make menuconfig is *far* more navigable and easy to use than make xconfig. hands stay on keyboard - tab, space, enter, and the up/down arrows are all you need to *quickly* get around
That's funny. I always use "make xconfig" because "make menuconfig" is so hard to move around in. You have to use the arrows for everything, and text screen redraws are so slow. In X, a simple point and click opens any category instantly, and you can scroll very quickly by dragging the scroll bar's elevator.
you *need* to use the mouse.
You also need a running X server. Go figure.
That alone slows things up considerably...
Only if you insist on imposing an inappropriate usage pattern on it.
You can break any UI by treating it like some other UI. Use it as it was intended, and things almost always get better. I use xconfig because I like it better. You are free to use menuconfig if you like it better. But don't say xconfig is inferior simply because you don't like it.
Could someone statically link M12 against glib2.1 and make it available? I still run glibc2.0 and would not like to break all my applications by upgrading.
Download and install glibc 2.1 binaries in some out-of-the-way place (/usr/local/lib/glibc-2.1/ for example).
Then use LD_LIBRARY_PATH to add said directory to the path the dynamic loader will use, before running Mozilla.
User controlled markup: Opera puts the controls back in the hands of the user, while the other browsers give the content creators absolute power.
I agree that the user should always be able to override styles set by the content author, but it is worth noting that other browsers can do the same or similar.
In Netscape 4.x, it is under Edit -> Preferences, go to "Fonts" and "Colors", and set to "Use my settings/Override document".
In Mozilla, you will find similar options under the "View" menu.
Under MSIE, the settings are scattered through out the "Internet Options" dialog.
Nothing currently in production is as easy or as complete as Opera's settings are, though.
However, given that the post office spends / will spend a bunch of time and money gathering information on our/your tab, is it fair that you're not allowed to see the fruit?
Ah, but you are allowed to see the fruit. ZIP and ZIP+4 codes are readily available to anyone via a variety of methods, most of them free. It is only if you want the entire database on a set of CDs that you pay an additional charge. Makes sense. This isn't information the USPS has "gathered", remember. It is closer to operational procedures. Charging an extra fee for them to go out of their way to package it all together for secondary consumption seems reasonable.
Now, maybe the fee they are charging is higher then is reasonable, but I don't know one way or the other. Do you?
I'm all for the Post Office drying up and blowing away...
I sure hope it doesn't! It costs me 35 cents to mail a letter anywhere in the continental US. If I were to use FedEx or UPS instead, I can expect over ten dollars in charges and fees. Now, I suppose some of my tax dollars still go to the USPS, but how many of them?
Has been available for Linux for some time now. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had USB support for NT 4.0, but has been sitting on it to encourage the upgrade to NT 5.0. Right! That's a winner...
High Speed networking
??? AFAIK, Linux supports any networking you have drivers for.
good multi proc support
Linux's SMP works very well on some things, poorer on others. Just like NT. The Mindcraft problem was the single-threaded TCP/IP stack, which has been fixed in 2.3. Next...
standard application base
That old thing? Please. There are thousands of POSIX applications that do everything I want to. (NT cannot run many of them, BTW.) The only thing I lack on native Linux is a lot of games, and Windows 2000 doesn't score too well in the compatability department there...
good web server performance
Which explains why Apache has twice the installed base of IIS, and IIS is dropping...
stability improvements
I'd prefer an OS that was stable to begin with...
You're free to use Windows 2000, but me, I'll stick with Linux any day.
Well, ought not the government and quasi-government bodies you subsidize have their information in "nice electronic form," so we don't have to subsidize them more than we already do?
One way or another, someone is going to pay for it.
If you have to pay a fee to get it in a convenient format, it is pretty obvious how you pay for it. If you get it in that convenient format for "free", your taxes will pay for it.
The difference is that in the latter, my taxes are also paying for it, and I might not be interested in subsidizing your use of the database.
It really shouldn't take much to see that there is a great potential for abuse with a system like this.
Indeed. Might I ask what your feelings on gun control are?
Any technology can be abused. Anything powerful enough to be useful can also be harmful. The first time it happened was when proto-humans discovered that the thigh bone of an antelope could kill their fellow proto-humans as easily as it could kill their prey.
The application of a tool does not make the tool bad, and knowledge cannot be unlearned. Trying to stuff this genie back into the bottle -- the technological equivalent of sticking your head in the sand -- is not going to work.
Do not try to fight then inevitable. Embrace it instead, and make sure it does not get abused. Strive to make the human race better instead of trying to limit the tools we use in our self-abuse.
XFree comes with a number of "stock" modelines included in the sample configuration files. They go up to 1280x1024. By combining these modelines with the maximum horizontal and vertical frequencies of your monitor, X can pick the best modeline possible for monitors up to 1280x1024.
MS-Windows, in contrast, defaults to a "lowest common denominator" that works nearly everywhere, but typically gives you a 60 Hz vertical refresh rate. 60 Hz is pretty lousy, and can lead to eye injury. OSHA recommends at least 72 Hz for safe computing.
If you have an OEM monitor information file (.INF), you can clue MS-Windows in to the maximum frequencies for your monitor, and MS-Windows will do what XFree does -- pick the best possible mode from a list of pre-configured "stock" modes.
Note that MS-Windows has no built-in way of manually entering your monitor specifications, like XFree does. Thus, if you do not have an OEM.INF file, you are generally out of luck with MS-Windows. Not so with XFree. On the gripping hand, many OEMs provide.INF files, while few provide XFree mode lines.
As usual, it comes down to a matter of OEM support. Many OEMs support MS-Windows, thus it is perceived as better. Fewer OEMs support Linux, thus it is perceived as inferior. In reality, this reflects the quality of the OEMs, not the operating systems.
Case in point: I have a 19-inch Samsung SyncMaster 900p monitor. To set it up under MS-Windows, I downloaded an.INF file from Samsung's website, and fed it into MS-Windows. To set it up under XFree, I cut and pasted the modeline from their website. In both cases, I was up and running in seconds.
There are things that could be done to improve the situation under XFree. One is to write a converter program which will extract needed the information from an.INF, taking advantage of the larger installed base of MS-Windows. Other people have posted more information on such a program elsewhere in this discussion. (I see no need to invent a new specification format just for XFree; MS's files work fine for this; why reinvent the wheel?)
The other thing to do is modify xf86config, Xconfiguration, and the other dozen or so X configuration programs to actually prompt for and use said.INF files. It won't matter how easy it could be to setup X unless we actually make it so.
We also need to include stock mode lines for higher resolutions, as many monitors are capable of more then 1280x1024 these days.
Try that with linux. Every version from every vendor has changed the nfs/http/ftp install rules somehow, and some of the cd's can't be mounted and nfs installed because of an improper directory structure ON THE CD for network installs, or lack of support for non-cdrom based installs.
While I don't doubt that Sun's JumpStart is a cool thing, you're really comparing apples to oranges here. Or rather, one kind of apple to all the kinds of fruit in the world. You complain that each Linux VAR does things differently, and claim that proves Linux is harder to install then single-vendor Solaris.
Well, duh. Of course a multiple-vendor Linux solution is going to be harder to manage then a single-vendor Solaris solution. Consider how hard installing all the different UNIXes from companies like Sun, DEC, HP, IBM would be! Linux is easy by comparison.
If, on the other hand, you compare installing Solaris with JumpStart on 100 machines to installing Red Hat Linux 6.1 with Kickstart on 100 (similar) machines, I think you will get a better picture of what things are like. I don't doubt that JumpStart would still win, but the comparison would be fair.
How can you change the bios settings on an x86 server when you're connected to a console server on the serial port?
You need special hardware to do that on x86. No different from Sun, really, it is just that all Suns include said hardware out of the box.
I have a feeling that *some* small towns are going to have a lot of trouble if they haven't checked by now.
Actually, small towns should be fine. Why? Became small towns don't have public water and sewer. Each house has its own, private water and waste facilities. As long as you have power (and a small generator will ensure that), you are all set.
It is the medium-sized towns -- the small cities -- that might have trouble. Big enough to need centralized systems, small enough to not be able to afford proper upkeep.
RIAA *has* problems with minidiscs, CDRWs, and other recordable medias. Every media sold already has pre-levied RIAA TAX.
I have always wondered: How does RIAA accomplish this? They aren't a government agency or anything, so it isn't by law. Do they simply bully all possible manufacturers, or what?
Does anyone make a keyboard that has the following two characteristics?
1) Built-in trackpoint type erasor pointer, and 2) clicky, mechanical keystrokes?
A small company that goes by the name of International Business Machines.
Not seven days ago, I bought an IBM Trackpoint II Keyboard. It includes a built-in eraser pointer between the G, H, and B keys, with two buttons below the space bar (flush with the case). The keyboard itself is that oh-so-sexy IBM clicky feel -- buckling spring.
IBM Part Number 13H6705. "Manufactured for IBM by Maxi Switch", according to the sticker on the bottom.
Cost me $35. Reseller info:
ReEntry - Computers, Peripherals, Electronic Equipment, etc. Peadbody, MA, USA 01960 Phone: (978)532-3337 Fax: (978)532-3338 Web: http://www.gis.net/~axxxion Email: axxxion@gis.net
I'll even pay a finders fee ($10 fair?) to the first person who can send me information which leads to the arrest and capture of an appropriate 'board.
I've used VMWare, and it does an excellent job of emulating an x86 environment, with better compatibility than Wine, DOSEmu, or just about anything else. That's impressive.
However, for whatever reason, it needs a lot more RAM.
You have to understand that DOSemu and Wine are doing different things then VMWare, et. al.
DOSemu attempts to provide real-mode DOS emulation, with limited protected mode support. There are several things that make this very possible. One is the fact that MS-DOS really isn't much more then a glorified interrupt handler. Another is that the i386 architecture already has support for emulating x86 real mode ("virtual mode"). DOSemu has to setup the processor and service some interrupts, but nothing too outrageous. Remember, DOS programs already have to do almost everything themselves, so there is not as much left for DOSemu to do. (I don't mean to belittle the DOSemu people here; they've done a great job). Memory overhead is low, because (again) DOS doesn't do much to begin with.
Wine is similar: A project to implement the MS-Windows binary interface and runtime libraries on top of Linux/Unix/Posix/whatever. Same basic idea as DOSemu: Provide the services that an existing Microsoft product already provides. With Windows, though, there are considerably more services to implement. Given Microsoft's love of secret APIs, and the fact that MS has trouble properly implementing their own specification, the Wine team's job is pretty big. Memory overhead is higher then DOSemu, again because it does more. It is still lower then loading all of Windows would be, though, because you already have Linux providing a lot (hardware abstraction, system services, etc.).
VMWare (and FreeMWare) are doing something very different from Wine and DOSemu. They are emulating an entire i386 machine, complete with protected mode support. The i386 design has very little in the way of i386 virtualization support, so they need to do a lot in software. Furtheremore, they are not trying to run a DOS or Windows program, they are setting up an entire machine. Wine and DOSemu pass as much of the work to the underlying OS as possible. VMware does not -- you have to load an entire OS again. That is why VMware uses more memory: It has to. Because the i386 arcitecture is very well defined, however, they can do a good job of emulating it. Then your Windows program (for example) uses Windows itself to run. VMWare does not need to provide a quality implementation of Windows (if that is even possible); it uses the real thing.
I hope this sheds a little light on why these programs act the way they do.
I expect that banner ads will eventually die, as advertisers are discovering that they're pretty ineffective.
Could be. Alternatively, consider highly targeted banner ads. I deliberately fill out a survey giving the advertiser demographics information, such that they can target their ads to the sorts of things I am interested in. My interest goes up, clickthroughs increase, sales benefit.
Now, why would I fill out such a survey, you ask? Well, one the purposes of advertising is to inform potential customers of your product or service, whereas they may have been in the dark before. That is a useful thing, to me. If I am going to be bombarded with ads, at least they could be relevant ads.
I have to wonder just how "ineffective" banner ads really are. I see 'em. I read some of them. I even click interesting ones from time to time. Sometimes I learn something, sometimes I close the window in disgust, occasional I bookmark a site for future investigation. This works better, for me, then ads on the side of a bus, where I cannot easily remember the company or investigate their product.
there are other possible sources of website revenue
Okay...
sponsored links
Sponsorship is just another way of saying "advertising", is it not? Sponsors will likely want an attractive, thing to get my attention, no? How is that different from a banner ad?
merchandizing (get those/. tee shirts)
I somehow doubt Slashdot could be funded on the income from T-shirt sales.:-)
affiliate programs
You mean like, "Link to our online store, and you get a kickback"? Frankly, I find those sorts of agreements more insidious then advertising. With ads, you see a product of possible interest and get the chance to evaluate it. The content provider gets their money regardless. With affiliate programs, I am locked into a choice. What if the affiliate provides lousy service? Do I use them anyway, and support my preferred content-provider? Or do I leave the C.P. out in the cold and use my preferred online store (or whatever)?
voluntary contributions (works for NPR and PBS stations)
Riiiight. Voluntary contributions are never enough. You think NPR and NPTV aren't funded through your tax dollars? There are too many things of possible interest to possibly get supported through donations. No, I don't buy it. Sorry. I want more then two channels worth of National Public Internet.
Supported by advertizing != free
Good point. Touche. However, supported by advertising is also not the same as paying cash.
Harder to measure is the psychological cost of being engulfed the sea of advertizing that encourages the culture of consumption in which we dwell.
Oh, please. I'm not going to crawl into a hole and isolate myself from the rest of the world just because I might fall in with a trend.:-)
Anonymous digital cash is a solved problem.
Very interesting. See my post at #215 for a seperate thread on this.
I am replying twice to one message, because two threads have sprung into existence. The other should be very close after this one (I cannot link them both to each other, unfortunately (chicken-and-egg problem)).
Anonymous digital cash is a solved problem.
I'm intrigued. Could you provide some more info on this? In particular, I generally see information technology leading to very easy tracking (to wit, the whole Doubleclick cookie issue). How does anonymous digital cash work?
I picked up "A Canticle for Leibowitz" after a recommendation from JMS (Babylon 5 creator)... It's almost like a retelling of the dark ages of Western civilization when the monks... spent centuries collecting and hiding manuscripts and preserving knowledge for future generations.
Very interesting. There is an episode of Babylon 5 entitled, "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", which includes a segment about this exact same thing, nearly verbatim.
If you read the page linked to for the episode, you will find JMS came up with this idea independently, and then, on an unrelated project, discovered both the dark age connection and the Canticle connection.
If one takes the "all" in that second sentence to be universal rather then applying it to just this discussion, I think one will gain some insight into your debating skills.
I do not accept cookies. They can be harvested by any number of means... I would be quite willing to enter my passwd each time I make a submission...
Interesting to note that the techniques for skimming cookies off net traffic can also skim that same password and user ID.
What's that, you say? Encrypt the password? Well, sure... but why not just encrypt the cookie instead?
Anyone who says "cookies are not needed" has obviously never done any programming. Without persistent, state information, computer programming is just about useless. Oh, sure, you can do one-way content delivery that way, but I, for one, want the web to be something a bit more interactive then a glorified TV broadcast.
I really get a kick out of the fact that you don't want people tracking you, but you post your email address in a public forum. Yah.
There are issues with cookies that make them less then perfect (to put it mildly), but treating them with extreme paranoia and fear is rather an over-reaction.
The thing to remember about cookies is that the server giving you the cookie may come belong to scumbag banner companies like DoubleClick that wants to track your browsing.
Question: Would you pay to visit all of the websites you visit? And I do mean all of them, from Slashdot to cNet to Yahoo to some two-bit page on GeoCities?
The reason I ask is that banner advertising is what pays for an awful lot of the web today. Unless the page is promoting a company's product (making the whole page one big ad) or supporting a company's product (you already paid for the page), banner advertising is the only alternative to charging for access.
If banner ads go away, then you will lose all of your free web pages. Web content providers will instead start charging for access. That will require you to -- guess what -- identify yourself to facilitate payment. And that identification process will be far more in-depth, involved, and intrusive then any banner ad from Doubleclick.
I am not saying this makes what Doubleclick does right or wrong. I am just wondering if you have considered the consequences of your actions, or if you are simply hoping for a free lunch, like so many people seem to do.
Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.
I don't want to give everybody my information... I usually browse the web with cookies turned off...
When are people going to get it through their heads that cookies can only return information the server sends to you? The only way cookies are going to "give" your information to a site is if you already told the site your information in the first place.
Why should I let my free email service know anything about me other than my real name...?
Maybe so they can pay for the free email service? Didn't anyone ever tell you There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch?
Slashdot Mirror
make menuconfig is *far* more navigable and easy to use than make xconfig. hands stay on keyboard - tab, space, enter, and the up/down arrows are all you need to *quickly* get around
That's funny. I always use "make xconfig" because "make menuconfig" is so hard to move around in. You have to use the arrows for everything, and text screen redraws are so slow. In X, a simple point and click opens any category instantly, and you can scroll very quickly by dragging the scroll bar's elevator.
you *need* to use the mouse.
You also need a running X server. Go figure.
That alone slows things up considerably...
Only if you insist on imposing an inappropriate usage pattern on it.
You can break any UI by treating it like some other UI. Use it as it was intended, and things almost always get better. I use xconfig because I like it better. You are free to use menuconfig if you like it better. But don't say xconfig is inferior simply because you don't like it.
Could someone statically link M12 against glib2.1 and make it available? I still run glibc2.0 and would not like to break all my applications by upgrading.
Download and install glibc 2.1 binaries in some out-of-the-way place (/usr/local/lib/glibc-2.1/ for example).
Then use LD_LIBRARY_PATH to add said directory to the path the dynamic loader will use, before running Mozilla.
That's all that IE is anyways. An up-to-date crutch to use while waiting for Mozilla.
:-)
"MSIE is great! I used it to download Mozilla!"
Ah, I eagerly await the day.
User controlled markup: Opera puts the controls back in the hands of the user, while the other browsers give the content creators absolute power.
I agree that the user should always be able to override styles set by the content author, but it is worth noting that other browsers can do the same or similar.
In Netscape 4.x, it is under Edit -> Preferences, go to "Fonts" and "Colors", and set to "Use my settings/Override document".
In Mozilla, you will find similar options under the "View" menu.
Under MSIE, the settings are scattered through out the "Internet Options" dialog.
Nothing currently in production is as easy or as complete as Opera's settings are, though.
However, given that the post office spends / will spend a bunch of time and money gathering information on our/your tab, is it fair that you're not allowed to see the fruit?
Ah, but you are allowed to see the fruit. ZIP and ZIP+4 codes are readily available to anyone via a variety of methods, most of them free. It is only if you want the entire database on a set of CDs that you pay an additional charge. Makes sense. This isn't information the USPS has "gathered", remember. It is closer to operational procedures. Charging an extra fee for them to go out of their way to package it all together for secondary consumption seems reasonable.
Now, maybe the fee they are charging is higher then is reasonable, but I don't know one way or the other. Do you?
I'm all for the Post Office drying up and blowing away...
I sure hope it doesn't! It costs me 35 cents to mail a letter anywhere in the continental US. If I were to use FedEx or UPS instead, I can expect over ten dollars in charges and fees. Now, I suppose some of my tax dollars still go to the USPS, but how many of them?
Directory Services
NIS, NIS+, LDAP, NDS...
USB
Has been available for Linux for some time now. Meanwhile, Microsoft has had USB support for NT 4.0, but has been sitting on it to encourage the upgrade to NT 5.0. Right! That's a winner...
High Speed networking
??? AFAIK, Linux supports any networking you have drivers for.
good multi proc support
Linux's SMP works very well on some things, poorer on others. Just like NT. The Mindcraft problem was the single-threaded TCP/IP stack, which has been fixed in 2.3. Next...
standard application base
That old thing? Please. There are thousands of POSIX applications that do everything I want to. (NT cannot run many of them, BTW.) The only thing I lack on native Linux is a lot of games, and Windows 2000 doesn't score too well in the compatability department there...
good web server performance
Which explains why Apache has twice the installed base of IIS, and IIS is dropping...
stability improvements
I'd prefer an OS that was stable to begin with...
You're free to use Windows 2000, but me, I'll stick with Linux any day.
Well, ought not the government and quasi-government bodies you subsidize have their information in "nice electronic form," so we don't have to subsidize them more than we already do?
One way or another, someone is going to pay for it.
If you have to pay a fee to get it in a convenient format, it is pretty obvious how you pay for it. If you get it in that convenient format for "free", your taxes will pay for it.
The difference is that in the latter, my taxes are also paying for it, and I might not be interested in subsidizing your use of the database.
It really shouldn't take much to see that there is a great potential for abuse with a system like this.
Indeed. Might I ask what your feelings on gun control are?
Any technology can be abused. Anything powerful enough to be useful can also be harmful. The first time it happened was when proto-humans discovered that the thigh bone of an antelope could kill their fellow proto-humans as easily as it could kill their prey.
The application of a tool does not make the tool bad, and knowledge cannot be unlearned. Trying to stuff this genie back into the bottle -- the technological equivalent of sticking your head in the sand -- is not going to work.
Do not try to fight then inevitable. Embrace it instead, and make sure it does not get abused. Strive to make the human race better instead of trying to limit the tools we use in our self-abuse.
XFree comes with a number of "stock" modelines included in the sample configuration files. They go up to 1280x1024. By combining these modelines with the maximum horizontal and vertical frequencies of your monitor, X can pick the best modeline possible for monitors up to 1280x1024.
.INF file, you are generally out of luck with MS-Windows. Not so with XFree. On the gripping hand, many OEMs provide .INF files, while few provide XFree mode lines.
.INF file from Samsung's website, and fed it into MS-Windows. To set it up under XFree, I cut and pasted the modeline from their website. In both cases, I was up and running in seconds.
.INF, taking advantage of the larger installed base of MS-Windows. Other people have posted more information on such a program elsewhere in this discussion. (I see no need to invent a new specification format just for XFree; MS's files work fine for this; why reinvent the wheel?)
.INF files. It won't matter how easy it could be to setup X unless we actually make it so.
;-)
MS-Windows, in contrast, defaults to a "lowest common denominator" that works nearly everywhere, but typically gives you a 60 Hz vertical refresh rate. 60 Hz is pretty lousy, and can lead to eye injury. OSHA recommends at least 72 Hz for safe computing.
If you have an OEM monitor information file (.INF), you can clue MS-Windows in to the maximum frequencies for your monitor, and MS-Windows will do what XFree does -- pick the best possible mode from a list of pre-configured "stock" modes.
Note that MS-Windows has no built-in way of manually entering your monitor specifications, like XFree does. Thus, if you do not have an OEM
As usual, it comes down to a matter of OEM support. Many OEMs support MS-Windows, thus it is perceived as better. Fewer OEMs support Linux, thus it is perceived as inferior. In reality, this reflects the quality of the OEMs, not the operating systems.
Case in point: I have a 19-inch Samsung SyncMaster 900p monitor. To set it up under MS-Windows, I downloaded an
There are things that could be done to improve the situation under XFree. One is to write a converter program which will extract needed the information from an
The other thing to do is modify xf86config, Xconfiguration, and the other dozen or so X configuration programs to actually prompt for and use said
We also need to include stock mode lines for higher resolutions, as many monitors are capable of more then 1280x1024 these days.
Just my 1/4 of a byte.
Try that with linux. Every version from every vendor has changed the nfs/http/ftp install rules somehow, and some of the cd's can't be mounted and nfs installed because of an improper directory structure ON THE CD for network installs, or lack of support for non-cdrom based installs.
While I don't doubt that Sun's JumpStart is a cool thing, you're really comparing apples to oranges here. Or rather, one kind of apple to all the kinds of fruit in the world. You complain that each Linux VAR does things differently, and claim that proves Linux is harder to install then single-vendor Solaris.
Well, duh. Of course a multiple-vendor Linux solution is going to be harder to manage then a single-vendor Solaris solution. Consider how hard installing all the different UNIXes from companies like Sun, DEC, HP, IBM would be! Linux is easy by comparison.
If, on the other hand, you compare installing Solaris with JumpStart on 100 machines to installing Red Hat Linux 6.1 with Kickstart on 100 (similar) machines, I think you will get a better picture of what things are like. I don't doubt that JumpStart would still win, but the comparison would be fair.
How can you change the bios settings on an x86 server when you're connected to a console server on the serial port?
You need special hardware to do that on x86. No different from Sun, really, it is just that all Suns include said hardware out of the box.
I have a feeling that *some* small towns are going to have a lot of trouble if they haven't checked by now.
Actually, small towns should be fine. Why? Became small towns don't have public water and sewer. Each house has its own, private water and waste facilities. As long as you have power (and a small generator will ensure that), you are all set.
It is the medium-sized towns -- the small cities -- that might have trouble. Big enough to need centralized systems, small enough to not be able to afford proper upkeep.
See subject line.
RIAA *has* problems with minidiscs, CDRWs, and other recordable medias. Every media sold already has pre-levied RIAA TAX.
I have always wondered: How does RIAA accomplish this? They aren't a government agency or anything, so it isn't by law. Do they simply bully all possible manufacturers, or what?
Does anyone make a keyboard that has the following two characteristics?
;-)
1) Built-in trackpoint type erasor pointer, and
2) clicky, mechanical keystrokes?
A small company that goes by the name of International Business Machines.
Not seven days ago, I bought an IBM Trackpoint II Keyboard. It includes a built-in eraser pointer between the G, H, and B keys, with two buttons below the space bar (flush with the case). The keyboard itself is that oh-so-sexy IBM clicky feel -- buckling spring.
IBM Part Number 13H6705. "Manufactured for IBM by Maxi Switch", according to the sticker on the bottom.
Cost me $35. Reseller info:
ReEntry - Computers, Peripherals, Electronic Equipment, etc.
Peadbody, MA, USA 01960
Phone: (978)532-3337
Fax: (978)532-3338
Web: http://www.gis.net/~axxxion
Email: axxxion@gis.net
I'll even pay a finders fee ($10 fair?) to the first person who can send me information which leads to the arrest and capture of an appropriate 'board.
No charge.
I've used VMWare, and it does an excellent job of emulating an x86 environment, with better compatibility than Wine, DOSEmu, or just about anything else. That's impressive.
However, for whatever reason, it needs a lot more RAM.
You have to understand that DOSemu and Wine are doing different things then VMWare, et. al.
DOSemu attempts to provide real-mode DOS emulation, with limited protected mode support. There are several things that make this very possible. One is the fact that MS-DOS really isn't much more then a glorified interrupt handler. Another is that the i386 architecture already has support for emulating x86 real mode ("virtual mode"). DOSemu has to setup the processor and service some interrupts, but nothing too outrageous. Remember, DOS programs already have to do almost everything themselves, so there is not as much left for DOSemu to do. (I don't mean to belittle the DOSemu people here; they've done a great job). Memory overhead is low, because (again) DOS doesn't do much to begin with.
Wine is similar: A project to implement the MS-Windows binary interface and runtime libraries on top of Linux/Unix/Posix/whatever. Same basic idea as DOSemu: Provide the services that an existing Microsoft product already provides. With Windows, though, there are considerably more services to implement. Given Microsoft's love of secret APIs, and the fact that MS has trouble properly implementing their own specification, the Wine team's job is pretty big. Memory overhead is higher then DOSemu, again because it does more. It is still lower then loading all of Windows would be, though, because you already have Linux providing a lot (hardware abstraction, system services, etc.).
VMWare (and FreeMWare) are doing something very different from Wine and DOSemu. They are emulating an entire i386 machine, complete with protected mode support. The i386 design has very little in the way of i386 virtualization support, so they need to do a lot in software. Furtheremore, they are not trying to run a DOS or Windows program, they are setting up an entire machine. Wine and DOSemu pass as much of the work to the underlying OS as possible. VMware does not -- you have to load an entire OS again. That is why VMware uses more memory: It has to. Because the i386 arcitecture is very well defined, however, they can do a good job of emulating it. Then your Windows program (for example) uses Windows itself to run. VMWare does not need to provide a quality implementation of Windows (if that is even possible); it uses the real thing.
I hope this sheds a little light on why these programs act the way they do.
I expect that banner ads will eventually die, as advertisers are discovering that they're pretty ineffective.
/. tee shirts)
:-)
:-)
Could be. Alternatively, consider highly targeted banner ads. I deliberately fill out a survey giving the advertiser demographics information, such that they can target their ads to
the sorts of things I am interested in. My interest goes up, clickthroughs increase, sales benefit.
Now, why would I fill out such a survey, you ask? Well, one the purposes of advertising is to inform potential customers of your product or service, whereas they may have been in the dark before. That is a useful thing, to me. If I am going to be bombarded with ads, at least they could be relevant ads.
I have to wonder just how "ineffective" banner ads really are. I see 'em. I read some of them. I even click interesting ones from time to time. Sometimes I learn something, sometimes I close the window in disgust, occasional I bookmark a site for future investigation. This works better, for me, then ads on the side of a bus, where I cannot easily remember the company or investigate their product.
there are other possible sources of website revenue
Okay...
sponsored links
Sponsorship is just another way of saying "advertising", is it not? Sponsors will likely want an attractive, thing to get my attention, no? How is that different from a banner ad?
merchandizing (get those
I somehow doubt Slashdot could be funded on the income from T-shirt sales.
affiliate programs
You mean like, "Link to our online store, and you get a kickback"? Frankly, I find those sorts of agreements more insidious then advertising. With ads, you see a product of possible interest and get the chance to evaluate it. The content provider gets their money regardless. With affiliate programs, I am locked into a choice. What if the affiliate provides lousy service? Do I use them anyway, and support my preferred content-provider? Or do I leave the C.P. out in the cold and use my preferred online store (or whatever)?
voluntary contributions (works for NPR and PBS stations)
Riiiight. Voluntary contributions are never enough. You think NPR and NPTV aren't funded through your tax dollars? There are too many things of possible interest to possibly get supported through donations. No, I don't buy it. Sorry. I want more then two channels worth of National Public Internet.
Supported by advertizing != free
Good point. Touche. However, supported by advertising is also not the same as paying cash.
Harder to measure is the psychological cost of being engulfed the sea of advertizing that encourages the culture of consumption in which we dwell.
Oh, please. I'm not going to crawl into a hole and isolate myself from the rest of the world just because I might fall in with a trend.
Anonymous digital cash is a solved problem.
Very interesting. See my post at #215 for a seperate thread on this.
I am replying twice to one message, because two threads have sprung into existence. The other should be very close after this one (I cannot link them both to each other, unfortunately (chicken-and-egg problem)).
Anonymous digital cash is a solved problem.
I'm intrigued. Could you provide some more info on this? In particular, I generally see information technology leading to very easy tracking (to wit, the whole Doubleclick cookie issue). How does anonymous digital cash work?
That's the point. Why are we using the web for commerce? It was never meant for state-dependent operations.
Because it is there. It exists. It can be used.
CORBA is nice, fun, elegant, cool, whatever, but you cannot use it because it isn't available to the target market.
An inferior solution that works will always win over a superior solution that does not exist.
(It is also worth pointing out that a lot of things are used for purposes they were never intended. Thus do we evolve.)
See subject line, and then notice the following link posted at the bottom of every page on eToys.com:
http://www.etoys.co.uk
I picked up "A Canticle for Leibowitz" after a recommendation from JMS (Babylon 5 creator)... It's almost like a retelling of the dark ages of Western civilization when the monks ... spent centuries collecting and hiding manuscripts and preserving knowledge for future generations.
Very interesting. There is an episode of Babylon 5 entitled, "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", which includes a segment about this exact same thing, nearly verbatim.
If you read the page linked to for the episode, you will find JMS came up with this idea independently, and then, on an unrelated project, discovered both the dark age connection and the Canticle connection.
Great minds think alike, I guess.
IDIOT. That's all I can really say.
If one takes the "all" in that second sentence to be universal rather then applying it to just this discussion, I think one will gain some insight into your debating skills.
if they want state, why use a stateless protocol like http? why not iiop (that is stateful, no?)?
Of course! Why didn't I think of that? I'll just surf on over to Amazon.com using my IIOP-based web browser and...
Oh.
I do not accept cookies. They can be harvested by any number of means... I would be quite willing to enter my passwd each time I make a submission...
Interesting to note that the techniques for skimming cookies off net traffic can also skim that same password and user ID.
What's that, you say? Encrypt the password? Well, sure... but why not just encrypt the cookie instead?
Anyone who says "cookies are not needed" has obviously never done any programming. Without persistent, state information, computer programming is just about useless. Oh, sure, you can do one-way content delivery that way, but I, for one, want the web to be something a bit more interactive then a glorified TV broadcast.
I really get a kick out of the fact that you don't want people tracking you, but you post your email address in a public forum. Yah.
There are issues with cookies that make them less then perfect (to put it mildly), but treating them with extreme paranoia and fear is rather an over-reaction.
The thing to remember about cookies is that the server giving you the cookie may come belong to scumbag banner companies like DoubleClick that wants to track your browsing.
Question: Would you pay to visit all of the websites you visit? And I do mean all of them, from Slashdot to cNet to Yahoo to some two-bit page on GeoCities?
The reason I ask is that banner advertising is what pays for an awful lot of the web today. Unless the page is promoting a company's product (making the whole page one big ad) or supporting a company's product (you already paid for the page), banner advertising is the only alternative to charging for access.
If banner ads go away, then you will lose all of your free web pages. Web content providers will instead start charging for access. That will require you to -- guess what -- identify yourself to facilitate payment. And that identification process will be far more in-depth, involved, and intrusive then any banner ad from Doubleclick.
I am not saying this makes what Doubleclick does right or wrong. I am just wondering if you have considered the consequences of your actions, or if you are simply hoping for a free lunch, like so many people seem to do.
Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.
I don't want to give everybody my information... I usually browse the web with cookies turned off...
When are people going to get it through their heads that cookies can only return information the server sends to you? The only way cookies are going to "give" your information to a site is if you already told the site your information in the first place.
Why should I let my free email service know anything about me other than my real name...?
Maybe so they can pay for the free email service? Didn't anyone ever tell you There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch?