"net" was traditionally intended for use by network service providers.
Yes, and I've only seen one ISP (UUNet) which actually uses that as their primary address. Many of the other big ISP's hold on to the.net TLD, but it's nothing more than a redirect to the.com address, which is by your definition another "ridiculous misuse of the namespace."
Your useage is no less an abuse than "slashdot.org", another ridiculous misuse of the namespace.
What, then, would you suggest Slashdot's URL be? "Slashdot.com" doesn't fit, because Slashdot isn't really a commercial venture (the ads notwithstanding). "Slashdot.net" doesn't work for the reasons you just said. "Slashdot.gov" and "slashdot.mil" are obvious problems as well.
That's the major problem with TLD's; there aren't enough of them. Then again, that's because they were created in a time when no one had really come up with the idea of personal Websites or Weblogs or anything like that. If the slashdot.org name is an abuse of the namespace, it only goes to show that the problem is with the namespace itself, not the users. The namespace needs to be changed to reflect the times. Until it is, there's nothing that can be done, and.net still fits the project better than.com does.
Actually, the word you misspelled was, of all things, "millennium." Two Ls, two Ns. At least, as defined by "Noah Fucking Webster."
I could go into the history of the word and explain exactly why it's spelled that way, but I'd imagine you've already stopped reading this post so there wouldn't be much point in it anyway.
By the way, just in case you are still reading this, what is it you don't like about my writing anyway? I don't recall you ever complaining before.
One: why not openssh.net? I think it suits the project better than openssh.com or openssh.org anyway, given the nature of the project.
Two: Why won't this guy just let them use the domain name? He's not using it for anything. This isn't a typical squatting case either, because he's not even trying to sell them the name. Though frankly, that frightens me even more; what could he want with the name, if he doesn't intend to sell it or to use it for a legitimate site?
Just look at the board Clinton put together. Every last one of them has a lot to gain from Big Brother, from the FBI Director ("weeding out" of "undesirables") to the Secretary of Commerce ("consumer tracking.")
The rights of the law-abiding to live without undue interference from governmental organizations outweigh the rights of law enforcement to snoop around. And yes, there will be a few crimes that could have been prevented by a police state. To that, I can only say tough luck. I know it sounds heartless, and I know it's unfair, but it's the way the universe has worked for untold billions of years, and one organization in one country on one planet isn't going to change that.
It's a sad fact that you cannot eliminate all suffering. You can certainly try, and you can certainly get it to a minimum. Those are admirable goals. But the only things which could absolutely end the suffering of the few will cause billions more to suffer even worse. The best a person can do is to live life, try to help others in need, and try not to cause any more unnecessary suffering.
Yes, it means there will always be crime. Yes, some innocents will suffer and even die, when that could have been stopped by a police state. And no, that isn't fair in the least. But if there's one thing I've learned about the universe, it's this: it's not fair. I give you the choice: a random group of people (possibly -but not definitely- including yourself; you don't get to pick) will suffer and die every year at the hands of criminals, or those people will all live but the whole world will live in virtual slavery to a comparatively tiny group of people who can and do abuse their power for personal gain. It pains me that it has to be this way, but the plain truth is, it does. Give the government an inch, it'll take two miles.
Why do I say all this? Because as much as I disagree with Clinton, Freeh, and the rest of them, I do think they have good intentions. But they're trying to do what can't be done (and, for that matter, they're trying to do things that it's not their job to do). They aren't evil people, just deluded. The real problem is that they're too far gone to see the reality of the situation. They think that they actually will eliminate suffering by eliminating privacy. It's like the idea of the "transparent society"; it makes its points while conveniently forgetting that by its own admission (particularly the but about "using light as a weapon"), the Transparent Society is nothing more than a society ruled by blackmail.
What people don't seem to realize is that a lot more is at stake here than just the source to QuakeLives. While there have been other GPL court battles before, this one may well be the first to become truly high-profile. Businesses, particularly Microsoft, will be watching this like hawks.
If Carmack doesn't defend the GPL tooth and claw, then the GPL has neither teeth nor claws. If the beast has no teeth, you need not fear its bite. Companies will be able to steal GPL'd code left and right, using this as a precedent. It's likely they will do it too.
I'm going to be straight. I don't like John Carmack all that much. Particularly after that bit about forwarding information about people's computers to Id whenever they used Quake3. My opinion of him has been improving tremendously as of late, due to his recent actions in various areas. But I see we have no choice but to count on him; I hope he does a good job.
And as for Slade... I want to know his real motives. To all appearances, he's nothing but a software pirate (pirating by not distributing the software; an interesting paradox but that's the way it works with the GPL). But I think there's more to this than appearances. I don't buy the things he's said. They echo the words of some of the most monumentally stupid anti-OSS zealots out there, and I don't believe Slade is a stupid person. He's made a fine program; a stupid person can't do that. I don't believe he's just in this to spite the GPL, either.
So why would he do this? Judging from what I've been hearing people say here, sheer arrogance seems to be the currently accepted theory. He modified Carmack's program and now he thinks he is John Carmack. He's in for a very rude awakening if this is the case.
But untimately irrelevant. The survey was too small to be called anything near scientific, and it lacked the formality that goes into scientific research.
I'm currently running eight characters in an online RPG, six male and two female. Why do I do it? I'm a writer, and I've been working on stories of various types for a long time, all of which include at least a few women. I play female characters from time to time to see if I can do it convincingly; it's an exercise to improve the way I write female characters in my stories. I also use all of my characters to establish each others' pasts; the eight I currently run are tied together in a rather complex web which I somehow manage to keep straight. This, too, is a writing exercise. It lets me work on establishing the way characters interact in a manner that's realistic, not contrived.
By the way, I do know for a fact that there are women who play men, also, and not always just for role-playing. On another messageboard I frequent, someone once posted for a year and a half before finally letting everyone know she was female (I didn't mind, she pissed off more than a few people with that because they hadn't figured it out).
One last thing: unless you're actually doing it as a writing exercise, I don't recommend playing all of your characters simultaneously. I've never had more than three of mine in the same room together; above that it becomes headache-inducing just keeping everything straight.
Re:Hardware support...
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Not if the binary-only parts of OSX are compiled with G3 specific optimizations...
Apple can't do that, though, or they lose the G4 installed base. They might optimize the OS for the G3, but there's a difference between optimizing something for a processor and using processor-specific instructions.
Probably. It's known already that Apple will be working on expanding hardware support after OSX goes Golden on the G3's and G4's. The narrow hardware support at the start is just to simplify the task of getting it up and running.
Also, remember that OSX is Darwin-plus-goodies (just a lot more goodies than you get with the free version of Darwin). If you can make Darwin run, you'll be able to make OSX run.
For what it's worth, I do have a G3, but I haven't been able to make Darwin run on it. I do hope I'll be able to rectify that before OSX's release.
John Carmack already has a very basic XFree port working. I think the patches are in the snapshot XFree released today. The original plan was to get it working on bare Darwin, but that hasn't worked out just yet (Carmack says he'll try again with XFree 4.0 final, with its cleaned-up codebase).
Either way, once this is done X apps will be far easier to port over. Given time, it may even be possible to run it rootless. Now that would rock.
Re:Are details of the internals of OS X available?
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If you can get it switched to OSX in general, then use Darwin; it's close enough to what you're looking for that it should work nicely.
But I don't buy it. OS upgrades, even on a PDA, aren't just about hardware. Even on a Palm device, there's always room for stability improvements (yes, I have managed to crash my Palm III, albeit only once, ever) and bugfixes. Then there's the fact that if you have the software to do it, you can store programs there for extra memory space (memory space that is preserved even across things which would wipe out the rest of the Palm's memory).
The Visor is a great little machine. In a lot of aspects it's better than my Palm III. But until they get Flash ROM upgradability into the things, I can't see myself getting one.
The color's a nice touch, and I applaud Palm for adding it (though I wonder why they opted for active-matrix instead of the newer, super-reflective type like in the Game Boy Color; those have much longer battery life because they don't require a backlight all the time).
But what I'd love to see would be something with the upgradability of a Palm device (via the flashable ROM's) and the Springboard slot. It does lead to the question: why did Handspring take out the Flash ROM's in the first place? Does anyone know?
Currently my old Palm III is just fine for me. Butr if Handspring puts the Flash ROM's into the next Visor (or I can find a very good rteason that they didn't) I just might switch to the Visors. Particularly if the Linux port can run on them by then:)
why do you want someone looking over your shoulder AT ALL?!
I don't. But the way things are going, it's going to happen, so even as I fight the whole idea of such software I'm looking for ways to effect a compromise which will at least stop the censorship. It's hardly an ideal solution, but if you don't prepare for the worst you're going to get burned.
you KNOW if someone (sayyyy like the FBI or your opponent in the next campaign for public office who needs dirt on you real bad) wanted your URL history for the past month, it wouldnt be destroyed. it would be sent to them for a handsome price.
the point is who knows where information like that collected on you will end up!?
This, my friend, is precisely what Open-Source is for. Anyone can inspect the system whenever they want (one couldn't see the contents of the records, of course, but one could certainly verify that they're being printed only one time, sent to the proper address, and then destroyed).
i honestly cannot see what the big deal is here. teach your kid right from wrong and dont rely on the 'oh wont somebody think of the children!' quick fix.
Agreed. Perfectly. I would much rather people did that. The crap about "oh won't somebody think of the children!" is just that: crap (albeit very difficult crap to argue against without coming out looking like a total scumbag).
However, let me ask you this. Let's say that you had a card which you could use to purchase goods from nearly any story. These transactions were tracked carefully, and at the end of every month you were sent a bill which also enumerated all of the purchases made during that time period. Sound familiar? It should; credit cards work that way. I don't see people considering that to be a provacy violation. Far from it; most people use these as a tool to make sure the cards aren't being used improperly. Furthermore, credit card records aren't even destroyed monthly (remember, I'm proposing that library access records be destroyed at the end of each month).
I should also point that most libraries now have a system which can track which books are checked out. It would be pretty easy to modify these systems to keep a checkout history for each person (some already do). Is this a privacy violation?
You've brought up some valid points. Here is how some of them can be adressed:
First, perhaps offer the mailing portion as a service, rather than making it automatic. This will cut down the number of mailings which need to be done (not everyone will want to use the logging). That, in turn, reduces the costs of postage, paper, printing, and staff.
How to pay for it? It wouldn't be a tough question, except that we are, after all, talking to a nation which has its priorities so screwed up that the question automatically becomes tough. Probably not one that can't be answered until we get a batch of people in office who actually have their heads on straight (which will probably never happen, sad to say).
Then, of course, you have to factor in which sorts of libraries you're talking about. A school library, for instance, could handle this with no trouble at all. They already make many mailings to parents, so they already have the equipment and staff for a job like this. Combine the report with any other sort of mailing, and the postage overhead is drastically reduced if not completely eliminated. There's still the cost of paper, but stop and consider that. I can get 500 sheets of paper for five bucks, and that's at hideously-overinflated, campus-bookstore prices. Schools buy paper in bulk, and get it much more cheaply. So the cost of paper is not a significant problem.
Municipal libraries pose a bigger problem. Unlike schools, they don't tend to make large mailings to their clientele; if they did then it would be no trouble for them. But let's take a look at this. At current prices, five bucks is enough to pay for twelve mailings (postage, paper, printing, and the like), assuming you don't go completely wacko and use 50 pages worth of Net access at the library. There are somewhere around 60 million households in the US. Certainly not all of them are going to want this. Let's say that half of them do (in reality it wouldn't be anywhere near that many, but let's go with worst-case scenatios here). So that's 30 million households total. That comes to a grand total of $150,000,000. Seems like a lot, I know; for one person it is, but think on a national scale here. There are military aircraft that cost more than this for one unit. Business mergers worth more than this are relatively commonplace. Buy one less plane, one less, and it's paid in full. Or if you don't want to cut one plane out of the defense budget, spread it around more. Every government budget has a margin of error in its financial records, and you'd be surprised how high these margins can get (for some of the larger departments it numbers in the millions of dollars). Spread the loss around enough, and it gets to the point where the loss to each budget isn't even as big as that margin; in effect, the books don't even notice the loss.
Now, the mailing errors are a potential problem. And as you've said, errors are inevitable. Of course, it's also a federal crime to open someone else's mail. Mistakes will be made, and that's unfortunate. That's also another reason to perhaps offer this as a service, rather than an automatic thing; a smaller mailing list means less chance for error.
Either way, you're right; the idea does need to be refined. This was just a sort of initial stab at a compromise. But I'm glad to see that someone else here's taking a good, serious look at the idea.
This is not about censorship. The library blocking everything but its own internel web sites would not even be censorship.
How is that?
Noone is taking porn sites off the net. Noone is preventing you from accessing pron sites on your own computer.
Preventing free access to information amounts to the same thing as destroying it. In other words, book-burning. I might also add that while you have a point that "no one is preventing you from accessing porn sites on your own computer" it's an irrelevant one. A library is supposed to be a house of knowledge, a storehouse of information. All information (or at least all which can possibly be obtained by a given library; certainly the entire Internet is well within any library's grasp, given the equipment needed to access it). Even if some people don't like that information, for whatever reason, no one has any right to say that it must be removed from that place.
Now, as for why I made the fundamentalism comment. Two responses:
One, you've taken it all out of context. I said the quote was from a fundamentalist, and that I never expected to hear a fundamentalist saying that sort of thing. Then I compared censorship to book-burning. I did not link fundamentalists to book-burnings, even though they have been responsible for many of them in the past.
Second, there seem to be two kinds of people who are in favor of mandatory censorware. These would be the extreme right (comprised mainly, though not completely, of overzealous fundamentalists, particularly in the US) and the extreme left (again, comprised mainly though not completely of a certain group, though in the left's case it is those who would abandon personal responsibility).
Now, judging from what I've been reading about this particular case, it seems as though the extreme left is not involved in this one to any significant degree. And as for the extreme right, I have yet to see a comment made by the pro-censorware groups involved in this that didn't have some sort of fundamentalist echo. Therefore, I stated my comment in such a way as to mirror the matter at hand. Nothing more than that.
But honestly, I'm surprised that the comparisons to book-burning aren't more common. That's all censorship is, when you get down to it. And censorware does it on a scale not seen in the West since the times of Hitler and Stalin. If you prevent access to information you are destroying it. You can confuse people by saying it's still "there," but the fact is you've destroyed it all the same.
You don't like porn? Neither do I; just do what I do and avoid porn sites. It isn't difficult at all. Don't want your kids seeing it? Fine with me; spend the time with your kids and teach them why they shouldn't be seeing those sites. They will listen, if you make an honest effort. It's your job to do it, not some program's, so why shirk from that responsibility?
You want to know the truth? My beliefs aren't that different from yours. I, too, wouldn't mind one bit if all the porn sites on the Net were to suddenly disappear in one big system crash. Frankly, I think the Net would be a better place for losing all the porn out there. But I don't have the right to force porn off the Net. Nor do you. Nor does anyone but the owners of those sites. No one else has the right, just as no one has the right to make you, or me, shut up about this. If you'd like to discuss the matter with me further, I ask that we do so over e-mail (remove the Monty Python reference from the address you see above).
Zero Censorship, Just badly names 'censorware'.
We call it "censorware" here because of how it is used, not because of its original intent. There's a difference between censorship and self-restraint, you see. If the Holland library decided on its own to put filters on its own sites, and its users agreed, that would be one thing. But the library doesn't want to do it. These people seek to force the library to block access to information. That is where filters become censorware; they are being abused as a tool of censorship.
I was wondering when someone else would bring this one up...
Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.
Now this is what the software companies should be going into. Filters are an excuse for lazy parents who simply don't want to do their job. But this is different; it's not ideal by any means, but it kills the "I don't have time" cop-out; now you do have time. Any time you want.
Now, how could this be applied to libraries? How does this sound to you? This "logging software" is installed on each computer. The computers themselves cannot be accessed without logging in (possibly using a system where you swipe your library card to get in? This wouldn't be too expensive to set up). At the end of each month, a letter is mailed to someone (I'd assume the head of a given household), stating the distinct Web pages which were viewed using cards registered to someone in that household, along with the date and time. The records are then destroyed.
Now, my question: is this a privacy violation? I'm not sure. The records are not kept permanently, the system is fully-automated, and you're the only one who ever sees the records; that's a point against it being a privacy violation. Furthermore, this can also be used as a tool to track unauthorized usage of one's own account. Plus it lets you see where you've been, and possibly to go back there if you've lost the URL.
...keep in mind the warning of the great Puritan poet John Milton... 'If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.'"
Funny that fundamentalists would be saying this, but at least it's a good point. Personally, I don't see censorware as anything more than a new take on book-burnings. But this is a different idea, and one that I find intriguing. So I leave to to the Slashdotters here: what do you think? Is this proposal a good system, or at least a better one than mandatory filtering?
It is obvious that this "dark matter" is an attempt by the status quo to keep their controls on science. Science is ruled by an over conservative good old boys network who don't want to change teir minds about things they learned in school. This recognition of dark matter is further continuation of this network. If modern science weren't under the control of these people would quantum mechanics as we know it be taught? Probably not anymore, because we would have found a new theory about the universe that could explain things a little better.
All right, Mr. Scientist, since you seem to be such an authority on the universe I'm sure we'd love to hear your theories. Why is the idea that there's more than one kind of matter so far-fetched?
Isn't this just great? A gang of European homosexuals and drug abusers steals (yes, steals) the "good name" of an honest company, and the tort monster chews them up and spits them out. "Sorry guys! You don't own your own name any more!"
To put it bluntly, etoy.com didn't rip off the etoys.com name. Quite the contrary; etoy.com was up and running a full two years before etoys.com ever existed. Etoys.com is the real ripoff, not etoy.com.
And by the way, where did you ever get the idea that the etoy.com crew was "a gang of European homosexuals and drug abusers"? They are European, but I've never seen anything indicating that they were, or weren't for that matter, either gay or drug users. I very much doubt you've got proof either. Or are you just being a prejudiced bastard? The latter seems quite likely.
By the way, the only way I can see that you'd even get that idea is if you knew what it was they did. In which case, I find it very hard to believe that you wouldn't know that etoy.com had the name long before etoys.com did. Or are you one of those types that believe that those with money should be allowed to plunder those who do not, simply because they have the resources to do so?
Before I go any further I should state that I am, in fact, a capitalist. So don't go accusing me of being a socialist of any kind.
If you don't own your own name, what do you own? Not much. Just whatever pittance is left to you by the radical leftists who control the government.
Agreed, totally. Etoy.com does own its own name. Etoys.com would have stolen it given the chance, but thankfully the courts ruled for justice (a nice change).
Do they even care what a savage disincentive this is for business?
What, the fact that you can't steal from someone else? How's that a disincentive for business (well, those businesses that don't involve stealing anyway)?
"Freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength" quoth the famous Socialist George Orwell
If you're going to quote, please quote in context. You completely ruin the effect otherwise.
Yet another irrational outburst of mindless has swept Slashdot.
Yep. And I feel bad for responding to it, but you've left me little in the way of a choice, since I can't mod this one down.
By the way, I think the word you were looking for was "mindlessness." "Mindless" is an adjective; "mindlessness" is a noun. You can't have a "wave of mindless."
Ho, hum. I doubt very much that any of you have any concept of property rights at all.
You're right; you don't have any concept of property rights at all (and you're certainly a part of "any of you [Slashdotters]"). At least, not as applies to people. You appear to be the type who thinks that a business can take anything owned by an ordinary person with no compensation therefor, simply because as you seem to see it business is always right. Furthermore, you seem to be so ardent in your beliefs that you don't even bother to research the things you argue about, at least not thoroughly enough to make any real arguments. And I haven't even touched on your apparent bigotry yet. But that's for another post.
But the way they're celebrating on the site is just a bit over-pretentious, don't you think? There's no need for the military theme, and absurdly-loud looping "Yankee Doodle" in the background, and the bit about keeping the site up for a while damn week.
Come on, etoy; you're supposed to be the good guys; no need to gloat. I know it feels good, especially after this long of a battle, but honestly, this is just tasteless.
MOSR is good every once in a while. But it's a rumor site; people here seem to be forgetting that. The name alone tells you to take everything on that page with a grain of salt, if not the whole shaker.
No, MOSR isn't very accurate. But they don't claim to be. Look at the name, for crying out loud.
Both of them do focus mainly on Linux. They do run on other operating systems (the sysadmins in the CS labs here at RIT recently installed KDE on the Solaris boxen) but Linux is still the OS they're most concerned about.
There seem to be a lot of misunderstandings about this.
1) It doesn't seem to be a fork on Gnome, but rather an extension of it (perhaps a set of modules for it?) 2) It is NOT being developed by Apple or AOL. These are a bunch of people who used to work for Apple and AOL, but neither company is itself directly involved. 3) I know a lot of people are just going to post without reading the article, so I might as well reiterate it here: yes, it's GPL'd. 4) Once again, this is NOT Apple doing this. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people from the now-defunct Human Interface team there are now working on it.
Now, my own views on the project: I hope it works out. GNOME and KDE are both making good progress towards bringing a good, usable GUI to Linux, but both still have a long way to go. A boost, particularly from people who've designed UI's professionally before, would be a great help.
This is a trademark issue. That's a very different beast. Why? Consider: all the theme makers have to do is replace the Apple logo with something else and then they can repost the themes. They don't have to change anything else. I'd say that the Apple logo in the corner isn't a critical part of the theme's "look and feel."
Personally, I do find it to be in extremely poor taste that these theme makers are ripping off a GUI that hasn't even been released yet. Sure, it's not illegal, but it's only fair to let the company that came up with that GUI be the first to release it to the world. If you still want it on your machine, then release the theme after that. But Apple did the work on the GUI; I don't see what's so unfair about them wanting to release it first. They can't do anything about it now, I know, but I don't see why the themers couldn't have just left well enough alone and waited till after OSX's release (or at least until after OSX DP3's release) to turn their themes loose.
In many research labs and beyond, the accepted model for deciding whether someone has a good idea is their ability to do battle and defend it. The way you play with an idea is to attack, attack, attack. And if the person is left standing at the end if it, then their idea must have been good. Now I think that's simply a bad filter.
Using one's willingness and ability to do intellectual battle to decide whether you're smart, or whether your idea is good is completely analogous. It works really well for people who like to fight and it tells you absolutely nothing about anybody else.
I'm not arguing any biological determinism, but women are socialized not to engage in battle. Now we all learn how. What it means is that anybody who didn't rise to learning how to fight, even if she didn't like it, even if it didn't feel natural may well just [opt out]. We're losing the brilliance and creativity of people who like to interact in a different way. We're missing a bunch of men, too.
I almost agreed with this article, until I came to this bit. Basically, what I read from this is that she doesn't like the idea of peer review. She doesn't like the idea that an idea is thrown out if it can't stand up to testing. Never mind that this is is the basis of all modern science (and most other academic pursuits), and with good reason. Basically, she's throwing out the whole idea that ideas should be accepted on merit. Even worse is that she has no suggestions for how to replace such a system. You can't very well get rid of one system until you have something to replace it, but she still advocates throwing out the basis of human knowledge anyway.
Of course, this may be because of this whole "battle" thing she's talking about. It's a load of crap, but it fits very with the "all men like to do is fight" stereotype. Either way, she misses the point of peer review entirely.
She also dismisses the argument about the number of women CS majors declining because women aren't as interested. The fact is, that one's obvious. The numbers speak for themselves; if more women were interested in CS, more would be applying. The point is that if we're going to do something about that, we need to find out why women aren't interested. That is the problem; the decline in women CS majors is merely a symptom thereof. If you want to fix a problem, first you have to figure out why the problem exists. So why does it exist? I don't claim to know. That's the problem; say all you want but no one really knows for sure. Otherwise we'd be well on our way to actually fixing the problem (no, I don't think we'd have it fixed yet; these sorts of things take at least a generation to really have an effect).
But I do know that we're not going to solve any problems by throwing away the peer review system. That would be outright suicidal for civilization as we know it. It's possible that I'm misinterpreting what she was saying, but it doesn't look that way.
Even Microsoft can't take that much of a loss on the hardware. Yeah, you can take some loss and make it up with the licensing (Sony's done it for years with the PSX). But not that much. The chips alone are going to cost more than that, never mind the DVD drive and various other peripherals. Yeah, eventually the prices are going to drop, but by the time they drop to the point where the $175 price isn't outright suicidal, the gaming companies will be selling better systems for less money.
Remember the lesson Pippin taught us: computer companies should stick to computers, and let console companies take care of the console business. Sony seems to be the notable exception to this rule, but if I'm not mistaken they made the PSX before they got into the computer business. MS can't count on having Sony's kind of luck, particularly with that target price.
By the way, what're they going to call the OS, "Windows X"? How much more rip-off can you get? Thanks, but no thanks, M$; I want a console that doesn't bluescreen everytime I play.
Slashdot Mirror
"net" was traditionally intended for use by network service providers.
.net TLD, but it's nothing more than a redirect to the .com address, which is by your definition another "ridiculous misuse of the namespace."
.net still fits the project better than .com does.
Yes, and I've only seen one ISP (UUNet) which actually uses that as their primary address. Many of the other big ISP's hold on to the
Your useage is no less an abuse than "slashdot.org", another ridiculous misuse of the namespace.
What, then, would you suggest Slashdot's URL be? "Slashdot.com" doesn't fit, because Slashdot isn't really a commercial venture (the ads notwithstanding). "Slashdot.net" doesn't work for the reasons you just said. "Slashdot.gov" and "slashdot.mil" are obvious problems as well.
That's the major problem with TLD's; there aren't enough of them. Then again, that's because they were created in a time when no one had really come up with the idea of personal Websites or Weblogs or anything like that. If the slashdot.org name is an abuse of the namespace, it only goes to show that the problem is with the namespace itself, not the users. The namespace needs to be changed to reflect the times. Until it is, there's nothing that can be done, and
Actually, the word you misspelled was, of all things, "millennium." Two Ls, two Ns. At least, as defined by "Noah Fucking Webster."
I could go into the history of the word and explain exactly why it's spelled that way, but I'd imagine you've already stopped reading this post so there wouldn't be much point in it anyway.
By the way, just in case you are still reading this, what is it you don't like about my writing anyway? I don't recall you ever complaining before.
One: why not openssh.net? I think it suits the project better than openssh.com or openssh.org anyway, given the nature of the project.
Two: Why won't this guy just let them use the domain name? He's not using it for anything. This isn't a typical squatting case either, because he's not even trying to sell them the name. Though frankly, that frightens me even more; what could he want with the name, if he doesn't intend to sell it or to use it for a legitimate site?
Just look at the board Clinton put together. Every last one of them has a lot to gain from Big Brother, from the FBI Director ("weeding out" of "undesirables") to the Secretary of Commerce ("consumer tracking.")
The rights of the law-abiding to live without undue interference from governmental organizations outweigh the rights of law enforcement to snoop around. And yes, there will be a few crimes that could have been prevented by a police state. To that, I can only say tough luck. I know it sounds heartless, and I know it's unfair, but it's the way the universe has worked for untold billions of years, and one organization in one country on one planet isn't going to change that.
It's a sad fact that you cannot eliminate all suffering. You can certainly try, and you can certainly get it to a minimum. Those are admirable goals. But the only things which could absolutely end the suffering of the few will cause billions more to suffer even worse. The best a person can do is to live life, try to help others in need, and try not to cause any more unnecessary suffering.
Yes, it means there will always be crime. Yes, some innocents will suffer and even die, when that could have been stopped by a police state. And no, that isn't fair in the least. But if there's one thing I've learned about the universe, it's this: it's not fair. I give you the choice: a random group of people (possibly -but not definitely- including yourself; you don't get to pick) will suffer and die every year at the hands of criminals, or those people will all live but the whole world will live in virtual slavery to a comparatively tiny group of people who can and do abuse their power for personal gain. It pains me that it has to be this way, but the plain truth is, it does. Give the government an inch, it'll take two miles.
Why do I say all this? Because as much as I disagree with Clinton, Freeh, and the rest of them, I do think they have good intentions. But they're trying to do what can't be done (and, for that matter, they're trying to do things that it's not their job to do). They aren't evil people, just deluded. The real problem is that they're too far gone to see the reality of the situation. They think that they actually will eliminate suffering by eliminating privacy. It's like the idea of the "transparent society"; it makes its points while conveniently forgetting that by its own admission (particularly the but about "using light as a weapon"), the Transparent Society is nothing more than a society ruled by blackmail.
What people don't seem to realize is that a lot more is at stake here than just the source to QuakeLives. While there have been other GPL court battles before, this one may well be the first to become truly high-profile. Businesses, particularly Microsoft, will be watching this like hawks.
If Carmack doesn't defend the GPL tooth and claw, then the GPL has neither teeth nor claws. If the beast has no teeth, you need not fear its bite. Companies will be able to steal GPL'd code left and right, using this as a precedent. It's likely they will do it too.
I'm going to be straight. I don't like John Carmack all that much. Particularly after that bit about forwarding information about people's computers to Id whenever they used Quake3. My opinion of him has been improving tremendously as of late, due to his recent actions in various areas. But I see we have no choice but to count on him; I hope he does a good job.
And as for Slade... I want to know his real motives. To all appearances, he's nothing but a software pirate (pirating by not distributing the software; an interesting paradox but that's the way it works with the GPL). But I think there's more to this than appearances. I don't buy the things he's said. They echo the words of some of the most monumentally stupid anti-OSS zealots out there, and I don't believe Slade is a stupid person. He's made a fine program; a stupid person can't do that. I don't believe he's just in this to spite the GPL, either.
So why would he do this? Judging from what I've been hearing people say here, sheer arrogance seems to be the currently accepted theory. He modified Carmack's program and now he thinks he is John Carmack. He's in for a very rude awakening if this is the case.
But untimately irrelevant. The survey was too small to be called anything near scientific, and it lacked the formality that goes into scientific research.
I'm currently running eight characters in an online RPG, six male and two female. Why do I do it? I'm a writer, and I've been working on stories of various types for a long time, all of which include at least a few women. I play female characters from time to time to see if I can do it convincingly; it's an exercise to improve the way I write female characters in my stories. I also use all of my characters to establish each others' pasts; the eight I currently run are tied together in a rather complex web which I somehow manage to keep straight. This, too, is a writing exercise. It lets me work on establishing the way characters interact in a manner that's realistic, not contrived.
By the way, I do know for a fact that there are women who play men, also, and not always just for role-playing. On another messageboard I frequent, someone once posted for a year and a half before finally letting everyone know she was female (I didn't mind, she pissed off more than a few people with that because they hadn't figured it out).
One last thing: unless you're actually doing it as a writing exercise, I don't recommend playing all of your characters simultaneously. I've never had more than three of mine in the same room together; above that it becomes headache-inducing just keeping everything straight.
Not if the binary-only parts of OSX are compiled with G3 specific optimizations...
Apple can't do that, though, or they lose the G4 installed base. They might optimize the OS for the G3, but there's a difference between optimizing something for a processor and using processor-specific instructions.
Probably. It's known already that Apple will be working on expanding hardware support after OSX goes Golden on the G3's and G4's. The narrow hardware support at the start is just to simplify the task of getting it up and running.
Also, remember that OSX is Darwin-plus-goodies (just a lot more goodies than you get with the free version of Darwin). If you can make Darwin run, you'll be able to make OSX run.
For what it's worth, I do have a G3, but I haven't been able to make Darwin run on it. I do hope I'll be able to rectify that before OSX's release.
John Carmack already has a very basic XFree port working. I think the patches are in the snapshot XFree released today. The original plan was to get it working on bare Darwin, but that hasn't worked out just yet (Carmack says he'll try again with XFree 4.0 final, with its cleaned-up codebase).
Either way, once this is done X apps will be far easier to port over. Given time, it may even be possible to run it rootless. Now that would rock.
If you can get it switched to OSX in general, then use Darwin; it's close enough to what you're looking for that it should work nicely.
But I don't buy it. OS upgrades, even on a PDA, aren't just about hardware. Even on a Palm device, there's always room for stability improvements (yes, I have managed to crash my Palm III, albeit only once, ever) and bugfixes. Then there's the fact that if you have the software to do it, you can store programs there for extra memory space (memory space that is preserved even across things which would wipe out the rest of the Palm's memory).
The Visor is a great little machine. In a lot of aspects it's better than my Palm III. But until they get Flash ROM upgradability into the things, I can't see myself getting one.
The color's a nice touch, and I applaud Palm for adding it (though I wonder why they opted for active-matrix instead of the newer, super-reflective type like in the Game Boy Color; those have much longer battery life because they don't require a backlight all the time).
:)
But what I'd love to see would be something with the upgradability of a Palm device (via the flashable ROM's) and the Springboard slot. It does lead to the question: why did Handspring take out the Flash ROM's in the first place? Does anyone know?
Currently my old Palm III is just fine for me. Butr if Handspring puts the Flash ROM's into the next Visor (or I can find a very good rteason that they didn't) I just might switch to the Visors. Particularly if the Linux port can run on them by then
why do you want someone looking over your shoulder AT ALL?!
I don't. But the way things are going, it's going to happen, so even as I fight the whole idea of such software I'm looking for ways to effect a compromise which will at least stop the censorship. It's hardly an ideal solution, but if you don't prepare for the worst you're going to get burned.
you KNOW if someone (sayyyy like the FBI or your opponent in the next campaign for public office who needs dirt on you real bad) wanted your URL history for the past month, it wouldnt be destroyed. it would be sent to them for a handsome price.
the point is who knows where information like that collected on you will end up!?
This, my friend, is precisely what Open-Source is for. Anyone can inspect the system whenever they want (one couldn't see the contents of the records, of course, but one could certainly verify that they're being printed only one time, sent to the proper address, and then destroyed).
i honestly cannot see what the big deal is here. teach your kid right from wrong and dont rely on the 'oh wont somebody think of the children!' quick fix.
Agreed. Perfectly. I would much rather people did that. The crap about "oh won't somebody think of the children!" is just that: crap (albeit very difficult crap to argue against without coming out looking like a total scumbag).
However, let me ask you this. Let's say that you had a card which you could use to purchase goods from nearly any story. These transactions were tracked carefully, and at the end of every month you were sent a bill which also enumerated all of the purchases made during that time period. Sound familiar? It should; credit cards work that way. I don't see people considering that to be a provacy violation. Far from it; most people use these as a tool to make sure the cards aren't being used improperly. Furthermore, credit card records aren't even destroyed monthly (remember, I'm proposing that library access records be destroyed at the end of each month).
I should also point that most libraries now have a system which can track which books are checked out. It would be pretty easy to modify these systems to keep a checkout history for each person (some already do). Is this a privacy violation?
Just some food for thought...
You've brought up some valid points. Here is how some of them can be adressed:
First, perhaps offer the mailing portion as a service, rather than making it automatic. This will cut down the number of mailings which need to be done (not everyone will want to use the logging). That, in turn, reduces the costs of postage, paper, printing, and staff.
How to pay for it? It wouldn't be a tough question, except that we are, after all, talking to a nation which has its priorities so screwed up that the question automatically becomes tough. Probably not one that can't be answered until we get a batch of people in office who actually have their heads on straight (which will probably never happen, sad to say).
Then, of course, you have to factor in which sorts of libraries you're talking about. A school library, for instance, could handle this with no trouble at all. They already make many mailings to parents, so they already have the equipment and staff for a job like this. Combine the report with any other sort of mailing, and the postage overhead is drastically reduced if not completely eliminated. There's still the cost of paper, but stop and consider that. I can get 500 sheets of paper for five bucks, and that's at hideously-overinflated, campus-bookstore prices. Schools buy paper in bulk, and get it much more cheaply. So the cost of paper is not a significant problem.
Municipal libraries pose a bigger problem. Unlike schools, they don't tend to make large mailings to their clientele; if they did then it would be no trouble for them. But let's take a look at this. At current prices, five bucks is enough to pay for twelve mailings (postage, paper, printing, and the like), assuming you don't go completely wacko and use 50 pages worth of Net access at the library. There are somewhere around 60 million households in the US. Certainly not all of them are going to want this. Let's say that half of them do (in reality it wouldn't be anywhere near that many, but let's go with worst-case scenatios here). So that's 30 million households total. That comes to a grand total of $150,000,000. Seems like a lot, I know; for one person it is, but think on a national scale here. There are military aircraft that cost more than this for one unit. Business mergers worth more than this are relatively commonplace. Buy one less plane, one less, and it's paid in full. Or if you don't want to cut one plane out of the defense budget, spread it around more. Every government budget has a margin of error in its financial records, and you'd be surprised how high these margins can get (for some of the larger departments it numbers in the millions of dollars). Spread the loss around enough, and it gets to the point where the loss to each budget isn't even as big as that margin; in effect, the books don't even notice the loss.
Now, the mailing errors are a potential problem. And as you've said, errors are inevitable. Of course, it's also a federal crime to open someone else's mail. Mistakes will be made, and that's unfortunate. That's also another reason to perhaps offer this as a service, rather than an automatic thing; a smaller mailing list means less chance for error.
Either way, you're right; the idea does need to be refined. This was just a sort of initial stab at a compromise. But I'm glad to see that someone else here's taking a good, serious look at the idea.
This is not about censorship. The library blocking everything but its own internel web sites would not even be censorship.
How is that?
Noone is taking porn sites off the net. Noone is preventing you from accessing pron sites on your own computer.
Preventing free access to information amounts to the same thing as destroying it. In other words, book-burning. I might also add that while you have a point that "no one is preventing you from accessing porn sites on your own computer" it's an irrelevant one. A library is supposed to be a house of knowledge, a storehouse of information. All information (or at least all which can possibly be obtained by a given library; certainly the entire Internet is well within any library's grasp, given the equipment needed to access it). Even if some people don't like that information, for whatever reason, no one has any right to say that it must be removed from that place.
Now, as for why I made the fundamentalism comment. Two responses:
One, you've taken it all out of context. I said the quote was from a fundamentalist, and that I never expected to hear a fundamentalist saying that sort of thing. Then I compared censorship to book-burning. I did not link fundamentalists to book-burnings, even though they have been responsible for many of them in the past.
Second, there seem to be two kinds of people who are in favor of mandatory censorware. These would be the extreme right (comprised mainly, though not completely, of overzealous fundamentalists, particularly in the US) and the extreme left (again, comprised mainly though not completely of a certain group, though in the left's case it is those who would abandon personal responsibility).
Now, judging from what I've been reading about this particular case, it seems as though the extreme left is not involved in this one to any significant degree. And as for the extreme right, I have yet to see a comment made by the pro-censorware groups involved in this that didn't have some sort of fundamentalist echo. Therefore, I stated my comment in such a way as to mirror the matter at hand. Nothing more than that.
But honestly, I'm surprised that the comparisons to book-burning aren't more common. That's all censorship is, when you get down to it. And censorware does it on a scale not seen in the West since the times of Hitler and Stalin. If you prevent access to information you are destroying it. You can confuse people by saying it's still "there," but the fact is you've destroyed it all the same.
You don't like porn? Neither do I; just do what I do and avoid porn sites. It isn't difficult at all. Don't want your kids seeing it? Fine with me; spend the time with your kids and teach them why they shouldn't be seeing those sites. They will listen, if you make an honest effort. It's your job to do it, not some program's, so why shirk from that responsibility?
You want to know the truth? My beliefs aren't that different from yours. I, too, wouldn't mind one bit if all the porn sites on the Net were to suddenly disappear in one big system crash. Frankly, I think the Net would be a better place for losing all the porn out there. But I don't have the right to force porn off the Net. Nor do you. Nor does anyone but the owners of those sites. No one else has the right, just as no one has the right to make you, or me, shut up about this. If you'd like to discuss the matter with me further, I ask that we do so over e-mail (remove the Monty Python reference from the address you see above).
Zero Censorship, Just badly names 'censorware'.
We call it "censorware" here because of how it is used, not because of its original intent. There's a difference between censorship and self-restraint, you see. If the Holland library decided on its own to put filters on its own sites, and its users agreed, that would be one thing. But the library doesn't want to do it. These people seek to force the library to block access to information. That is where filters become censorware; they are being abused as a tool of censorship.
I was wondering when someone else would bring this one up...
...keep in mind the warning of the great Puritan poet John Milton ... 'If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.'"
Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.
Now this is what the software companies should be going into. Filters are an excuse for lazy parents who simply don't want to do their job. But this is different; it's not ideal by any means, but it kills the "I don't have time" cop-out; now you do have time. Any time you want.
Now, how could this be applied to libraries? How does this sound to you? This "logging software" is installed on each computer. The computers themselves cannot be accessed without logging in (possibly using a system where you swipe your library card to get in? This wouldn't be too expensive to set up). At the end of each month, a letter is mailed to someone (I'd assume the head of a given household), stating the distinct Web pages which were viewed using cards registered to someone in that household, along with the date and time. The records are then destroyed.
Now, my question: is this a privacy violation? I'm not sure. The records are not kept permanently, the system is fully-automated, and you're the only one who ever sees the records; that's a point against it being a privacy violation. Furthermore, this can also be used as a tool to track unauthorized usage of one's own account. Plus it lets you see where you've been, and possibly to go back there if you've lost the URL.
Funny that fundamentalists would be saying this, but at least it's a good point. Personally, I don't see censorware as anything more than a new take on book-burnings. But this is a different idea, and one that I find intriguing. So I leave to to the Slashdotters here: what do you think? Is this proposal a good system, or at least a better one than mandatory filtering?
It is obvious that this "dark matter" is an attempt by the status quo to keep their controls on science. Science is ruled by an over conservative good old boys network who don't want to change teir minds about things they learned in school. This recognition of dark matter is further continuation of this network. If modern science weren't under the control of these people would quantum mechanics as we know it be taught? Probably not anymore, because we would have found a new theory about the universe that could explain things a little better.
All right, Mr. Scientist, since you seem to be such an authority on the universe I'm sure we'd love to hear your theories. Why is the idea that there's more than one kind of matter so far-fetched?
Isn't this just great? A gang of European homosexuals and drug abusers steals (yes, steals) the "good name" of an honest company, and the tort monster chews them up and spits them out. "Sorry guys! You don't own your own name any more!"
To put it bluntly, etoy.com didn't rip off the etoys.com name. Quite the contrary; etoy.com was up and running a full two years before etoys.com ever existed. Etoys.com is the real ripoff, not etoy.com.
And by the way, where did you ever get the idea that the etoy.com crew was "a gang of European homosexuals and drug abusers"? They are European, but I've never seen anything indicating that they were, or weren't for that matter, either gay or drug users. I very much doubt you've got proof either. Or are you just being a prejudiced bastard? The latter seems quite likely.
By the way, the only way I can see that you'd even get that idea is if you knew what it was they did. In which case, I find it very hard to believe that you wouldn't know that etoy.com had the name long before etoys.com did. Or are you one of those types that believe that those with money should be allowed to plunder those who do not, simply because they have the resources to do so?
Before I go any further I should state that I am, in fact, a capitalist. So don't go accusing me of being a socialist of any kind.
If you don't own your own name, what do you own? Not much. Just whatever pittance is left to you by the radical leftists who control the government.
Agreed, totally. Etoy.com does own its own name. Etoys.com would have stolen it given the chance, but thankfully the courts ruled for justice (a nice change).
Do they even care what a savage disincentive this is for business?
What, the fact that you can't steal from someone else? How's that a disincentive for business (well, those businesses that don't involve stealing anyway)?
"Freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength" quoth the famous Socialist George Orwell
If you're going to quote, please quote in context. You completely ruin the effect otherwise.
Yet another irrational outburst of mindless has swept Slashdot.
Yep. And I feel bad for responding to it, but you've left me little in the way of a choice, since I can't mod this one down.
By the way, I think the word you were looking for was "mindlessness." "Mindless" is an adjective; "mindlessness" is a noun. You can't have a "wave of mindless."
Ho, hum. I doubt very much that any of you have any concept of property rights at all.
You're right; you don't have any concept of property rights at all (and you're certainly a part of "any of you [Slashdotters]"). At least, not as applies to people. You appear to be the type who thinks that a business can take anything owned by an ordinary person with no compensation therefor, simply because as you seem to see it business is always right. Furthermore, you seem to be so ardent in your beliefs that you don't even bother to research the things you argue about, at least not thoroughly enough to make any real arguments. And I haven't even touched on your apparent bigotry yet. But that's for another post.
But the way they're celebrating on the site is just a bit over-pretentious, don't you think? There's no need for the military theme, and absurdly-loud looping "Yankee Doodle" in the background, and the bit about keeping the site up for a while damn week.
Come on, etoy; you're supposed to be the good guys; no need to gloat. I know it feels good, especially after this long of a battle, but honestly, this is just tasteless.
MOSR is good every once in a while. But it's a rumor site; people here seem to be forgetting that. The name alone tells you to take everything on that page with a grain of salt, if not the whole shaker.
No, MOSR isn't very accurate. But they don't claim to be. Look at the name, for crying out loud.
Both of them do focus mainly on Linux. They do run on other operating systems (the sysadmins in the CS labs here at RIT recently installed KDE on the Solaris boxen) but Linux is still the OS they're most concerned about.
There seem to be a lot of misunderstandings about this.
1) It doesn't seem to be a fork on Gnome, but rather an extension of it (perhaps a set of modules for it?)
2) It is NOT being developed by Apple or AOL. These are a bunch of people who used to work for Apple and AOL, but neither company is itself directly involved.
3) I know a lot of people are just going to post without reading the article, so I might as well reiterate it here: yes, it's GPL'd.
4) Once again, this is NOT Apple doing this. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people from the now-defunct Human Interface team there are now working on it.
Now, my own views on the project: I hope it works out. GNOME and KDE are both making good progress towards bringing a good, usable GUI to Linux, but both still have a long way to go. A boost, particularly from people who've designed UI's professionally before, would be a great help.
This is a trademark issue. That's a very different beast. Why? Consider: all the theme makers have to do is replace the Apple logo with something else and then they can repost the themes. They don't have to change anything else. I'd say that the Apple logo in the corner isn't a critical part of the theme's "look and feel."
Personally, I do find it to be in extremely poor taste that these theme makers are ripping off a GUI that hasn't even been released yet. Sure, it's not illegal, but it's only fair to let the company that came up with that GUI be the first to release it to the world. If you still want it on your machine, then release the theme after that. But Apple did the work on the GUI; I don't see what's so unfair about them wanting to release it first. They can't do anything about it now, I know, but I don't see why the themers couldn't have just left well enough alone and waited till after OSX's release (or at least until after OSX DP3's release) to turn their themes loose.
In many research labs and beyond, the accepted model for deciding whether someone has a good idea is their ability to do battle and defend it. The way you play with an idea is to attack, attack, attack. And if the person is left standing at the end if it, then their idea must have been good. Now I think that's simply a bad filter.
Using one's willingness and ability to do intellectual battle to decide whether you're smart, or whether your idea is good is completely analogous. It works really well for people who like to fight and it tells you absolutely nothing about anybody else.
I'm not arguing any biological determinism, but women are socialized not to engage in battle. Now we all learn how. What it means is that anybody who didn't rise to learning how to fight, even if she didn't like it, even if it didn't feel natural may well just [opt out]. We're losing the brilliance and creativity of people who like to interact in a different way. We're missing a bunch of men, too.
I almost agreed with this article, until I came to this bit. Basically, what I read from this is that she doesn't like the idea of peer review. She doesn't like the idea that an idea is thrown out if it can't stand up to testing. Never mind that this is is the basis of all modern science (and most other academic pursuits), and with good reason. Basically, she's throwing out the whole idea that ideas should be accepted on merit. Even worse is that she has no suggestions for how to replace such a system. You can't very well get rid of one system until you have something to replace it, but she still advocates throwing out the basis of human knowledge anyway.
Of course, this may be because of this whole "battle" thing she's talking about. It's a load of crap, but it fits very with the "all men like to do is fight" stereotype. Either way, she misses the point of peer review entirely.
She also dismisses the argument about the number of women CS majors declining because women aren't as interested. The fact is, that one's obvious. The numbers speak for themselves; if more women were interested in CS, more would be applying. The point is that if we're going to do something about that, we need to find out why women aren't interested. That is the problem; the decline in women CS majors is merely a symptom thereof. If you want to fix a problem, first you have to figure out why the problem exists. So why does it exist? I don't claim to know. That's the problem; say all you want but no one really knows for sure. Otherwise we'd be well on our way to actually fixing the problem (no, I don't think we'd have it fixed yet; these sorts of things take at least a generation to really have an effect).
But I do know that we're not going to solve any problems by throwing away the peer review system. That would be outright suicidal for civilization as we know it. It's possible that I'm misinterpreting what she was saying, but it doesn't look that way.
Even Microsoft can't take that much of a loss on the hardware. Yeah, you can take some loss and make it up with the licensing (Sony's done it for years with the PSX). But not that much. The chips alone are going to cost more than that, never mind the DVD drive and various other peripherals. Yeah, eventually the prices are going to drop, but by the time they drop to the point where the $175 price isn't outright suicidal, the gaming companies will be selling better systems for less money.
Remember the lesson Pippin taught us: computer companies should stick to computers, and let console companies take care of the console business. Sony seems to be the notable exception to this rule, but if I'm not mistaken they made the PSX before they got into the computer business. MS can't count on having Sony's kind of luck, particularly with that target price.
By the way, what're they going to call the OS, "Windows X"? How much more rip-off can you get? Thanks, but no thanks, M$; I want a console that doesn't bluescreen everytime I play.