into space. I do not deny that space flight is dangerous, but the thought that a single component failure producing catastrophic results when talking about computer equipment is not bothering to think.
If they are doing anything like what NASA has done in the past, then there is not one, but three computers for each group of tasks. These three computers vote, if one is consistantly out of sync with the others it gets shut down.
I don't think that NASA has cornered the market on testing systems. As the public has even seen, Intel, and Motorola are not perfect. What the public does not tend to see are the less well known bugs which have existed and gone on with less public fanfare. The one I struggled with the most was a bug in the 386 chip which made it useless for network based semephors.
Equating Open source with bug ridden and unreliable is to look upon what is currently available with closed eyes.