I was informed that economic and anarchistic terrorist attacks were at least one of the considerations my employer (a managed hosting provider) had taken into account. I visited one of our farms not too long ago and they had all redundant systems, including connectivity, different sources of power (dual power lines, UPSes, marine diesel generators), A/C and fire suppression. The building is also rated to be resistant to a non-direct nuclear strike. (But if everyone's dead, why do you need a web site anyways?)
The Myth Of Teleportation
Will The Teleport Ever Be Adopted for Widespread Use?
by John C. Dvorak v8.4ac3
December 31, 2377
My nomination for "most foolish product" this year is the obvious choice, the teleport. What a foolish notion, this concept that the public is interested in real-time physical transmission. Why would anybody pay for, say, having a hot chick perform pr0n acts right in front of (or in some cases, with) them when they can just download a video for a much more reasonable fee.
While some of us 'early adopters' might think it's reasonable to expect people to have a teleporter in their space colony by the 24th century, the fact of the matter is that it's an unneccessary luxury. For half a decade we've had the Imperial Coruscant Postal Service since the 22nd century and it has worked just fine.
This 'teleport' is an unneccessary expense for casual users, and will never affect the lives of most people for centuries to come. Real-time physical transmission? who needs it!
My understanding about Y2k was that the reason alot of seemingly Y2k-uncompliant systems were being overhauled was because no one really wanted to touch them. If they were working and doing the stuff you wanted them to, why change a good thing? It would be really expensive to move your operations over to a newer platform and reengineer all your business logic to that platform.
In my org (we use NT Domain auth) I'm pretty sure we still use NT as the DC platform. It works (since I'm able to log in every day) and there's no reason to touch it. Using a subscription model potentially means an org has to reeng alot of systems and bring on expensive hired guns to make that transition.
Someone mentioned how some businesses might like to take small hits rather than one large one - they will STILL take that one large hit but just from a different angle. And the transition won't be entirely smooth. Just ask developers who have to port their VB6 apps over to VB.Net.
Programming (and other mathematical/engineering disciplines) is about building useful structures. The humans doing the building may be partially guided by artistic concerns, but that doesn't make the output "art". The primary purpose is "does it work" not "is it nice to look at" or even "is it elegant."
I think I will disagree with this one. Though invisible to the untrained eye, I think well-written code or well-designed architecture / functionality has beauty and elegance of its own. I guess it's similar in how literary prose is sometimes considered art.
The host mentioned how Allchin wanted Congress to pass legislation to protect intellectual property rights. Wait... I remember someone crying foul when Netscape et. al. ganged up on Microsoft to have them stop integrating IE with Windows. They went to Congress to whine rather than competing against MS with their own products. I guess then those companies felt the only way to fight the MS monster was to legislate them to death.
Now MS might want to do the same to Linux.... They want whine to (and bribe) Congress to legislate against a public domain entity rather than compete on their products' merits. Hmmmm.....
You say making a headless clone is ethical cuz there's no soul. If I recall my physiology correctly (from lectures 8 years ago), that would be kinda hard since the brain provides certain autonomic functions. Again IIRC, the vagus nerves come down to connect to the heart and provide a stimulus to make it contract in a wave pattern. On top of that, the hippocampus (I think) stimulates the adrenal glands to release epinephrine which influences the heart. I forgot how the lungs work.
I guess you would need a head, but the brain just ought not to have the capacity for higher functions that would be construed as conciousness.
Alot of spammers leave a telephone number for you to call and leave a message. You really want to spend your money to do something that's essentially a waste of time and breath and will eventually be ignored?
Spammers usually use a fake or disposable email address. The only thing you could perhaps do is track the email to the offending SMTP server and tell the admin to secure their box.
Spammers' emails have links to "let you remove your email from their system." This is just another way to verify that they've pissed off a person at a legitimate address.
Lately some spammers have been putting on a disclaimer saying "we can circumvent this law because we're sending out this delicious spam only once." In this case they're not even letting you have the chance of removing your name!
The only way to prevent spam is for the formation of a group that tracks down emails/phone numbers and kills these people.;)
IMO there is no difference between projects that conform to SDLC principles and the open source development model. It seems to me for the most part alot of open source projects deal with small programs and the effort of a single person or small group. People would say that these small programs are written to "scratch an itch". But the presence of the itch indicates there is a problem/need or an opportunity. Then the people with that problem/need/opportunity decide how they want to deal with it programmatically. After they come up with a design they go ahead and create a prototype. When they're done they release a public beta for everyone else to try out.
I would think larger open source projects (Gnome, KDE, etc.) would require a more formal SDLC because they're so much larger in scope and encompass more technologies and objectives. Otherwise small open source projects and large formal projects both require planning - they just differ in the degree of involvement.
At my last job the village VB programmer turned a humble NT workstation into a control unit that played CDs, DVDs, MP3s, access music, movies, streaming video, video downloads, Internet radio, Web surfing, e-mail... Wait - that sounds like what this ZapStation does. (And he this it almost 4 years ago.)
I was planning on doing this to my own entertainment system downstairs... I guess I might break down and get one of these things (but only if the price comes down).
When people say that Linux is so great because of user choice, they are right. But choice should not cause the Linux world to splinter into two. I see no reason why everyone (and every distro) shouldn't have both installed by default, with a pull-down menu on the login screen. Let's move towards sharing desktops, themes, menus, etc. between the two, so when I switch from KDE to Gnome on a whim, I can still access all my menus and desktop icons. Some work is being done towards this already.
They ought to go beyond just sharing superficial details to actually creating transparent operability. The two teams ought to work on making some kind of API translation layer, if not a unified onject model, so people don't have to worry about choosing a desktop environment based on what apps they want to use. It'd be great if I could just drag and drop an icon from the Gnome file manager into a KDE-based application and vice versa...
Was the criteria for an application laid out? Stacker used to be an app; now it's in NT/W2k. Word/Excel/etc used to be separate entities; now they're bundled. And who can forget our friend Internet Exploder^h^h^hrer.
I work at an application service provider that's whored itself to Sun/M$/Compaq. I've asked one of our senior R&D engineers why haven't we productized a series of services based on Linux and he gave me his one-line answer: there is no demand for it among our customer base.
We cater to mostly Fortune 500 companies and it seems they're not interested in using Linux. If that's the case, it doesn't matter that Linux is stable, low-cost, ghostable, yadda yadda yadda. He said unless customers start demanding it like barbarians at the gate, the company won't invest money and research in creating a secure, scalable managed platform. (Linux is still used mostly as infrastructure servers in these companies, right?)
And just for the record he's a Winbloze engineer, but he's all for anything that'll bring in profits. Even if that means introducing Linux.
What ever happened with that potential alliance? If anything that would be the best thing that could happen to the Linux GUI desktop IMO. It will be successful not because Gnome and KDE would look the same (I hope it won't come to that, and if an OEM decides to do so, a user should still have the option to customize the desktop), but because the result would be an object framework that would enable Gnome and KDE apps to work with each other.
Not to criticize anyone, but this site was already linked to/. yesterday in an article. The link was buried deep in the comments section. I know/. doesn't have the resources to peruse through everything, but the story isn't that exciting anymore.
BTW I'm still wondering how that person got the spammer's screenshot. I doubt that woman had enough rocks for brains to even know of pcA or VNC and he'd have to get past AOL's proxies. Am I missing something here?
For Pete's sake man I understand this is an important issue, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with SO5.2! I normally tolerate offtopic rants but this is ridiculous - it's just too long. And if this kind of ramble is going to be moderated up what's the use of moderating content? Might as well just set my prefs to -1.
Just wondering... Aren't there people who say in a few years chipmakers will hit some kind of quantum wall where the transistors and wires on a chip will be so small the electrons will just jump all over? Will this technology simply make that point moot or did someone forget to check that part?
This movie is obviously going to not draw as many protests at the theatres as the DeCSS case has but I just wanted to ask/. readers to boycott the movie. This movie was shot on a beautiful but ecologically fragile island off the coast of Thailand. From all reports, the crews ruined the beach and it was strewn with litter.
Slashdot Mirror
Does the EU then consider silicon dioxide to be a hazard on beaches worldwide?
I was informed that economic and anarchistic terrorist attacks were at least one of the considerations my employer (a managed hosting provider) had taken into account. I visited one of our farms not too long ago and they had all redundant systems, including connectivity, different sources of power (dual power lines, UPSes, marine diesel generators), A/C and fire suppression. The building is also rated to be resistant to a non-direct nuclear strike. (But if everyone's dead, why do you need a web site anyways?)
The Myth Of Teleportation
Will The Teleport Ever Be Adopted for Widespread Use?
by John C. Dvorak v8.4ac3
December 31, 2377
My nomination for "most foolish product" this year is the obvious choice, the teleport. What a foolish notion, this concept that the public is interested in real-time physical transmission. Why would anybody pay for, say, having a hot chick perform pr0n acts right in front of (or in some cases, with) them when they can just download a video for a much more reasonable fee.
While some of us 'early adopters' might think it's reasonable to expect people to have a teleporter in their space colony by the 24th century, the fact of the matter is that it's an unneccessary luxury. For half a decade we've had the Imperial Coruscant Postal Service since the 22nd century and it has worked just fine.
This 'teleport' is an unneccessary expense for casual users, and will never affect the lives of most people for centuries to come. Real-time physical transmission? who needs it!
My understanding about Y2k was that the reason alot of seemingly Y2k-uncompliant systems were being overhauled was because no one really wanted to touch them. If they were working and doing the stuff you wanted them to, why change a good thing? It would be really expensive to move your operations over to a newer platform and reengineer all your business logic to that platform.
In my org (we use NT Domain auth) I'm pretty sure we still use NT as the DC platform. It works (since I'm able to log in every day) and there's no reason to touch it. Using a subscription model potentially means an org has to reeng alot of systems and bring on expensive hired guns to make that transition.
Someone mentioned how some businesses might like to take small hits rather than one large one - they will STILL take that one large hit but just from a different angle. And the transition won't be entirely smooth. Just ask developers who have to port their VB6 apps over to VB.Net.
Programming (and other mathematical/engineering disciplines) is about building useful structures. The humans doing the building may be partially guided by artistic concerns, but that doesn't make the output "art". The primary purpose is "does it work" not "is it nice to look at" or even "is it elegant."
I think I will disagree with this one. Though invisible to the untrained eye, I think well-written code or well-designed architecture / functionality has beauty and elegance of its own. I guess it's similar in how literary prose is sometimes considered art.
The host mentioned how Allchin wanted Congress to pass legislation to protect intellectual property rights. Wait... I remember someone crying foul when Netscape et. al. ganged up on Microsoft to have them stop integrating IE with Windows. They went to Congress to whine rather than competing against MS with their own products. I guess then those companies felt the only way to fight the MS monster was to legislate them to death.
Now MS might want to do the same to Linux.... They want whine to (and bribe) Congress to legislate against a public domain entity rather than compete on their products' merits. Hmmmm.....
And have my refrigerator blue screen on me?!?! No thanks!!!
I guess you would need a head, but the brain just ought not to have the capacity for higher functions that would be construed as conciousness.
Perhaps to transport political dissidents to labor camps faster?
...If someone in India fixed the northern Indian power grid!!!
The only way to prevent spam is for the formation of a group that tracks down emails/phone numbers and kills these people. ;)
...And I told her it was Sony's new Walkman. She groaned.
I would think larger open source projects (Gnome, KDE, etc.) would require a more formal SDLC because they're so much larger in scope and encompass more technologies and objectives. Otherwise small open source projects and large formal projects both require planning - they just differ in the degree of involvement.
At my last job the village VB programmer turned a humble NT workstation into a control unit that played CDs, DVDs, MP3s, access music, movies, streaming video, video downloads, Internet radio, Web surfing, e-mail... Wait - that sounds like what this ZapStation does. (And he this it almost 4 years ago.)
I was planning on doing this to my own entertainment system downstairs... I guess I might break down and get one of these things (but only if the price comes down).
There was a tiny scene in an anime film (Gunbuster?) where a character was riding up a cablecar up to a tethered space station.
They ought to go beyond just sharing superficial details to actually creating transparent operability. The two teams ought to work on making some kind of API translation layer, if not a unified onject model, so people don't have to worry about choosing a desktop environment based on what apps they want to use. It'd be great if I could just drag and drop an icon from the Gnome file manager into a KDE-based application and vice versa...
Was the criteria for an application laid out? Stacker used to be an app; now it's in NT/W2k. Word/Excel/etc used to be separate entities; now they're bundled. And who can forget our friend Internet Exploder^h^h^hrer.
We cater to mostly Fortune 500 companies and it seems they're not interested in using Linux. If that's the case, it doesn't matter that Linux is stable, low-cost, ghostable, yadda yadda yadda. He said unless customers start demanding it like barbarians at the gate, the company won't invest money and research in creating a secure, scalable managed platform. (Linux is still used mostly as infrastructure servers in these companies, right?)
And just for the record he's a Winbloze engineer, but he's all for anything that'll bring in profits. Even if that means introducing Linux.
What ever happened with that potential alliance? If anything that would be the best thing that could happen to the Linux GUI desktop IMO. It will be successful not because Gnome and KDE would look the same (I hope it won't come to that, and if an OEM decides to do so, a user should still have the option to customize the desktop), but because the result would be an object framework that would enable Gnome and KDE apps to work with each other.
Hey I had a good laugh when the Powerpuff girls were spoofing Dragonball Z (as well as SW:Epi4).
BTW I'm still wondering how that person got the spammer's screenshot. I doubt that woman had enough rocks for brains to even know of pcA or VNC and he'd have to get past AOL's proxies. Am I missing something here?
Now you can give PHBs one of these tablets and when they need to reboot just tell the PHBs to shake them!
For Pete's sake man I understand this is an important issue, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with SO5.2! I normally tolerate offtopic rants but this is ridiculous - it's just too long. And if this kind of ramble is going to be moderated up what's the use of moderating content? Might as well just set my prefs to -1.
Just wondering... Aren't there people who say in a few years chipmakers will hit some kind of quantum wall where the transistors and wires on a chip will be so small the electrons will just jump all over? Will this technology simply make that point moot or did someone forget to check that part?
This movie is obviously going to not draw as many protests at the theatres as the DeCSS case has but I just wanted to ask /. readers to boycott the movie. This movie was shot on a beautiful but ecologically fragile island off the coast of Thailand. From all reports, the crews ruined the beach and it was strewn with litter.