This example perfectly illustrates the problems with proprietary formats. Once the software that interprets a proprietary format vanishes any information written in it is gone. Okay, it's not gone gone. I am sure you can get a bunch of good cryptanalysts to pour over binary dumps of these files. Eventually they will crack it - if your information is worth the cost, that is.
This is why we need open standard formats such as ODF and reject pretenders such as OpenXML. Just because the name has "open" in it does not mean the information to completely read and write OpenXML is freely available to the public. This makes OpenXML a proprietary format dispite the name.
OpenXML should be placed where it belongs - the rubbish bin.
Maybe it's just me, but I personally have a problem with browsers that are proud to "render badly coded websites correctly."
Why? Because it will just encourage bad code. Granted, Opera doesn't have much of a market share and the problem is with MSIE, still, it is a good start. Just reject badly coded websites. Browsers are compilers and interpreters in a way, and I have never seen any compilers that are proud to compile badly written code.
"Pick a different platform? How? At what expense? No, Microsoft has got this one in the bag."
I am not sure if I am really dumb or something, but I fail to see any tremendous cost of migrating to another OS. Lets see. All the workstation applications can more or less be replaced by FOSS counterparts. This is particularly true now that China, Japan and Korea (not to mention a host of European and Third World countries) are on the GNU/Linux bandwagon. In fact, nobody knows how many GNU/Linux workstations are out there right now. That market is huge.
So what's left? Most servers are either GNU/Linux or Unix anyway. The place where MS holds sway is just the workstation desktop, and I don't see how anything there cannot be changed without a lot of cost.
I have not looked at the RedHat license, but a couple of points popped up into my head:
1. RedHat Linux is enterprise grade, so who is it comparing to Windows XP Pro? A fairer comparision would be Server 2003.
2. When you buy a copy of Linux, you can install it on as many computers as you want. When you buy a copy of Windowx XP Pro, you may only install it on one single computer. I know, there is no comparison, either. I am not sure how the RedHat license work, however, so this may not apply.
Very true. All living things are regulated by negative feeback loops.
Negative feeback loops bring things back to built-in fixed points while positive feedback loops just make things run out of control. For example, an increase in carbon dioxide level in your blood causes you to breathe harder, thus getting rid of the carbon dioxide faster. As the level of carbon dioxide in your blood decreases your breathing rate also decreases.
The problem with this is the Moon is predominantly very light material. Things such as silicates, aluminium, etc. In other words, things we have an abundance here on earth. I can't see how this is worth the enormous energy cost of such an endeavouT
We're talking about *commercial* APIs guys: a mass transfer of hundreds/thousands of megabytes of data a day to a competitor's site.
Seeing that the photos are owned by the people who upload them, this kind of mass transfer is completely out of the question. Unless, of course, said competitor has secured the permissions from the thousands of contributors beforehand. In which case it's probably easier to inform the world of a alternative service and hope for the best.
Why do you need a truce when there's no war? No war as far as the FOSS side is concerned, at any rate. I can't recall Linus Trovalds calling for a jihad against Microsoft, or Stallman yelling "Death to Bill Gates!", or Eric Raymond making references to a war. I personally don't see a war. The FOSS community just wants to provide an alternative to proprietary stuff, nothing more.
What is more telling is how this reveals Microsoft's mentality. They do think it's a war.
What's all this excitement about? There are already about half a dozen different Firefox extensions in existence that allows you to sync bookmarks. If you ask me I'd tell you to go check out the bookmarks extensions
We have this discussion all the time, but once more can't hurt: on single-user Linux systems or Unix workstations, losing $HOME is far more serious than losing system files.
If your entire system is compromised, you lose $HOME anyway. It's not like if you lose your system somehow $HOME escapes destruction.
Maybe there was no Y2K disaster because people where pooring over code and fixing them before they happened?
That mostly did not happen in Russia, yet we did not hear any major disasters took place due to computers going haywire. Really, Y2K was blown completely out of proportion.
Do they mean "products that make your life miserable?" If so, all versions of Windows belong on the list. Do they mean "products that do not match up to marketing expectations?" If so, Segway is it. Do they mean "crazy, Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions?" You know, automobiles get pretty close. Such a complicated machine for the simple task of moving from point A to point B.
There are probably quite a few other definitions I have missed. But you can't get an accurate result without an accurate premise. Typical GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)
You are like saying anti-DRM is bad. No it isn't. DRM is bad. It's the collective effort of the music and movie industry to take away your rights and freedom. Hence, DRM is bad, anti-DRM, good.
Suppose both binary and XML format are interpreted at the average speed of O(log n) they are the same speed. Unless you can show that, for example, that XML actually runs at O(n) instead.
"But in data centers, where CPUs may be sharing data in memory across different connected machines..."
I have re-read this bit like twenty times and still have no idea what it means. The terms used clashes badly, which leads me to believe that the guy has no idea what he was talking about
Well, if light doesn't reflect like it should off this, um, clocked object, and instead "flows" around it...
What you will get is in fact a black blob sitting there, not an invisible object, except in the direction where all this light is "flowing." Think about it. A black object absorbs all light on the visible spectrum, reflecting none. These two behave in exactly the same way, except in one specific direction.
Woz, in fact, invented it while he was working at HP. He went to HP to see if they wanted to market the new invention, and they said no. But they had the good grace of letting Woz to do it on his own if he wanted. So he quitted his job and teamed up with Jobs to found Apple Computer
Slashdot Mirror
This example perfectly illustrates the problems with proprietary formats. Once the software that interprets a proprietary format vanishes any information written in it is gone. Okay, it's not gone gone. I am sure you can get a bunch of good cryptanalysts to pour over binary dumps of these files. Eventually they will crack it - if your information is worth the cost, that is.
This is why we need open standard formats such as ODF and reject pretenders such as OpenXML. Just because the name has "open" in it does not mean the information to completely read and write OpenXML is freely available to the public. This makes OpenXML a proprietary format dispite the name.
OpenXML should be placed where it belongs - the rubbish bin.
Maybe it's just me, but I personally have a problem with browsers that are proud to "render badly coded websites correctly."
Why? Because it will just encourage bad code. Granted, Opera doesn't have much of a market share and the problem is with MSIE, still, it is a good start. Just reject badly coded websites. Browsers are compilers and interpreters in a way, and I have never seen any compilers that are proud to compile badly written code.
Well, depth perception generally involves the use of both eyes - that's why we have two.
You may also notice that there is a difference between the real thing and an image of the real thing.
I don't mean the source as the botnet, but the source as the people who paid to use these services.
For the pump and dump scams in stocks at least, it is highly likely that the majoriry shareholder (probably the company itself) is behind this.
Gee, Slashdot is at it again.
Post an idiotic flamebait article to draw in comments. Haven't I seen it here before?
"Pick a different platform? How? At what expense? No, Microsoft has got this one in the bag."
I am not sure if I am really dumb or something, but I fail to see any tremendous cost of migrating to another OS. Lets see. All the workstation applications can more or less be replaced by FOSS counterparts. This is particularly true now that China, Japan and Korea (not to mention a host of European and Third World countries) are on the GNU/Linux bandwagon. In fact, nobody knows how many GNU/Linux workstations are out there right now. That market is huge.
So what's left? Most servers are either GNU/Linux or Unix anyway. The place where MS holds sway is just the workstation desktop, and I don't see how anything there cannot be changed without a lot of cost.
Groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/ reports that Forgent has dropped the patent case. So what gives?
I have not looked at the RedHat license, but a couple of points popped up into my head:
1. RedHat Linux is enterprise grade, so who is it comparing to Windows XP Pro? A fairer comparision would be Server 2003.
2. When you buy a copy of Linux, you can install it on as many computers as you want. When you buy a copy of Windowx XP Pro, you may only install it on one single computer. I know, there is no comparison, either. I am not sure how the RedHat license work, however, so this may not apply.
So we don't have e-mail? Like SMTP and MAP/POP got zapped overnight? No sweat, we still have Web-based services such as gmail.
So what's that we need to decide again?
Very true. All living things are regulated by negative feeback loops.
Negative feeback loops bring things back to built-in fixed points while positive feedback loops just make things run out of control. For example, an increase in carbon dioxide level in your blood causes you to breathe harder, thus getting rid of the carbon dioxide faster. As the level of carbon dioxide in your blood decreases your breathing rate also decreases.
I don't get this.
Parent clearly is a non-sequitur and a troll, but gets +5 insightful?
The problem with this is the Moon is predominantly very light material. Things such as silicates, aluminium, etc. In other words, things we have an abundance here on earth. I can't see how this is worth the enormous energy cost of such an endeavouT
The moon is not consisted of titanium and U-235.
We're talking about *commercial* APIs guys: a mass transfer of hundreds/thousands of megabytes of data a day to a competitor's site.
Seeing that the photos are owned by the people who upload them, this kind of mass transfer is completely out of the question. Unless, of course, said competitor has secured the permissions from the thousands of contributors beforehand. In which case it's probably easier to inform the world of a alternative service and hope for the best.
Why do you need a truce when there's no war? No war as far as the FOSS side is concerned, at any rate. I can't recall Linus Trovalds calling for a jihad against Microsoft, or Stallman yelling "Death to Bill Gates!", or Eric Raymond making references to a war. I personally don't see a war. The FOSS community just wants to provide an alternative to proprietary stuff, nothing more.
What is more telling is how this reveals Microsoft's mentality. They do think it's a war.
The company doesn't have an application level firewall on the gateway? I think they should spend some $ doing that instead of pulling audit stunts.
What's all this excitement about? There are already about half a dozen different Firefox extensions in existence that allows you to sync bookmarks. If you ask me I'd tell you to go check out the bookmarks extensions
I am not sure about you, but to me malware is clearly distinct from e-mail scams.
Malware is a program that do nasty things to your computer. e-mail scams have nothing to do with that.
We have this discussion all the time, but once more can't hurt: on single-user Linux systems or Unix workstations, losing $HOME is far more serious than losing system files.
If your entire system is compromised, you lose $HOME anyway. It's not like if you lose your system somehow $HOME escapes destruction.
Maybe there was no Y2K disaster because people where pooring over code and fixing them before they happened?
That mostly did not happen in Russia, yet we did not hear any major disasters took place due to computers going haywire. Really, Y2K was blown completely out of proportion.
by worst tech products?
Do they mean "products that make your life miserable?" If so, all versions of Windows belong on the list. Do they mean "products that do not match up to marketing expectations?" If so, Segway is it. Do they mean "crazy, Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions?" You know, automobiles get pretty close. Such a complicated machine for the simple task of moving from point A to point B.
There are probably quite a few other definitions I have missed. But you can't get an accurate result without an accurate premise. Typical GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)
You are like saying anti-DRM is bad. No it isn't. DRM is bad. It's the collective effort of the music and movie industry to take away your rights and freedom. Hence, DRM is bad, anti-DRM, good.
Nah, grandparent is right.
Suppose both binary and XML format are interpreted at the average speed of O(log n) they are the same speed. Unless you can show that, for example, that XML actually runs at O(n) instead.
"But in data centers, where CPUs may be sharing data in memory across different connected machines..."
I have re-read this bit like twenty times and still have no idea what it means. The terms used clashes badly, which leads me to believe that the guy has no idea what he was talking about
Well, if light doesn't reflect like it should off this, um, clocked object, and instead "flows" around it...
What you will get is in fact a black blob sitting there, not an invisible object, except in the direction where all this light is "flowing." Think about it. A black object absorbs all light on the visible spectrum, reflecting none. These two behave in exactly the same way, except in one specific direction.
And that would be the Apple II computer.
Woz, in fact, invented it while he was working at HP. He went to HP to see if they wanted to market the new invention, and they said no. But they had the good grace of letting Woz to do it on his own if he wanted. So he quitted his job and teamed up with Jobs to found Apple Computer