My primary computer lab uses 1980s Television show titles. Nothing like logging in to "ateam" or "familyties".
The other, larger, lab, uses names related to cyberpunk literature and the movie, "Bladerunner". Names include such titles as, "dexedrine", "batty" and "chatsubo"
As for servers, I generally try to follow the convetion for the labs. I have a "gongshow" as well as an "AC" and a "DC" (get it?). fun fun fun!
The sad part is, I have more than half of that crap either in my apartment somewhere or in my office... and I'm only 22 and have never even *used* half of what it is that I do have.
As to the other stuff, it would only take me a couple hours to dig around and find it.
You and many others have argued some very good points in reaction to my post. Yours especially is interesting to think about. By the very act of making a thorough case-by-case basis, they are in fact discriminating. It's something to ponder.
Also, to the individual who posted regarding the fact Comedx is, in fact, an event sponsored by a private organzation, I agree with you. I should have thought more carefully when I wrote my piece. You are right, they are a private organization and have every right to limit who goes in to their event. However, I would hope to argue that they might have a little more insight to what the world has become and realize that there are some people under 18 that are and will continue to make valuable contributions to the industry and that these individuals would benefit greatly from attending Comdex.
I already made the concession that not every kid under 18 needs or should attend Comdex, but that there are exceptions. As many of us know, the exceptions to the rule are often to most difficult cases to handle, whether it be in regards to Comdex, system administration, Linux or life in general
For all the advocacy these days for the rights of children and the push towards getting kids interested in math, science and engineering, I see this move by the folks managing Comdex as a serious travesty. For years and years now college students and many bright young high school kids have been often times at the very fore-front of the technological envelope. What I fail to see, though, is why a person's age has any affect on what that person's abilities are when it comes to participating in a convention. The only reason I could agree to something like this is if law prevented the individual from going.
Whom does it serve to prevent the very best and brightest entrepreneurs from attending? Why must kids who are constantly being told that they need to become "more involved" and need to "make something of themselves" are constantly being held back with excuses like, "you're not old enough" and "you don't have that right". On one hand, the government is telling many kids that they have the right to divorce their parents, for example. Other examples include allowing a child to have the right to sue their school over something as trivial as being prevented from participating in cheerleading because of bad marks (as a case in Ohio proved). On the other hand, we're telling people under 18 that they're not smart enough to vote, not smart enough to drink (at least in the U.S.), not old enough to determine whether they need to attend school or not and not old enough to sign legal documents. At this rate, who is to say that legislation shouldn't be enacted from people under 18 from holding jobs or from starting companies or from learning how the world they are about to enter into and shape works?
This just sickens me.
Now, Comdex can come back saying something like, "Our main goal is to prevent families with kids from coming in and treating the convention like a circus." This point has some merit. I know that I would not appreciate having to navigate through strollers and pouty children while trying to learn more about cutting edge products. I have enough problem with screaming kids in church (but that's a different thread altogether).
What I think would benefit everyone in this case would be a levelheaded case-by-case look at individuals whom have a real vested interested in attending. Discrimination of this type (mind you, I use this word very carefully) really has no place in this literal "world of tomorrow."
For all of our sake, I hope Mike Lavers continues to press on and make a case of this. I think he has a very valid point and has every right to attend Comdex. It's bad business to prevent him from going. As an aside to his father, I hope he continues to encourage his son and I hope they are able to build a strong business and interest other young people into participating and building in the high tech culture that is all of our future.
You do have a point somewhat. However, please realize that it is also entirely possible that this person really is telling the truth. It is highly like that said person did have moderator right under his or her account. However, in order to post the flame, they went to another computer or logged in differently on the same computer. Hence, when they posted, the Slashdot software didn't recognize the person as having an account and the AC post.
I thought your piece was very though provoking and "to the point", which is difficult to find in today's modern media. While I don't necessarily agree with you in the fact that the current tech shortage is a falacy, I do agree with you on some of the other points you make.
I also found your discussion of a number of topics particularly interesting. I am all about getting to the meat of the matter and cutting out as much verbiage as possible. It was refreshing to see so much content is so little space.
For what it's worth, I think Slashdot (and many other fine online publications out there (although Wired is certainly questionable these days)) has every right to be called a magazine. Good luck on your attempts to gain the respect and peer acceptance Slashdot rightfully deserves.
What a very thought provoking and timely speech. I only wish I could have been present to hear it from the man himself. In either case, he brings up many interesting points. The crux of the whole speech revolves around this statement from him, "We need new business models. And those models are not always what you might expect."
In general, we Linuxites have to remember some important things if we are to ever prevail:
1) Money/compensation is a driving force. We can't ignore it. 2) The OSS *can* make money, just not how we expect it to make money 3) We have to support vendors who are more than "hip" to the OSS system. We don't need lip service. We need to seek out vendors that truly incorporate OSS as part of their entire business model. What will this model look like? I can only begin to guess. 4) Keep your eyes on the prize. If, as a community, we succumb to the tunnel vision concept of, "Kill Microsoft!", all hope is certainly lost. As an anecdotal example, look at Apple and their Macintosh fiasco in '84. In many respects, I see similarities in the Big Brother image in their infamous 1984-esque commercial and much of the Linux rhetoric I read here day in and day out. Look what it did to Apple. I imagine if they would have focused on reality a bit and what really mattered, things may have turned out differently.
All I'm asking is a little reality from the community. Read the article, please. Follow your mother's advice about the big bad bully. Ignore him and he'll eventually go away. I suspect this will be the same with Microsoft. The more focus *we* put on them the more press they receive. Let's focus on our own merits and achievements and strive to make not just a better product, but the best product we can.
It *has* been done before... that was the whole point behind Linux in the first place, no?
Last time I checked, Ultra 5s didn't run Windows NT, 95 or DOS. That is, unless you add in the daughter board with the AMD built on. None-the-less, I wouldn't expect this to be a feature on a machines this inexpensive.
You're wrong. Five 2 GB disks in a RAID5 configuration would only give you 8GB of storage, since essentially one of the disks must be used for data integrity.
I agree to some point, if you're going for the golden egg, you might as well go for the goose that laid it. However, one might consider something like this as a small stagin arena for a much larger "project". Yes, this is getting press, but if *I* were a s00p3r cr4c|3r, I'd try my skills on smaller fish before going for the big kahuna.
In either case, it's still an interesting case study and really should remind everyone that the main security concern they must face is not the threat to *their* data, but the threate that someone will use their computer illegally to access *other* peoples' data. Therein lies the real problem.
This is one of the most fascinating sites I have seen in a long long time!
I, too, find it difficult to really grasp the immensity of this thing we call the internet. For me, graphical representation is the clearest form of instruction, and many of these images present a view of the 'net that I've been longing to see for years now. The historical footnotes and graphics are of particular interest, too, since I like to dabble in that subject.
I work and play here at an Ohio university (Case Western Reserve if any of you care). Net access here is terrible. The fastest transfer I've managed has been a meager 120 kbps to anywhere in the world (considering we have OC-3 out, things are usually quite peppy).
I really wish it were possible to see an accurate weather report on how such things affect the rest of the 'net. It's difficult to interpolate results from very few data points. Of course, the feasibility of such a system is quite difficult and prone to error.
In either case, I'm advising everyone here to be nice to the 'net. There's no reason folks need to be downloading their pr0n, mp3z and off-site ftp installs of Linux during something like this. A little conservation can go a long way.
Doesn't anyone else here think it's kind of odd that all of a sudden many stories are popping up about Linux on the newswires, when, if you look at it, there really wasn't a news event that predicated the need for an article? Now, I'm going to theorize on a few possibilities:
1) Linux makes news. Good news makes money. Money makes people happy.
2) The increasing amount of tidbits related to Transmeta (yet another reference!) and Linus' relationship to it are nothing but fodder to increase awareness about the obvious branding of Trasmeta's product without said product actually being even known. This awareness and publicity are precisely the kind of calculated moves I would take if I were trying to hype the Next Big Thing (tm). I might note that, for the most part, the actual news item, "Software Price Crashes" in this case, are really of secondary importance. If you'll notice, the discussion of Linus, precedes the implication of Redhat's IPO with precedes the blurb about Transmeta, which then precedes the meat and potatoes of the article. Granted, this is an often used trick in the news industry to make sure people have a background for the material to follow, but isn't this a bit much?
3) (The least plausible;) is that this is a plot by the OSS movement to Stick it to the Man and to create good vibes towards OSS and Linux in general.
I admit that all of this is supposition and is baseless. I have no proof to back any of this up. IANAL. I'm just an avid slashdotter. AT the very least, it's good to not only read the articles presented, but to read past them and between the lines to derive the intent behind the posts in the first place.
Re:Trillions of pennies
on
CNN On IPv6
·
· Score: 1
AC stated, "P.S. How in the hell are we supposed to remember addresses like 127.12.255.234.127.123.55.234.124.121.253.231.227. 12.215.134?"
You're not. The obvious solution is to make sure you use DNS so you don't have to worry about what the IP is.
However, if you're a glutton for punishment, you could theoretically represent them by 32 hex digits, reducing the maximum number of "digits" you'd have to remember. If you wish to reduce the number of digits to remember more, you could also conceivably represent the IP by 28 letters (letters being defined as the 26 alphabetic characters used in the Enligsh language), or 26 alphanumerics (the alphabet plus the 10 arabic numbers) or, if you really want to get silly, 16 characters (if each dotted quad is represented by one "ASCII" character (ranging from 1 to 256).
that it will take corporate lawyers a little bit of time to learn how to deal with new licensing terms, such as GPL. In the past, they've had complete control (theoretically speaking, of course), of how their software was licensed and used. It takes a while to teach an old dog new tricks. For Corel's sake, I hope they learn fast or this could be a serious black eye. If anything, this might serve as a lesson and reminder to other corporations moving towards the OSS movement. Perhaps this will remind them that they don't necessarily make the rules anymore.
4,294,967,296 is a lot of addresses and a *lot* of traffic to wade through. Assuming it took 1 second to detect if a web server is present and download the main text, it would take 136 *years* to accomplish. Assuming we could cut that to 1/100th the time, it would *still* take over 16 months to accomplish (definitely not something you'd want to do on that crappy 56k modem.;)
The only way I could see how non-ASCII/non-English URLs could be useful is if you truly wished to restrict content-viewing to a single language based audience. I, for one, would have no idea how to spell let alone type any URL in cyrillic, chinese or kanji. Even languages using the ASCII character set are often difficult and/or annoying to type. I do not see the net moving towards any sort of Unicode structure in the near future.
However, I do agree that non-English languages do have a disadvantage when it comes to communicating on the 'net. The purpose of the internet has been and hopefully will continue to be open and rapid communication and information exchange. Although, people who speak little-used languages (less that 3 million, in my opinion)must realize that readership *will* decline if people restrict their comments to their preferred native tongue.
Can't we all just use the same language? I'm partial to English.;)
More information would have been more appreciated, and I agree that the link provided really doesn't say a hell of a lot, but the link WAS referred to as a "news burst". That can hardly be classified as an "article". It wasn't mis-represented. However, IMHO, it shouldn't have been posted unless there was some real meat to it.
That's not a hack, that's someone's rather childish attempt at inserting meta fresh tags inside their comment. Granted, MS should have filtered it out, but still. Lame lame lame lame. Can't you people do better than that?
However, I do think the content censorship is cute.;)
It is an almost perfect weapon... it primarily uses human weakness (unprotected sex, drugs, etc.) as a means for transportation. Also, it is dormant enough to prevent actual detection of the original point of infection, thereby preventing an easier cure and knowledge of the creator(s). If one wanted to wipe out the human race, or at least a certain ethniticity or culture, this is about one of the most subtle ways to go about it.
Admittedly, AIDS is a tragedy that should have never happened, human-made or not. My point here is NOT to tout the virtues of AIDS (it has none), just to point out the possible motives for a potential "enemy" to create such a monster.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, some of us have OC-3 and 100 mbit ethernet links.
I use a number of different conventions.
My primary computer lab uses 1980s Television show titles. Nothing like logging in to "ateam" or "familyties".
The other, larger, lab, uses names related to cyberpunk literature and the movie, "Bladerunner". Names include such titles as, "dexedrine", "batty" and "chatsubo"
As for servers, I generally try to follow the convetion for the labs. I have a "gongshow" as well as an "AC" and a "DC" (get it?). fun fun fun!
The sad part is, I have more than half of that crap either in my apartment somewhere or in my office... and I'm only 22 and have never even *used* half of what it is that I do have.
As to the other stuff, it would only take me a couple hours to dig around and find it.
Sad.
You and many others have argued some very good points in reaction to my post. Yours especially is interesting to think about. By the very act of making a thorough case-by-case basis, they are in fact discriminating. It's something to ponder.
Also, to the individual who posted regarding the fact Comedx is, in fact, an event sponsored by a private organzation, I agree with you. I should have thought more carefully when I wrote my piece. You are right, they are a private organization and have every right to limit who goes in to their event. However, I would hope to argue that they might have a little more insight to what the world has become and realize that there are some people under 18 that are and will continue to make valuable contributions to the industry and that these individuals would benefit greatly from attending Comdex.
I already made the concession that not every kid under 18 needs or should attend Comdex, but that there are exceptions. As many of us know, the exceptions to the rule are often to most difficult cases to handle, whether it be in regards to Comdex, system administration, Linux or life in general
For all the advocacy these days for the rights of children and the push towards getting kids interested in math, science and engineering, I see this move by the folks managing Comdex as a serious travesty. For years and years now college students and many bright young high school kids have been often times at the very fore-front of the technological envelope. What I fail to see, though, is why a person's age has any affect on what that person's abilities are when it comes to participating in a convention. The only reason I could agree to something like this is if law prevented the individual from going.
Whom does it serve to prevent the very best and brightest entrepreneurs from attending? Why must kids who are constantly being told that they need to become "more involved" and need to "make something of themselves" are constantly being held back with excuses like, "you're not old enough" and "you don't have that right". On one hand, the government is telling many kids that they have the right to divorce their parents, for example. Other examples include allowing a child to have the right to sue their school over something as trivial as being prevented from participating in cheerleading because of bad marks (as a case in Ohio proved). On the other hand, we're telling people under 18 that they're not smart enough to vote, not smart enough to drink (at least in the U.S.), not old enough to determine whether they need to attend school or not and not old enough to sign legal documents. At this rate, who is to say that legislation shouldn't be enacted from people under 18 from holding jobs or from starting companies or from learning how the world they are about to enter into and shape works?
This just sickens me.
Now, Comdex can come back saying something like, "Our main goal is to prevent families with kids from coming in and treating the convention like a circus." This point has some merit. I know that I would not appreciate having to navigate through strollers and pouty children while trying to learn more about cutting edge products. I have enough problem with screaming kids in church (but that's a different thread altogether).
What I think would benefit everyone in this case would be a levelheaded case-by-case look at individuals whom have a real vested interested in attending. Discrimination of this type (mind you, I use this word very carefully) really has no place in this literal "world of tomorrow."
For all of our sake, I hope Mike Lavers continues to press on and make a case of this. I think he has a very valid point and has every right to attend Comdex. It's bad business to prevent him from going. As an aside to his father, I hope he continues to encourage his son and I hope they are able to build a strong business and interest other young people into participating and building in the high tech culture that is all of our future.
The only thing I can think to say is, "I'm sorry."
Further clarification should not be needed
You do have a point somewhat. However, please realize that it is also entirely possible that this person really is telling the truth. It is highly like that said person did have moderator right under his or her account. However, in order to post the flame, they went to another computer or logged in differently on the same computer. Hence, when they posted, the Slashdot software didn't recognize the person as having an account and the AC post.
You did a fine job on your feature, Roblimo.
I thought your piece was very though provoking and "to the point", which is difficult to find in today's modern media. While I don't necessarily agree with you in the fact that the current tech shortage is a falacy, I do agree with you on some of the other points you make.
I also found your discussion of a number of topics particularly interesting. I am all about getting to the meat of the matter and cutting out as much verbiage as possible. It was refreshing to see so much content is so little space.
For what it's worth, I think Slashdot (and many other fine online publications out there (although Wired is certainly questionable these days)) has every right to be called a magazine. Good luck on your attempts to gain the respect and peer acceptance Slashdot rightfully deserves.
Please grace us with another feature soon!
- Froggy
What a very thought provoking and timely speech. I only wish I could have been present to hear it from the man himself. In either case, he brings up many interesting points. The crux of the whole speech revolves around this statement from him, "We need new business models. And those models are not always what you might expect."
In general, we Linuxites have to remember some important things if we are to ever prevail:
1) Money/compensation is a driving force. We can't ignore it.
2) The OSS *can* make money, just not how we expect it to make money
3) We have to support vendors who are more than "hip" to the OSS system. We don't need lip service. We need to seek out vendors that truly incorporate OSS as part of their entire business model. What will this model look like? I can only begin to guess.
4) Keep your eyes on the prize. If, as a community, we succumb to the tunnel vision concept of, "Kill Microsoft!", all hope is certainly lost. As an anecdotal example, look at Apple and their Macintosh fiasco in '84. In many respects, I see similarities in the Big Brother image in their infamous 1984-esque commercial and much of the Linux rhetoric I read here day in and day out. Look what it did to Apple. I imagine if they would have focused on reality a bit and what really mattered, things may have turned out differently.
All I'm asking is a little reality from the community. Read the article, please. Follow your mother's advice about the big bad bully. Ignore him and he'll eventually go away. I suspect this will be the same with Microsoft. The more focus *we* put on them the more press they receive. Let's focus on our own merits and achievements and strive to make not just a better product, but the best product we can.
It *has* been done before... that was the whole point behind Linux in the first place, no?
All is forgiven, my child, all is forgiven. :)
Last time I checked, Ultra 5s didn't run Windows NT, 95 or DOS. That is, unless you add in the daughter board with the AMD built on. None-the-less, I wouldn't expect this to be a feature on a machines this inexpensive.
You're wrong. Five 2 GB disks in a RAID5 configuration would only give you 8GB of storage, since essentially one of the disks must be used for data integrity.
RAID5 space = (Number of disks - 1) * disk size
I agree to some point, if you're going for the golden egg, you might as well go for the goose that laid it. However, one might consider something like this as a small stagin arena for a much larger "project". Yes, this is getting press, but if *I* were a s00p3r cr4c|3r, I'd try my skills on smaller fish before going for the big kahuna.
In either case, it's still an interesting case study and really should remind everyone that the main security concern they must face is not the threat to *their* data, but the threate that someone will use their computer illegally to access *other* peoples' data. Therein lies the real problem.
This is one of the most fascinating sites I have seen in a long long time!
I, too, find it difficult to really grasp the immensity of this thing we call the internet. For me, graphical representation is the clearest form of instruction, and many of these images present a view of the 'net that I've been longing to see for years now. The historical footnotes and graphics are of particular interest, too, since I like to dabble in that subject.
I work and play here at an Ohio university (Case Western Reserve if any of you care). Net access here is terrible. The fastest transfer I've managed has been a meager 120 kbps to anywhere in the world (considering we have OC-3 out, things are usually quite peppy).
I really wish it were possible to see an accurate weather report on how such things affect the rest of the 'net. It's difficult to interpolate results from very few data points. Of course, the feasibility of such a system is quite difficult and prone to error.
In either case, I'm advising everyone here to be nice to the 'net. There's no reason folks need to be downloading their pr0n, mp3z and off-site ftp installs of Linux during something like this. A little conservation can go a long way.
Doesn't anyone else here think it's kind of odd that all of a sudden many stories are popping up about Linux on the newswires, when, if you look at it, there really wasn't a news event that predicated the need for an article? Now, I'm going to theorize on a few possibilities:
;) is that this is a plot by the OSS movement to Stick it to the Man and to create good vibes towards OSS and Linux in general.
1) Linux makes news. Good news makes money. Money makes people happy.
2) The increasing amount of tidbits related to Transmeta (yet another reference!) and Linus' relationship to it are nothing but fodder to increase awareness about the obvious branding of Trasmeta's product without said product actually being even known. This awareness and publicity are precisely the kind of calculated moves I would take if I were trying to hype the Next Big Thing (tm). I might note that, for the most part, the actual news item, "Software Price Crashes" in this case, are really of secondary importance. If you'll notice, the discussion of Linus, precedes the implication of Redhat's IPO with precedes the blurb about Transmeta, which then precedes the meat and potatoes of the article. Granted, this is an often used trick in the news industry to make sure people have a background for the material to follow, but isn't this a bit much?
3) (The least plausible
I admit that all of this is supposition and is baseless. I have no proof to back any of this up. IANAL. I'm just an avid slashdotter. AT the very least, it's good to not only read the articles presented, but to read past them and between the lines to derive the intent behind the posts in the first place.
AC stated, "P.S. How in the hell are we supposed to remember addresses like 127.12.255.234.127.123.55.234.124.121.253.231.227. 12.215.134?"
:)
You're not. The obvious solution is to make sure you use DNS so you don't have to worry about what the IP is.
However, if you're a glutton for punishment, you could theoretically represent them by 32 hex digits, reducing the maximum number of "digits" you'd have to remember. If you wish to reduce the number of digits to remember more, you could also conceivably represent the IP by 28 letters (letters being defined as the 26 alphabetic characters used in the Enligsh language), or 26 alphanumerics (the alphabet plus the 10 arabic numbers) or, if you really want to get silly, 16 characters (if each dotted quad is represented by one "ASCII" character (ranging from 1 to 256).
Take your pick, I'd rather use DNS.
that it will take corporate lawyers a little bit of time to learn how to deal with new licensing terms, such as GPL. In the past, they've had complete control (theoretically speaking, of course), of how their software was licensed and used. It takes a while to teach an old dog new tricks. For Corel's sake, I hope they learn fast or this could be a serious black eye. If anything, this might serve as a lesson and reminder to other corporations moving towards the OSS movement. Perhaps this will remind them that they don't necessarily make the rules anymore.
4,294,967,296 is a lot of addresses and a *lot* of traffic to wade through. Assuming it took 1 second to detect if a web server is present and download the main text, it would take 136 *years* to accomplish. Assuming we could cut that to 1/100th the time, it would *still* take over 16 months to accomplish (definitely not something you'd want to do on that crappy 56k modem. ;)
The only way I could see how non-ASCII/non-English URLs could be useful is if you truly wished to restrict content-viewing to a single language based audience. I, for one, would have no idea how to spell let alone type any URL in cyrillic, chinese or kanji. Even languages using the ASCII character set are often difficult and/or annoying to type. I do not see the net moving towards any sort of Unicode structure in the near future.
;)
However, I do agree that non-English languages do have a disadvantage when it comes to communicating on the 'net. The purpose of the internet has been and hopefully will continue to be open and rapid communication and information exchange. Although, people who speak little-used languages (less that 3 million, in my opinion)must realize that readership *will* decline if people restrict their comments to their preferred native tongue.
Can't we all just use the same language? I'm partial to English.
Touche! :)
More information would have been more appreciated, and I agree that the link provided really doesn't say a hell of a lot, but the link WAS referred to as a "news burst". That can hardly be classified as an "article". It wasn't mis-represented. However, IMHO, it shouldn't have been posted unless there was some real meat to it.
You're all fucking idiots
That's not a hack, that's someone's rather childish attempt at inserting meta fresh tags inside their comment. Granted, MS should have filtered it out, but still. Lame lame lame lame. Can't you people do better than that?
;)
However, I do think the content censorship is cute.
I think it was.
It is an almost perfect weapon... it primarily uses human weakness (unprotected sex, drugs, etc.) as a means for transportation. Also, it is dormant enough to prevent actual detection of the original point of infection, thereby preventing an easier cure and knowledge of the creator(s). If one wanted to wipe out the human race, or at least a certain ethniticity or culture, this is about one of the most subtle ways to go about it.
Admittedly, AIDS is a tragedy that should have never happened, human-made or not. My point here is NOT to tout the virtues of AIDS (it has none), just to point out the possible motives for a potential "enemy" to create such a monster.