The venture capitalists was stupid because they listened to hippies who had no idea what so ever how to run a business and totally clueless on how much revenue is needed to just survive
True - but then that is their job - to hunt out the good prospects from teh bad - and like all of use amatuer investors - they failed miserably!
I wanted a reliable and well supported system that wasn't going to have compatibility problems with hardware and software.
This statement is one I've run across all too often. I've used AMD processors in WIndows and Linux systems for years since the K6 days. I'v enever had a compatability problem (OK - the linux kernel developers blacklists the AMD Irongate USB support for one release till they got specs to fix a bug)
Why is this opinion that AMD stuff will cause all sorts of compatabiltiy problems still prevelant? I mean AMD was a key WIndows 2000 partner with Microsoft to ensure Athlons ran WIndows 2K flawlessly. I can't remember that last time I saw a widespread AMD only problem - yes the VIA chipsets have had a few problems with the newest linux kernels - but widespread - well, not from what I've seen and now there are MANY vendors with chipsets out there.
So is this still a major issue - If it was I'd expect to see the HW review sites freaking out about all teh compatability rpoblems with AMD products. I jsut haven't seen it except when folks say it because they read it somewhere. THoguhts?
Gateway & COmpaq have been selling Athlons for some time. Dell's reluctance can only be attributed to a sweetheart deal from Intel - I too love Dell systems (My laptop is an Inspiron and I managed a support group who handled Dell servers and desktops - it was great) and can't understand why they refuse to add AMD processors to their lineup. I've been surprised they have held out this long - but Dell has a HUGE edge over others in that their corporate contracts which are for HIGH margin machines allow them to earn plenty of money without trying to attract low end buyers with AMD or Celeron type processors. I fear that until (if ever) corporate execs are willing to buy Athlon machines because they feel they are cuttin gedge, Dell will have no need to bother with AMD which is sad.
Its bad enough having to get new credit cards - but I can't imagine the hassle and disruption that would be caused by changing my Social Security # both on the part of the dirtbag comapnies that want my SS# and teh gov't who probably would lose half my benefits if I changed #'s.
THink about the hell you'd go through changing SS#'s the next time someone asks for it!:) I used to be more laid back aout it - but am quickly starting to challenge companies that want my SS# - too bad - get another ID to use.
I'd have to rate changing SS3's above the nightmare of getting a new checkin gaccount or switching to a new health plan!
But beyond that - I'm a Cingular customer - so I'll have ot wait my turn to have my info sold er stolen.
I've seen lots of people posting about how excited they are that Intel is finally about to ship the i845 so they can finally get that P4.
I;m curious (and htis is NOT a flame - I'm really curious) If you've had the $$ for a new box and you want a speedster system - what kept you from getting an Athlon based system? The benchmarks I've seen between teh fastest P4s and Athlons haev been mixed - P4s excel in some areas while Athlons at much slower clock speeds excel in others the P4 can't seem to master. I'd paint it a draw unless all you do is play Quake:)
So is it brand loyalty? The need to have that ultra high (and meaningless) MHz number? P4s are more expensive, though sometimes the mboos are cheaper than equivalent Athlons.
I'm not trying to start a flame fest of replies - I'm just curious if maybe theres experiences out there that the numerous HW sites haven't touched on that make waiting for the i845 worth doing.
Yes, I tend to lean towards Athlons due to teh price/performance ratio. I can't stomach the prices Intel wants for some of their CPUs when a 1GHz Athlon 266FSB is now < $100 But in teh technical community that is/., besides brand bias/loyalty are there really black and white compelling reasons to shun Athlons in favor of a P4 with SDRAM support? Remember, some of the benchmarks that P4s excelled on were due to memory bandwidth of RDRAM and with SDRAM, they may not be so high - only time will tell of course.
So if you reply, try to be insightful instead of saying AMD sucks - who knows - this thread might be worth reading for folks who don't check the HW sites daily:)
I have some encyclopdia on CD that came bundeled with an old PC from like '92 that blows that site away. Summary: Great concept (like linux) but not for the masses (like linux).
And if you'd actually read my post - I said that the content was lacking - but why does everyone expect new free websites to instantly have tons of great content? The idea behind a user contributed website is to build something that will benefit future users! THe first version of Linux sucked too compared to toadys kernels - but thousands of people, instead of saying 'this bites' saw excellent potential and built Linux into what is is today - a robust stable OS that serves a lot of the Internet content you read today.
Things like this take time and instead of complaining about how the content sucks, do somethign to improve it or move on - but don't fault the folks that care about this for trying their best.
THis is the last blow rambus, thus beginning the final stages of its demise.
You're probably right, however, I doubt RamBus will go quietly and will now focus even more intently on extorting money for its numerous patents - they've lost one case (if memory serves) but they'll probably waste millions of their money and the memory makers to try and extract every dime they can from their illegal patents. I wish they'd just file for Chapter whatever and go away
I think this is an excellent idea and I agree - anythign to help build the library of linux drivers is great.
But honestly, I own dozens of O;Reilley books and have happily spent what I have on them because they are excellent reference materials. I know if I managed to get interested in linux driver coding, this freebie would be great to get me hooked, but once I was, I'd surely buy the book just to have it readily handy to flip through, mark up, etc:)
O'Reilly has done wonders for Unix as a whole even before the Linux revolution took off - I still have my 1st edition Perl bible and will never part with it - It helped through too many projects at work.
So I say congrats to Oreilly and they have NOTHING to worry about - even if they give their books away for free online - they're good enough to pay for, even if just to support the efforts of OReilly as a whole. Keep up the great work!
What an excellent article. Normally I take atrticles about websites written by a principal of that website with a grain of salt. This was an excellent piece. Presenting pros and cons in a way that really made sense.
First, free content WILL succeed. I always chuckle when a new website comes out and a year later if it isn't loaded with content people say 'this sucks' or 'its a failure' Database driven sites are great - why? If you have the CPU power and storage - you can archive stuff forever (yes you can archive any website as it grows I know - but we're talking data driven sites) Think about it - if Nupedia continues to grow, even at a slow pace, but the aulity of articles is top notch - imagine the resource our children and grandchildren will have? That, to me, makes it well worth the effort and worthy of support.
Finally, I think the Nupedia team has come up with an excellent structure. Wikipedia is like Nupedia's farm team - Lots of items get submitted, the top quality content gets noticed, refined, and moved to the big leagues on Nupedia. Though I'm not super familiar with the workings of their system, the Nupedia chalkboard seems like one step too many - why couldn't articles be developed on the Wiki side and then moved to Nupedia when they are ready? There may be valid reasons for the third step - but the posting didn't really go into much detail on that.
All in all an excellent prooject and a great posting outlining the possibilities - course what they REALLY need to do is enter into an agreement with Everything2 and start getting potential NUpedia topics from there - I've found some excellent materials on E2 - it would be a great way to expand their 'farm system':)
I just can't get excited about 100,000 year old lakes on Mars. I'm not sure why. Hubble, ISS, Voyager, stuff like that - really cool. But is a 100,000 year of water basin worth a costly mission to confirm it - maybe - but I guess I'd rather see the money spent on things like ISS expansion, better weather sats, comm stas, etc, etc. I think spac exploration is great, but folks calling for new manned or unmanned missions to mars everytime a new sign of old water is found seem unrealistic. Don't get me wrong - the robotic camera that sent back panoramic views of Mars was incredible. But we've been there, done that and have awesome pics of the surface. DO we really need to spend billions finding out what the red dirt is made of?
I guess you can say that about any mission, but I support most of them. It just seems like Mars missions are stretching teh realism of current space budgets
Yes, being held that long is a joke - no question, but we need to avoid bring up a fool like Mitnick in relation to this case because people will hear Mitnick and think Dimitry is in teh same core and won't care if he rots in Vegas.
Seriously. What we need is to start an OSS project (or I'm sure one already exists) that is a toolset for Apache servers that can help fight IIS worms.:) How ironic.
The post above about security focus sending emails to infected machines - we could deveop a toolset/module that could assist in alerting admins who got hit. Obviously it would need a central DB to track who got nailed so the poor guys email server didn't crash when thousands of Apache servers sent emails to webmaster@yourdomain.com after they got probed. But seriously, the idea of a network of webservers running specialized tools being able to either alert webmasters once or twice when a probe from them arrives or even (shakey legal grond of course) having the ability to send out an anti-worm to patch teh server automagically and be done with it. Imagine the headlines the day after 'Linux web servers fix compromised IIS servers after DeathWorm IV spreads like wildfire'
While your concern about e-appliances is valid - I'm sure most of them will use FLASH memory so they can be patched -trouble is, the homeowner isn' going to do it so the service provider will need to do it remotely - which in itself opens up insecurities to be exploited.
But I sincerely doubt the majority of people will hook up appliances to teh Internet - there is no need and it costs too much (even with teh advent of super tiny an inexpensive web servers - its still a siazble cost when you consider access - running wire to it or wireless.
They also had a really cool docking station with a pen based color printer that printed on cash register paper - very cool - had these tiny little pens. You could write programs, save them on cassette, print them out - I've still got min e(along with a Model 100)
I remember working on a BBS for my Model 100 - just for kicks - it didn't really have enough disk space:) But it was fun and worked halfway decent. Cept my Mom kept complaining about the phone line always being busy!
"To protect our DoD [Department of Defense] Web sites from being compromised, DoD organizations have been told to review the status of the Internet information servers ⦠to make sure that all the patches that were previously installed had been installed"
The last part of that statement makes me feel REAL warm and fuzzy about the technical readiness of our military - even if he is just a spokesperson.
to see Microsoft respond so strongly to this. They must have really gotten spooked by the press this issue was getting.
I just hope their engineers are 100% sure that it was just isolated to that one lab in Russia. If other labs in the US encounter a similar issue AND the public finds out about it - Microsoft will be in a err, difficult position.
I find it interesting that the Russian lab rejected Microsofts offered fix - whats that all about? I'd love to know why they did that.
Hey - at least AOL knows what they have is pretty lame and they are going to get the technology to improve their shopping services - at least they chose a decent company - the trouble I see is if AOL decides to exert more influence and buy more of Amazon - I mean, its scary teh subtle changes you see. Once the Time/Warner - AOL deal was done, I was amazed at how the numerous "go to URL xyz.time.com to chat/read more/post, etc" that were at teh end of each TIME magazine article quickly disappeared and were replaced by just AOL keywords - which doesn't do me squat. Personally I think that they are hurting themselves. Not all TIME subscribers are AOL members - if they think stuff like that is gonna force me to be one - ha - not likely. I thought TIME was doing a good job trying to integrate their Internet properties with teh maagzine - now its all AOLacized which is sad.
But such is life. Same goes for CNN, I think it has changed drastically and not for the better. It used to be a hefty site with lots of goodies and tons of links on teh main page. The 'new look' feels to AOLacized - simpler, lots of flashy color backgrounds, and MUCH fewer links to choose from. That and it seems like the news quality and quantity of news reports has decreased. Again - a shame.
So while this investment isn't AOL buying Amazon, if they ever do, I shudder to think what will happen as AOL 'simplifies' the look and feel of Amazon, reducing its usability that so many have come to enjoy
Where are mod points when I need them - the parent of this thread was hilarious - guess I'll waste some karma instead.... If you've got mod points mod the parent back up - I mean it sucks that Dmitry is in jail - we all know that but a little humor is a GOOD thing, not a troll.
Hey if the astronauts get mad or just want to have some fun they could always push it around a little
Yeah, till one of them grabbed a bat and swung for the fences:) It would be tough to resist swinging at some floating red ball that keeps following you around saying "You're not gonna do THAT are you?"
I am impressed this is being covered by a major newspaper.
It is impressive. BUt 'older' media outlets like newspapers seem to be doing a better job covering the Internet and obscure issues than heavy internet properties like CNN & MSNBC - their stuff is too whitewashed.
I've been impressed at the technology coverage of papers like the LA Times and the NY TImes. Sure, they may be a few days late sometimes, but they still give our issues a wider audience.
Didn't Google get all sorts of patents on the concepts used in their search engine? You have to wonder if a patent fight is on the horizon. I for one encourage competition and it'll take some serious innovation to displace my beloved Google, but I say more power to them as long as they aren't just ripping off Google's concepts.
Well, that's what Max Vision did and got thrown in jail for 18 months - course he was stupid enough to fix the exploits on the computers and then installed his own little back door - kinda like making change in the offering plate and taking out more than you put in:)
Perhaps, but it is spreading faster and faster which makes it news. I'm starting to see more of these damn emails than SPAM! Which is scary! Mostly from folks I don't even know but probably sent email to at some point (I own a small business) Of course I had to laugh when I sent a detailed email reply to one user saying he'd been infected and sending him to sarc.com for more details. He replied back yelling at me for trying to infect his computer with an obvious virus email and suspect URL (it wasn't HTML format - just plain text) Makes it clear why some folks get infected. *cough*idiots*cough*
But remember, there have ben virii that have exploited vulnerabilities in Outlook that don't even require you to open anything - they were rare and not wide-spread, but it has been possible. Because Outlook is so closely tied to the rest of your system, it is dangerous. All it takes is a hacker finding a vulnerability in the Outlook security setup and they can own you without you even knowing it. So don't be so hellfire confident in Outlooks ability to avoid getting you infected.
The bottom line is you need a multi-layer defense. I laughed at our users who would call with a virus and say 'I never opened it - I have no idea where it came from, I have Outlook totally secure' yet their weekly anti-virus scan was disabled to catch anything that might have gottne through.
Slashdot Mirror
True - but then that is their job - to hunt out the good prospects from teh bad - and like all of use amatuer investors - they failed miserably!
Was it stupid business plans? Venture capitalists with unrealistic expectations?
I guess it was only a matter of time til failures started to blame the network that gave them the opportunity to succeed.
Let the lawsuits begin as usual. God how I wish some people would just accept responsibility for their actions and get over it!
This statement is one I've run across all too often. I've used AMD processors in WIndows and Linux systems for years since the K6 days. I'v enever had a compatability problem (OK - the linux kernel developers blacklists the AMD Irongate USB support for one release till they got specs to fix a bug)
Why is this opinion that AMD stuff will cause all sorts of compatabiltiy problems still prevelant? I mean AMD was a key WIndows 2000 partner with Microsoft to ensure Athlons ran WIndows 2K flawlessly. I can't remember that last time I saw a widespread AMD only problem - yes the VIA chipsets have had a few problems with the newest linux kernels - but widespread - well, not from what I've seen and now there are MANY vendors with chipsets out there.
So is this still a major issue - If it was I'd expect to see the HW review sites freaking out about all teh compatability rpoblems with AMD products. I jsut haven't seen it except when folks say it because they read it somewhere. THoguhts?
Gateway & COmpaq have been selling Athlons for some time. Dell's reluctance can only be attributed to a sweetheart deal from Intel - I too love Dell systems (My laptop is an Inspiron and I managed a support group who handled Dell servers and desktops - it was great) and can't understand why they refuse to add AMD processors to their lineup. I've been surprised they have held out this long - but Dell has a HUGE edge over others in that their corporate contracts which are for HIGH margin machines allow them to earn plenty of money without trying to attract low end buyers with AMD or Celeron type processors. I fear that until (if ever) corporate execs are willing to buy Athlon machines because they feel they are cuttin gedge, Dell will have no need to bother with AMD which is sad.
THink about the hell you'd go through changing SS#'s the next time someone asks for it! :) I used to be more laid back aout it - but am quickly starting to challenge companies that want my SS# - too bad - get another ID to use.
I'd have to rate changing SS3's above the nightmare of getting a new checkin gaccount or switching to a new health plan!
But beyond that - I'm a Cingular customer - so I'll have ot wait my turn to have my info sold er stolen.
I;m curious (and htis is NOT a flame - I'm really curious) If you've had the $$ for a new box and you want a speedster system - what kept you from getting an Athlon based system? The benchmarks I've seen between teh fastest P4s and Athlons haev been mixed - P4s excel in some areas while Athlons at much slower clock speeds excel in others the P4 can't seem to master. I'd paint it a draw unless all you do is play Quake :)
So is it brand loyalty? The need to have that ultra high (and meaningless) MHz number? P4s are more expensive, though sometimes the mboos are cheaper than equivalent Athlons.
I'm not trying to start a flame fest of replies - I'm just curious if maybe theres experiences out there that the numerous HW sites haven't touched on that make waiting for the i845 worth doing.
Yes, I tend to lean towards Athlons due to teh price/performance ratio. I can't stomach the prices Intel wants for some of their CPUs when a 1GHz Athlon 266FSB is now < $100 But in teh technical community that is /., besides brand bias/loyalty are there really black and white compelling reasons to shun Athlons in favor of a P4 with SDRAM support? Remember, some of the benchmarks that P4s excelled on were due to memory bandwidth of RDRAM and with SDRAM, they may not be so high - only time will tell of course.
So if you reply, try to be insightful instead of saying AMD sucks - who knows - this thread might be worth reading for folks who don't check the HW sites daily :)
And if you'd actually read my post - I said that the content was lacking - but why does everyone expect new free websites to instantly have tons of great content? The idea behind a user contributed website is to build something that will benefit future users! THe first version of Linux sucked too compared to toadys kernels - but thousands of people, instead of saying 'this bites' saw excellent potential and built Linux into what is is today - a robust stable OS that serves a lot of the Internet content you read today.
Things like this take time and instead of complaining about how the content sucks, do somethign to improve it or move on - but don't fault the folks that care about this for trying their best.
You're probably right, however, I doubt RamBus will go quietly and will now focus even more intently on extorting money for its numerous patents - they've lost one case (if memory serves) but they'll probably waste millions of their money and the memory makers to try and extract every dime they can from their illegal patents. I wish they'd just file for Chapter whatever and go away
But honestly, I own dozens of O;Reilley books and have happily spent what I have on them because they are excellent reference materials. I know if I managed to get interested in linux driver coding, this freebie would be great to get me hooked, but once I was, I'd surely buy the book just to have it readily handy to flip through, mark up, etc :)
O'Reilly has done wonders for Unix as a whole even before the Linux revolution took off - I still have my 1st edition Perl bible and will never part with it - It helped through too many projects at work.
So I say congrats to Oreilly and they have NOTHING to worry about - even if they give their books away for free online - they're good enough to pay for, even if just to support the efforts of OReilly as a whole. Keep up the great work!
First, free content WILL succeed. I always chuckle when a new website comes out and a year later if it isn't loaded with content people say 'this sucks' or 'its a failure' Database driven sites are great - why? If you have the CPU power and storage - you can archive stuff forever (yes you can archive any website as it grows I know - but we're talking data driven sites) Think about it - if Nupedia continues to grow, even at a slow pace, but the aulity of articles is top notch - imagine the resource our children and grandchildren will have? That, to me, makes it well worth the effort and worthy of support.
Finally, I think the Nupedia team has come up with an excellent structure. Wikipedia is like Nupedia's farm team - Lots of items get submitted, the top quality content gets noticed, refined, and moved to the big leagues on Nupedia. Though I'm not super familiar with the workings of their system, the Nupedia chalkboard seems like one step too many - why couldn't articles be developed on the Wiki side and then moved to Nupedia when they are ready? There may be valid reasons for the third step - but the posting didn't really go into much detail on that.
All in all an excellent prooject and a great posting outlining the possibilities - course what they REALLY need to do is enter into an agreement with Everything2 and start getting potential NUpedia topics from there - I've found some excellent materials on E2 - it would be a great way to expand their 'farm system' :)
I just can't get excited about 100,000 year old lakes on Mars. I'm not sure why. Hubble, ISS, Voyager, stuff like that - really cool. But is a 100,000 year of water basin worth a costly mission to confirm it - maybe - but I guess I'd rather see the money spent on things like ISS expansion, better weather sats, comm stas, etc, etc. I think spac exploration is great, but folks calling for new manned or unmanned missions to mars everytime a new sign of old water is found seem unrealistic. Don't get me wrong - the robotic camera that sent back panoramic views of Mars was incredible. But we've been there, done that and have awesome pics of the surface. DO we really need to spend billions finding out what the red dirt is made of? I guess you can say that about any mission, but I support most of them. It just seems like Mars missions are stretching teh realism of current space budgets
Yes, being held that long is a joke - no question, but we need to avoid bring up a fool like Mitnick in relation to this case because people will hear Mitnick and think Dimitry is in teh same core and won't care if he rots in Vegas.
The post above about security focus sending emails to infected machines - we could deveop a toolset/module that could assist in alerting admins who got hit. Obviously it would need a central DB to track who got nailed so the poor guys email server didn't crash when thousands of Apache servers sent emails to webmaster@yourdomain.com after they got probed. But seriously, the idea of a network of webservers running specialized tools being able to either alert webmasters once or twice when a probe from them arrives or even (shakey legal grond of course) having the ability to send out an anti-worm to patch teh server automagically and be done with it. Imagine the headlines the day after 'Linux web servers fix compromised IIS servers after DeathWorm IV spreads like wildfire'
We could call the project 'IISafe' or something.
Hey - it could happen :)
But I sincerely doubt the majority of people will hook up appliances to teh Internet - there is no need and it costs too much (even with teh advent of super tiny an inexpensive web servers - its still a siazble cost when you consider access - running wire to it or wireless.
I remember working on a BBS for my Model 100 - just for kicks - it didn't really have enough disk space :) But it was fun and worked halfway decent. Cept my Mom kept complaining about the phone line always being busy!
ABC News reported on this yesterday (I submitted it to /. but of course was rejected)
Key quote from a military spokesperson:
"To protect our DoD [Department of Defense] Web sites from being compromised, DoD organizations have been told to review the status of the Internet information servers ⦠to make sure that all the patches that were previously installed had been installed"
The last part of that statement makes me feel REAL warm and fuzzy about the technical readiness of our military - even if he is just a spokesperson.
I just hope their engineers are 100% sure that it was just isolated to that one lab in Russia. If other labs in the US encounter a similar issue AND the public finds out about it - Microsoft will be in a err, difficult position.
I find it interesting that the Russian lab rejected Microsofts offered fix - whats that all about? I'd love to know why they did that.
But such is life. Same goes for CNN, I think it has changed drastically and not for the better. It used to be a hefty site with lots of goodies and tons of links on teh main page. The 'new look' feels to AOLacized - simpler, lots of flashy color backgrounds, and MUCH fewer links to choose from. That and it seems like the news quality and quantity of news reports has decreased. Again - a shame.
So while this investment isn't AOL buying Amazon, if they ever do, I shudder to think what will happen as AOL 'simplifies' the look and feel of Amazon, reducing its usability that so many have come to enjoy
Where are mod points when I need them - the parent of this thread was hilarious - guess I'll waste some karma instead.... If you've got mod points mod the parent back up - I mean it sucks that Dmitry is in jail - we all know that but a little humor is a GOOD thing, not a troll.
Yeah, till one of them grabbed a bat and swung for the fences :) It would be tough to resist swinging at some floating red ball that keeps following you around saying "You're not gonna do THAT are you?"
It is impressive. BUt 'older' media outlets like newspapers seem to be doing a better job covering the Internet and obscure issues than heavy internet properties like CNN & MSNBC - their stuff is too whitewashed.
I've been impressed at the technology coverage of papers like the LA Times and the NY TImes. Sure, they may be a few days late sometimes, but they still give our issues a wider audience.
Didn't Google get all sorts of patents on the concepts used in their search engine? You have to wonder if a patent fight is on the horizon. I for one encourage competition and it'll take some serious innovation to displace my beloved Google, but I say more power to them as long as they aren't just ripping off Google's concepts.
Well, that's what Max Vision did and got thrown in jail for 18 months - course he was stupid enough to fix the exploits on the computers and then installed his own little back door - kinda like making change in the offering plate and taking out more than you put in :)
Perhaps, but it is spreading faster and faster which makes it news. I'm starting to see more of these damn emails than SPAM! Which is scary! Mostly from folks I don't even know but probably sent email to at some point (I own a small business) Of course I had to laugh when I sent a detailed email reply to one user saying he'd been infected and sending him to sarc.com for more details. He replied back yelling at me for trying to infect his computer with an obvious virus email and suspect URL (it wasn't HTML format - just plain text) Makes it clear why some folks get infected. *cough*idiots*cough*
The bottom line is you need a multi-layer defense. I laughed at our users who would call with a virus and say 'I never opened it - I have no idea where it came from, I have Outlook totally secure' yet their weekly anti-virus scan was disabled to catch anything that might have gottne through.