The author knew that this was an important breakrhrough. From the results page: This is a demonstration of having a dynamic subdomain to be the input of a program on the web. What this also demonstrates is that you really can send weird stuff on the url even in a subdomain name. (Note: There's no cgi-param-passing-here or path-info.)
It's a demonstration of technology this broad: dynamic subdomain being the input of a program. Well, that's exactly what 7val is doing. So what if the program does something specific - it's still a web program that "tracks sessions" instead of a web program that "does math". Web programs that "track sessions" are nothing new. The only new part is the dynamic subdomain, for which there is prior art.
The author of the domain math software was aware of other potential uses for this ground breaking technology, clear from his description in italics above, and only used the calculator example to demonstrate that it could be the input to any program. Ergo prior art.
There is also a very well-written, very accessible article on this topic, titled "Saved", available at Wired magazine's archive. It was written by Steven Gulie, in 1998 and I distinctly remember reading it, thinking it had a profound impact on my thinking about this topic.
I also use a Kinesis keyboard, and I am incredibly happy with it. It has the following (for me) huge advantages: - your thumbs are no longer wasted, with two fantastic thumbpads, including enter, space, backspace, delete, control (emacs heaven), alt, home, end, pgup and pgdown. This has a really great side effect: absolutely no more long and painful pinky-stretches to get to enter and backspace. Remember that your thumbs are your strongest and most agile digits, and it's a crying shame to waste them both on a space bar. - the keyboard is separated into two wells, making it so you no longer have to turn your wrist outwards in order to type. - The wells are shaped _exactly_ like your hand at rest. Let your hand droop in front of you - look at your fingers. The keys are exactly at that depth vis a vis each other. - The pro is entirely programmable, so if you'd rather use a modern layout like the maltron keyboard, you can. You can see this layout here: maltron layout, but don't buy the maltron keyboard from teleprint, cause I have one and it sucks compared to my kinesis, in size, look and feel. - The keys are laid out straight up and down, which is a natural movement for your fingers, unlike the diagonal movement a normal keyboard forces you to take. - (totally anecdotal) My wrists and hands have stopped hurting since I bought this thing. I have never been so happy with a computer product, ever. Well, well worth the price. - Oh one other note, David Bialick sells these for the best price when I bought mine, and the service is also excellent. His site is http://www.dmb-ergonomics.com/. I am not associated with him. Cheers, Paul
Once IPv6 goes into widespread production (we're now on IPv4, but it seems like everyone is skipping IPv5 - any info on that?), this problem will be licked because IPSEC will be integrated right into the IP stack. That means that any TCP/IP communications between IPv6 devices can and should be encrypted using IPSEC. Neat, huh? --
Based on this valuation, can we estimate what percentage of Digital the Altavista property genuinely represented? I think it's amazingly high (considering what a huge company DEC was in the first place.) -Paul --
The cheesy portal page is at...
on
Slashdot Updates
·
· Score: 2
Not true, there's lots of cool logos out there still. Witness: This logo, of my employer The Pythian Group, really neat-o logo once you figure it out. Any guesses as to what that geometry means?
Any other links to good logos? We should have a contest. --
Since open-source is like an industry to itself, it's normal for there to be spats, battles, snipes and even all-out wars.
Look at the database industry - do you think Oracle and Microsoft get along all of the time? Or Apple and Microsoft for that matter? Of course not, and when they disagree, we call it normal competition.
The reason that Bruce and Eric's dispute is such big news is that open-source is being perceived as a "company", and not an industry model. For instance, an open flame-war between Ballmer and Gates would cause some eyebrows to be raised, for sure. But why would an open flame-war between Ellison and Gates cause that kind of response? Hell, there have been dozens of examples of that kind of conflict, and who cares?
What we have to do is strive to promote the presentation and interpretation of the open-source movement as just that: a model for building software. And the same way any other "model" can have within it fierce competition and disagreement (witness the capitalist model), so too can open-source.
Is anyone else concerned about the momentum behind Red Hat? I mean, doesn't it seem like they're getting all of the money, and most of the media attention? I hate to say it, but all of that money is buying a lot of influence in Linux. Influence=power. Power corrupts.
Pure and simple. But the problem is, it's really going to affect Linux's perception in a lot of many very influential minds. Does the gray lady have an agenda here? I remember when Steve Jobs was starting up NeXT, and the WSJ bashed the endeavour really badly. It essentially shot down NeXT's enterprise market for a long, long time, until he dropped the hardware. Some of the facts here could be contradicted by basic fact-checking of the kind normally done by the editorial team in a paper like the Journal - that is, the author writes the article, submits it, and the editors will do fact-checking. It looks like this article wasn't fact-checked. I wonder why. -p --
If Apple's write anywhere in normal handwriting HWR makes it in, and some of the Newton UI breakthroughs make it in, I would buy for sure. I've looked at the recent pilots, and I think they're getting close. I'll still use my MP2k for now, but someday it'll need replacing. The best situation would be if 3Com licensed some of the core Apple technologies that made the Newton as good as it was - remember, there was something like $1B invested in that platform. --
...Slashdot stories like that? I mean, on top of IT is open-content, but/. is not. Maybe they have some sort of licensing agreement with Rob? It's not like most of the headline grabbers, they really are reproducing the entire story (minus the comments of course.) So what's the deal? Same with freshmeat apparently. --
With the newly announced LDAP support in the db, Oracle has really closed the loop on OS features in a database. Along with Raw Iron, this could turn out to be big in the Oracle vs. OS's (where the OS means OS for sale, like NT.) OS's like Linux should only benefit. Some 8i-related links: my 8i editorial, featured on/. in mid-November '98, still really interesting (if I may say so myself) with some posts from the Oracle team developing it. Also, the company I work for simultaneously announced an Oracle DBA outsourcing practice, with Michael Abbey heading it up (author of Tuning Oracle among other OP books). You can find out about that at The Pythian Group's website. Best regards, Paul --
Look, just because it's easy to trace doesn't mean this isn't a problem. What if there's a cyberwar - don't laugh, the U.S. government has a team getting ready for it. DOS attacks like this could cause serious headaches. It's basically impossible to "cut off" a country from the Internet. That means that it would be next to impossible to prevent a mass attack of this sort along with many, many other types of attacks. Net result? It might take 8 hours, but it sure would inconvenience a whole lot of people. This doesn't look like that big a problem, just set some limits, based on the anticipated demands, on how much resource a daemon can take up. We do it for Apache. We should do it for all of these. My 2c. --
Sell for 1000? Sounds like proprietary extensions... So what's the story; is it running apache or not? Can a custom-built config (config only) be copyrighted? i.e. can you sell a config of an open-source system? I wonder. --
Even ultra-secretive Transmeta had to get some patents and some recruiting, and that got some attention. How did this big a breakthrough happen in such secrecy? I truly hope it's for real. I want to believe. But why is my baloney detector ringing? Let's hope my detector is faulty, shall we? --
Seriously, the supported hardware is very disappointing. I was starting to think VAResearch was in trouble what with the mainstream manufacturers supporting Linux, but seriously: 1) Max one CPU? For a server? 2) No RAID? Be real. That mix essentially rules out any high-end performance and any high-end availability. Gateway, IBM, etc. had better do better, because this little support for servers is tantamount to none. --
Wasn't there a big scandal just a little while ago with MS agents writing letters to the editor of newspapers, similar to an IBM scandal from the 70s? I know this rings a bell, but I just can't place the details. If anyone knows I'm dying to find out the precedent to this. --
I mean, yeah, sure, it's a security issue, but seriously, a file left in your temp directory? You still would need physical or remote access to the machine somehow to get at it. Are we envisioning people walking around their offices with floppies to steal credit card numbers? I would personally be more suspicious of the waiter in a restaurant jotting that stuff down while they've wandered off to prepare my bill. Let's be serious about this, ok? --
Lock-tight on this video doctoring issue. We're talking major libel one way, and major perjury the other way. I think this may be a milestone on this case. What does this crowd think about Ellison's idea of splitting MS into two, identical companies, and give one to Ballmer and one to Gates. I think that actually has a shot of working. --
Slashdot Mirror
There's an html bug.
The rest of the comment is here.
-Paul
This is a demonstration of having a dynamic subdomain to be the input of a program on the web. What this also demonstrates is that you really can send weird stuff on the url even in a subdomain name. (Note: There's no cgi-param-passing-here or path-info.)
It's a demonstration of technology this broad: dynamic subdomain being the input of a program. Well, that's exactly what 7val is doing. So what if the program does something specific - it's still a web program that "tracks sessions" instead of a web program that "does math". Web programs that "track sessions" are nothing new. The only new part is the dynamic subdomain, for which there is prior art.
The author of the domain math software was aware of other potential uses for this ground breaking technology, clear from his description in italics above, and only used the calculator example to demonstrate that it could be the input to any program. Ergo prior art.
QED!
There is also a very well-written, very accessible article on this topic, titled "Saved", available at Wired magazine's archive. It was written by Steven Gulie, in 1998 and I distinctly remember reading it, thinking it had a profound impact on my thinking about this topic.
Take a look. -Paul
Dream for emacs (what I use) :-)
A Kinesis pro with esc and +/= swapped. It's awesome!
Paul
I also use a Kinesis keyboard, and I am incredibly happy with it.
It has the following (for me) huge advantages:
- your thumbs are no longer wasted, with two fantastic thumbpads, including enter, space, backspace, delete, control (emacs heaven), alt, home, end, pgup and pgdown. This has a really great side effect: absolutely no more long and painful pinky-stretches to get to enter and backspace. Remember that your thumbs are your strongest and most agile digits, and it's a crying shame to waste them both on a space bar.
- the keyboard is separated into two wells, making it so you no longer have to turn your wrist outwards in order to type.
- The wells are shaped _exactly_ like your hand at rest. Let your hand droop in front of you - look at your fingers. The keys are exactly at that depth vis a vis each other.
- The pro is entirely programmable, so if you'd rather use a modern layout like the maltron keyboard, you can. You can see this layout here: maltron layout, but don't buy the maltron keyboard from teleprint, cause I have one and it sucks compared to my kinesis, in size, look and feel.
- The keys are laid out straight up and down, which is a natural movement for your fingers, unlike the diagonal movement a normal keyboard forces you to take.
- (totally anecdotal) My wrists and hands have stopped hurting since I bought this thing. I have never been so happy with a computer product, ever. Well, well worth the price.
- Oh one other note, David Bialick sells these for the best price when I bought mine, and the service is also excellent. His site is http://www.dmb-ergonomics.com/. I am not associated with him.
Cheers,
Paul
Once IPv6 goes into widespread production (we're now on IPv4, but it seems like everyone is skipping IPv5 - any info on that?), this problem will be licked because IPSEC will be integrated right into the IP stack. That means that any TCP/IP communications between IPv6 devices can and should be encrypted using IPSEC.
Neat, huh?
--
Based on this valuation, can we estimate what percentage of Digital the Altavista property genuinely represented? I think it's amazingly high (considering what a huge company DEC was in the first place.) -Paul
--
Typo - it's actually /cheesyportal.pl.
--
Any other links to good logos? We should have a contest.
--
Look at the database industry - do you think Oracle and Microsoft get along all of the time? Or Apple and Microsoft for that matter? Of course not, and when they disagree, we call it normal competition.
The reason that Bruce and Eric's dispute is such big news is that open-source is being perceived as a "company", and not an industry model. For instance, an open flame-war between Ballmer and Gates would cause some eyebrows to be raised, for sure. But why would an open flame-war between Ellison and Gates cause that kind of response? Hell, there have been dozens of examples of that kind of conflict, and who cares?
What we have to do is strive to promote the presentation and interpretation of the open-source movement as just that: a model for building software. And the same way any other "model" can have within it fierce competition and disagreement (witness the capitalist model), so too can open-source.
No biggie. -p
--
Is anyone else concerned about the momentum behind Red Hat? I mean, doesn't it seem like they're getting all of the money, and most of the media attention?
I hate to say it, but all of that money is buying a lot of influence in Linux. Influence=power. Power corrupts.
--
Pure and simple. But the problem is, it's really going to affect Linux's perception in a lot of many very influential minds. Does the gray lady have an agenda here? I remember when Steve Jobs was starting up NeXT, and the WSJ bashed the endeavour really badly. It essentially shot down NeXT's enterprise market for a long, long time, until he dropped the hardware. Some of the facts here could be contradicted by basic fact-checking of the kind normally done by the editorial team in a paper like the Journal - that is, the author writes the article, submits it, and the editors will do fact-checking. It looks like this article wasn't fact-checked. I wonder why. -p
--
If Apple's write anywhere in normal handwriting HWR makes it in, and some of the Newton UI breakthroughs make it in, I would buy for sure. I've looked at the recent pilots, and I think they're getting close. I'll still use my MP2k for now, but someday it'll need replacing. The best situation would be if 3Com licensed some of the core Apple technologies that made the Newton as good as it was - remember, there was something like $1B invested in that platform.
--
Sounds like Eric's got a point. I am looking forward to BP's response to this.
--
Doesn't the gcc have objective c support now? I thought so. -P
--
...Slashdot stories like that? I mean, on top of IT is open-content, but /. is not. Maybe they have some sort of licensing agreement with Rob? .
It's not like most of the headline grabbers, they really are reproducing the entire story (minus the comments of course.)
So what's the deal? Same with freshmeat apparently
--
With the newly announced LDAP support in the db, Oracle has really closed the loop on OS features in a database. Along with Raw Iron, this could turn out to be big in the Oracle vs. OS's (where the OS means OS for sale, like NT.) OS's like Linux should only benefit. /. in mid-November '98, still really interesting (if I may say so myself) with some posts from the Oracle team developing it. Also, the company I work for simultaneously announced an Oracle DBA outsourcing practice, with Michael Abbey heading it up (author of Tuning Oracle among other OP books). You can find out about that at The Pythian Group's website.
Some 8i-related links: my 8i editorial, featured on
Best regards, Paul
--
Look, just because it's easy to trace doesn't mean this isn't a problem. What if there's a cyberwar - don't laugh, the U.S. government has a team getting ready for it.
DOS attacks like this could cause serious headaches. It's basically impossible to "cut off" a country from the Internet. That means that it would be next to impossible to prevent a mass attack of this sort along with many, many other types of attacks. Net result? It might take 8 hours, but it sure would inconvenience a whole lot of people. This doesn't look like that big a problem, just set some limits, based on the anticipated demands, on how much resource a daemon can take up. We do it for Apache. We should do it for all of these.
My 2c.
--
Give me a break, the on top of it plug is obviously my .sig, and my post is on-topic.
--
Sell for 1000? Sounds like proprietary extensions... So what's the story; is it running apache or not?
Can a custom-built config (config only) be copyrighted? i.e. can you sell a config of an open-source system? I wonder.
--
Even ultra-secretive Transmeta had to get some patents and some recruiting, and that got some attention. How did this big a breakthrough happen in such secrecy?
I truly hope it's for real. I want to believe. But why is my baloney detector ringing?
Let's hope my detector is faulty, shall we?
--
Seriously, the supported hardware is very disappointing. I was starting to think VAResearch was in trouble what with the mainstream manufacturers supporting Linux, but seriously:
1) Max one CPU? For a server?
2) No RAID? Be real.
That mix essentially rules out any high-end performance and any high-end availability. Gateway, IBM, etc. had better do better, because this little support for servers is tantamount to none.
--
Wasn't there a big scandal just a little while ago with MS agents writing letters to the editor of newspapers, similar to an IBM scandal from the 70s? I know this rings a bell, but I just can't place the details. If anyone knows I'm dying to find out the precedent to this.
--
I mean, yeah, sure, it's a security issue, but seriously, a file left in your temp directory? You still would need physical or remote access to the machine somehow to get at it. Are we envisioning people walking around their offices with floppies to steal credit card numbers?
I would personally be more suspicious of the waiter in a restaurant jotting that stuff down while they've wandered off to prepare my bill.
Let's be serious about this, ok?
--
Lock-tight on this video doctoring issue. We're talking major libel one way, and major perjury the other way. I think this may be a milestone on this case.
What does this crowd think about Ellison's idea of splitting MS into two, identical companies, and give one to Ballmer and one to Gates. I think that actually has a shot of working.
--