I think you're being seriously over-optimistic here. First of all, I suspect the AOL-through-Linux experience, in its netappliance form, will be more or less indistinguishable from an anonymous point-click-drool GUI. As a comparison, consider how much effort your average Windows 9x user spends actually learning about DOS. Or how many TiVo users have decided "Oh, wow. This Linux thing is kinda nifty."
Another problem is the type of user it would be bringing into the Linux community. As is, a quick skimming of comp.os.linux.misc shows such brilliant gems as: "How do I run.gz files?" The wonderfully descriptive subject "HOW DO I..." ...and some idiot who posts each of his questions three times in a row, with slightly varying subject lines.
Which isn't to say that every user we pick up from AOL is going to be like that, but I just can't imagine the type of people added being much better than, say, Redhat (and I don't mean to start a distro war here -- hell, I use Redhat myself -- but in all honesty, the way they've "broadened" the number of people who use Linux is a mixed blessing).
However, doom-and-gloom aside, there is one thing that does have me drooling over the prospect of an AOL port to Linux (as someone pointed out in a comment to the other/. story) -- the possibility of a Linux-based, cheap netappliance from AOL. Shouldn't take too much effort to strip out their software.
Actually, plot-affecting ad placement has already taken place, in the form of anti-drug messages. Here's a link to the Salon article (which admittedly isn't the most neutral source for news, but it was the first thing I could find -- I'd previously heard about this via more traditional, printed news).
It's gotten so bad that in the not-so-distant past (last 3-5 months?), I managed to catch 3 or 4 shows back-to-back on the same channel, where the entire plot focused on an after-school specialesque anti-drug message.
As I understand it, her only claim to fame was claiming that she was famous. She fed the "most downloaded woman on the internet" line to various people, and apparently they bought it.
Maybe copyright should be modified to impose an obligation to provide copies to all who are willing to pay for them.
One way to implement this might be through some sort of micropayment system. I certainly wouldn't object to the idea of being able to pay the publisher of an older game a couple bucks in order to be able to immediately download one of their older software titles.
While I may've used a format similar to trolling for my post, the intent was humor and to poke fun at people using the slippery slope argument, not to troll for responses. I've seen people complain that if you ban Napster, then you also need to ban FTP, IRC, etc. But what these people tend to ignore is that Napster was designed to serve as a means of trading illegal mp3's (as has been pointed out from early Napster ads) and also continued to serve as a search engine/facilitator for each file transaction that took place.
On a similar note, while I strongly disagree with the people who want to censor DeCSS, neither can I condone the actions of people who continue to host it, despite the temporary injunction that was granted.
First people use the slippery slope argument to justify copyright infringement as free speech. Then they use it to justify shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Then next thing you know, people are throwing babies out the window and calling it performance art.
Re:Half-Life did not have a good story
on
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· Score: 1
The plot was hackneyed from start to finish.
However, a story is significantly more than just plot.
A lot of the value of a story is contained within the actual
form of the story. Most plots (in books, movies, etc.) can be
boiled down to formulas that mimic "Beowulf" or "The Odyssey" or other
works that were ancient before we even had computer games. Hell, even
Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" ripped its plot off of an earlier
story. But just because a plot's old doesn't prevent the story from
being something new and novel.
This was Half-Life's biggest strength -- a new form of actually
telling the story through the FPS interface. The intro
sequence, while admittedly tedious when repeating the game, does an
incredible job of setting up the scene of being in a secret government
research complex. In the span of a few minutes of game time, the
Half-Life story manages to completely blast the previous FPS games out
of the water, especially with regard to giving your character an
identity. The other games had previously relied on short blurbs of
text to set the scene ("You're a POW in a Nazi base. You just beat up
your guard. Now escape." "You've crashlanded on a weird alien world.
Shoot shit.") -- Half-Life, on the other hand, let the player actually
experience it.
So yes, the plotline may've been a blatant cross-breeding of
Lovecraft's "From Beyond" and J. Random Government Coverup, but the
story was certainly unique.
Microsoft might not be able to buy out all possible variations, but it's worth noting that even at $35/year, buying the 0-4 letter suffixes would be pocket change to Bill: 35 + 35 * 26 + 35 * 26^2 + 35 * 26^3 + 35 * 26^4 = $16,633,925. Checking/usr/dict/words for all the remaining words that're 5 characters or more (including the veritable "sucks") comes up with another 42581 possibilities, which is still only another $1,490,335. Even before we consider the possibility of bulk discounts (I figure most registrars would be willing to cut their profit margin *REAL* thin for that kind of volume), we're literally talking pocket change for MS. Admittedly, someone could still go for "microsoft.reallysucks" or similar things, but that potential exists now in the form of "microsoftreallysucks.com/.net/.org/.cc/.tm/etc".
Minor pet peeve: I'm blanking on which RFC specifies it (821?), but e-mail addresses that use IP addresses are supposed to enclose the IP address in brackets, like this: postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
The Internet Namespace Cooperative does something similar to what you propose. They support backwards compatibility with the "official" recognized TLDs, but add a number of their own.
I have a feeling that if Napster were to use their anti-bot policy as leverage against people claiming copyright infringement, they would further jeopardize their position as being separate from the copyright violations that take place. It is in their best interests to appease Metallica, preferably with the least amount of work on their own part. A counter-suit over the NetPD software would only serve to hurt the larger legal battle their fighting with the RIAA.
Makes good sense to me. Before you have reliable power, make sure you have access to the internet.
While they might not have reliable power, they do have some power. Imagine if a number of people in the area started doing the digital equivilant of menial labor via telecommuting (say simple HTML markup in some area where the reliability of a given employee isn't critical). It seems that they'd be able to at least start generating some revenue, which in turn could be used to help improve the infrastructure.
Even better: Consider the possibility of a company finding the available labor force worth the cost of investing in region. By creating a tangible, albiet "flimsy" link to the outside world, they're setting it up some that companies can actually see results before being required to invest further.
...and if all else fails, the people of rural India can fall-back on using All Advantage.
Firewalls need to be simple enough to be auditable. Simple enough to be understandable by a human at a time and place by herself.
The impression I got from the article was that a simple portscan would've turned up the fact that something was amiss. It would seem that that'd be an easily automatable procedure that professional firewall vendors should go through as part of their testing procedure.
ObSoapbox: It'd be nice if, for such mission critical applications, vendors listed their testing metholody along with the normal advertising figures and specifications.
What's even funnier is that "hiding small bits of data in a TCP/IP header" was pretty much the summation of the Slashdot article before this about tracing DDoS attacks. Talk about repetiveness.
It's not the grammar that bothers me, so much as the inaccuracy of the summary. It isn't a VBS attachment that causes the problem, but rather a plain HTML attachment with embedded javascript. Even in a world of "intelligent" users, HTML is expected to be a "safer" document format, rather than "dangerous" executable code.
I think there're a number of people you could assign the blame to, but no one entity that's "fully stupid". Users should be more careful, Hotmail should attempt some filtering, but most importantly the w3c should provide a means of denoting "third-party" HTML (and other documents) that appears to be from the server, but in reality was placed there by someone else (such as an attachment to an email or a comment in a message board that doesn't restrict HTML).
Napster could get into further legal trouble by banning users who did nothing wrong and were merely misidentified by Metallica as doing something illegal.
Legal trouble for what? Last I heard, there was no "right to a Napster account". What's next? Law suits against Slashdot for articles that got moderated down? Law suits against IRC servers that unfairly banned an entire range of IP addresses? If Napster decided to delete every user account with exactly 4 vowels, that's their perrogative. It's a free service and if you don't like it, you can have an instant refund on your membership fee.
Since the study seems fuzzy on exactly what was counted and seemed to imply that documentation was looked at as well, I have to wonder how much of the FSF/Sun/UCB contribution consisted merely of copyright (or copyleft) text rather than actually unique code.
I don't know how much of a consideration it is, but even if you could restrict public performance, you've still got the dangling issue of look-and-feel clones.
With a binary, at least you can make some efforts to decompile it and demonstrate that it's based off of protected source code. With a website, the best you can do is say that it looks similar.
I tried their "Installation and System Administration" test exam and was rather disappointed. One of the 10 questions was something to the effect of "Which of the following can you not do with a piece of GPL'd code?" with answers something like:
combine it with copyrighted source code under a different license
charge a cost for the distribution media
release only a binary, while providing source only if the user requests it
The answer they were looking for was the first one (due to the GPL's viral nature). However, as most people who follow Slashdot regularly know, there have been a number of exceptions, to allow GPL'd code to be combined with other source that's of a similar open sourced nature but not under the GPL itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Another problem is the type of user it would be bringing into the Linux community. As is, a quick skimming of comp.os.linux.misc shows such brilliant gems as: .gz files?"
...and some idiot who posts each of his questions three times in a row, with slightly varying subject lines.
"How do I run
The wonderfully descriptive subject "HOW DO I..."
Which isn't to say that every user we pick up from AOL is going to be like that, but I just can't imagine the type of people added being much better than, say, Redhat (and I don't mean to start a distro war here -- hell, I use Redhat myself -- but in all honesty, the way they've "broadened" the number of people who use Linux is a mixed blessing).
However, doom-and-gloom aside, there is one thing that does have me drooling over the prospect of an AOL port to Linux (as someone pointed out in a comment to the other /. story) -- the possibility of a Linux-based, cheap netappliance from AOL. Shouldn't take too much effort to strip out their software.
It's gotten so bad that in the not-so-distant past (last 3-5 months?), I managed to catch 3 or 4 shows back-to-back on the same channel, where the entire plot focused on an after-school specialesque anti-drug message.
Even worse: The spammers and script kiddies'll get together and set up your ReplayTV to record infomercials.
As I understand it, her only claim to fame was claiming that she was famous. She fed the "most downloaded woman on the internet" line to various people, and apparently they bought it.
One way to implement this might be through some sort of micropayment system. I certainly wouldn't object to the idea of being able to pay the publisher of an older game a couple bucks in order to be able to immediately download one of their older software titles.
On a similar note, while I strongly disagree with the people who want to censor DeCSS, neither can I condone the actions of people who continue to host it, despite the temporary injunction that was granted.
First people use the slippery slope argument to justify copyright infringement as free speech. Then they use it to justify shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Then next thing you know, people are throwing babies out the window and calling it performance art.
However, a story is significantly more than just plot. A lot of the value of a story is contained within the actual form of the story. Most plots (in books, movies, etc.) can be boiled down to formulas that mimic "Beowulf" or "The Odyssey" or other works that were ancient before we even had computer games. Hell, even Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" ripped its plot off of an earlier story. But just because a plot's old doesn't prevent the story from being something new and novel.
This was Half-Life's biggest strength -- a new form of actually telling the story through the FPS interface. The intro sequence, while admittedly tedious when repeating the game, does an incredible job of setting up the scene of being in a secret government research complex. In the span of a few minutes of game time, the Half-Life story manages to completely blast the previous FPS games out of the water, especially with regard to giving your character an identity. The other games had previously relied on short blurbs of text to set the scene ("You're a POW in a Nazi base. You just beat up your guard. Now escape." "You've crashlanded on a weird alien world. Shoot shit.") -- Half-Life, on the other hand, let the player actually experience it.
So yes, the plotline may've been a blatant cross-breeding of Lovecraft's "From Beyond" and J. Random Government Coverup, but the story was certainly unique.
Microsoft might not be able to buy out all possible variations, but it's worth noting that even at $35/year, buying the 0-4 letter suffixes would be pocket change to Bill: /usr/dict/words for all the remaining words that're 5 characters or more (including the veritable "sucks") comes up with another 42581 possibilities, which is still only another $1,490,335.
35 + 35 * 26 + 35 * 26^2 + 35 * 26^3 + 35 * 26^4 = $16,633,925.
Checking
Even before we consider the possibility of bulk discounts (I figure most registrars would be willing to cut their profit margin *REAL* thin for that kind of volume), we're literally talking pocket change for MS. Admittedly, someone could still go for "microsoft.reallysucks" or similar things, but that potential exists now in the form of "microsoftreallysucks.com/.net/.org/.cc/.tm/etc".
Minor pet peeve: I'm blanking on which RFC specifies it (821?), but e-mail addresses that use IP addresses are supposed to enclose the IP address in brackets, like this: postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
The Internet Namespace Cooperative does something similar to what you propose. They support backwards compatibility with the "official" recognized TLDs, but add a number of their own.
I have a feeling that if Napster were to use their anti-bot policy as leverage against people claiming copyright infringement, they would further jeopardize their position as being separate from the copyright violations that take place. It is in their best interests to appease Metallica, preferably with the least amount of work on their own part. A counter-suit over the NetPD software would only serve to hurt the larger legal battle their fighting with the RIAA.
While they might not have reliable power, they do have some power. Imagine if a number of people in the area started doing the digital equivilant of menial labor via telecommuting (say simple HTML markup in some area where the reliability of a given employee isn't critical). It seems that they'd be able to at least start generating some revenue, which in turn could be used to help improve the infrastructure.
Even better: Consider the possibility of a company finding the available labor force worth the cost of investing in region. By creating a tangible, albiet "flimsy" link to the outside world, they're setting it up some that companies can actually see results before being required to invest further.
The impression I got from the article was that a simple portscan would've turned up the fact that something was amiss. It would seem that that'd be an easily automatable procedure that professional firewall vendors should go through as part of their testing procedure.
ObSoapbox: It'd be nice if, for such mission critical applications, vendors listed their testing metholody along with the normal advertising figures and specifications.
What's even funnier is that "hiding small bits of data in a TCP/IP header" was pretty much the summation of the Slashdot article before this about tracing DDoS attacks. Talk about repetiveness.
There's also a CERT advisory a few months back about a similar problem: Malicious HTML Tags Embedded in Client Web Requests
I think there're a number of people you could assign the blame to, but no one entity that's "fully stupid". Users should be more careful, Hotmail should attempt some filtering, but most importantly the w3c should provide a means of denoting "third-party" HTML (and other documents) that appears to be from the server, but in reality was placed there by someone else (such as an attachment to an email or a comment in a message board that doesn't restrict HTML).
Legal trouble for what? Last I heard, there was no "right to a Napster account". What's next? Law suits against Slashdot for articles that got moderated down? Law suits against IRC servers that unfairly banned an entire range of IP addresses? If Napster decided to delete every user account with exactly 4 vowels, that's their perrogative. It's a free service and if you don't like it, you can have an instant refund on your membership fee.
Since the study seems fuzzy on exactly what was counted and seemed to imply that documentation was looked at as well, I have to wonder how much of the FSF/Sun/UCB contribution consisted merely of copyright (or copyleft) text rather than actually unique code.
With a binary, at least you can make some efforts to decompile it and demonstrate that it's based off of protected source code. With a website, the best you can do is say that it looks similar.
The answer they were looking for was the first one (due to the GPL's viral nature). However, as most people who follow Slashdot regularly know, there have been a number of exceptions, to allow GPL'd code to be combined with other source that's of a similar open sourced nature but not under the GPL itself.