That's why it's up to you, me, slashdot, and anyone else who cares about space travel, to make it clear to the public that "Nuclear" is not a dirty word. Odd as it may sound, two thirds of Americans are currently in favor of nuclear power! If we can keep that number rising, perhaps the public will finally ditch their ridiculous fear!
I know it's often difficult to RTFA, so I'll clarify a point here: The DS did not outsell the Playstation 2. It outsold a new Playstation 2 redesign. Original Playstation 2 sales still remain above that of the Nintendo DS.
As to the X-Box, it only sold 173 units during that period. Seems to me that the Japanese hate Microsoft even more than Slashdot.:-)
because their stuff was broken and prone to getting viruses and trojans all the time,
The 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall Virus. I didn't hear any Windows machines belting out that song through a voice synth.
For every 100 times my friends had to deal with registry corruption
For every 100 times my friends had to rebuild their desktop/extensions...
let alone constant crashing.
My favorite Mac user quote: "Don't go so fast! You'll lock it up!"
It wasn't perfect, that's a gimmee, but you got to admit reality
Indeed. The reality was that Microsoft beat Apple to building a modern OS for consumers. The real question is why did that happen? The answer is probably that Jobs forced innovation, while the Apple Corp. of the time simply tried to milk its existing investments. As a result, what was once a very beautiful design, became rusted and ugly. It desperately needed an overhaul to retrofit the proper tech for 500+ MHz machines, and multimedia programs that consumed memory like candy.
Now Jobs is back, NeXTSTEP lives on, and life is good.:-)
Jef didn't like the old MacOS either, so your argument is beside the point
Fair enough. The article didn't state that clearly, so I didn't realize that he simply hates all interfaces.
One thing I do find amusing, however, is that he's apparently a big proponent of Zooming User Interfaces like Pad++. Yet the ultimate irony is that the Display PDF layer of Mac OS X makes it the perfect OS to add Zooming interfaces to! Apple has clearly demonstrated this with the Éxpose feature. Somehow, though, that doesn't seem to sink in with this guy.
Instead of attacking the person, try to attack his points. Wow, look at that, you can't.
You lose sugarpuff:
A third party manual (Pogue's The Missing Manual) is nearly 1,000 pages, and far from complete.
As another poster so helpfully expanded on for me, Mac OS X has an entire Unix subsystem and feature set that are designed for power users and developers. Your average user knows nothing of these, nor do they need to. That doesn't stop people from documenting all those extra "cool" features in OS X.
Apple now does development by accretion, and there is only a little difference between using a Mac and a Windows machine.
An unsubstantiated statement. I suppose he felt that his statement about the manual should have given him the right to make this statement, except for that statement being based on flawed logic.
My original vision is outdated and irrelevant.
He recognizes that the original Mac interface is unsuitable. But then he goes on to say:
The principles of putting people first, and designing from the interface to the software and hardware, are as vital today as they were then.
Ok. But what does that mean? He gives no examples of proper interfaces, nor does he explain why OS X fails to achieve the "People first" status.
And the iMac G5? Was the original iMac a step on the correct path?
The unfoldable portable-shaped box on a stalk?
Ouch. You'd almost think he doesn't like the thing. But then he says:
It is a practical and space-saving design.
So which is it?
The truth of the matter is that he didn't actually make a single significant point in the entire article. He made several claims to the effect of Mac OS X being "a poor user interface", but never once gave an opinion as to why or how to fix it. Granted, that may be the fault of the editor, but then we need a better article. There were NO points made in this one.
And in this corner, we have Macus Nastolgious; a species of computer user who misses the way Macintoshes were before The Great Migration to a modern and flexible operating system. Be very cautious around this beast as it will use any information, no matter how irrelevant to the topic, to prove its supposed "point" about Mac OS being "superior" to Mac OS X. It is also very good at selective hearing, often ignoring words and phrases such as "modern", "virtual memory", "true multitasking", "protected memory", and "brushed metal".
If you are attacked by one of these creatures, your best course of action is to appease it with a lollipop and a Cherry iMac running Mac OS 9. Ignore the sobbing that may result, as it is only an opening for renewed attack.
In case anyone's interested, Wikipedia knows who Jef Raskin is.
The first passengers of the VSS Enterprise should be all the surviving key actors of "Star Trek: The Original Series".
Don't forget Welshee!!!:-D
Seriously, though. I think it would be an excellent tribute to manned space travel. The Star Trek crew was there for the STS-Enterprise christening (which was originally going to be Constitution), so why shouldn't they be there for this? At the very least, it would be great publicity for Virgin.
Speaking of the STS naming, does anyone else think that naming the first shuttle Constitution, then the second one "Enterprise" would have been an even more fitting tribute? (If you don't understand why, you're not a true fan.):-)
One of the things they nated was that Afgan special forces units were independant nodes just wired together - and that connection was maintained by an "Ubergeek" of the group. So perhaps what they needed in Iraq was a few more UberGeeks in units to ensure the maximum transmission flow possible for the situation.
I'm kind of thinking something like CIC in the sky. You see, the Navy has a department on every ship called the "Combat Information Center". Their job is to track everything that's going on, make educated guesses as to enemy strength, movement, and position, then route that information to the appropriate person or persons.
From the article, it sounds like they were trying to route ALL information through to the battlefield in order to give the best situational awareness possible. Unfortunately, they had everything from software malfunctions, inoperative radio sets, and bandwidth over-saturation. Now if they put something similar to the Navy's CIC on a large communications plane at 50,000 feet (a Zeppelin would probably be even better!) and attached one to each ground division, the intelligence officers on these planes could do data-analysis and pass on truly vital information via plain-old-radio.
Additional information could be routed to handsets, potentially augmenting the built-in sensors of those sets. But the key is that you have someone with a 50,000 foot view of the situation (ha, ha) telling you, "You've got three Iraqi battalions moving in from North by Northwest." That's 99% of what they need to know right there. After all, we want these men and women to be able to fight, not get shot in the head while they try to decipher their techno-gear. (Similar to having a navigator in your car so you don't run into the guy ahead of you while you're trying to figure out where you are.)
Don't forget about heart. Many times in history the smaller force has won because they believed in their cause. I'm not trying to say this is 'wrong war' or 'wrong time' but people who join a fight because they believe it's the fight of their generation often win.
The military actually has a technical term for this. They classify it as a "force multiplier". i.e. A soldier (or marine) who wants to be there instead of being drafted is more likely to fight harder. This multiplies the effectiveness of the troops. To the military, this is very similar to deploying better armor, communications, or artillery.
History is littered with smaller forces that devastated numerically superior foes, sometimes through technology (e.g. the early Gatling gun)
Hell, even a bolt-action rifle allowed one man to subdue a tribe of hostile, attacking Indians who were armed with rifles themselves. Or the shear advantage a revolver gave to a single man vs. someone with a muzzle-loaded pistol.
It's actually quite amazing how even the smallest advantage can have very pronounced effects.:-)
I read the article, and it sounds like a failure to Keep It Simple Stupid. They loaded out the troops with tons upon tons of high-tech gear, seemingly for the sake of loading them out with high-tech gear. What good is a radio antenna that only works when you're stopped, on a tank that can go 60-100 MPH on rough terrain?
There are supposed to be wargames and field testing of these sorts of technologies, but it almost sounds like none of that was done here. Did these technologies get screwed up the same way the Bradley did? (Too many Generals with too much feature creep?) Or were the projects underfunded and thus deployed too early?
Re:[nt] I guess that makes them "metro"...
on
Saving Huygens
·
· Score: 1
One of these days, you'll have to tell me how you managed to post an empty comment. Slashdot is supposed to reject that sort of thing.:-)
Lastly, Chicken of the VNC doesn't seem to like UltraVNC much at all. This could be Chicken's fault, but Chicken worked fine with RealVNC and every other VNC server I've ever tried.
Chicken works fine for me. Do you have the latest version?
The problem is a lot of people who are currently NATed do need "real" Internet addresses.
That's why gamers have "real" Internet Addresses. If you don't have one on your PC, it's probably because you stuck a firewall in the way yourself. If you stuck a firewall in the way, then configure the DMZ or port forwarding.
No. My only issue is that I came away from the article knowing everything about Blu-Ray and almost nothing about HD-DVD. I don't mind the bias so much, as the complete lack of information on the HD-DVD disks.
Indeed. It would have been nice if they said *something* about HD-DVD's strengths and relative design. For example, which format is more resistant to consumer damage? Or at the very least, how about an HD-DVD link next to that bright, blue Blu-Ray link?
I'm happy to know that Blu-Ray is a great format (and it really does appear to be a good format), but let's be somewhat objective here.
...the Executive summary to your PHB. There's a reason that they're written!
While the Reg likely won't be./'ed, it's below:
Much ado has been made about whether or not Linux is truly more secure than Windows. We compared Windows vs. Linux by examining the following metrics in the 40 most recent patches/vulnerabilities listed for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.3:
1. The severity of security vulnerabilities, derived from the following metrics:
1. damage potential (how much damage is possible?)
2. exploitation potential (how easy is it to exploit?)
3. exposure potential (what kind of access is necessary to exploit the vulnerability?)
2. The number of critically severe vulnerabilities
The results were not unexpected. Even by Microsoft's subjective and flawed standards, fully 38% of the most recent patches address flaws that Microsoft ranks as Critical. Only 10% of Red Hat's patches and alerts address flaws of Critical severity. These results are easily demonstrated to be generous to Microsoft and arguably harsh with Red Hat, since the above results are based on Microsoft's ratings rather than our more stringent application of the security metrics. If we were to apply our own metrics, it would increase the number of Critical flaws in Windows Server 2003 to 50%.
We queried the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) database, and the CERT data confirms our conclusions by a more dramatic margin. When we queried the database to present results in order of severity from most critical to least critical, 39 of the first 40 entries in the CERT database for Windows are rated above the CERT threshold for a severe alert. Only three of the first 40 entries were above the threshold when we queried the database about Red Hat. When we queried the CERT database about Linux, only 6 of the first 40 entries were above the threshold.
Consider also that both the Red Hat and Linux lists include flaws in software that runs on Windows, which means these flaws apply to both Linux and Windows. None of the alerts associated with Windows affect software that runs on Linux.
So why have there been so many credible-sounding claims to the contrary, that Linux is actually less secure than Windows? There are glaring logical holes in the reasoning behind the conclusion that Linux is less secure. It takes only a little scrutiny to debunk the myths and logical errors behind the following oft-repeated axioms:
1. Windows only suffers so many attacks because there are more Windows installations than Linux, therefore Linux would be just as vulnerable if it had as many installations
2. Open source is inherently less secure because malicious hackers can find flaws more easily
3. There are more security alerts for Linux than for Windows, therefore Linux is less secure than Windows
4. There is a longer time between the discovery of a flaw and a patch for the flaw with Linux than with Windows
The error behind axioms 3 and 4 is that they ignore the most important metrics for measuring the relative security of one operating system vs. another. As you will see in our section on Realistic Security and Severity Metrics, measuring security by a single metric (such as how long it takes between the discovery of a flaw and a patch release) produces meaningless results.
Finally, we also include a brief overview of relevant conceptual differences between Windows and Linux, to offer an insight into why Windows tends to be more vulnerable to attacks at both server and desktop, and why Linux is inherently more secure.
Apparently, this water goes through Reverse Osmosis, then micro-particle filtering, then UV exposure to ensure that it's completely clean and safe. I don't think it's content is much of a problem.
That would depend on your frame of reference. That is to say, compared to what are they 'falling'? So it's safe to say that the photon's path is both curved AND straight depending on your frame of reference? Perhaps to the photon, we are the ones who are falling!:-)
Slashdot Mirror
That's why it's up to you, me, slashdot, and anyone else who cares about space travel, to make it clear to the public that "Nuclear" is not a dirty word. Odd as it may sound, two thirds of Americans are currently in favor of nuclear power! If we can keep that number rising, perhaps the public will finally ditch their ridiculous fear!
I know it's often difficult to RTFA, so I'll clarify a point here: The DS did not outsell the Playstation 2. It outsold a new Playstation 2 redesign. Original Playstation 2 sales still remain above that of the Nintendo DS.
:-)
As to the X-Box, it only sold 173 units during that period. Seems to me that the Japanese hate Microsoft even more than Slashdot.
S'Okay. I probably should have realized that the original poster was going for a "Funny" mod rather than trying to be serious. :-)
because their stuff was broken and prone to getting viruses and trojans all the time,
:-)
The 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall Virus. I didn't hear any Windows machines belting out that song through a voice synth.
For every 100 times my friends had to deal with registry corruption
For every 100 times my friends had to rebuild their desktop/extensions...
let alone constant crashing.
My favorite Mac user quote: "Don't go so fast! You'll lock it up!"
It wasn't perfect, that's a gimmee, but you got to admit reality
Indeed. The reality was that Microsoft beat Apple to building a modern OS for consumers. The real question is why did that happen? The answer is probably that Jobs forced innovation, while the Apple Corp. of the time simply tried to milk its existing investments. As a result, what was once a very beautiful design, became rusted and ugly. It desperately needed an overhaul to retrofit the proper tech for 500+ MHz machines, and multimedia programs that consumed memory like candy.
Now Jobs is back, NeXTSTEP lives on, and life is good.
Thank you for completely missing the point.
*sigh*
Jef didn't like the old MacOS either, so your argument is beside the point
Fair enough. The article didn't state that clearly, so I didn't realize that he simply hates all interfaces.
One thing I do find amusing, however, is that he's apparently a big proponent of Zooming User Interfaces like Pad++. Yet the ultimate irony is that the Display PDF layer of Mac OS X makes it the perfect OS to add Zooming interfaces to! Apple has clearly demonstrated this with the Éxpose feature. Somehow, though, that doesn't seem to sink in with this guy.
Instead of attacking the person, try to attack his points. Wow, look at that, you can't.
You lose sugarpuff:
A third party manual (Pogue's The Missing Manual) is nearly 1,000 pages, and far from complete.
As another poster so helpfully expanded on for me, Mac OS X has an entire Unix subsystem and feature set that are designed for power users and developers. Your average user knows nothing of these, nor do they need to. That doesn't stop people from documenting all those extra "cool" features in OS X.
Apple now does development by accretion, and there is only a little difference between using a Mac and a Windows machine.
An unsubstantiated statement. I suppose he felt that his statement about the manual should have given him the right to make this statement, except for that statement being based on flawed logic.
My original vision is outdated and irrelevant.
He recognizes that the original Mac interface is unsuitable. But then he goes on to say:
The principles of putting people first, and designing from the interface to the software and hardware, are as vital today as they were then.
Ok. But what does that mean? He gives no examples of proper interfaces, nor does he explain why OS X fails to achieve the "People first" status.
And the iMac G5? Was the original iMac a step on the correct path?
The unfoldable portable-shaped box on a stalk?
Ouch. You'd almost think he doesn't like the thing. But then he says:
It is a practical and space-saving design.
So which is it?
The truth of the matter is that he didn't actually make a single significant point in the entire article. He made several claims to the effect of Mac OS X being "a poor user interface", but never once gave an opinion as to why or how to fix it. Granted, that may be the fault of the editor, but then we need a better article. There were NO points made in this one.
You mean right after Microsoft ripped off the Apple II by creating a text based Disk Operating System? The shock. The horror.
*whatever*
Let's not even get into Xenix (Microsoft) and A-UX (Apple Unix).
And in this corner, we have Macus Nastolgious; a species of computer user who misses the way Macintoshes were before The Great Migration to a modern and flexible operating system. Be very cautious around this beast as it will use any information, no matter how irrelevant to the topic, to prove its supposed "point" about Mac OS being "superior" to Mac OS X. It is also very good at selective hearing, often ignoring words and phrases such as "modern", "virtual memory", "true multitasking", "protected memory", and "brushed metal".
If you are attacked by one of these creatures, your best course of action is to appease it with a lollipop and a Cherry iMac running Mac OS 9. Ignore the sobbing that may result, as it is only an opening for renewed attack.
In case anyone's interested, Wikipedia knows who Jef Raskin is.
The first passengers of the VSS Enterprise should be all the surviving key actors of "Star Trek: The Original Series".
:-D
:-)
Don't forget Welshee!!!
Seriously, though. I think it would be an excellent tribute to manned space travel. The Star Trek crew was there for the STS-Enterprise christening (which was originally going to be Constitution), so why shouldn't they be there for this? At the very least, it would be great publicity for Virgin.
Speaking of the STS naming, does anyone else think that naming the first shuttle Constitution, then the second one "Enterprise" would have been an even more fitting tribute? (If you don't understand why, you're not a true fan.)
One of the things they nated was that Afgan special forces units were independant nodes just wired together - and that connection was maintained by an "Ubergeek" of the group. So perhaps what they needed in Iraq was a few more UberGeeks in units to ensure the maximum transmission flow possible for the situation.
I'm kind of thinking something like CIC in the sky. You see, the Navy has a department on every ship called the "Combat Information Center". Their job is to track everything that's going on, make educated guesses as to enemy strength, movement, and position, then route that information to the appropriate person or persons.
From the article, it sounds like they were trying to route ALL information through to the battlefield in order to give the best situational awareness possible. Unfortunately, they had everything from software malfunctions, inoperative radio sets, and bandwidth over-saturation. Now if they put something similar to the Navy's CIC on a large communications plane at 50,000 feet (a Zeppelin would probably be even better!) and attached one to each ground division, the intelligence officers on these planes could do data-analysis and pass on truly vital information via plain-old-radio.
Additional information could be routed to handsets, potentially augmenting the built-in sensors of those sets. But the key is that you have someone with a 50,000 foot view of the situation (ha, ha) telling you, "You've got three Iraqi battalions moving in from North by Northwest." That's 99% of what they need to know right there. After all, we want these men and women to be able to fight, not get shot in the head while they try to decipher their techno-gear. (Similar to having a navigator in your car so you don't run into the guy ahead of you while you're trying to figure out where you are.)
Or maybe they could make an antenna that still functions while the tank is moving. :-/
Don't forget about heart. Many times in history the smaller force has won because they believed in their cause. I'm not trying to say this is 'wrong war' or 'wrong time' but people who join a fight because they believe it's the fight of their generation often win.
The military actually has a technical term for this. They classify it as a "force multiplier". i.e. A soldier (or marine) who wants to be there instead of being drafted is more likely to fight harder. This multiplies the effectiveness of the troops. To the military, this is very similar to deploying better armor, communications, or artillery.
History is littered with smaller forces that devastated numerically superior foes, sometimes through technology (e.g. the early Gatling gun)
:-)
Hell, even a bolt-action rifle allowed one man to subdue a tribe of hostile, attacking Indians who were armed with rifles themselves. Or the shear advantage a revolver gave to a single man vs. someone with a muzzle-loaded pistol.
It's actually quite amazing how even the smallest advantage can have very pronounced effects.
I read the article, and it sounds like a failure to Keep It Simple Stupid. They loaded out the troops with tons upon tons of high-tech gear, seemingly for the sake of loading them out with high-tech gear. What good is a radio antenna that only works when you're stopped, on a tank that can go 60-100 MPH on rough terrain?
There are supposed to be wargames and field testing of these sorts of technologies, but it almost sounds like none of that was done here. Did these technologies get screwed up the same way the Bradley did? (Too many Generals with too much feature creep?) Or were the projects underfunded and thus deployed too early?
One of these days, you'll have to tell me how you managed to post an empty comment. Slashdot is supposed to reject that sort of thing. :-)
Lastly, Chicken of the VNC doesn't seem to like UltraVNC much at all. This could be Chicken's fault, but Chicken worked fine with RealVNC and every other VNC server I've ever tried.
Chicken works fine for me. Do you have the latest version?
I can't speak to resolution changes.
The problem is a lot of people who are currently NATed do need "real" Internet addresses.
That's why gamers have "real" Internet Addresses. If you don't have one on your PC, it's probably because you stuck a firewall in the way yourself. If you stuck a firewall in the way, then configure the DMZ or port forwarding.
No. My only issue is that I came away from the article knowing everything about Blu-Ray and almost nothing about HD-DVD. I don't mind the bias so much, as the complete lack of information on the HD-DVD disks.
Indeed. It would have been nice if they said *something* about HD-DVD's strengths and relative design. For example, which format is more resistant to consumer damage? Or at the very least, how about an HD-DVD link next to that bright, blue Blu-Ray link?
I'm happy to know that Blu-Ray is a great format (and it really does appear to be a good format), but let's be somewhat objective here.
Let's try that again, shall we?
...the Executive summary to your PHB. There's a reason that they're written!
./'ed, it's below:
While the Reg likely won't be
Much ado has been made about whether or not Linux is truly more secure than Windows. We compared Windows vs. Linux by examining the following metrics in the 40 most recent patches/vulnerabilities listed for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.3:
1. The severity of security vulnerabilities, derived from the following metrics:
1. damage potential (how much damage is possible?)
2. exploitation potential (how easy is it to exploit?)
3. exposure potential (what kind of access is necessary to exploit the vulnerability?)
2. The number of critically severe vulnerabilities
The results were not unexpected. Even by Microsoft's subjective and flawed standards, fully 38% of the most recent patches address flaws that Microsoft ranks as Critical. Only 10% of Red Hat's patches and alerts address flaws of Critical severity. These results are easily demonstrated to be generous to Microsoft and arguably harsh with Red Hat, since the above results are based on Microsoft's ratings rather than our more stringent application of the security metrics. If we were to apply our own metrics, it would increase the number of Critical flaws in Windows Server 2003 to 50%.
We queried the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) database, and the CERT data confirms our conclusions by a more dramatic margin. When we queried the database to present results in order of severity from most critical to least critical, 39 of the first 40 entries in the CERT database for Windows are rated above the CERT threshold for a severe alert. Only three of the first 40 entries were above the threshold when we queried the database about Red Hat. When we queried the CERT database about Linux, only 6 of the first 40 entries were above the threshold.
Consider also that both the Red Hat and Linux lists include flaws in software that runs on Windows, which means these flaws apply to both Linux and Windows. None of the alerts associated with Windows affect software that runs on Linux.
So why have there been so many credible-sounding claims to the contrary, that Linux is actually less secure than Windows? There are glaring logical holes in the reasoning behind the conclusion that Linux is less secure. It takes only a little scrutiny to debunk the myths and logical errors behind the following oft-repeated axioms:
1. Windows only suffers so many attacks because there are more Windows installations than Linux, therefore Linux would be just as vulnerable if it had as many installations
2. Open source is inherently less secure because malicious hackers can find flaws more easily
3. There are more security alerts for Linux than for Windows, therefore Linux is less secure than Windows
4. There is a longer time between the discovery of a flaw and a patch for the flaw with Linux than with Windows
The error behind axioms 3 and 4 is that they ignore the most important metrics for measuring the relative security of one operating system vs. another. As you will see in our section on Realistic Security and Severity Metrics, measuring security by a single metric (such as how long it takes between the discovery of a flaw and a patch release) produces meaningless results.
Finally, we also include a brief overview of relevant conceptual differences between Windows and Linux, to offer an insight into why Windows tends to be more vulnerable to attacks at both server and desktop, and why Linux is inherently more secure.
Apparently, this water goes through Reverse Osmosis, then micro-particle filtering, then UV exposure to ensure that it's completely clean and safe. I don't think it's content is much of a problem.
That would depend on your frame of reference. That is to say, compared to what are they 'falling'? :-)
So it's safe to say that the photon's path is both curved AND straight depending on your frame of reference? Perhaps to the photon, we are the ones who are falling!
I don't know. But do the photons curve or do they fall straight?
Well this is good news! I'd hate to have missed our early warning signal about alien elephants coming to subjugate us all!
:-D
So I hear we're building a nuclear pulse ship (aka Orion). Can I help?