Indeed, what if Saddam thought about using a Beowulf cluster to develop nukes?
Hm. Waitasec. Didn't the USA design nuclear weapons in the 1940s using a dozen nerds with pocket protectors and slide rules?!?
I honestly don't see the big stink about computing power being linked to weapons research. If our enemies want weapons, no technology embargo will put their desires down, if they're strong enough.
Neither passports nor drivers licenses are business contracts. Your analogy in no way refutes mine.
I was specifically talking about a "Money For X" contract.
All a driver's license is, is proof that you have completed a competancy test. These are not sold; the government is not enriched by your driving on the road. Since both parties are not profitting from you receiving a driver's license, it is not a contract.
192.168.0.1 is a "magic address" that always means "Router/gateway closest to me."
No actual computer has that address. Any packets you send to that address will always be grabbed by the first router on the chain to the rest of the network and processed there. That's how you can do DHCP and things -- you don't need to know the router's "real" address, because it always respects this one as well.
Excluding mutually authenticated ssl sessions, when have you ever trusted anything online?
There's 15 routers between you and any web page you're visiting. That page is transmitted in plaintext the whole way. A man-in-the-middle attack could easily filter/scrub/change/subvert any page you're viewing.
I know paranoia's popular on slashdot about how "The Man" is going to censor your viewing habits, but if you think that this is some sort of new problem created by proxies... just look at how TCP/IP operates. And smack yourself for not thinking that it already could happen. This is not a new concept or a new danger.
Take-away message: if you need to ensure your data's passing along the net securely... use a secure transport mechanism.
This is an interesting effect that many of my friends and I found when we play "real" RTS games like Age of Empires/Kings, Empire Earth, etc.
Wars will rage for many hours. A four-army game of Age of Kings can last for upwards of three. However, the initial minutes of the game are the most crucial. Losing a battle later into the game isn't such a big deal, because you have many more armies still to go. However, in the initial minutes, a single attacker inside the enemny base will set them back greatly, so that while they may last for a long time into the game, they're clearly on the defensive the whole time.
Perhaps its just a flaw of the genre that needs to be accepted? Or are there workarounds that can "balance" the play so that the beginning counts as much as the middle and endgame?
They tried that in the 1800s, except they called it "Imperialism", then.
No country wants all of its policy decisions to be subject to review by a larger, more powerful nation. It just makes the 'learning' country turn into a sovereign zone of the tutoring country. Any country put in the position of "tutoring" or "coaching" another country is going to do so to their own advantage, and turn that country into a smaller version of itself. Given how much culture clash would be present, I can't exactly see that this is a workable solution.
It can only be ~120 minutes long because a reel of 120 minutes of IMAX film is about 12 feet in diameter. There's only so much that the motor can spin. Two reels in a row? I'm not sure, but I speculate that there's a decent amount of time required to load in the second reel, or something. Why not just have an intermission? Again, beats me.
Her name was Lola, she was a blowfish. With the armor she would wear, and the spikes way out to there She would firewall, and diff any patch at all And while she tried to s-s-h, users always typed in 'make' Across a crowded server room, they built from 10 til noon The code was tight and all secure Who could ask for more?
In the Open (O!), Open B - S - D (Open BSD) The meanest server north of Havana (here) In the open (O!), Open BSD Audits, not crashin', was always the fashion In the Ooopen... they typed 'make world'
The US Navy already has something like this in the form of giant guns mounted on some of its ships called "Phalanx" units. The thing fires thousands of bullets per minute, and it's all computer controlled. The purpose of this weapon is to track essentially anything that gets too close to the ship, and blow it to kingdom come. Missiles, planes, etc, are all valid targets. And it works, too.
More info is available. If you poke around online, you can also see some sweet movies of the thing. It just turns, tracks for a second, unleashes a wall of lead, then returns to the 'ready' position like it wasn't a big deal.
War is a daunting task. Fortunately, we've got some relatively clever folks thinking things like this up!:)
Would you allow a company to sell 10,000 licenses for software that you had given them on the basis that they were maintaining a multi-million dollar support contract with you?
I don't see that it makes a bit of difference. Debt is an asset too, you know.
If you sign a contract with me, agreeing to pay me a dollar every day for the next two years, and in exchange, I'd help you out with any computer questions you had during that period, that's a valid contract. Now, let's say that you handed that support contract off to a friend. Now your friend pays me a dollar a day, and I answer his computer questions, instead of yours.
Why should I care if it's you, or your friend? I'm still getting paid. My same service is still getting distributed.
Furthermore, you ask, "sell 10,000 licenses for software that you had given them". Microsoft didn't give licenses to anyone! KMart bought licenses! They're KMart's property. (If they're not an asset, then MS had no right to charge for them.) Therefore, KMart should be able to sell 'em to whomever they want.
Hm. If that's what the office docs will look like, then I think it should be pretty easy for perl hackers to use them... it seems to me that they would just need to strip off the tags, and then they've got a valid perl script that formats the document automatically.;)
If 99.99% of people ignore the email... and 0.02% are interested in the product, then they can profit by sending out TONS of email.
Indeed. Such a violation of the conservation of mass, which occurs when 100.01% of people are accounted for, causes galactic rips in the very fabric of space-time, causing TORRENTS of cosmic ether -- sometimes called "UCE" because of it's nebulous Unidentified Cosmic Ether nature -- to be unleashed on mail servers everywhere!
The lesson learned: If you ever grow interested in a spam-marketted product, think of the world! Think of the children!
Re:No downloads? Get over it!
on
Xandros 1.0
·
· Score: 2
Hm. I haven't heard of Xandros until this Slashdot story. Sure, I'll shell out a benjamin and try it out! I might just like it!
Your comparison to MacOSX is totally flawed. For one thing, OS X had an IMMENSE amount of hype, review, advertising, and buzz before it was released. I already knew what it was going to be like long before it came out.
Furthermore, Apple has an awesome reputation. Anything they put out is going to have a clean interface, be easy to use, and when they say it's going to be all that and a bag of chips, I can believe it.
Who are these Xandros guys? Why should I trust them? I've had experience with macs for the last 14 years. I've never touched a machine with Xandros on it.
When I can use Xandros in my public library, in my schools, and at a few of my friends' houses, then I'll buy it for myself without a trial version. Until then... forget it.
No, only people who use "paradigm" in a business or technology-related manner [talk out of their asses].
Hm. I'll have to disagree with you there. Webster's defines "paradigm" as "An example; a model; a pattern." When you think about it, a lot of both business and technology follows patterns. The giving-out-handles-selling-blades method that worked so well for Gilette, frankly, is a "business paradigm." That business model's been tried again and again since then (Compare to today's/. article on selling XBoxen as loss leaders to gain $$$ on selling games).
And in computer science, there's many different ways of writing programs. For instance, take "object oriented programming." If you use OO principles when engineering your software, you're using an "object oriented paradigm." I see no harm in a scholarly discussion of computer science using the term in this manner.
Yeah, sometimes people throw it around as a buzzword. But don't dismiss a term's applicability to two entire fields just because a few people try to sound impressive by repeating it.
The installation instructions for Doom ][ (v1.666 baby!) actually specifically stated "Step 1: Find five formatted diskettes. Create an archive copy of all five Doom ][ installation diskettes."
And you know what? Two years later when on a whim I wanted to put Doom on my newer machine, one of id's disks had gone to the great bitbucket in the sky. But I had a second copy, right there. John Carmack, bless you.
You don't have to argue that the majority of game CDs are burned for legitimate reasons. The point is that there are legitimate reasons. If my game CD is destroyed (they only have a 5-10 year life expectancy after all), then what do I do? Either use the archive CD (oops, don't have one), or search for it on KaZaA. (Hey, I legally bought it, I can download it right? Oh, wait, they made it uncopyable. So I suppose it wouldn't be available on KaZaA then, would it?)
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed, what if Saddam thought about using a Beowulf cluster to develop nukes?
Hm. Waitasec. Didn't the USA design nuclear weapons in the 1940s using a dozen nerds with pocket protectors and slide rules?!?
I honestly don't see the big stink about computing power being linked to weapons research. If our enemies want weapons, no technology embargo will put their desires down, if they're strong enough.
Neither passports nor drivers licenses are business contracts. Your analogy in no way refutes mine.
I was specifically talking about a "Money For X" contract.
All a driver's license is, is proof that you have completed a competancy test. These are not sold; the government is not enriched by your driving on the road. Since both parties are not profitting from you receiving a driver's license, it is not a contract.
Don't take this the wrong way.
But frankly, you're not typical.
Most linux enthusiasts are cheap. Not an offense to you. You're just not in the "most."
Quite informative. Thanks a bunch. I stand corrected. ;)
192.168.0.1 is a "magic address" that always means "Router/gateway closest to me."
No actual computer has that address. Any packets you send to that address will always be grabbed by the first router on the chain to the rest of the network and processed there. That's how you can do DHCP and things -- you don't need to know the router's "real" address, because it always respects this one as well.
Excluding mutually authenticated ssl sessions, when have you ever trusted anything online?
There's 15 routers between you and any web page you're visiting. That page is transmitted in plaintext the whole way. A man-in-the-middle attack could easily filter/scrub/change/subvert any page you're viewing.
I know paranoia's popular on slashdot about how "The Man" is going to censor your viewing habits, but if you think that this is some sort of new problem created by proxies... just look at how TCP/IP operates. And smack yourself for not thinking that it already could happen. This is not a new concept or a new danger.
Take-away message: if you need to ensure your data's passing along the net securely... use a secure transport mechanism.
This is an interesting effect that many of my friends and I found when we play "real" RTS games like Age of Empires/Kings, Empire Earth, etc.
Wars will rage for many hours. A four-army game of Age of Kings can last for upwards of three. However, the initial minutes of the game are the most crucial. Losing a battle later into the game isn't such a big deal, because you have many more armies still to go. However, in the initial minutes, a single attacker inside the enemny base will set them back greatly, so that while they may last for a long time into the game, they're clearly on the defensive the whole time.
Perhaps its just a flaw of the genre that needs to be accepted? Or are there workarounds that can "balance" the play so that the beginning counts as much as the middle and endgame?
As you well know, most slashdotters don't read the article before posting. By "VDT", the article clearly meant any display in general.
BUT, the Slashdot article actually says, "VDT = CRT, CRT bad, use LCD."
I blame Taco & co. on this one for a poorly worded summary of the article.
They tried that in the 1800s, except they called it "Imperialism", then.
No country wants all of its policy decisions to be subject to review by a larger, more powerful nation. It just makes the 'learning' country turn into a sovereign zone of the tutoring country. Any country put in the position of "tutoring" or "coaching" another country is going to do so to their own advantage, and turn that country into a smaller version of itself. Given how much culture clash would be present, I can't exactly see that this is a workable solution.
It can only be ~120 minutes long because a reel of 120 minutes of IMAX film is about 12 feet in diameter. There's only so much that the motor can spin. Two reels in a row? I'm not sure, but I speculate that there's a decent amount of time required to load in the second reel, or something. Why not just have an intermission? Again, beats me.
OK, I'll bite.
Her name was Lola, she was a blowfish.
With the armor she would wear, and the spikes way out to there
She would firewall, and diff any patch at all
And while she tried to s-s-h, users always typed in 'make'
Across a crowded server room, they built from 10 til noon
The code was tight and all secure
Who could ask for more?
In the Open (O!), Open B - S - D (Open BSD)
The meanest server north of Havana (here)
In the open (O!), Open BSD
Audits, not crashin', was always the fashion
In the Ooopen... they typed 'make world'
(Open... OpenBSD)
With my sincere apologies to Barry Manilow.
The US Navy already has something like this in the form of giant guns mounted on some of its ships called "Phalanx" units. The thing fires thousands of bullets per minute, and it's all computer controlled. The purpose of this weapon is to track essentially anything that gets too close to the ship, and blow it to kingdom come. Missiles, planes, etc, are all valid targets. And it works, too.
:)
More info is available. If you poke around online, you can also see some sweet movies of the thing. It just turns, tracks for a second, unleashes a wall of lead, then returns to the 'ready' position like it wasn't a big deal.
War is a daunting task. Fortunately, we've got some relatively clever folks thinking things like this up!
Would you allow a company to sell 10,000 licenses for software that you had given them on the basis that they were maintaining a multi-million dollar support contract with you?
I don't see that it makes a bit of difference. Debt is an asset too, you know.
If you sign a contract with me, agreeing to pay me a dollar every day for the next two years, and in exchange, I'd help you out with any computer questions you had during that period, that's a valid contract. Now, let's say that you handed that support contract off to a friend. Now your friend pays me a dollar a day, and I answer his computer questions, instead of yours.
Why should I care if it's you, or your friend? I'm still getting paid. My same service is still getting distributed.
Furthermore, you ask, "sell 10,000 licenses for software that you had given them".
Microsoft didn't give licenses to anyone! KMart bought licenses! They're KMart's property. (If they're not an asset, then MS had no right to charge for them.) Therefore, KMart should be able to sell 'em to whomever they want.
Hm. When I play DDR, I typically just look at the top few rows of arrows... my eyes don't flit around much at all.
Hm. If that's what the office docs will look like, then I think it should be pretty easy for perl hackers to use them... it seems to me that they would just need to strip off the tags, and then they've got a valid perl script that formats the document automatically. ;)
If 99.99% of people ignore the email... and 0.02% are interested in the product, then they can profit by sending out TONS of email.
Indeed. Such a violation of the conservation of mass, which occurs when 100.01% of people are accounted for, causes galactic rips in the very fabric of space-time, causing TORRENTS of cosmic ether -- sometimes called "UCE" because of it's nebulous Unidentified Cosmic Ether nature -- to be unleashed on mail servers everywhere!
The lesson learned: If you ever grow interested in a spam-marketted product, think of the world! Think of the children!
Hm. I haven't heard of Xandros until this Slashdot story. Sure, I'll shell out a benjamin and try it out! I might just like it!
Your comparison to MacOSX is totally flawed. For one thing, OS X had an IMMENSE amount of hype, review, advertising, and buzz before it was released. I already knew what it was going to be like long before it came out.
Furthermore, Apple has an awesome reputation. Anything they put out is going to have a clean interface, be easy to use, and when they say it's going to be all that and a bag of chips, I can believe it.
Who are these Xandros guys? Why should I trust them? I've had experience with macs for the last 14 years. I've never touched a machine with Xandros on it.
When I can use Xandros in my public library, in my schools, and at a few of my friends' houses, then I'll buy it for myself without a trial version. Until then... forget it.
No, only people who use "paradigm" in a business or technology-related manner [talk out of their asses].
/. article on selling XBoxen as loss leaders to gain $$$ on selling games).
Hm. I'll have to disagree with you there. Webster's defines "paradigm" as "An example; a model; a pattern." When you think about it, a lot of both business and technology follows patterns. The giving-out-handles-selling-blades method that worked so well for Gilette, frankly, is a "business paradigm." That business model's been tried again and again since then (Compare to today's
And in computer science, there's many different ways of writing programs. For instance, take "object oriented programming." If you use OO principles when engineering your software, you're using an "object oriented paradigm." I see no harm in a scholarly discussion of computer science using the term in this manner.
Yeah, sometimes people throw it around as a buzzword. But don't dismiss a term's applicability to two entire fields just because a few people try to sound impressive by repeating it.
Think of modems though. Houses could suck down far faster than they could upload. (Yes, both were meager rates, but nonetheless.)
Nowadays, broadband is becoming more prevalent in the home.
It's easier to receive quickly than to send quickly. This is a neccessary step before next progression -- when you can send fast and receive fast.
Hm. The write-up about that commercial said that the filming involved - I kid you not - specially trained sleeping cats.
Shit, and here I thought my cat was lazy all those years. He must've been specially trained!
Superb troll! That one ranks up high on my list.
;)
Here's my imaginary mod point for you. (+1, Troll)
You should be a politician.
And don't forget QNX!
:P
I've always just used "*n?x" myself
The installation instructions for Doom ][ (v1.666 baby!) actually specifically stated "Step 1: Find five formatted diskettes. Create an archive copy of all five Doom ][ installation diskettes."
And you know what? Two years later when on a whim I wanted to put Doom on my newer machine, one of id's disks had gone to the great bitbucket in the sky. But I had a second copy, right there. John Carmack, bless you.
You don't have to argue that the majority of game CDs are burned for legitimate reasons. The point is that there are legitimate reasons. If my game CD is destroyed (they only have a 5-10 year life expectancy after all), then what do I do? Either use the archive CD (oops, don't have one), or search for it on KaZaA. (Hey, I legally bought it, I can download it right? Oh, wait, they made it uncopyable. So I suppose it wouldn't be available on KaZaA then, would it?)
Whoa, thorough. :)
Thanks a lot!
The monkeys, I assume, are in the Ximian League? :)