Then how can it be a bad design? It may not fulfill the initial design vision...
You just answered your own question. If you design something that doesn't do what it was supposed to do, no matter how well it does something else, then it is a bad design.
You didn't show the rest of the post in which I said that 'visions change'. Quake III was just released. If you look at the original screenshots from way back when, you see a lot of curved surfaces, undulating walls, and really cool character faces. The levels that were released with the final version weren't anything like these screenshots. They changed the way they designed those levels because of the way those levels impacted computer systems. Was the final design a bad design? No. Did it fulfill their goals? Yes, or so they say. Did it fulfill the initial design vision? No. And things rarely do. That's the great thing about the design process. Things change as you move through it.
I think in the mid 70s, the idea of the space shuttle was a great one and the initial vision was a perfect one, but the technology didn't exist then to actually create a machine that would do everything that they wanted it to do. So they chose the things they really wanted (people in orbit, reusable, big payload) and trimmed out the things they wanted (speed, cheapness) and modified the design goals. If we tried to do the space shuttle's initial design today, I think we would get a lot closer to those original goals, but I think that NASA, even from the outset, has been about public relations, and there's no way they are going to satisfy themselves with general aviation requirements for a vehicle that carries people into outer space. If you want that kind of safety, you are not going to get a two-week turnaround on spacecraft. It just won't happen.
I attended a lecture by Constance Adams, the chief architect for NASA (she designs the habitation modules for the space station, as one of her duties). She said that NASA, unlike other organizations, has zero tolerance for failure. Every system is designed not to fail. They're not designed just to do their job, but they're also designed not to fail (and she made the distinction). Furthermore, systems are designed to handle failure within their systems so that if a failure does happen (and remember, they have zero tolerance for failure), then those part won't fail. That kind of redundancy takes time to ensure. The space shuttle is by no means 'experimental technology'. It was tested many many many times before it ever even made it's way up to the launch pad. It's still tested many many many times before every launch. Just because something is one-of-a-kind does not make it experimental. NASA was more positive of the outcome of its first shuttle launch than you are of your car.
But I digress. Back to the original comment, yes, the shuttle is a bad design for the inital design vision, but that's not what it was designed for. It was designed for a highly modified (some might say compromised) design that you see fulfilled every time a shuttle makes it safely to and from orbit. Yes, we need a new orbiter system and we'll get it. NASA wants it more than you or I. But NASA also realizes the incredible value and stability of its current system and chastising that system is simply ignoring its incredible success.
I don't strap my car to two solid rocket boosters and send it into orbit, at least not regularly. This is a very bogus comparison, the tolerances (e.g. heat, stress) required for normal operation of a car, and the tolerances required for a man rated launcher are not comparable.
You also don't baby your car the way that NASA babies it's space shuttles, nor do you meticulously repair the maybe slightly defective parts the way NASA does with the space shuttle. Both vehicles are designed for certain limits, and both operate within those limits.
Unfortunately is bad design thats causing the delays, the shuttle design was a compromise (much like the current ISS debacle) due to repeated budget cuts. Initially design targets were to have something that could fly and turn around again in a matter of days or weeks, they were looking for a shuttle that could fly (at a minimum) twenty or thirty times a year. What they ended up with falls very short of the mark, something that was actually more expensive to launch than a normal rocket. The shuttle is an aging launcher, with design compromises at every turn, it shows.
Compromise of the initial design vision isn't what's delaying the shuttle in any way. If the shuttle was built to be used 20-30 times a year, it still would undergo the safety checks that NASA is giving it now, and if they wiring was bad on one of those shuttles, I'm sure NASA would take the time to check each one, and it would probably still have an excessive number of miles of wiring. What's causing the delay here isn't the design of the shuttles, whatever form that design may be, but NASA's anality (analism, analness?) about safety. Rightly so, I might add, since protecting the lives of the passengers should be the top priority.
Hopefully, VentureStar won't be as big a disappointment, although personally I still think they should have gone with the Delta Clipper (at least they had a working prototype in hardware).
Yeah, and in the meantime, what do you use? The current 'bad design' that's really only failed once in 20 years of usage, right? NASA's not going to make the mistake again of stopping all space flight for development of a launching mechanism when they have a perfectly good one. And given the VentureStar or the Delta Clipper's design snafus, I'm glad they're still researching it.
No way, we've already stretched the design lifetime well beyond the inital estimates.
Then how can it be a bad design? It may not fulfill the initial design vision, but as anyone who's ever worked in design can tell you, the vision changes as you work on a project. The fact that the shuttles have lasted this long with only problems to the launch device, not the orbiter itself, shows exactly how great and durable a design it actually is.
It's my understanding that the USPS is maintained as an independent corporation owned and operated by the US Government. I believe it was separated out to make sure that it didn't suffer from budgetary restrictions and the like and to make sure that stamp prices weren't influenced by budgetary discussions in Congress (the USPS should only raise stamp prices when it needs to increase it's own revenues, not the government's). Don't quote me on this. I'm trying to remember my Civics & Government classes from high school.
Yes, the USPS has a monopoly on postal mail by law, but they certainly have their share of competition. UPS and FedEx both now deliver letter-style 'packages' in addition to their regular box formats, which is a pretty sizable chunk of revenue. These companies still can't deliver to a post office, but street address deliveries are perfectly legal.
These companies (BTW, and to bring this slightly back on topic) pay for access to things like these databases. I'm sure the price-structure management of the database probably has as much to do with at least getting something back from the competition as it does with covering the cost of maintaining it.
It's not just a function of old age. The two major delays this mission were to check the wiring (after finding faulty wiring on another shuttle) which is purely a safety consideration and to repair a dented pipe, which was probably caused by a freak occurence. These are problems which could strike any space mission, new or old, and doesn't really have anything to do with the age of our shuttle fleet.
Granted, the shuttles are old, but these delays are simply the result of the Challenger incident and NASA's goal to keep people alive. The shuttles themselves are probably in better shape than your current car, and they're certainly in better shape than any car you've owned for 20 years.
Of course, I'm not saying that a newer design isn't warranted (and NASA has actively been researching towards that goal), but don't dismiss the shuttles because of the delays. It really isn't 'bad design' that's causing them. I think 20 years from now we'll still be able to use the shuttles, even if it's in a workhouse capacity (see the old Nebula-class starships from Star Trek, ST:TNG, and ST:DSN if you need an example).
Making the simple complicated ...
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Geek Horoscopes
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· Score: 4
Everyone knows that all you really need is a copy of fortune and you're set. I don't need some half-wit, just-out-of-undergrad, faux journalism major telling me what my life is all about when I can trust a computer program.
In any case, I'm sure the engineer's solution to this problem wouldn't be sex at all, but a 'Net downlink with some pr0n and a little device that would prevent the compartment from getting 'sticky', if you know what I mean.
But seriously, NASA has given us so many improvements for our daily lives, I'm sure that I'll be interested in whatever they have to say about sex.
Do we have that right to kill it? Is that murder? If we mess up somehow, do we have a new species, and then are we allowed to cause it's extinction?
This brings back memories of Asimov's robot books, actually. We create the 'life-form', and then we're not legally allowed to kill it (except these life-forms can actually kill it).
Religion isn't going to like this, but then traditional religions generally don't seem as relavent to 20th century folk as they might have hundreds of years ago. Most people don't really like the idea of appending a religious text the way we'd append a constitution or law, either, so traditional religions can't very well deal with things like genetic engineering that didn't exist until a few decades ago. They have to rely on some subjective interpretation...
Actually, in the wake of all this progress in genetics and films like Jurassic Park, religious participation has actually been on the rise. Sure, some of it is due to millenial fears and some due to an increase in breeding in the Southern United States, but for the most part, people say they are simply scared of the direction that the world has taken. Remember, back in the 60s, when a lot of these people were growing up, atomic bombs created fantasy mutants that ate people. Star Trek envisioned the Eugenics Wars of the mid-90s that, although they never happened, were based on a very real fear that has only gotten more real.
I think people turn to God now because of situations like this, because God is a stabilizing force, real or not. What God represents to people is different based on the individual, but the idea that something is there that controls the unknown, that provides reason and sanity to processes that people can't quite understand (how many people have ever prayed to the Windows god?) is common throughout history. How life works is one of those unknowns and now, to suddenly say that it is known, means a little piece of God dies. Rather than deal with this, people turn to God so that he won't die and they'll continue to have this stabilizing presence.
We're going to understand how this all works some day, I have no doubt, and we won't be gods when we can teach it to our little kids via hyperlight networks. Why is that? Because we won't ever understand why it works that way and exactly why our universe is the way it is. Leave that to the theologians and let's get on with our discovery of how things work the way they do.
I'm glad we live in a world where Slashdot's YRO keeps us vigilant against the supposedly harmful effects of Internet society. I mean, if you think about it, there are many more Internet technologies that can, when used improperly, cause security violations on your system.
In this case, browsers simply need to be setup to function as individual components. The web browser should not have access to the same mechanisms as an e-mail client. HTML e-mail is different from loading a web page and should be treated as such. Cookies are not a part of HTML; they are a part of HTTP! The browsers shouldn't confuse the two. This isn't a problem with the implementations of cookies, this is a problem with the implementation of HTML e-mail and the web browser.
And the idea that loading cookies from only that page is ludicrous. The whole idea is to be able to give an entire site access to information so that you can do things on different pages with similar information without having to repeatedly ask for that information. There's nothing in the HTTP specification that makes this harmful. Someone simply didn't implement the specification properly so now clients can share cookie files, leading to a possible hidden exchange of data between them.
Michael threw a hissy-fit today about id Software sending back graphics card information and now we have this. This is a real privacy concern. The problem isn't with the information being so openly available, it's with it being so tightly controlled, not just by one organization, but by a combination organization/government body. Business/free-enterprise/commercial world is not a democracy. Once the government immerses itself in this world, some of the democratic freedoms (mostly those based on Socialist ideas) become lost as business takes over the legislative workings. This isn't lobbying we're talking about here, this is direct cooperation and the line is blurred between government and the private sector (ever see Robocop?). I don't mind businesses collecting data and I don't mind governments collecting data, but I mind them doing it together, because government cannot effectively regulate when it is part of the process (we see that too much now already).
Slashdot readers who posted over 600 comments today about video card information should open their eyes to this real problem. Whether or not the situation is exactly as it is presented here, someone (not just me) should get on the horn to consumer rights advocates right now and make sure that the world's largest conflict of interest doesn't become a reality.
Fire does react to external stimuli. It moves away from wind (normally as a physical result to the wind) and the preservation instinct of fire could well be its intention to burn. I mean, I know fire's not a life-form, but it could be if we didn't know exactly what it was an how it functioned.
The question is, will we be able to recognize non-carbon-based life-forms as life-forms? I mean, it's like the old question, "Is fire alive?" It follows all the basic characteristics of life (consumption, reproduction, waste removal, death, etc.), but we know that it's a chemical reaction. I remember I asked my science teacher if we ourselves weren't simply chemical reactions and she was rather stumped. I don't remember the final answer of why fire isn't life (anyone care to refresh), but I remember it satisfied me at the time (or maybe the bell rang).
The point is, we may not recognize life as such, and if so, is it still life? I mean, the Earth operates on a very life-like series of system, so is it 'alive', and if so, does that make it a life-form? Same kind of thing with viruses.
They recently managed to collect some of the light reflected off another large planet in orbit around another star. This planet was very close, but very large, and was composed of, IIRC, magnesium, silicon, and potassium (oxygen was also found in trace amounts, which was the big story with this report), which are all very heavy elements. The fact is, we're not quite sure what makes planets have the makeup they do, but the theory that I'm most familiar with says that the solar wind blows most of the lighter elements (helium and hydrogen, for example) out past a certain region, which is why the inner planets contain heavier elements. These planets may very well be something similar to Earth, or, more likely, a planet composed of terrestrial elements compressed into a form we haven't seen before.
Software which performs functions beyond its stated activities is uncool (read: illegal)
I have never heard of a law that says this. If someone can find one for me, fine, I think that it's dandy, but as far as I know, every piece of software performs functions beyond its stated activities, primarily because no software package (even Linux, holy cow, call the Marines!) has ever listed all of the functions that it performs in its marketing propaganda (and no, I don't count the Linux source code as 'marketing propaganda').
I agree with a few of the posters here. The paranoia on Slashdot has reached all-time highs and it is definitely preventing companies like id from creating a high-quality product using perfectly acceptable and harmless means.
Unfortunately, such wisdom requires adult human intelligence and life experience, which we aren't about to get in machines for some time. And the alternative suggested by Cailliau of checking IDs is unworkable and ethically repugnant.
For the time being, it seems we must rely on the honesty and honor of humans to not foul the well water. Even given Talin's Third Law ("Politeness doesn't scale."), this approach has worked remarkably well on the Internet so far. As long as we keep developing honesty and honor in our children, I believe we should be, for the most part, just fine.
I completely disagree (if anyone cares). Checking IDs is not "ethically repugnant". It works everyday for a variety of purposes (driving, credit card & check verification, getting beer.. at least in the states, and any other action where knowing who someone is is important). Anonymity and the Internet worked fine as long as the Internet was only being used by specialized people (educators and the military) for the use it was intended for (passing around simple information), but now it's a completely different beast and to harken back to the days of ole when everyone on the 'Net was anonymous and complete freedom meant doing and saying whatever you wanted is like harkening back to the days when we all made our own candy and didn't have to worry about some sicko sticking razor blades or cyanide in it. Human beings aren't honest, and we can't make them honest, and I personally don't want them to be honest (wouldn't be fun), but I do want people to be accountable and right now they aren't. Taking your library analogy, we need some way to look at someone and say that they are a six-year-old kid and we don't have that right now. Accountability means knowing that kid is six years old and being able to have a human or a machine say, "I'm sorry, but you can't go in there." It also means saying, "You're name is John Doe and you've just hacked into the largest savings institution in the world. Police are coming to get you now." rather than saying, "I have no clue who you are and I'm going to have the police, many of whom don't even use computers to go and find you, whomever you are. Seriously. Honest. Pissing in your shoes yet?"
The driving analogy is actually quite a lot better than your library analogy. When you're out on the roadway, you are pretty anonymous, especially if you have tinted windows. No one really knows who you are, but people do have the ability to figure out who you are in the event that they need you. Yes, businesses will have information about you, but it'll be licensing information, just like my insurance company knows my driving record, my vehicle make and color, and my hair color. Big deal.
I'm not an anonymous person and I don't want to be. I also don't want other anonymous people because they can do things without being held accountable for them. People on the Internet need to grow up and realize that the Internet isn't an infant anymore. It's evolved into a real-world machine and in the real-world, people aren't anonymous.
I generally don't read the crypto articles so excuse me if this question has been asked (and/or answered) before, but what are other countries' crypto regulations like? Is the US the only country with such regulations? If not, how strict are other countries and are any worse than the US? I can read tons and tons of articles about why people think this is so awful, but I personally can't really understand all the venom unless I understand the context.
Because Linux is not about the money, and these people change that.
Who says Linux isn't about the money? As much as you or I may like to live in our little Utopian universe where things don't cost money and people do things simply for the good of each other, for Linux to advance in the marketplace and achieve the kind success that everyone wants it to have, it's going to have be about money, and people are slowly coming around to this. Individuals and communities don't deal with corporations; corporations deal with corporations and most of the PC sales today (which desperately need stability and innovation like Linux provides) are in business, not home, not development.. business.
I would much rather have a whole slew of corporations make sure that their wealth somehow gets dispersed to the very community that creates to the product and call it a 'trend' than have a whole slew of corporations that take the community's product and give nothing back. As far as I'm concerned, something like this should be required. Don't look at it as the companies doing something special, look at it as the companies doing something proper. Then maybe you'll recognize why these 'letters' (of which I've never gotten one and probably won't ever get one) are so valuable to the sustaining of Linux development as a community.
Redhat didn't establish a special moment. They established a precedent and I like this because it means other companies are following that precedent.
I'm not going to overanalyze Carmack's words and try to figure out what he's going to sink his fingers into next, but I will point out this little line in his plan. A lot of people on Slashdot flame MS as a user environment, as a development environment, and as a networking environment, but Carmack does indeed use NT for the majority of his development (and not because he's locked into it). It just goes to show everyone that they don't need to be tied to one OS just because they use one OS.
Mark troll, flamebait, whatever.
Re:New Graphics Card from Me, Inc.
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New ATi 3D Chip
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Umm.. I don't get it.
New Graphics Card from Me, Inc.
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New ATi 3D Chip
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· Score: 4
I call it the Eyeball(tm) and I've patented it and GPLed it. It can do over 3 quadrillion equivalent pixels (I say 'equivalent' because it deals in quantum elements, of which there are an uncountable number in a pixel) per millisecond and when combined with another Eyeball(tm) in a dual setup, can actually create realistic stereovisual effects. It can take input from the real world and give it to you in astonishing 3D quality, and with the new additions 'LSD', 'X' and 'Louisville Slugger', you can make it generate colors you may never have seen before. Unfortunately, such advanced technology comes at a price. The incredibly complex nature of the Eyeball(tm) is such that it requires a proprietary socket, the EyeSocket(tm) to interface with your system properly, and of course you'll need a brain (we realize that this excludes a vast majority of the world's game players, but the ones who do have one will greatly appreciate this invention).
Don't settle for wussy video cards that are limited to only 'pixels' and may or may not be out after Christmas. Use the Eyeball(tm) (or two) and enjoy true reality.. TODAY!
(please note that overclocking the Eyeball(tm) or removing the Eyeball(tm) from the EyeSocket(tm) in any way voids the warranty and may damage said Eyeball(tm))
The Cat Theory This theory states that no matter how hard it tries, the cat will never be able to catch a moving laser.
The Eyeball Theory This theory states that no matter how large the warning on the side of the laser, someone will inevitably see what happens when they shine it in their eye.[1]
The Policeman Theory Shine a laser through a donut and one can theoretically throw a policeman into a brain lock as they try to defend themselves from the obvious sniper while also try to obtain the donut
The Stupid People Theory See number 1, substituting 'stupid person' for 'cat'.
The Nasal Theory This theory states that, whoa, dude, when you shine the laser up your nose, it glows like Rudolph, man! *puff*[2]
The Austin Powers Theory This theory states that sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads are more deadly than mutated sea-bass.[3]
And yes, I want one of these in pen form.
[1] They go blind [2] I in no way condone the use of illegal drugs [3] Being conducted in conjunction with the Darwin Society.
All the bug and code fixes aside, the entire reason that I'm downloading this release is for their updated documentation. When 2.05 came out, the Samba team came under heavy fire for not updating their documentation (the old smbmount pages were out of date even before that), especially considering they had completely redone the option system for smbmount and other utils. It looks like they've redone that again, but the documentation is now a) up-to-date and b) many times more verbose than it ever was.
Kudos to the Samba team for listening to and executing the ideas of its users.
Slashdot Mirror
Then how can it be a bad design? It may not fulfill the initial design vision...
You just answered your own question. If you design something that doesn't do what it was supposed to do, no matter how well it does something else, then it is a bad design.
You didn't show the rest of the post in which I said that 'visions change'. Quake III was just released. If you look at the original screenshots from way back when, you see a lot of curved surfaces, undulating walls, and really cool character faces. The levels that were released with the final version weren't anything like these screenshots. They changed the way they designed those levels because of the way those levels impacted computer systems. Was the final design a bad design? No. Did it fulfill their goals? Yes, or so they say. Did it fulfill the initial design vision? No. And things rarely do. That's the great thing about the design process. Things change as you move through it.
I think in the mid 70s, the idea of the space shuttle was a great one and the initial vision was a perfect one, but the technology didn't exist then to actually create a machine that would do everything that they wanted it to do. So they chose the things they really wanted (people in orbit, reusable, big payload) and trimmed out the things they wanted (speed, cheapness) and modified the design goals. If we tried to do the space shuttle's initial design today, I think we would get a lot closer to those original goals, but I think that NASA, even from the outset, has been about public relations, and there's no way they are going to satisfy themselves with general aviation requirements for a vehicle that carries people into outer space. If you want that kind of safety, you are not going to get a two-week turnaround on spacecraft. It just won't happen.
I attended a lecture by Constance Adams, the chief architect for NASA (she designs the habitation modules for the space station, as one of her duties). She said that NASA, unlike other organizations, has zero tolerance for failure. Every system is designed not to fail. They're not designed just to do their job, but they're also designed not to fail (and she made the distinction). Furthermore, systems are designed to handle failure within their systems so that if a failure does happen (and remember, they have zero tolerance for failure), then those part won't fail. That kind of redundancy takes time to ensure. The space shuttle is by no means 'experimental technology'. It was tested many many many times before it ever even made it's way up to the launch pad. It's still tested many many many times before every launch. Just because something is one-of-a-kind does not make it experimental. NASA was more positive of the outcome of its first shuttle launch than you are of your car.
But I digress. Back to the original comment, yes, the shuttle is a bad design for the inital design vision, but that's not what it was designed for. It was designed for a highly modified (some might say compromised) design that you see fulfilled every time a shuttle makes it safely to and from orbit. Yes, we need a new orbiter system and we'll get it. NASA wants it more than you or I. But NASA also realizes the incredible value and stability of its current system and chastising that system is simply ignoring its incredible success.
I don't strap my car to two solid rocket boosters and send it into orbit, at least not regularly. This is a very bogus comparison, the tolerances (e.g. heat, stress) required for normal operation of a car, and the tolerances required for a man rated launcher are not comparable.
You also don't baby your car the way that NASA babies it's space shuttles, nor do you meticulously repair the maybe slightly defective parts the way NASA does with the space shuttle. Both vehicles are designed for certain limits, and both operate within those limits.
Unfortunately is bad design thats causing the delays, the shuttle design was a compromise (much like the current ISS debacle) due to repeated budget cuts. Initially design targets were to have something that could fly and turn around again in a matter of days or weeks, they were looking for a shuttle that could fly (at a minimum) twenty or thirty times a year. What they ended up with falls very short of the mark, something that was actually more expensive to launch than a normal rocket. The shuttle is an aging launcher, with design compromises at every turn, it shows.
Compromise of the initial design vision isn't what's delaying the shuttle in any way. If the shuttle was built to be used 20-30 times a year, it still would undergo the safety checks that NASA is giving it now, and if they wiring was bad on one of those shuttles, I'm sure NASA would take the time to check each one, and it would probably still have an excessive number of miles of wiring. What's causing the delay here isn't the design of the shuttles, whatever form that design may be, but NASA's anality (analism, analness?) about safety. Rightly so, I might add, since protecting the lives of the passengers should be the top priority.
Hopefully, VentureStar won't be as big a disappointment, although personally I still think they should have gone with the Delta Clipper (at least they had a working prototype in hardware).
Yeah, and in the meantime, what do you use? The current 'bad design' that's really only failed once in 20 years of usage, right? NASA's not going to make the mistake again of stopping all space flight for development of a launching mechanism when they have a perfectly good one. And given the VentureStar or the Delta Clipper's design snafus, I'm glad they're still researching it.
No way, we've already stretched the design lifetime well beyond the inital estimates.
Then how can it be a bad design? It may not fulfill the initial design vision, but as anyone who's ever worked in design can tell you, the vision changes as you work on a project. The fact that the shuttles have lasted this long with only problems to the launch device, not the orbiter itself, shows exactly how great and durable a design it actually is.
It's my understanding that the USPS is maintained as an independent corporation owned and operated by the US Government. I believe it was separated out to make sure that it didn't suffer from budgetary restrictions and the like and to make sure that stamp prices weren't influenced by budgetary discussions in Congress (the USPS should only raise stamp prices when it needs to increase it's own revenues, not the government's). Don't quote me on this. I'm trying to remember my Civics & Government classes from high school.
Yes, the USPS has a monopoly on postal mail by law, but they certainly have their share of competition. UPS and FedEx both now deliver letter-style 'packages' in addition to their regular box formats, which is a pretty sizable chunk of revenue. These companies still can't deliver to a post office, but street address deliveries are perfectly legal.
These companies (BTW, and to bring this slightly back on topic) pay for access to things like these databases. I'm sure the price-structure management of the database probably has as much to do with at least getting something back from the competition as it does with covering the cost of maintaining it.
It's not just a function of old age. The two major delays this mission were to check the wiring (after finding faulty wiring on another shuttle) which is purely a safety consideration and to repair a dented pipe, which was probably caused by a freak occurence. These are problems which could strike any space mission, new or old, and doesn't really have anything to do with the age of our shuttle fleet.
Granted, the shuttles are old, but these delays are simply the result of the Challenger incident and NASA's goal to keep people alive. The shuttles themselves are probably in better shape than your current car, and they're certainly in better shape than any car you've owned for 20 years.
Of course, I'm not saying that a newer design isn't warranted (and NASA has actively been researching towards that goal), but don't dismiss the shuttles because of the delays. It really isn't 'bad design' that's causing them. I think 20 years from now we'll still be able to use the shuttles, even if it's in a workhouse capacity (see the old Nebula-class starships from Star Trek, ST:TNG, and ST:DSN if you need an example).
Everyone knows that all you really need is a copy of fortune and you're set. I don't need some half-wit, just-out-of-undergrad, faux journalism major telling me what my life is all about when I can trust a computer program.
... there is an equal but opposite reaction.
In any case, I'm sure the engineer's solution to this problem wouldn't be sex at all, but a 'Net downlink with some pr0n and a little device that would prevent the compartment from getting 'sticky', if you know what I mean.
But seriously, NASA has given us so many improvements for our daily lives, I'm sure that I'll be interested in whatever they have to say about sex.
Do we have that right to kill it? Is that murder? If we mess up somehow, do we have a new species, and then are we allowed to cause it's extinction?
This brings back memories of Asimov's robot books, actually. We create the 'life-form', and then we're not legally allowed to kill it (except these life-forms can actually kill it).
ps. I'm all for it.
Religion isn't going to like this, but then traditional religions generally don't seem as relavent to 20th century folk as they might have hundreds of years ago. Most people don't really like the idea of appending a religious text the way we'd append a constitution or law, either, so traditional religions can't very well deal with things like genetic engineering that didn't exist until a few decades ago. They have to rely on some subjective interpretation...
Actually, in the wake of all this progress in genetics and films like Jurassic Park, religious participation has actually been on the rise. Sure, some of it is due to millenial fears and some due to an increase in breeding in the Southern United States, but for the most part, people say they are simply scared of the direction that the world has taken. Remember, back in the 60s, when a lot of these people were growing up, atomic bombs created fantasy mutants that ate people. Star Trek envisioned the Eugenics Wars of the mid-90s that, although they never happened, were based on a very real fear that has only gotten more real.
I think people turn to God now because of situations like this, because God is a stabilizing force, real or not. What God represents to people is different based on the individual, but the idea that something is there that controls the unknown, that provides reason and sanity to processes that people can't quite understand (how many people have ever prayed to the Windows god?) is common throughout history. How life works is one of those unknowns and now, to suddenly say that it is known, means a little piece of God dies. Rather than deal with this, people turn to God so that he won't die and they'll continue to have this stabilizing presence.
We're going to understand how this all works some day, I have no doubt, and we won't be gods when we can teach it to our little kids via hyperlight networks. Why is that? Because we won't ever understand why it works that way and exactly why our universe is the way it is. Leave that to the theologians and let's get on with our discovery of how things work the way they do.
It's going to be released in Q12000!? Quarter 12000 is like the year 3000! And I thought Mozilla development took a long time.
Luckily, though, with the beta releases, we have a 1000 years of testing, so it should be stable and feature rich.
NOTE: This post not for the humor (or humour) impaired
I'm glad we live in a world where Slashdot's YRO keeps us vigilant against the supposedly harmful effects of Internet society. I mean, if you think about it, there are many more Internet technologies that can, when used improperly, cause security violations on your system.
In this case, browsers simply need to be setup to function as individual components. The web browser should not have access to the same mechanisms as an e-mail client. HTML e-mail is different from loading a web page and should be treated as such. Cookies are not a part of HTML; they are a part of HTTP! The browsers shouldn't confuse the two. This isn't a problem with the implementations of cookies, this is a problem with the implementation of HTML e-mail and the web browser.
And the idea that loading cookies from only that page is ludicrous. The whole idea is to be able to give an entire site access to information so that you can do things on different pages with similar information without having to repeatedly ask for that information. There's nothing in the HTTP specification that makes this harmful. Someone simply didn't implement the specification properly so now clients can share cookie files, leading to a possible hidden exchange of data between them.
Note, that was not a Biblical reference
Michael threw a hissy-fit today about id Software sending back graphics card information and now we have this. This is a real privacy concern. The problem isn't with the information being so openly available, it's with it being so tightly controlled, not just by one organization, but by a combination organization/government body. Business/free-enterprise/commercial world is not a democracy. Once the government immerses itself in this world, some of the democratic freedoms (mostly those based on Socialist ideas) become lost as business takes over the legislative workings. This isn't lobbying we're talking about here, this is direct cooperation and the line is blurred between government and the private sector (ever see Robocop?). I don't mind businesses collecting data and I don't mind governments collecting data, but I mind them doing it together, because government cannot effectively regulate when it is part of the process (we see that too much now already).
Slashdot readers who posted over 600 comments today about video card information should open their eyes to this real problem. Whether or not the situation is exactly as it is presented here, someone (not just me) should get on the horn to consumer rights advocates right now and make sure that the world's largest conflict of interest doesn't become a reality.
Fire does react to external stimuli. It moves away from wind (normally as a physical result to the wind) and the preservation instinct of fire could well be its intention to burn. I mean, I know fire's not a life-form, but it could be if we didn't know exactly what it was an how it functioned.
The question is, will we be able to recognize non-carbon-based life-forms as life-forms? I mean, it's like the old question, "Is fire alive?" It follows all the basic characteristics of life (consumption, reproduction, waste removal, death, etc.), but we know that it's a chemical reaction. I remember I asked my science teacher if we ourselves weren't simply chemical reactions and she was rather stumped. I don't remember the final answer of why fire isn't life (anyone care to refresh), but I remember it satisfied me at the time (or maybe the bell rang).
The point is, we may not recognize life as such, and if so, is it still life? I mean, the Earth operates on a very life-like series of system, so is it 'alive', and if so, does that make it a life-form? Same kind of thing with viruses.
...
Fire, Water, Earth, Wind.
And, of course, don't forget Turbonium.
They recently managed to collect some of the light reflected off another large planet in orbit around another star. This planet was very close, but very large, and was composed of, IIRC, magnesium, silicon, and potassium (oxygen was also found in trace amounts, which was the big story with this report), which are all very heavy elements. The fact is, we're not quite sure what makes planets have the makeup they do, but the theory that I'm most familiar with says that the solar wind blows most of the lighter elements (helium and hydrogen, for example) out past a certain region, which is why the inner planets contain heavier elements. These planets may very well be something similar to Earth, or, more likely, a planet composed of terrestrial elements compressed into a form we haven't seen before.
Keep holding out hope, Mulders.
Software which performs functions beyond its stated activities is uncool (read: illegal)
I have never heard of a law that says this. If someone can find one for me, fine, I think that it's dandy, but as far as I know, every piece of software performs functions beyond its stated activities, primarily because no software package (even Linux, holy cow, call the Marines!) has ever listed all of the functions that it performs in its marketing propaganda (and no, I don't count the Linux source code as 'marketing propaganda').
I agree with a few of the posters here. The paranoia on Slashdot has reached all-time highs and it is definitely preventing companies like id from creating a high-quality product using perfectly acceptable and harmless means.
Unfortunately, such wisdom requires adult human intelligence and life experience, which we aren't about to get in machines for some time. And the alternative suggested by Cailliau of checking IDs is unworkable and ethically repugnant.
.. at least in the states, and any other action where knowing who someone is is important). Anonymity and the Internet worked fine as long as the Internet was only being used by specialized people (educators and the military) for the use it was intended for (passing around simple information), but now it's a completely different beast and to harken back to the days of ole when everyone on the 'Net was anonymous and complete freedom meant doing and saying whatever you wanted is like harkening back to the days when we all made our own candy and didn't have to worry about some sicko sticking razor blades or cyanide in it. Human beings aren't honest, and we can't make them honest, and I personally don't want them to be honest (wouldn't be fun), but I do want people to be accountable and right now they aren't. Taking your library analogy, we need some way to look at someone and say that they are a six-year-old kid and we don't have that right now. Accountability means knowing that kid is six years old and being able to have a human or a machine say, "I'm sorry, but you can't go in there." It also means saying, "You're name is John Doe and you've just hacked into the largest savings institution in the world. Police are coming to get you now." rather than saying, "I have no clue who you are and I'm going to have the police, many of whom don't even use computers to go and find you, whomever you are. Seriously. Honest. Pissing in your shoes yet?"
For the time being, it seems we must rely on the honesty and honor of humans to not foul the well water. Even given Talin's Third Law ("Politeness doesn't scale."), this approach has worked remarkably well on the Internet so far. As long as we keep developing honesty and honor in our children, I believe we should be, for the most part, just fine.
I completely disagree (if anyone cares). Checking IDs is not "ethically repugnant". It works everyday for a variety of purposes (driving, credit card & check verification, getting beer
The driving analogy is actually quite a lot better than your library analogy. When you're out on the roadway, you are pretty anonymous, especially if you have tinted windows. No one really knows who you are, but people do have the ability to figure out who you are in the event that they need you. Yes, businesses will have information about you, but it'll be licensing information, just like my insurance company knows my driving record, my vehicle make and color, and my hair color. Big deal.
I'm not an anonymous person and I don't want to be. I also don't want other anonymous people because they can do things without being held accountable for them. People on the Internet need to grow up and realize that the Internet isn't an infant anymore. It's evolved into a real-world machine and in the real-world, people aren't anonymous.
I generally don't read the crypto articles so excuse me if this question has been asked (and/or answered) before, but what are other countries' crypto regulations like? Is the US the only country with such regulations? If not, how strict are other countries and are any worse than the US? I can read tons and tons of articles about why people think this is so awful, but I personally can't really understand all the venom unless I understand the context.
Because Linux is not about the money, and these people change that.
.. business.
Who says Linux isn't about the money? As much as you or I may like to live in our little Utopian universe where things don't cost money and people do things simply for the good of each other, for Linux to advance in the marketplace and achieve the kind success that everyone wants it to have, it's going to have be about money, and people are slowly coming around to this. Individuals and communities don't deal with corporations; corporations deal with corporations and most of the PC sales today (which desperately need stability and innovation like Linux provides) are in business, not home, not development
I would much rather have a whole slew of corporations make sure that their wealth somehow gets dispersed to the very community that creates to the product and call it a 'trend' than have a whole slew of corporations that take the community's product and give nothing back. As far as I'm concerned, something like this should be required. Don't look at it as the companies doing something special, look at it as the companies doing something proper. Then maybe you'll recognize why these 'letters' (of which I've never gotten one and probably won't ever get one) are so valuable to the sustaining of Linux development as a community.
Redhat didn't establish a special moment. They established a precedent and I like this because it means other companies are following that precedent.
And all this time I've been saving up my karma for what?! Nothing! I guess I should've actually done some developing instead of shooting my mouth off.
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Sunuva
I'm not going to overanalyze Carmack's words and try to figure out what he's going to sink his fingers into next, but I will point out this little line in his plan. A lot of people on Slashdot flame MS as a user environment, as a development environment, and as a networking environment, but Carmack does indeed use NT for the majority of his development (and not because he's locked into it). It just goes to show everyone that they don't need to be tied to one OS just because they use one OS.
Mark troll, flamebait, whatever.
Umm .. I don't get it.
I call it the Eyeball(tm) and I've patented it and GPLed it. It can do over 3 quadrillion equivalent pixels (I say 'equivalent' because it deals in quantum elements, of which there are an uncountable number in a pixel) per millisecond and when combined with another Eyeball(tm) in a dual setup, can actually create realistic stereovisual effects. It can take input from the real world and give it to you in astonishing 3D quality, and with the new additions 'LSD', 'X' and 'Louisville Slugger', you can make it generate colors you may never have seen before. Unfortunately, such advanced technology comes at a price. The incredibly complex nature of the Eyeball(tm) is such that it requires a proprietary socket, the EyeSocket(tm) to interface with your system properly, and of course you'll need a brain (we realize that this excludes a vast majority of the world's game players, but the ones who do have one will greatly appreciate this invention).
.. TODAY!
Don't settle for wussy video cards that are limited to only 'pixels' and may or may not be out after Christmas. Use the Eyeball(tm) (or two) and enjoy true reality
(please note that overclocking the Eyeball(tm) or removing the Eyeball(tm) from the EyeSocket(tm) in any way voids the warranty and may damage said Eyeball(tm))
This theory states that no matter how hard it tries, the cat will never be able to catch a moving laser.
This theory states that no matter how large the warning on the side of the laser, someone will inevitably see what happens when they shine it in their eye.[1]
Shine a laser through a donut and one can theoretically throw a policeman into a brain lock as they try to defend themselves from the obvious sniper while also try to obtain the donut
See number 1, substituting 'stupid person' for 'cat'.
This theory states that, whoa, dude, when you shine the laser up your nose, it glows like Rudolph, man! *puff*[2]
This theory states that sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads are more deadly than mutated sea-bass.[3]
And yes, I want one of these in pen form.
[1] They go blind
[2] I in no way condone the use of illegal drugs
[3] Being conducted in conjunction with the Darwin Society.
All the bug and code fixes aside, the entire reason that I'm downloading this release is for their updated documentation. When 2.05 came out, the Samba team came under heavy fire for not updating their documentation (the old smbmount pages were out of date even before that), especially considering they had completely redone the option system for smbmount and other utils. It looks like they've redone that again, but the documentation is now a) up-to-date and b) many times more verbose than it ever was.
Kudos to the Samba team for listening to and executing the ideas of its users.