Ok, I'm sure none of us are surprised by this sort of political backpedalling, but it's still funny and sad at the same time.
Judd's actions were (IMHO) mostly a knee-jerk, "let's get some P.R. for our re-election campaign going" fear-based reaction. It's sick to see politicians using something as horrible as 9/11 for their own ends like this, but again, not surprising.
As for the so-called poll results that were "supporting" his initial efforts to get this stuff rammed through into policy, they're just more evidence that the American public doesn't entirely grasp the full ramifications of this sort of thing. Now, I'm not blaming these people entirely. I'd be *completely* unqalified to talk about heart surgery, although I understand encyption.
Maybe its time for more public efforts aimed at educating the masses about how encryption really works. This might help reduce the position a lot of folks have taken recently that "it's a terrorism tool" and such. Yes, it can be used for evil, but so can the spatula I use to flip my pancakes on the stove. Nobody wants to outlaw cookware.
Anybody got links to projects in action *now* that are trying to accomplish this sort of thing?
This doesn't makes sense from Qwest's biz perspective.
They're probably being paid an ungodly amount of money by MS to push this policy. However, they won't end up saving on bandwidth in this, especially if customers switch to MSN web-based mail (pulling down bloated HTML pages instead of just text messages).
Plus, here's another way of looking at it: Does Qwest stand any risk of getting burned by folks choosing MSN for an ISP over their service? Yes, there are differences in speed involved, but this initiative does stand to give MSN a LOT of extra market exposure. Qwest may want to consider whether they're taking aim squarely at their left foot in this regard.
Just felt compelled to point out web-based email also. ISP givin' you a hard time? Screw 'em as follows, and make sure to send an email to their PR department letting them know what you think of their support of this sort of idiotic policy.
All right, this is gonna sound bad. But let's be real here: you can dump always dump your ISP is you disagree with heinous policies. Yes, I know that in some areas there aren't many providers of decent bandwidth (especially recently with DSL companies going buh-bye left and right), but customers have to stand up for their rights on this sort of thing. Unfortunately, given our recent state of affairs in government, the only *effective* way of doing so is making your dollars do the talking.
Of course, there's always other options too. You could always skip the ISP part and just do your email via web hosting service (no, I'm not self-serving here, it's just true). Especially for folks who run a business, this is a good option.
What other ways are there of combating this kind of B.S.? I suspect the good folks over at Netscape and other net software providers aren't going to be too terribly thrilled with this... do any of these companies have workarounds?
To start with, the unit has the acronym "ASCII" emblazoned loudly above the keyboard. This is cleary unfair favoritism toward the ASCII character set, and a misrepresentation of the unit's capabilities.
I'm certain the scancode output from the keyboard portion of the unit could just as easily be represented by the EBCDEC character set. Unless they're careful, IBM may decide to sic their P.R. machine on these guys.
That aside, this thing looks like a stingray. Ah! There's a use... take it down to the neighborhood pool, toss it in, and watch small children swim for their lives! Just 30 minutes in the oven on "warm" and its usable for gaming again.
Disclaimer: If you can't find any humour in this, you should game more often...;-)
Back in the day when I still lived with my parents, there was a 6 month period where we were receiving an average of 3 telemarketing calls per night from long distance phone service carriers.
Smile. My father's an engineer with AT&T.
I think the record for the longest I kept 'em on the phone was something like 45 minutes. They'd give me the standard pitch about how much money they could save us over AT&T, and I'd politely insist that there was NO WAY that was possible...
Of course, I had to be nice to them, so I always asked them to go into detail on every plan they offered. This takes quite a while, needless to say, but I didn't care (watching TV, using the bathroom, whatever while they yapped).
You see, their call success averages depend on their ability to sign up a certain number of customers within a given period of time. I was *bad* for their numbers.
They just loved it when I finally got around to giving them a boarding pass to the Clue Train, inscribed with the message "Our long distance is free... my dad works for AT&T... he might quit soon though." I suppose my sense of humour is a bit sick, but they deserved every ounce of it.:).
Somebody PLEASE mod the parent to this comment up! This kind of insight really hits home.
This comment speaks well to the unfortunate fact that after the "initial threat" has passed in situations like this, most people forget to follow up on the group's next wave of assaults. sphealey, you're absolutely right on the money (in more ways than one) on this.
Thank you for the post! I'm emailing the link to friends after I smack "submit":).
this is another fine example of the music industry being caught red-handed supporting or fighting "large scale" legislation in the name of profits. This one has a funny twist, though.
From the article:
If the current version of the USA Act becomes law, the RIAA believes, it could outlaw attempts by copyright holders to break into and disable pirate FTP or websites or peer-to-peer networks. Because the bill covers aggregate damage, it could bar anti-piracy efforts that cause little harm to individual users, but meet the $5,000 threshold when combined.
Wait a second... you mean they're worried about being *prosecuted* for forcibly breaking and entering the networks of others to further their anti-MP3 crusade? Wow. Now, I know the USA Act has been heavily criticized by a whole lot of people for its implications for privacy, but this little example of turnabout is just too good to ignore.
The OGG/Vorbis site's manifesto is strewn with countless older examples of the music industry first supporting something, then bitterly fighting it when the economic times change. Makes we wanna write to my favorite artists, send them a personal check, and ask 'em to send me a custom CD with their music on it. Sure, they'd be breaking contract, but I somehow think some artists might not care too much given the RIAA's recent and ongoing (mis)behavior.
but I'm kinda bothered by this sort of thing, not in the way some might think. I don't have any problem at all with the research being conducted (actually I support it, good stuff!), but I hate that gobs of bandwidth are wasted by this sort of thing.
I mean, how much bandwidth is taken from companies with large numbes of images on their sites (EBay for example) as a results of stuff like this? It's not exactly something you can say adheres to purely ethical use of their bandwidth.
There's got be lots of projects out there attempting this stuff, especially given recent press coverage on the topic. Who's picking up the tab for the network usage?
Perhaps a permission-based scheme would be better, or better yet a volunteer-supported test server pool dedicated to hosting images. That way, people could test out steganography techniques by posting their images to the pool for the community at large to take a crack at. Thoughts? Flames? Oranges?
their proposal, in essence, is designed to give private industry access to "police powers" traditionally (and currently, frequently misused) reserved for law enforcement agencies?
Okay, that's funny in a twisted sort of way. Starting from point A, the corporate interest, let's see if we can figure out where this leads. By our current way of doing things, government at least (sometimes) has *some* accountability (well, unless it claims it can't disclose details of such action because it would "breach national security", ala FBI) to the public at large. The second we grant such powers to corporations, all bets are off.
Sure, some would say that companies would be hesitant to misuse such powers for fear of stiff fines and legal penalties. However, I don't think so. Most companies are able to move *much* faster than the wheels of government could ever hope to turn, because they're based on the fundamental goal of competitive pursuit of profits. Gov agencies at least are supposed to be motivated purely for the common good (again, not so much recently, but I digress).
Even in the event of companies pulling serious fast ones with this sort of thing, under much of current corporate law (IANAL) I don't think their executives could really be slapped too hard for it. The company might cease to exist under the load of fines, but perhaps not if they were large enough (hmmm... anybody remeber the "$1M/day fine" proposal for a certain software company?".
Now, this whole post *may* be null and void for much of the/. crew, because a lot of us tend to pay very close attention to security on our boxen anyhow, and would likely make life miserable for companies attempting to bogart our tunes. Even so, I can just imagine what some ISPs would have to say about this... "you used our network to hack into OUR customers' boxes? Here, talk to our corporate attorneys now..."
Sorry, this gets me a little hot under the collar. I'll terminate this rant now; I need another cup of coffee anyhow. Back to bash.
... The result? If you take off with 60 knots on the airspeed indicator, your REAL speed is SIX HUNDRED KNOTS! (about Mach 1) Take it from me, Mach-1 takeoffs are quite a thing to behold, when the plane will barely leave the runway at that speed.
To me, this is the best reason I've seen yet for creating sim software that uses real-world physics and modeling. I don't know of any other sims in existence that offer this level of "playability"; am I wrong here?
These guys have gone to great lengths to make this thing "the real deal", and I applaud their decision to make it usable under Linux. I stopped messing around with Windows-on-Linux type stuff months ago (well, partially due to the fact that almost everything I use runs under Linux;-] ). The biggest thing I've been missing is stuff * I * find fun, which generally isn't the usual FPS games.
I can tell already I'm gonna be spending entirely too much time modeling new plane designs (and consequently flying them into the ground, d'oh! ).
Are there any other projects out there that focus this heavily on the physics modeling side of things for sims? Please tell me some of them run on Linux:-).
I'll agree that the easiest way to alleviate the problem is to buy more RAM. However, this kinda defeats the whole purpose of innovative software engineering.
The Mac hack discussed above makes better use of existing hardware capabilities, which (in my mind, as a developer) is a primary goal for software authors. Yes, you can usually increase performance by throwing more hardware at a problem. This leads us down a dangerous path, though... think about what today's database technology would be like if the major vendors had just taken that route instead of improving their code.
I think all this applies especially to open source software, where we all have the opportunity to do something about problems and inefficiencies that arise. Any thoughts?
about how to enable buffer compression, is there anything comparable built into X these days? I'm *not* even close to well-acquainted with the source, so I have no idea.
This seems like something that would work well to help achieve faster GUI performance and lower memory usage under Linux/BSD. Among my friends who've tried both Windows and Linux (mostly using KDE) on semi-older hardware (350-500 mHz boxes), the usual comment I hear is something like "very nice, but the GUI's a bit slower than in Windows...".
I know the GUI "snappiness" gripe is a minor one (hey, I'm posting this from KDE 2.2.1), but the memory usage issue is a big one to me. What sort of mechanisms already exist (or are planned) in X to accomodate this sort of thing?
BTW, to the author of that little hack, VERY NICE:-)
Good points there:). With regard to bandwidth, I suppose time should improve that aspect of the problem (although maybe not so quickly if major providers keep going el Chapter 11). I like the concept of having several servers interconnected though; it seems to merge the benefits of "client server" with "peer to peer".
With regard to cheating issues, what about incorporating some sort of encryption scheme, wherein each machine exchanges keys with the others when a game starts? Maybe the "master box" (the one starting the game off) could serve as a keymaster of sorts in this case. I know Q3 Arena has a pure server option to help alleviate cheating, maybe adding ecryption on to that sort of thing would be beneficial.
Just one more note: what do you mean by "server splits"? I apologize if it's something horrendously obvious; I'm a little frazzled from coding atm.:).
this sort of thing with me the other day... he just quit his job as a programmer with a large accounting software maker to go to work for a gaming company. They're working on new tech for MMRPGs these days.
We had a rather *long* conversation about new stuff coming down the pipe, wherein we discussed different models for the I.T. infrastructure to support this sort of thing. Basically, we ended up going back and forth on the merits of p2p tech when it comes to reducing primary server loads and increasing playability.
The biggest obstacle we could see at the moment is (of course) still the latency on a p2p network. While users with high-bandwidth connections would whiz along fine, those on modems would have a tough go of things. Another point we covered was the continuing advances in PC power we're seeing (Moore is still right;-] ), and how this relates to the ability to offload a bunch of the world computation to discrete units (each gamer's PC). In this model you'd use spare cycles on your own box to perform calcs for other portions of the environment.
The problem with that, of course, is that gamers will always want to play with the highest detail, color depth, etc setting as possible. This would tend to "max out" most gamers' boxes, reducing that particular advantage of the p2p structure.
What sort of thoughts do others around here have about this stuff? C'mon, I need some ammo to go back to my friend with;-]. I just *can't* let him keep winning every argument we have about this stuff...
I have to admit that *some* (okay, maybe a lot/most) of the infections were purely due to poor server administration. The story doesn't stop there though.
I offer up as proof of what follows my Apache logs on my home machine for the last month. It's amazing how many machines out there seem incredibly interested in files such as "cmd.exe" and "root.exe", which (gasp!) don't exist on my Linux box. What's funnier is the fact that the vast majority of these attacks came from the BellSouth DSL network and various cable networks. I actually got to the point where I was ready to write a Perl script to grep up the nefarious log entries, nmap 'em automatically, and ship the results off to BellSouth's abuse department every 12 hours...
The point I'm trying to make is simply that the biggest vector for the spread of this crap is home machines. MS can yap all day long about how poor admin'ing causes this, while they fail to admit that they've put horribly insecure web server software in the hands of average Joe and Jane Consumer. Now, I'm not saying it's all MS's fault; Joe and Jane are very much to blame too for not bothering to click "Start -> Windows Update" every once in a while.
But I won't accept that MS can claim any sort of innocence on this. What about other/.'ers? How have your logs looked recently? Were the attacks on your network(s) mostly from commercial servers, or home-based machines?
Back at an old employer (name removed to protect the privacy of their management;-] ), we were using MS SQL Server 7 Enterprise for nearly all database tasks around the shop. We eventually got to the point where we wanted several different physical servers to take care of various needs.
Instead of purchasing additional (expensive) licenses from MS, we decided to give mySQL a try. We used it for things like log processing and analysis, telcom system call modelling, and other fun stuff. It worked *beautifully*, and they're still using it fairly heavily today (according to an old-coworker who's still there now).
I think a great place to start is with information handling and processing, stuff that databases and scripting languages (i.e. Perl, PHP) are designed to do. There's a lot of MS shops out there starting to experiment with using these solutions in lieu of MS-based alternatives (such as ASP or customer C++/VB apps and MS databases). My advice is to start there and move forward:-). Eventually, after these systems are proven, you may find it easier to start putting a few *nix boxes on the network for other server tasks...
I'm not at all surprised they've shifted gears on this one. And might I add, it's *probably* got something to do with the public opinion on this topic;).
I think (can't say for certain of course) this puts solid evidence behind the concept of making an effort to comment on proposed specs and such. I suppose this falls into the same category as "write to your representatives", although we seem to having better luck on the royalty front today than on legislative issues.
To all who submitted requests that this "standard" not be adopted, you certainly have my thanks (and most likely the thanks of hundreds of thousands of developers who want a royalty-free standards system).
is that they were charging people to "enter the lottery" for contested names. That just doesn't sit right with me; they get your money whether you "win" the domain or not.
Let's consider it. For popular, "hotly contested" domains, dozens (maybe hundreds? who knows?) of people may throw their money in for a chance at it. Now, I'm not going to say the people who actually do this are terribly bright to begin with (the more popular the domain, the more people who'll bid), but it just seems too much for me.
Aside from the implications in trademark law (not that I actually support the bogus trademark/domain claims that some companies make these days), it seems dumb to go through this nasty process when you *could* just register a different (maybe even similar) domain for a lower cost anyhow.
Craig Mundie wins the CapitalGuy award for the most confusing contributions to the world of closed-source software. Mr. Mundie has generously made a grant to the Microsoft Foundation For Youth-Reeduction, his way of giving back to the loyal community that has honored him thusly.
Marc Andreesen was on the list of nominees this year, but seems to have mysteriously vanished to the Isle of AOL (believed to be located somewhere in the South Media Sea).
(disclaimer: it's supposed to be funny. please, no rotten eggs this time;-] )
Thanks, LanMan! I checked out the links; the sites seem very relevant to current issues indeed. The amfcc site seems especially interesting, at least to me (seems to go into detail on issues like the ones discussed here on/. so often). Your thoughtful reply is appreciated:).
All right, related to the earlier story on our reps not paying attention to us, how *DO* we shine the light of reason into our government?
Perhaps it's time for more than letters, calls, and emails to our reps. Maybe it's time for a bunch of us to get together and get out in our communities and spread the word.
The reps may not be listening to a horde of geeks, but chances are good they'll start hearing us loud and clear if a more balanced mix of their constituents pipes up.
Now we have another problem (or rather a few). How *do* we get people (average Joe/Jane) to listen, and even discuss these issues? Everyone still seems on edge after the 9/11 attacks, but I'd like to believe that energy could be channeled in a positive direction.
Anyone got a site up specificially to discuss this stuff? I'll email all my friends the link.
Hmm.... sounds like a call to start YAHBP (Yet Another Home-Brew Project):-). I've gotta admit that a plain-jane PC case sitting next to one's stereo equipment isn't terribly pretty...
All righty, so how about marketing a cheap, attractive enclosure for PC cases of various sizes, with appropriate holes for cabling to pop out of? Something akin to custom PC cases, except it would only serve as a shell.
Also, to those who need their parents/roommates/kids to be able to use it, why not just use XMMS in "big" mode on a used 15" monitor? Not expensive at all (I've got ahold of some old ones for less than $25 in the past), and does the trick nicely.
paying over $200 for *anything* like this. What's so bad about using and old P90 box and your existing home audio system (most of us have one) for this sort of thing?
It puts old hardware to a good use, and if you invest in a couple of used 20GB drives, you can store all the MP3s you want *cheap*.
It's a nifty device, no doubt. However, I'm not lacing up my running shoes on this one just yet...
Anybody know what the real advantage of this thing is? Am I just missing something horribly obvious? To be fair, I suppose the best place to advertise something sold on ThinkGeek is/. after all;-), but I hardly thing this was worth a review of its own...
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I'm sure none of us are surprised by this sort of political backpedalling, but it's still funny and sad at the same time.
Judd's actions were (IMHO) mostly a knee-jerk, "let's get some P.R. for our re-election campaign going" fear-based reaction. It's sick to see politicians using something as horrible as 9/11 for their own ends like this, but again, not surprising.
Here's another site discussing this stuff as well: Wartimelibery.com [yass].
As for the so-called poll results that were "supporting" his initial efforts to get this stuff rammed through into policy, they're just more evidence that the American public doesn't entirely grasp the full ramifications of this sort of thing. Now, I'm not blaming these people entirely. I'd be *completely* unqalified to talk about heart surgery, although I understand encyption.
Maybe its time for more public efforts aimed at educating the masses about how encryption really works. This might help reduce the position a lot of folks have taken recently that "it's a terrorism tool" and such. Yes, it can be used for evil, but so can the spatula I use to flip my pancakes on the stove. Nobody wants to outlaw cookware.
Anybody got links to projects in action *now* that are trying to accomplish this sort of thing?
This doesn't makes sense from Qwest's biz perspective.
They're probably being paid an ungodly amount of money by MS to push this policy. However, they won't end up saving on bandwidth in this, especially if customers switch to MSN web-based mail (pulling down bloated HTML pages instead of just text messages).
Plus, here's another way of looking at it: Does Qwest stand any risk of getting burned by folks choosing MSN for an ISP over their service? Yes, there are differences in speed involved, but this initiative does stand to give MSN a LOT of extra market exposure. Qwest may want to consider whether they're taking aim squarely at their left foot in this regard.
Just felt compelled to point out web-based email also. ISP givin' you a hard time? Screw 'em as follows, and make sure to send an email to their PR department letting them know what you think of their support of this sort of idiotic policy.
SquirrelMail.
There it be. Have fun!
All right, this is gonna sound bad. But let's be real here: you can dump always dump your ISP is you disagree with heinous policies. Yes, I know that in some areas there aren't many providers of decent bandwidth (especially recently with DSL companies going buh-bye left and right), but customers have to stand up for their rights on this sort of thing. Unfortunately, given our recent state of affairs in government, the only *effective* way of doing so is making your dollars do the talking.
Of course, there's always other options too. You could always skip the ISP part and just do your email via web hosting service (no, I'm not self-serving here, it's just true). Especially for folks who run a business, this is a good option.
What other ways are there of combating this kind of B.S.? I suspect the good folks over at Netscape and other net software providers aren't going to be too terribly thrilled with this... do any of these companies have workarounds?
To start with, the unit has the acronym "ASCII" emblazoned loudly above the keyboard. This is cleary unfair favoritism toward the ASCII character set, and a misrepresentation of the unit's capabilities.
I'm certain the scancode output from the keyboard portion of the unit could just as easily be represented by the EBCDEC character set. Unless they're careful, IBM may decide to sic their P.R. machine on these guys.
That aside, this thing looks like a stingray. Ah! There's a use... take it down to the neighborhood pool, toss it in, and watch small children swim for their lives! Just 30 minutes in the oven on "warm" and its usable for gaming again.
Disclaimer: If you can't find any humour in this, you should game more often...
Back in the day when I still lived with my parents, there was a 6 month period where we were receiving an average of 3 telemarketing calls per night from long distance phone service carriers.
Smile. My father's an engineer with AT&T.
I think the record for the longest I kept 'em on the phone was something like 45 minutes. They'd give me the standard pitch about how much money they could save us over AT&T, and I'd politely insist that there was NO WAY that was possible...
Of course, I had to be nice to them, so I always asked them to go into detail on every plan they offered. This takes quite a while, needless to say, but I didn't care (watching TV, using the bathroom, whatever while they yapped).
You see, their call success averages depend on their ability to sign up a certain number of customers within a given period of time. I was *bad* for their numbers.
They just loved it when I finally got around to giving them a boarding pass to the Clue Train, inscribed with the message "Our long distance is free... my dad works for AT&T... he might quit soon though." I suppose my sense of humour is a bit sick, but they deserved every ounce of it.
Somebody PLEASE mod the parent to this comment up! This kind of insight really hits home.
This comment speaks well to the unfortunate fact that after the "initial threat" has passed in situations like this, most people forget to follow up on the group's next wave of assaults. sphealey, you're absolutely right on the money (in more ways than one) on this.
Thank you for the post! I'm emailing the link to friends after I smack "submit"
this is another fine example of the music industry being caught red-handed supporting or fighting "large scale" legislation in the name of profits. This one has a funny twist, though.
From the article:
If the current version of the USA Act becomes law, the RIAA believes, it could outlaw attempts by copyright holders to break into and disable pirate FTP or websites or peer-to-peer networks. Because the bill covers aggregate damage, it could bar anti-piracy efforts that cause little harm to individual users, but meet the $5,000 threshold when combined.
Wait a second... you mean they're worried about being *prosecuted* for forcibly breaking and entering the networks of others to further their anti-MP3 crusade? Wow. Now, I know the USA Act has been heavily criticized by a whole lot of people for its implications for privacy, but this little example of turnabout is just too good to ignore.
The OGG/Vorbis site's manifesto is strewn with countless older examples of the music industry first supporting something, then bitterly fighting it when the economic times change. Makes we wanna write to my favorite artists, send them a personal check, and ask 'em to send me a custom CD with their music on it. Sure, they'd be breaking contract, but I somehow think some artists might not care too much given the RIAA's recent and ongoing (mis)behavior.
but I'm kinda bothered by this sort of thing, not in the way some might think. I don't have any problem at all with the research being conducted (actually I support it, good stuff!), but I hate that gobs of bandwidth are wasted by this sort of thing.
I mean, how much bandwidth is taken from companies with large numbes of images on their sites (EBay for example) as a results of stuff like this? It's not exactly something you can say adheres to purely ethical use of their bandwidth.
There's got be lots of projects out there attempting this stuff, especially given recent press coverage on the topic. Who's picking up the tab for the network usage?
Perhaps a permission-based scheme would be better, or better yet a volunteer-supported test server pool dedicated to hosting images. That way, people could test out steganography techniques by posting their images to the pool for the community at large to take a crack at. Thoughts? Flames? Oranges?
their proposal, in essence, is designed to give private industry access to "police powers" traditionally (and currently, frequently misused) reserved for law enforcement agencies?
Okay, that's funny in a twisted sort of way. Starting from point A, the corporate interest, let's see if we can figure out where this leads. By our current way of doing things, government at least (sometimes) has *some* accountability (well, unless it claims it can't disclose details of such action because it would "breach national security", ala FBI) to the public at large. The second we grant such powers to corporations, all bets are off.
Sure, some would say that companies would be hesitant to misuse such powers for fear of stiff fines and legal penalties. However, I don't think so. Most companies are able to move *much* faster than the wheels of government could ever hope to turn, because they're based on the fundamental goal of competitive pursuit of profits. Gov agencies at least are supposed to be motivated purely for the common good (again, not so much recently, but I digress).
Even in the event of companies pulling serious fast ones with this sort of thing, under much of current corporate law (IANAL) I don't think their executives could really be slapped too hard for it. The company might cease to exist under the load of fines, but perhaps not if they were large enough (hmmm... anybody remeber the "$1M/day fine" proposal for a certain software company?".
Now, this whole post *may* be null and void for much of the
Sorry, this gets me a little hot under the collar. I'll terminate this rant now; I need another cup of coffee anyhow. Back to bash.
New test MP3 file for the Linux version:
"Winamp... it really whips the Linus ass. baaaahhh."
C'mon,
From the page on Mars sims:
To me, this is the best reason I've seen yet for creating sim software that uses real-world physics and modeling. I don't know of any other sims in existence that offer this level of "playability"; am I wrong here?
These guys have gone to great lengths to make this thing "the real deal", and I applaud their decision to make it usable under Linux. I stopped messing around with Windows-on-Linux type stuff months ago (well, partially due to the fact that almost everything I use runs under Linux
I can tell already I'm gonna be spending entirely too much time modeling new plane designs (and consequently flying them into the ground, d'oh! ).
Are there any other projects out there that focus this heavily on the physics modeling side of things for sims? Please tell me some of them run on Linux
I'll agree that the easiest way to alleviate the problem is to buy more RAM. However, this kinda defeats the whole purpose of innovative software engineering.
The Mac hack discussed above makes better use of existing hardware capabilities, which (in my mind, as a developer) is a primary goal for software authors. Yes, you can usually increase performance by throwing more hardware at a problem. This leads us down a dangerous path, though... think about what today's database technology would be like if the major vendors had just taken that route instead of improving their code.
I think all this applies especially to open source software, where we all have the opportunity to do something about problems and inefficiencies that arise. Any thoughts?
about how to enable buffer compression, is there anything comparable built into X these days? I'm *not* even close to well-acquainted with the source, so I have no idea.
This seems like something that would work well to help achieve faster GUI performance and lower memory usage under Linux/BSD. Among my friends who've tried both Windows and Linux (mostly using KDE) on semi-older hardware (350-500 mHz boxes), the usual comment I hear is something like "very nice, but the GUI's a bit slower than in Windows...".
I know the GUI "snappiness" gripe is a minor one (hey, I'm posting this from KDE 2.2.1), but the memory usage issue is a big one to me. What sort of mechanisms already exist (or are planned) in X to accomodate this sort of thing?
BTW, to the author of that little hack, VERY NICE
Good points there
With regard to cheating issues, what about incorporating some sort of encryption scheme, wherein each machine exchanges keys with the others when a game starts? Maybe the "master box" (the one starting the game off) could serve as a keymaster of sorts in this case. I know Q3 Arena has a pure server option to help alleviate cheating, maybe adding ecryption on to that sort of thing would be beneficial.
Just one more note: what do you mean by "server splits"? I apologize if it's something horrendously obvious; I'm a little frazzled from coding atm.
this sort of thing with me the other day... he just quit his job as a programmer with a large accounting software maker to go to work for a gaming company. They're working on new tech for MMRPGs these days.
We had a rather *long* conversation about new stuff coming down the pipe, wherein we discussed different models for the I.T. infrastructure to support this sort of thing. Basically, we ended up going back and forth on the merits of p2p tech when it comes to reducing primary server loads and increasing playability.
The biggest obstacle we could see at the moment is (of course) still the latency on a p2p network. While users with high-bandwidth connections would whiz along fine, those on modems would have a tough go of things. Another point we covered was the continuing advances in PC power we're seeing (Moore is still right
The problem with that, of course, is that gamers will always want to play with the highest detail, color depth, etc setting as possible. This would tend to "max out" most gamers' boxes, reducing that particular advantage of the p2p structure.
What sort of thoughts do others around here have about this stuff? C'mon, I need some ammo to go back to my friend with
I have to admit that *some* (okay, maybe a lot/most) of the infections were purely due to poor server administration. The story doesn't stop there though.
I offer up as proof of what follows my Apache logs on my home machine for the last month. It's amazing how many machines out there seem incredibly interested in files such as "cmd.exe" and "root.exe", which (gasp!) don't exist on my Linux box. What's funnier is the fact that the vast majority of these attacks came from the BellSouth DSL network and various cable networks. I actually got to the point where I was ready to write a Perl script to grep up the nefarious log entries, nmap 'em automatically, and ship the results off to BellSouth's abuse department every 12 hours...
The point I'm trying to make is simply that the biggest vector for the spread of this crap is home machines. MS can yap all day long about how poor admin'ing causes this, while they fail to admit that they've put horribly insecure web server software in the hands of average Joe and Jane Consumer. Now, I'm not saying it's all MS's fault; Joe and Jane are very much to blame too for not bothering to click "Start -> Windows Update" every once in a while.
But I won't accept that MS can claim any sort of innocence on this. What about other
Back at an old employer (name removed to protect the privacy of their management
Instead of purchasing additional (expensive) licenses from MS, we decided to give mySQL a try. We used it for things like log processing and analysis, telcom system call modelling, and other fun stuff. It worked *beautifully*, and they're still using it fairly heavily today (according to an old-coworker who's still there now).
I think a great place to start is with information handling and processing, stuff that databases and scripting languages (i.e. Perl, PHP) are designed to do. There's a lot of MS shops out there starting to experiment with using these solutions in lieu of MS-based alternatives (such as ASP or customer C++/VB apps and MS databases). My advice is to start there and move forward
I'm not at all surprised they've shifted gears on this one. And might I add, it's *probably* got something to do with the public opinion on this topic
I think (can't say for certain of course) this puts solid evidence behind the concept of making an effort to comment on proposed specs and such. I suppose this falls into the same category as "write to your representatives", although we seem to having better luck on the royalty front today than on legislative issues.
To all who submitted requests that this "standard" not be adopted, you certainly have my thanks (and most likely the thanks of hundreds of thousands of developers who want a royalty-free standards system).
is that they were charging people to "enter the lottery" for contested names. That just doesn't sit right with me; they get your money whether you "win" the domain or not.
Let's consider it. For popular, "hotly contested" domains, dozens (maybe hundreds? who knows?) of people may throw their money in for a chance at it. Now, I'm not going to say the people who actually do this are terribly bright to begin with (the more popular the domain, the more people who'll bid), but it just seems too much for me.
Aside from the implications in trademark law (not that I actually support the bogus trademark/domain claims that some companies make these days), it seems dumb to go through this nasty process when you *could* just register a different (maybe even similar) domain for a lower cost anyhow.
Craig Mundie wins the CapitalGuy award for the most confusing contributions to the world of closed-source software. Mr. Mundie has generously made a grant to the Microsoft Foundation For Youth-Reeduction, his way of giving back to the loyal community that has honored him thusly.
Marc Andreesen was on the list of nominees this year, but seems to have mysteriously vanished to the Isle of AOL (believed to be located somewhere in the South Media Sea).
(disclaimer: it's supposed to be funny. please, no rotten eggs this time
Thanks, LanMan! I checked out the links; the sites seem very relevant to current issues indeed. The amfcc site seems especially interesting, at least to me (seems to go into detail on issues like the ones discussed here on
All right, related to the earlier story on our reps not paying attention to us, how *DO* we shine the light of reason into our government?
Perhaps it's time for more than letters, calls, and emails to our reps. Maybe it's time for a bunch of us to get together and get out in our communities and spread the word.
The reps may not be listening to a horde of geeks, but chances are good they'll start hearing us loud and clear if a more balanced mix of their constituents pipes up.
Now we have another problem (or rather a few). How *do* we get people (average Joe/Jane) to listen, and even discuss these issues? Everyone still seems on edge after the 9/11 attacks, but I'd like to believe that energy could be channeled in a positive direction.
Anyone got a site up specificially to discuss this stuff? I'll email all my friends the link.
Hmm.... sounds like a call to start YAHBP (Yet Another Home-Brew Project)
All righty, so how about marketing a cheap, attractive enclosure for PC cases of various sizes, with appropriate holes for cabling to pop out of? Something akin to custom PC cases, except it would only serve as a shell.
Also, to those who need their parents/roommates/kids to be able to use it, why not just use XMMS in "big" mode on a used 15" monitor? Not expensive at all (I've got ahold of some old ones for less than $25 in the past), and does the trick nicely.
Anybody wanna register "pcaudioshell.com"?
paying over $200 for *anything* like this. What's so bad about using and old P90 box and your existing home audio system (most of us have one) for this sort of thing?
It puts old hardware to a good use, and if you invest in a couple of used 20GB drives, you can store all the MP3s you want *cheap*.
It's a nifty device, no doubt. However, I'm not lacing up my running shoes on this one just yet...
Anybody know what the real advantage of this thing is? Am I just missing something horribly obvious? To be fair, I suppose the best place to advertise something sold on ThinkGeek is