I'm here laughing my ass off. This has to be the funniest story I've read. Don't take offense; it's not funny as an event, but it seems to me that Microsoft has right to be scared of Linux. If that connection was pumping out 20mbps, I'm wondering just how many active users there were at that time? *lol*
Go back and reread the original article. I don't mean to flame, but I hate it when people say things ignorantly. So here's where I rant.
Your first question of "Was it not www.tpc.org..." tells me you didn't read the actual article itself. The original article answers your question: "The tests were conducted by Xperts Inc. of Richmond, Virginia, an independent technology solutions company, using Quest Software's Benchmark Factory application..."
Secondly, I looked at both those links... They both have prices attached to the products. The first "top ten results by price/performance" stuck strictly with MS SQL Server, which we all know doesn't run on Linux. Besides, how do you rate a product in price when it has no price? Postgres can be downloaded and used freely. And I would like to point out that both lists that you link to are commercial databases. If you reread the original article posting, Postgres was rated as a non-commercial database, as an alternative to commercial databases.
Rant over. Just make sure you read things in the future.
Jenova_Six: In reference to your comment about Windows ME wanting you to "stop" the service before removing the card.
I don't know why they did it, but Windows 2000 Advanced Server also does the same thing. Not just with CF cards, but with docking stations, PCMCIA cards... Now, I consider myself to be well above the "beginner" level, so I'd like for Windows to just shut up and do what I tell it (undock, eject the PCMCIA card). Ah, but unlike most software, Windows 2000 AS doesn't have a "Expert" mode to it (that I've found anyway). I still undock, eject my PCMCIA cards, and even swap out my DVD drive/LS120 combo drive to make way for my second battery -- all without shutting down. I figure clicking "OK" is much faster than having to shut down to get stuff done, and far less annoying -- though it *is* annoying that it can't be silenced without clicking "OK."
I used to love PacMan when I was kid; now, at 23, I love Final Fantasy VIII. And Star Trek New Worlds, among others. I never used to really be into games much; I concentrated on programming real applications, not games. Then my exboyfriend got me hooked on Final Fantasy VIII (damn him! *grin*)... Most games these days are much more involved, and a lot more accepting of bad things that will befall your character. In PacMan, when you died, you died. You started from level 1, game 1. In Final Fantasy VIII, when you die, you simply load a saved game and start from there. I used to play on the TI-99A and TRS-80 Color Computer III. The games back then were solid and fun. Talking about addicting; the challenge was to go from level 1 in a game to the last level without dying. Of course, now we have a "Save Game" feature in our modern games. Both my ex and I have racked up over 60 hours playing Final Fantasy VII (ahhhh. The invention of the game timer!) each, and while I've stopped playing (got to the beginning of Disc 4 and stopped), he started over again from Disc 1. I thought he was nuts, but this is the age of addicting games. Where PacMan was addicting, Final Fantasy VIII is fatally addicting. On some days, he and I would be playing Final Fantasy VIII and not realize that we'd been playing all day without eating. And now with Star Trek New Worlds, I'm equally as addicted. (Granting, it's the demo version, but still... *grin*) I personally think that games are going to keep getting better, but we have to at least pay homage to the first pilgrims like PacMan who forged the way into our hearts in order to make 3D gaming a reality.
First, we had "The Untouchables," now we have "The Unstopables"...
It's like the Neverending Story. What, is RIAA going to actually try to go after all file sharing programs out there? Geez... NFS will be illegal soon enough. Networking will be illegal. Plugging your computer into a phone jack will be illegal...
Hmmm... Maybe, RIAA, we should just scrap computers and technology altogether, EXCEPT for CDs and CD-ROM drives. Would you like that? *petting heads of RIAA powers that be* Of course y'all would. If you could illegalize technology, especially NFS, you could charge $50 per CD. Why not? Y'all have already been slapped across the board for fixing CD prices in the first place.
I believe the phrase I want is "Long live the revolution!"
Far be it from me to break copyright laws, not that I really care. I grant. That's one law I don't give a flying [four-letter expletive deleted] about. Why? Because it is, at its very heart, a stupidity made by incompetent lawmakers. And this new digital millennium copyright act... I am still laughing over that one.
Why do I think copyright protection is stupid? Well, in truth, I don't totally. I wouldn't want someone stealing my works and claiming it to be theirs. But I also firmly believe in the GPL. I figure that as long as credit is given where due, anything should go. That's what copyright protection is all about: protecting your rights to claim credit. (Allow me to scream out: HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE AMERICANS *STOLEN* CREDIT FOR SOMETHING THAT WASN'T OURS? Ask the Canadians, the French, the English, the Japanese... Americans are notorious for theft and NOT giving credit where due...) (And for the record, I am American, United States flavour.)
We've been down this road before, thankx to Sony and the "Betamax Decision" years ago. The Court found that it is not wrong to copy videotapes for personal use SO long as you didn't gain financial resources in the process. Fine. Thank God for the Supreme Court; they generally keep their act together.
But you know why it's legal to copy a movie you rent? Because you are exchanging financial resources in order to get the movie in the first place. Napster doesn't charge you a thing for their NFS... You gain a right to copy a movie that you've rented because you've paid SOMETHING for it. Maybe Napster needs to charge $0.001 cents for every song downloaded and then send that to RIAA. Let them think they are getting something out of Napster.
This is the same thing that happened to Lyrics.ch, the International Lyrics Server. RIAA went after them for copyright infringments as well... And they've never been the same since. In fact, half of the lyrics I want to read, I can't get anymore. I would love to get the lyrics for Billie Myers "Am I Here Yet (Return to Sender)"... (A song I gladly downloaded from Napster *AND* Scour!) Oh well, maybe next millennium...
Even if RIAA successfully destroys Napster and Scour (and the others), they will NOT be able to stop the underground without taking out networking and NFS... (I can hear them under their breath through their teeth at me: "Damn you, bastard!")
This might be far from over, but let me end with this... The Supreme Court has more often than not, sided on the side of technology and technological progress. So, I for one, am not all that worried.
You should send that corrected letter to Mr. Gay himself, just so he can contemplate his own future standing at Oxford... Hopefully, by the truth of your corrected letter, Mr. Gay will be suspended without pay and sued by the university for his undue harrassment of an innocent student...
I grant that I'm only two weeks into/. so forgive me I step over my bounds, but if y'all will bear with a newbie and his interjecting thoughts. (This is all IMHO, subjective for the most part, so forgive me.)
Personally, I find the very thought of anyone (even this company Seagram, of which I am unfamiliar) attacking anonymity to be discouraging, mainly because of the inherent loss of security. My friends call me paranoid, but I prefer the term "security conscious." I don't want to go surfing the net and having corporate America (of the global economy at large) knowing who I am and where I am going. (Not that my life is THAT important to any government, but it's the point.) But corporate America seems to be trying to destroy what privacy we have. They *want* to know, just like the government, who were are, where we are, what we do, our habits, our interests... And people wonder why I use PGP...
(And of course, it's needless to say, but if we allow big corporations an inch to move, soon they won't just be stepping on our toes, they will be using as a living room rug in their CEO's big mansion.)
But is in not possible for privacy to be maintained without anonymity?
Consider that FTP services allow for anonymous logins, but most ask that you enter your full E-Mail address as the password. Even then, it's not really anonymous, because the FTP server still tracks your IP address and other information, so if they *really* wanted to, they could track you. The go for the IP, contact the provider of that IP, who goes through their logs, and bingo... You're caught. Almost every server connected to the Internet tracks IP addresses that I know of.
We've been losing our rights to privacy for years; we have no privacy anymore in real life. And the same battles are being waged and won by corporate America in the digital age. I vaguely remember a few years ago a fairly popular anonymous E-Mail system that was shut down because it refused to store personal information on its users, which angered its local country's government. (I forget the name of that system, even though I used it...)
To maintain my privacy, I use PGP. And call me paranoid if you prefer, but I have a 4096-bit key with 8 4096-bit subkeys. And now that the Eurpean Union has relaxes their export laws, I'm hoping for a 32K-bit key soon. =) Of course, I expect that if PGP becomes as well used as Napster, corporate America will then DEMAND to have all our secret keys as well...
In a perfect world, I could be an encrypted anonymous user. Maybe someday, but not while our legal systems spit in our eyes and shake hands with corporations.
Okay, assume for a minute that I can loan a DVD movie out to a friend or whomever I chose (with no monies in exchange). But what happens if I wanted to give it to someone? I try not to break the law nor stretch legalities, so I'm trying to understand this. (DVD is coming full force, and seems to be more restrictive than a regular VHS tape.)
I can, under the old "BetaMax" decision, record a show for my own personal use from the TV, and watch that. I can even have someone else watch it with me, and I'm not breaking the law. I can even give that tape to someone, they can watch it at their house, and I'm still not breaking the law. Whether the show comes from basic UHF/VHF signals or Showtime and HBO... It's all legal, as long as no monies are exchanged for the usage of that tape...
And now comes DVD...
If I go out and buy a DVD, get bored with it, and then give it to my friend who REALLY likes the movie, have I just done something illegal? (The conversation "Oh, can I have that?" "Sure, take it." ocurs with me in my life a lot.)
I'm not trying to be stupid, I'm just trying to make sure that if someone comes knocking at my door, it's not law enforcement with an arrest warrant...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm here laughing my ass off. This has to be the funniest story I've read. Don't take offense; it's not funny as an event, but it seems to me that Microsoft has right to be scared of Linux. If that connection was pumping out 20mbps, I'm wondering just how many active users there were at that time? *lol*
Talcumx:
Considering how unusually depressed I've been tonight for no apparent reason, I needed a good laugh. Thank you kindly.
But I do agree with you. It's almost like the consumer is getting gang banged involuntarily by RIAA and MPAA... *sigh*
Things were better around the Internet before it was overrun by politics...
Pfhreakaz0id,
..." tells me you didn't read the actual article itself. The original article answers your question: "The tests were conducted by Xperts Inc. of Richmond, Virginia, an independent technology solutions company, using Quest Software's Benchmark Factory application..."
Go back and reread the original article. I don't mean to flame, but I hate it when people say things ignorantly. So here's where I rant.
Your first question of "Was it not www.tpc.org
Secondly, I looked at both those links... They both have prices attached to the products. The first "top ten results by price/performance" stuck strictly with MS SQL Server, which we all know doesn't run on Linux. Besides, how do you rate a product in price when it has no price? Postgres can be downloaded and used freely. And I would like to point out that both lists that you link to are commercial databases. If you reread the original article posting, Postgres was rated as a non-commercial database, as an alternative to commercial databases.
Rant over. Just make sure you read things in the future.
Jenova_Six: In reference to your comment about Windows ME wanting you to "stop" the service before removing the card.
I don't know why they did it, but Windows 2000 Advanced Server also does the same thing. Not just with CF cards, but with docking stations, PCMCIA cards... Now, I consider myself to be well above the "beginner" level, so I'd like for Windows to just shut up and do what I tell it (undock, eject the PCMCIA card). Ah, but unlike most software, Windows 2000 AS doesn't have a "Expert" mode to it (that I've found anyway). I still undock, eject my PCMCIA cards, and even swap out my DVD drive/LS120 combo drive to make way for my second battery -- all without shutting down. I figure clicking "OK" is much faster than having to shut down to get stuff done, and far less annoying -- though it *is* annoying that it can't be silenced without clicking "OK."
I used to love PacMan when I was kid; now, at 23, I love Final Fantasy VIII. And Star Trek New Worlds, among others. I never used to really be into games much; I concentrated on programming real applications, not games. Then my exboyfriend got me hooked on Final Fantasy VIII (damn him! *grin*) ... Most games these days are much more involved, and a lot more accepting of bad things that will befall your character. In PacMan, when you died, you died. You started from level 1, game 1. In Final Fantasy VIII, when you die, you simply load a saved game and start from there. I used to play on the TI-99A and TRS-80 Color Computer III. The games back then were solid and fun. Talking about addicting; the challenge was to go from level 1 in a game to the last level without dying. Of course, now we have a "Save Game" feature in our modern games. Both my ex and I have racked up over 60 hours playing Final Fantasy VII (ahhhh. The invention of the game timer!) each, and while I've stopped playing (got to the beginning of Disc 4 and stopped), he started over again from Disc 1. I thought he was nuts, but this is the age of addicting games. Where PacMan was addicting, Final Fantasy VIII is fatally addicting. On some days, he and I would be playing Final Fantasy VIII and not realize that we'd been playing all day without eating. And now with Star Trek New Worlds, I'm equally as addicted. (Granting, it's the demo version, but still... *grin*) I personally think that games are going to keep getting better, but we have to at least pay homage to the first pilgrims like PacMan who forged the way into our hearts in order to make 3D gaming a reality.
First, we had "The Untouchables," now we have "The Unstopables"...
It's like the Neverending Story. What, is RIAA going to actually try to go after all file sharing programs out there? Geez... NFS will be illegal soon enough. Networking will be illegal. Plugging your computer into a phone jack will be illegal...
Hmmm... Maybe, RIAA, we should just scrap computers and technology altogether, EXCEPT for CDs and CD-ROM drives. Would you like that? *petting heads of RIAA powers that be* Of course y'all would. If you could illegalize technology, especially NFS, you could charge $50 per CD. Why not? Y'all have already been slapped across the board for fixing CD prices in the first place.
I believe the phrase I want is "Long live the revolution!"
Far be it from me to break copyright laws, not that I really care. I grant. That's one law I don't give a flying [four-letter expletive deleted] about. Why? Because it is, at its very heart, a stupidity made by incompetent lawmakers. And this new digital millennium copyright act... I am still laughing over that one.
Why do I think copyright protection is stupid? Well, in truth, I don't totally. I wouldn't want someone stealing my works and claiming it to be theirs. But I also firmly believe in the GPL. I figure that as long as credit is given where due, anything should go. That's what copyright protection is all about: protecting your rights to claim credit. (Allow me to scream out: HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE AMERICANS *STOLEN* CREDIT FOR SOMETHING THAT WASN'T OURS? Ask the Canadians, the French, the English, the Japanese... Americans are notorious for theft and NOT giving credit where due...) (And for the record, I am American, United States flavour.)
We've been down this road before, thankx to Sony and the "Betamax Decision" years ago. The Court found that it is not wrong to copy videotapes for personal use SO long as you didn't gain financial resources in the process. Fine. Thank God for the Supreme Court; they generally keep their act together.
But you know why it's legal to copy a movie you rent? Because you are exchanging financial resources in order to get the movie in the first place. Napster doesn't charge you a thing for their NFS... You gain a right to copy a movie that you've rented because you've paid SOMETHING for it. Maybe Napster needs to charge $0.001 cents for every song downloaded and then send that to RIAA. Let them think they are getting something out of Napster.
This is the same thing that happened to Lyrics.ch, the International Lyrics Server. RIAA went after them for copyright infringments as well... And they've never been the same since. In fact, half of the lyrics I want to read, I can't get anymore. I would love to get the lyrics for Billie Myers "Am I Here Yet (Return to Sender)"... (A song I gladly downloaded from Napster *AND* Scour!) Oh well, maybe next millennium...
Even if RIAA successfully destroys Napster and Scour (and the others), they will NOT be able to stop the underground without taking out networking and NFS... (I can hear them under their breath through their teeth at me: "Damn you, bastard!")
This might be far from over, but let me end with this... The Supreme Court has more often than not, sided on the side of technology and technological progress. So, I for one, am not all that worried.
Michael,
You should send that corrected letter to Mr. Gay himself, just so he can contemplate his own future standing at Oxford... Hopefully, by the truth of your corrected letter, Mr. Gay will be suspended without pay and sued by the university for his undue harrassment of an innocent student...
Seth
I grant that I'm only two weeks into /. so forgive me I step over my bounds, but if y'all will bear with a newbie and his interjecting thoughts. (This is all IMHO, subjective for the most part, so forgive me.)
Personally, I find the very thought of anyone (even this company Seagram, of which I am unfamiliar) attacking anonymity to be discouraging, mainly because of the inherent loss of security. My friends call me paranoid, but I prefer the term "security conscious." I don't want to go surfing the net and having corporate America (of the global economy at large) knowing who I am and where I am going. (Not that my life is THAT important to any government, but it's the point.) But corporate America seems to be trying to destroy what privacy we have. They *want* to know, just like the government, who were are, where we are, what we do, our habits, our interests... And people wonder why I use PGP...
(And of course, it's needless to say, but if we allow big corporations an inch to move, soon they won't just be stepping on our toes, they will be using as a living room rug in their CEO's big mansion.)
But is in not possible for privacy to be maintained without anonymity?
Consider that FTP services allow for anonymous logins, but most ask that you enter your full E-Mail address as the password. Even then, it's not really anonymous, because the FTP server still tracks your IP address and other information, so if they *really* wanted to, they could track you. The go for the IP, contact the provider of that IP, who goes through their logs, and bingo... You're caught. Almost every server connected to the Internet tracks IP addresses that I know of.
We've been losing our rights to privacy for years; we have no privacy anymore in real life. And the same battles are being waged and won by corporate America in the digital age. I vaguely remember a few years ago a fairly popular anonymous E-Mail system that was shut down because it refused to store personal information on its users, which angered its local country's government. (I forget the name of that system, even though I used it...)
To maintain my privacy, I use PGP. And call me paranoid if you prefer, but I have a 4096-bit key with 8 4096-bit subkeys. And now that the Eurpean Union has relaxes their export laws, I'm hoping for a 32K-bit key soon. =) Of course, I expect that if PGP becomes as well used as Napster, corporate America will then DEMAND to have all our secret keys as well...
In a perfect world, I could be an encrypted anonymous user. Maybe someday, but not while our legal systems spit in our eyes and shake hands with corporations.
Sorry for ranting and raving...
Okay, assume for a minute that I can loan a DVD movie out to a friend or whomever I chose (with no monies in exchange). But what happens if I wanted to give it to someone? I try not to break the law nor stretch legalities, so I'm trying to understand this. (DVD is coming full force, and seems to be more restrictive than a regular VHS tape.)
I can, under the old "BetaMax" decision, record a show for my own personal use from the TV, and watch that. I can even have someone else watch it with me, and I'm not breaking the law. I can even give that tape to someone, they can watch it at their house, and I'm still not breaking the law. Whether the show comes from basic UHF/VHF signals or Showtime and HBO... It's all legal, as long as no monies are exchanged for the usage of that tape...
And now comes DVD...
If I go out and buy a DVD, get bored with it, and then give it to my friend who REALLY likes the movie, have I just done something illegal? (The conversation "Oh, can I have that?" "Sure, take it." ocurs with me in my life a lot.)
I'm not trying to be stupid, I'm just trying to make sure that if someone comes knocking at my door, it's not law enforcement with an arrest warrant...