I am curious if there is a huge difference in the cost of the blank media. I have seen wildly fluctuating prices with the cheapest being about $0.75 for a blank DVD. Thoughts on this? Will this be a factor?
I don't have a solution to spam, but there are a few things I do that make me feel so much better when I get it.
I own my own domain name so any email address at my domain gets to me. So when I register for stuff, I use unique email addresses every time (i.e. amazon@mydomain.com, circuitcity@mydomain.com). So if anyone SELLS my email address, I know because I start getting spam at a particular address. So anyways... here are my two simple solutions:
1. For every piece of spam that I get, I send a 5 copies back to the mail relay that sent me the mail. If they are going to annoy me, at least I will chew up some of their bandwidth and CPU cycles.
2. And if someone "sold" my address, then I also send 5 copies of the spam to the rat-bastard seller. I hope to chew up their resources as well.
If EVERYONE did this, I think it would totally crash the offenders machines and clog up their big fat internet pipes.
I disagree that people are sick of paying for entertainment. Everyone claims to be fed up with the price of being entertained. But if that were really true, they would SIMPLY STOP PAYING FOR IT.
People are stupid. Maybe you and I are a little less stupid then the general public. But as a rule of thumb, people everywhere are all too willing to pay for entertainment. Any NBA, NFL, Major Leaguer in America makes a crapload. Even the third string guys. This is all due to stupid working-class joe's willingness to pay massive amounts of cash to be one of 23,000 fans in attendance tonight. If people werent willing to fork over the cash to be entertained, the world would be a very different place. Unfortunately for musicians the RIAA found a way to screw them. Now unfortunately for the RIAA, technology has found a way to screw them. But if lots people were *REALLY* sick of this, they would vote with their wallets. Despite the large user base of slashdot, it pales in comparison to the power of stupid consumers worldwide. If people wanted to put a stop to this they could:
- Stop buying CDs - Stop watching MTV - Never listen to a Clearchannel radio station - Support the local music scene - Find ways to support bands whose music you really like WITHOUT supporting the RIAA - Design/build/promote/support technology that helps good bands do what they do best - write and perform good music. (Anyone seen http://www.garageband.com/ The concept is pretty cool.)
Now only if technology could begin to lower the salary of professional athletes... Robots maybe?
I recall a month or so back there was some talk about one of the distributions (mandrake 9 maybe) being compiled/released with GCC 3.1. Is gcc 3.2 compatible with 3.1. If not, what does this mean for the distribution? Recompile with 3.2? Release as is? How does the politics on this work?
On a related note, has anyone found an inexpensive terminal server that can be used for remote administration. I have looked and found only expensive ones. Maybe one really cheap Linux box could be turned into a terminal server for another. Anyone have any experience with this?
I am not much of a political science student. Can someone inform me how this works? Congress can pass all the stupid laws it wants to, correct? But then usually a case will end up going to the supreme court where the high court examines and can potentially overturn certain unfair/unjust laws. Am I correct on this? Wouldn't it be good to welcome a high visibility case of the DMCA. Then, and only then, will the high court look at this issue.
I recall years ago that when I needed to back something up onto floppies, I would do a
pkzip -r -p -&...
and pkzip would SPAN DISKS. I would just continue to be prompted to add another disk until the backup was complete. This was a great feature. But as far as I can tell, there is no good way of doing this same thing with CDs. I have a 1.3 gig chunk of data that I would like to backup on CDs in a similar manner as the "-&" feature.
(Granted that doing this with floppies would take 700 and some odd disks but it is the point that I am trying to make...)
Is there any way to span CDs in a similar fashion? Once I can do this I will stop backing up my 30 gig drive to floppies.
I still think that donations are the way to go. I would definitely send a few bucks now and then for the bandwidth that I use. As soon as someone tells me how much my viewership is worth and demands payment, that is when I lose interest. If slashdot starts requiring me to pay $7/month ill probably stop reading, but if the put a donation cup out front, i might put in $15/month.
Dynamic Websites using Perl/XML/XSLT
on
Perl & XML
·
· Score: 1
I have recently learned XML/XSLT. I have been able to completely stop writing HTML code. I have been able to write all of my static web pages in XML and use XSLT (via Xalan) to generate the HTML. This is great... but I have only been successful with static web pages, not dynamic ones.
I would like to extend on this flexibility to dynamic web pages. I would like to have some type of CGI script that generates XML instead of HTML... then transforms the XML to HTML via XSLT; all on the fly. I have looked into XML::XSLT. Anyone have any other good solutions?
I really think that donations are the best way to potentially make a little cash. No one is going to get rich with donations, but I would put a few bucks in to all the projects I really like. Now... if there was only some type of safe open source donation system. Paypal is no good. Maybe the GNU team should sponsor its own escrow service like paypal. It should, however, be an official BANK with FDIC insurance. And it should work out all the possible hangups regarding buyers protection services. That would be GREAT!
Speaking of standards and supporting multiple browsers... I do some web development on the side. One of the companies I work for doesn't care if we screw over Netscape 4.x users. This makes development real easy (using XHTML, HTML 4.0, CSS, etc). The other companies I work for want me to still support Netscape 4.x. I HATE SUPPORTING NETSCAPE 4.x. Are there any opinions on how long old browsers should be supported? Is it safe to say that anyone using any half-way decent OS can get some flavor of Mozilla or Netscape 6.x? The only OS that I know is screwed is Solaris 2.5 or less. Anything else?
Is anyone at all concerned with the amount of RF radiation this will hit people with? When I am on the train now, every person sitting around me is chatting on the cell phone. I am trying to ignore all the second-hand radiation. With the new WiFi networks, now I will have a bunch of high-frequency surfers along with cell phone users. I will probably be glowing when I get off the train.
I am curious if it is a breach of the DMCA to reverse engineer the MS proprietary document formats? Is it illegal for non-MS programs to support MS document formats?
In order to make money and stay in business in a PVR world, the networks are going to have to consider different business models. There are a few options that can still generate revenue for the networks
1. Quality Commercials - if commercials were funny, entertaining, enlightening, etc, people may watch them. I have a show recorded on my TiVo that I am saving just because of one really good commercial that aired. (It is that one where death is on that black horse and tried to catch that car...) PVR may just kill all the CRAPPY commercials and leave only the entertaining ones. That would be great!!
2 Another option is product placement. Companies could make contracts with studios and networks to place their products right in the show (i.e. - If Joey and Chandler use Motorola cell phones, you just might too). They do this in movies all the time.
Modern technology is threatening current business models everywhere. I personally think that it is great. Companies need to re-evauluate how things are done. The status quo has been shrinking the American middle class for some time now. It is about time that things change. Techology can help do it. Maybe the cast of all the top shows won't be making 2 million per episode anymore. But those are the breaks.
In addition to telling congress everything we slashdotters dislike, how about things we like. Is there any initiative to suggest how things might be done instead. Maybe the federal government needs options. The only ones presenting anything are large companies to have a lot to gain. Maybe the open source community needs its own lobbyists. Thoughts on how this could be done.
Why wait for hydrogen to relieve the dependence on foreign oil. In the states there are thousands of farmers who cannot afford to eat. Why haven't ethanol powered automobiles showed themselves? Corn products seem like a great way to help improve the economy by helping out the farmers, providing new jobs, and lowering the dependence on petrol? What gives? Why are there no ethanol cars?
I have no problem with people trying to find E.T. life out there. This is cool provided that we are only "listening." I am not sure that it is a good idea to be broadcasting out into space. When sending messages out into space it is like we are saying,
"Attention highly developed races!!! Now hear this!! Are you looking for new world's to conquer? Have you depleted all the natural resources on your homeworld? If so, why not come conquer us? We are very primitive. Still using radio and analog tranismission signals. Just follow this signal back to our homeworld."
Now that I am on the subject. This goes for AI development too. There is a ton of cash spent each year on Articial Intelligence. Didn't anyone watch Terminator or the Matrix? Even if some computer whiz figures out AI, the best he can hope for is that he only coded himself out of a job.
Rather than setup a subscription fee, why not setup some way to donate. Paypal or other service possibly? Every few months I would probably rifle off a donation for the info on slashdot. I am much more likely to give money via donation than I would if I was "required" to pay for some subscription.
As soon as some company decides how much their service is worth, I get disinterested. I hate when services think that they can dictate their worth to me. If you setup a donation option, I will pay what I think the service is worth. Slashdot would definitely get a few dollars from me. However, if it goes to mandatory subscription service, Ill probably just watch TV instead.
A while back people were chatting about the possibility of developing some open hardware standards. I want to buy a new laptop but vendors all have proprietary designs and can charge mega-$$$$ for upgrades and replacements. Has there been any new effort towards developing open hardware specifications?
Slashdot Mirror
OpenOffice for the Mac: http://neooffice.org/
Does anyone know the list of file types that Spotlight will be able to index out-of-the-box? OpenOffice maybe?
I am curious if there is a huge difference in the cost of the blank media. I have seen wildly fluctuating prices with the cheapest being about $0.75 for a blank DVD. Thoughts on this? Will this be a factor?
I don't have a solution to spam, but there are a few things I do that make me feel so much better when I get it.
I own my own domain name so any email address at my domain gets to me. So when I register for stuff, I use unique email addresses every time (i.e. amazon@mydomain.com, circuitcity@mydomain.com). So if anyone SELLS my email address, I know because I start getting spam at a particular address. So anyways... here are my two simple solutions:
1. For every piece of spam that I get, I send a 5 copies back to the mail relay that sent me the mail. If they are going to annoy me, at least I will chew up some of their bandwidth and CPU cycles.
2. And if someone "sold" my address, then I also send 5 copies of the spam to the rat-bastard seller. I hope to chew up their resources as well.
If EVERYONE did this, I think it would totally crash the offenders machines and clog up their big fat internet pipes.
I disagree that people are sick of paying for entertainment. Everyone claims to be fed up with the price of being entertained. But if that were really true, they would SIMPLY STOP PAYING FOR IT.
People are stupid. Maybe you and I are a little less stupid then the general public. But as a rule of thumb, people everywhere are all too willing to pay for entertainment. Any NBA, NFL, Major Leaguer in America makes a crapload. Even the third string guys. This is all due to stupid working-class joe's willingness to pay massive amounts of cash to be one of 23,000 fans in attendance tonight. If people werent willing to fork over the cash to be entertained, the world would be a very different place. Unfortunately for musicians the RIAA found a way to screw them. Now unfortunately for the RIAA, technology has found a way to screw them. But if lots people were *REALLY* sick of this, they would vote with their wallets. Despite the large user base of slashdot, it pales in comparison to the power of stupid consumers worldwide. If people wanted to put a stop to this they could:
- Stop buying CDs
- Stop watching MTV
- Never listen to a Clearchannel radio station
- Support the local music scene
- Find ways to support bands whose music you really like WITHOUT supporting the RIAA
- Design/build/promote/support technology that helps good bands do what they do best - write and perform good music. (Anyone seen http://www.garageband.com/ The concept is pretty cool.)
Now only if technology could begin to lower the salary of professional athletes... Robots maybe?
The 70s?!?!?? Who was around way back then?
I recall a month or so back there was some talk about one of the distributions (mandrake 9 maybe) being compiled/released with GCC 3.1. Is gcc 3.2 compatible with 3.1. If not, what does this mean for the distribution? Recompile with 3.2? Release as is? How does the politics on this work?
On a related note, has anyone found an inexpensive terminal server that can be used for remote administration. I have looked and found only expensive ones. Maybe one really cheap Linux box could be turned into a terminal server for another. Anyone have any experience with this?
I am not much of a political science student. Can someone inform me how this works? Congress can pass all the stupid laws it wants to, correct? But then usually a case will end up going to the supreme court where the high court examines and can potentially overturn certain unfair/unjust laws. Am I correct on this? Wouldn't it be good to welcome a high visibility case of the DMCA. Then, and only then, will the high court look at this issue.
I recall years ago that when I needed to back something up onto floppies, I would do a
...
pkzip -r -p -&
and pkzip would SPAN DISKS. I would just continue to be prompted to add another disk until the backup was complete. This was a great feature. But as far as I can tell, there is no good way of doing this same thing with CDs. I have a 1.3 gig chunk of data that I would like to backup on CDs in a similar manner as the "-&" feature.
(Granted that doing this with floppies would take 700 and some odd disks but it is the point that I am trying to make...)
Is there any way to span CDs in a similar fashion? Once I can do this I will stop backing up my 30 gig drive to floppies.
I still think that donations are the way to go. I would definitely send a few bucks now and then for the bandwidth that I use. As soon as someone tells me how much my viewership is worth and demands payment, that is when I lose interest. If slashdot starts requiring me to pay $7/month ill probably stop reading, but if the put a donation cup out front, i might put in $15/month.
I have recently learned XML/XSLT. I have been able to completely stop writing HTML code. I have been able to write all of my static web pages in XML and use XSLT (via Xalan) to generate the HTML. This is great... but I have only been successful with static web pages, not dynamic ones.
I would like to extend on this flexibility to dynamic web pages. I would like to have some type of CGI script that generates XML instead of HTML... then transforms the XML to HTML via XSLT; all on the fly. I have looked into XML::XSLT. Anyone have any other good solutions?
I really think that donations are the best way to potentially make a little cash. No one is going to get rich with donations, but I would put a few bucks in to all the projects I really like. Now... if there was only some type of safe open source donation system. Paypal is no good. Maybe the GNU team should sponsor its own escrow service like paypal. It should, however, be an official BANK with FDIC insurance. And it should work out all the possible hangups regarding buyers protection services. That would be GREAT!
Speaking of standards and supporting multiple browsers... I do some web development on the side. One of the companies I work for doesn't care if we screw over Netscape 4.x users. This makes development real easy (using XHTML, HTML 4.0, CSS, etc). The other companies I work for want me to still support Netscape 4.x. I HATE SUPPORTING NETSCAPE 4.x. Are there any opinions on how long old browsers should be supported? Is it safe to say that anyone using any half-way decent OS can get some flavor of Mozilla or Netscape 6.x? The only OS that I know is screwed is Solaris 2.5 or less. Anything else?
Is anyone at all concerned with the amount of RF radiation this will hit people with? When I am on the train now, every person sitting around me is chatting on the cell phone. I am trying to ignore all the second-hand radiation. With the new WiFi networks, now I will have a bunch of high-frequency surfers along with cell phone users. I will probably be glowing when I get off the train.
I am curious if it is a breach of the DMCA to reverse engineer the MS proprietary document formats? Is it illegal for non-MS programs to support MS document formats?
In order to make money and stay in business in a PVR world, the networks are going to have to consider different business models. There are a few options that can still generate revenue for the networks
1. Quality Commercials - if commercials were funny, entertaining, enlightening, etc, people may watch them. I have a show recorded on my TiVo that I am saving just because of one really good commercial that aired. (It is that one where death is on that black horse and tried to catch that car...) PVR may just kill all the CRAPPY commercials and leave only the entertaining ones. That would be great!!
2 Another option is product placement. Companies could make contracts with studios and networks to place their products right in the show (i.e. - If Joey and Chandler use Motorola cell phones, you just might too). They do this in movies all the time.
Modern technology is threatening current business models everywhere. I personally think that it is great. Companies need to re-evauluate how things are done. The status quo has been shrinking the American middle class for some time now. It is about time that things change. Techology can help do it. Maybe the cast of all the top shows won't be making 2 million per episode anymore. But those are the breaks.
In addition to telling congress everything we slashdotters dislike, how about things we like. Is there any initiative to suggest how things might be done instead. Maybe the federal government needs options. The only ones presenting anything are large companies to have a lot to gain. Maybe the open source community needs its own lobbyists. Thoughts on how this could be done.
Why wait for hydrogen to relieve the dependence on foreign oil. In the states there are thousands of farmers who cannot afford to eat. Why haven't ethanol powered automobiles showed themselves? Corn products seem like a great way to help improve the economy by helping out the farmers, providing new jobs, and lowering the dependence on petrol? What gives? Why are there no ethanol cars?
I have no problem with people trying to find E.T. life out there. This is cool provided that we are only "listening." I am not sure that it is a good idea to be broadcasting out into space. When sending messages out into space it is like we are saying,
"Attention highly developed races!!! Now hear this!! Are you looking for new world's to conquer? Have you depleted all the natural resources on your homeworld? If so, why not come conquer us? We are very primitive. Still using radio and analog tranismission signals. Just follow this signal back to our homeworld."
Now that I am on the subject. This goes for AI development too. There is a ton of cash spent each year on Articial Intelligence. Didn't anyone watch Terminator or the Matrix? Even if some computer whiz figures out AI, the best he can hope for is that he only coded himself out of a job.
Rather than setup a subscription fee, why not setup some way to donate. Paypal or other service possibly? Every few months I would probably rifle off a donation for the info on slashdot. I am much more likely to give money via donation than I would if I was "required" to pay for some subscription.
As soon as some company decides how much their service is worth, I get disinterested. I hate when services think that they can dictate their worth to me. If you setup a donation option, I will pay what I think the service is worth. Slashdot would definitely get a few dollars from me. However, if it goes to mandatory subscription service, Ill probably just watch TV instead.
A while back people were chatting about the possibility of developing some open hardware standards. I want to buy a new laptop but vendors all have proprietary designs and can charge mega-$$$$ for upgrades and replacements. Has there been any new effort towards developing open hardware specifications?