If google didn't index this stuff, they would have no idea the unauthorized mirrors and password hacking sites existed. If you're so into policing your copyrights, go after the criminals that google has been nice enough to find for you.
SPOILER SPOILER:
I think your first criticism is ungrounded. No bearing on the plot? Smith obviously plays a huge role in the third film because he copied himself into the body of a "real" human, and has already had an effect on the plot by firing the EMP early and letting the machines win that battle. The fact that he can "copy" himself to "real" bodies is another hint -- perhaps the "real" world isn't quite as real as we thought. If Zion is indeed a matrix itself (a level of control the machines have over the 1% of people who don't "accept" the inner matrix), then Agent smith being able to copy himself out of the inner matrix is very interesting indeed. The are many hints at this, the most obvious being Neo's ability to "feel" the sentinels at the end.
If you have to rip the audio stream to convert to mp3 and do what you want with the music, how is apple's new music service different from all the other services already out there, like Rhapsody? With Rhapsody, I pay $10 a month, and I get unlimited songs. I can rip the audio stream using totalrecorder and do what I want with the resulting mp3s. I certainly listen to more than 10 new songs a month.
Here is Sawyer's keynote address at a recent conference. He has a great grasp of the sci-fi landscape, and I'm interested in reading a few of his novels.
Would this thing play in one of those dual-deck CD copiers? That doesn't really qualify as a computer...and would a copied CD using one of the dual-decks still cause damage?
The format of how a URL is divided has NOTHING to do with the concept of linking two pages together. The abstract concept of hyperlinking is implemented with URLs, which use escape sequences to some extent. But the concept of linking does not arise out of the ability to use escape sequences to interpret a URL.
I'm not saying that BT's patent is right. I agree that BT's patent is wrong. But the prior existence of escape sequnces is not the reason they're wrong.
In a nutshell: Everything we have done since 1957 is based upon the work they did before
This is true of *any* innovator. No physicist working in the world today would be able to do what they are doing without Einstein. No person working with electricity would be able to do anything without Ben Franklin. Heck, Einstein wouldn't have been able to make his discoveries without Newton. Every innovation is built upon previous work. But that doesn't invalidate them.
I don't buy that "escape sequences" have anything to do with hyperlinking. Sure, in order to interpret a URL string, you need an escape sequence. Sure, in HTML, there are characters in brackets that have special meaning, and that can kinda-sorta be tied to escape sequences. But linking documents together? I don't think so.
There are a lot of things that wouldn't be possible without escape sequences. But that doesn't mean escape sequences are prior art. Hyperlinks wouldn't be possible without a monitor either -- can the person who invented the computer monitor claim "prior art"?
What about software used during brain surgery? You are missing the point. "Dummy" books don't claim to teach you things like "learn how to write software for nuclear power plants using C++ in 14 days". They teach you how to use *C++*. Programming languages are tools that can be used in other difficult processes, but they themselves are not difficult processes.
Ahh the joys of personal homepages...
on
Homepage Usability
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· Score: 1
Alright, each user has an embedded key, and they use that key to place votes. Yes, it's possible for a user to figure out his key...but that doesn't matter. If the server which is tallying the votes sees two votes for the same page with the same key, it just doesn't count the second one. I can do all the debugging I want to figure out my key, but since the server has a log of my previous votes as well, it won't allow me to vote for the same page twice.
To establish such a system, Google needs to get users to create accounts
Or better yet, have google use pattern matching algorithms to look for users whose voting patterns most closely match yours. For instance, I go to slashdot and rate it say 9 out of 10, and you go to slashdot and also rate it 9 out of 10 (and lets say you and I vote similarly on other web sites as well). When I do a search, the search results which you have rated high get a bonus. This is the same kind of "Emergent Property" logic that Amazon uses to suggest products you may like.
So if you start rating sites so google knows what you like, it looks at other users who voted similarly, and gives you results based on what those other users (who are similar to you) liked.
This way, there can't really be any abuse of the system. If you rate things fairly, then only the votes of people who rated the same as you (fairly) get factored in. It doesn't matter how many times a malicious user votes for his own site, as long as my votes differ from his (and if the pattern matching algorithms are written correctly, then my votes *will* be seen as different from a person who voted many times for a crappy site).
That's assuming their voting interface will be a simple web page...I'm guessing they would write their own client-side application, similar to the google toolbar. With a google-written client communicating with their server, they should be able to come close (or at least make it very difficult to vote twice). There are lots of techniques that could work...dynamically generated keys, encryption, etc.
The article mentions that it rebuilt all its web applications in Java as opposed to PHP, and it seems the main reason they did this was to go from multiprocess to multithreaded. However, PHP can be compiled as a shared object (for apache, or as an ISAPI extension for windows), and does do multithreading, database connection pooling, and all those other goodies. It seems they had been using PHP as a CGI...hrmmm. Not a good idea.
Speed shouldn't be the reason you switch to Java. If anything, I've found that PHP has been faster for simple web applications and page serving (and loads faster to develop applications with), while Java stands out as being more robust and stable.
Why do browsers bundle mail and news software? Aren't we past the days when every application had to be the "one stop shop" for everything internet related? If I download a browser, I want something that I can view web pages with...period.
There are plenty of free mail and news readers out there, if mozilla would just concentrate on the browser side of things, wouldn't that speed development?
Gates also took some credit for the genesis of open-source software. He said Microsoft made it possible by standardizing computers: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines," he said.
hrmmmm...sounds like a certain former vice president I know...
But actually when you think about it, the reason Microsoft is in its position of dominance today is because they decided to open their APIs to software developers and concentrate on compatibility, as opposed to Apple, who kept all their secrets tightly held. It was the reason for Apple's eventual demise. In the last few years, however, Microsoft has gone the other direction...closing things up and making them "Microsoft Only". No wonder nobody likes them anymore...
Re:Let's no throw the baby out with the bathwater.
on
EU May Outlaw Cookies
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· Score: 1
>>when someone logs in
If you can get someone's MAC address from a tcp/ip transaction, more power to you. For those of us using the internet...that's impossible.
The point is not to store the users information on their computer, that's stupid and bad design. The point is being able to differentiate between two users...you need some way of knowing who's who in the stateless HTTP protocol.
Let's no throw the baby out with the bathwater...
on
EU May Outlaw Cookies
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Yes, cookies can be used to track browsing habits of users.
But don't I, as a website administrator, have a right to know the usage patterns of my users? If I set up a lemonade stand on the side of the street, I know exactly who comes to my store, how many times they come back, and if I'm smart enough, I can use this information to my advantage to sell more lemonade (e.g., I know that Tom buys lemonade on his lunch break at 12:15 everyday, so I better be open then). Why should online business be put at a huge disadvantage? Cookies are a great tool for maintaining a state over a stateless protocol, and differentiating one users "session" from another.
And also, a great deal of code to keep people "logged in" to web sites uses cookies to maintain state. Without cookies, web sites are forced to use the IP address as the unique identifier to distinguish between two users. What about proxy servers and firewalls? DHCP and dynamic IPs? Maintaining state over HTTP would be a nightmare without cookies.
The only problem comes up when cookies are used across different sites, or one company sells your browsing habits to another without your consent. But by browsing a site, you are implicitly giving that site the permission to see what you are doing.
The school using Unix can reasonably expect to achieve nearly perfect system reliability while maintaining a relative immunity to student attacks. Only hardware failure or serious administrator error can bring the Unix system to a stop
Are you kidding me? Unix may be good, the slashdot community I'm sure would love to say stuff like this, but unix is far from perfect. Complete immunity to student attacks? come on now...
The Unix administration job is really part-time although, in practice, it would be filled as a full-time position and the person hired will find additional ways to contribute to the college. The Windows-based solution, by contrast, will be under-supported with four full-time staff and lead to a serious loss of productivity among other professionals as they become part time PC support people.
I'll give them that UNIX administration is less costly, but what about the cost of the support for the students? If this is a normal college, then most kids have never used *nix before, and some may have never even heard of it. Let me make one point clear: Windows is easier to use than *nix. That is the one thing that windose does well. Most of this community seems to be in denial about this...monopolies and marketing can only get you so far. There are other reasons why personal computer users continue to choose windows -- usability is the first on that list.
Slashdot Mirror
If google didn't index this stuff, they would have no idea the unauthorized mirrors and password hacking sites existed. If you're so into policing your copyrights, go after the criminals that google has been nice enough to find for you.
Way to judge the movie before it has even been made.
SPOILER SPOILER: I think your first criticism is ungrounded. No bearing on the plot? Smith obviously plays a huge role in the third film because he copied himself into the body of a "real" human, and has already had an effect on the plot by firing the EMP early and letting the machines win that battle. The fact that he can "copy" himself to "real" bodies is another hint -- perhaps the "real" world isn't quite as real as we thought. If Zion is indeed a matrix itself (a level of control the machines have over the 1% of people who don't "accept" the inner matrix), then Agent smith being able to copy himself out of the inner matrix is very interesting indeed. The are many hints at this, the most obvious being Neo's ability to "feel" the sentinels at the end.
I call false analogy! Come talk to me when the cattlerancher can teleport his cows with the click of a button.
If you have to rip the audio stream to convert to mp3 and do what you want with the music, how is apple's new music service different from all the other services already out there, like Rhapsody? With Rhapsody, I pay $10 a month, and I get unlimited songs. I can rip the audio stream using totalrecorder and do what I want with the resulting mp3s. I certainly listen to more than 10 new songs a month.
Here is Sawyer's keynote address at a recent conference. He has a great grasp of the sci-fi landscape, and I'm interested in reading a few of his novels.
Because they own the fscking computers. sheesh. These aren't necessarily people at the office here.
Would this thing play in one of those dual-deck CD copiers? That doesn't really qualify as a computer...and would a copied CD using one of the dual-decks still cause damage?
Right. Comlumbus was not the first to discover america. He was the last to discover america.
The format of how a URL is divided has NOTHING to do with the concept of linking two pages together. The abstract concept of hyperlinking is implemented with URLs, which use escape sequences to some extent. But the concept of linking does not arise out of the ability to use escape sequences to interpret a URL.
I'm not saying that BT's patent is right. I agree that BT's patent is wrong. But the prior existence of escape sequnces is not the reason they're wrong.
This is true of *any* innovator. No physicist working in the world today would be able to do what they are doing without Einstein. No person working with electricity would be able to do anything without Ben Franklin. Heck, Einstein wouldn't have been able to make his discoveries without Newton. Every innovation is built upon previous work. But that doesn't invalidate them.
There are a lot of things that wouldn't be possible without escape sequences. But that doesn't mean escape sequences are prior art. Hyperlinks wouldn't be possible without a monitor either -- can the person who invented the computer monitor claim "prior art"?
What about software used during brain surgery? You are missing the point. "Dummy" books don't claim to teach you things like "learn how to write software for nuclear power plants using C++ in 14 days". They teach you how to use *C++*. Programming languages are tools that can be used in other difficult processes, but they themselves are not difficult processes.
What would Jakob Neilsen say about my favorite homepage of all time? Its funny 'cuz its bad.
Alright, each user has an embedded key, and they use that key to place votes. Yes, it's possible for a user to figure out his key...but that doesn't matter. If the server which is tallying the votes sees two votes for the same page with the same key, it just doesn't count the second one. I can do all the debugging I want to figure out my key, but since the server has a log of my previous votes as well, it won't allow me to vote for the same page twice.
Or better yet, have google use pattern matching algorithms to look for users whose voting patterns most closely match yours. For instance, I go to slashdot and rate it say 9 out of 10, and you go to slashdot and also rate it 9 out of 10 (and lets say you and I vote similarly on other web sites as well). When I do a search, the search results which you have rated high get a bonus. This is the same kind of "Emergent Property" logic that Amazon uses to suggest products you may like.
So if you start rating sites so google knows what you like, it looks at other users who voted similarly, and gives you results based on what those other users (who are similar to you) liked.
This way, there can't really be any abuse of the system. If you rate things fairly, then only the votes of people who rated the same as you (fairly) get factored in. It doesn't matter how many times a malicious user votes for his own site, as long as my votes differ from his (and if the pattern matching algorithms are written correctly, then my votes *will* be seen as different from a person who voted many times for a crappy site).
That's assuming their voting interface will be a simple web page...I'm guessing they would write their own client-side application, similar to the google toolbar. With a google-written client communicating with their server, they should be able to come close (or at least make it very difficult to vote twice). There are lots of techniques that could work...dynamically generated keys, encryption, etc.
Speed shouldn't be the reason you switch to Java. If anything, I've found that PHP has been faster for simple web applications and page serving (and loads faster to develop applications with), while Java stands out as being more robust and stable.
There are plenty of free mail and news readers out there, if mozilla would just concentrate on the browser side of things, wouldn't that speed development?
Link to the movie clips.
hrmmmm...sounds like a certain former vice president I know...
But actually when you think about it, the reason Microsoft is in its position of dominance today is because they decided to open their APIs to software developers and concentrate on compatibility, as opposed to Apple, who kept all their secrets tightly held. It was the reason for Apple's eventual demise. In the last few years, however, Microsoft has gone the other direction...closing things up and making them "Microsoft Only". No wonder nobody likes them anymore...
If you can get someone's MAC address from a tcp/ip transaction, more power to you. For those of us using the internet...that's impossible.
The point is not to store the users information on their computer, that's stupid and bad design. The point is being able to differentiate between two users...you need some way of knowing who's who in the stateless HTTP protocol.
But don't I, as a website administrator, have a right to know the usage patterns of my users? If I set up a lemonade stand on the side of the street, I know exactly who comes to my store, how many times they come back, and if I'm smart enough, I can use this information to my advantage to sell more lemonade (e.g., I know that Tom buys lemonade on his lunch break at 12:15 everyday, so I better be open then). Why should online business be put at a huge disadvantage? Cookies are a great tool for maintaining a state over a stateless protocol, and differentiating one users "session" from another.
And also, a great deal of code to keep people "logged in" to web sites uses cookies to maintain state. Without cookies, web sites are forced to use the IP address as the unique identifier to distinguish between two users. What about proxy servers and firewalls? DHCP and dynamic IPs? Maintaining state over HTTP would be a nightmare without cookies.
The only problem comes up when cookies are used across different sites, or one company sells your browsing habits to another without your consent. But by browsing a site, you are implicitly giving that site the permission to see what you are doing.
Are you kidding me? Unix may be good, the slashdot community I'm sure would love to say stuff like this, but unix is far from perfect. Complete immunity to student attacks? come on now...
The Unix administration job is really part-time although, in practice, it would be filled as a full-time position and the person hired will find additional ways to contribute to the college. The Windows-based solution, by contrast, will be under-supported with four full-time staff and lead to a serious loss of productivity among other professionals as they become part time PC support people.
I'll give them that UNIX administration is less costly, but what about the cost of the support for the students? If this is a normal college, then most kids have never used *nix before, and some may have never even heard of it. Let me make one point clear: Windows is easier to use than *nix. That is the one thing that windose does well. Most of this community seems to be in denial about this...monopolies and marketing can only get you so far. There are other reasons why personal computer users continue to choose windows -- usability is the first on that list.