For one thing, when you allow just anyone to run a Jabber server, you're assuming they know HOW to run one and run it securely. Hell, even I run a Jabber server, but there ain't no way that thing is EVER going to be on the net in the open or do S2S with any other servers outside of my close circle of friends who *I KNOW PERSONALLY IN REAL LIFE*. My Jabber server is used by friends and family over OpenVPN. I really don't think anyone in their right mind believes in decentralized stuff unless they're doing something illegal or they're libertarians (who I am not so sure are in their right minds). I like a good top down solution with centralized control because it "just works" and you don't have to worry about weirdo incompatibilities since you define compatibility.
Really. Has the opposite effect on me. Whenever I read it, I take a look at what I'm doing and think, "wow, I didn't realize that this was a negative thing regarding freedom, I guess it's time to change". Kind of in the same way that I know only morons drive SUVs, or only idiots invest in companies that pollute, or that buying crap from Walmart might save me money but will destroy the US economy and worker's rights. That's why I drive a small Japanese compact, make conscious efforts to avoid investments unless I know the company is green, and refuse to buy anything at Walmart no matter how much it will save me. Are you sure you read the same writing? He's kind of an inspiration to those of us who look forward to a more enlightened future.
To be a "cracker" requires a lot of skills that average folks don't possess. You have to be super type-A for one thing. You must be able to memorize every step you've taken so you can backtrack and put things back if need be. I think that certain types of habitual liars could make good crackers. The kinds who can have multiple threads of lies among multiple people and actually be able to keep the story straight. Hackers? Totally different. You still need abilities that most people don't have a large part of those abilties being deductive logic and curiosity about how things work. Too many people don't care how things work, they just want to use them. Those people can never and will never be hackers.
What about Total Cost of 0wn3r5h1p? I hear that is more common on the Windows side than the Linux side but you never know, do you? I still have yet to see a rooted Windows or Linux box on any network I have had access to. That doesn't mean that haven't been cracked. I've seen worms on the Windows side, but that's the norm. On the Linux side, I have yet to see any odd behavior. But, if boxes are being cracked by knowledgable crackers, they are going to be able to cover their trails on any OS.
Google Reminds me of Digital
on
Has Google Peaked?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Much like Digital they only employ people who "get it" when it comes to technology and real innovation. Theire chosen back end OS? Linux. Wise choice especially on the technical end. Unfortunately, there are some people who think that technology should exist for business and that's when things go sour. That's what happened to Digital. They were run by some of the most brilliant engineers, but they hhad to compete against other companies run by suits who only care about making money and not advancing technology or society. Most of the time techs can't beat suits at business. Let's hope this isn't the case with Google. I really like seeing companies that are more focussed on moving technology forward and less focussed on insane profit. (Yeah, I know they make a lot of money from ads, but they apparently aren't totally focussed on it because they've been coming out with the most innovative stuff due to their sole focus on the advancement and innovation with technology.)
They really only ever got it right once. The Rio Karma is the perfect music player and at the recent pricepoint of $180, it's exactly everything a music player should be. The problem was that they originally asked too much for it. I mean 20 Gigs of music for $500? That's ridiculous. But 20 gigs for $180, that's reasonable. I just got my Karma in May and I have to say I love even more than the iPod I had before. It does a perfect job of segueing from one track to the next with no blank hole like the iPod. Absolute perfection. But having one good product and a slew of failed products is what makes a company go out of business... So bye bye Rio.
Unix forces you to be organized otherwise you fail as an admin. Windows allows you to be sloppy due to it's "user friendly" aspects. Unix changes the way you think if you successfully integrate into the OS. I didn't used to be as organized before I started using Unix. One misstep and you could be toast. Nothing to force you into being organized than a job threatening mistake...;P
The practical skillset required to admin Unix systems, could provide some people with the skills needed to maintain mainframe systems:
1. Strong memory to be able to know which command to use in which context 2. Thorough understanding of logic (this stuff started on mainframes where logic was impreative) 3. Organization. You can't properly admin a *nix box if you don't keep yourself organized. The same applies to mainframes. Windows doesn't really prepare people for this kind of thinking.
Having worked on a VAX and a few Alphas running OpenVMS, I can say that the underlying concepts between mainframe OSes and *nix aren't as far apart as Windows is from mainframe OSes.
All I can think of is Vivian from that classic 80s series "The Young Ones" and Rick yammering on saying, "Have we got a video"? when they had a video. How many 80s kids here remember that?
That why you gotta run your own mail server mah boy!!! Us "old folks" got sick of having other people get things wrong, so we all run mail servers at home. I have 500 Gigs of storage for my mail and 500 gigs of backup. It's the only way to go. Then you can choose your own web mail interface or mail client (Outlook sucks). However, there are times when you need a light web mail client, and GMail is THE lightest and most full featured I've seen of the commercial providers. So if you HAVE to use web mail that you don't run yourself, use GMail!
You said: does that mean that mankind is a dead end street? That would be a resounding yes. I am working on developing the eventual sentience in machines. That is where things are going.;p
...the greatest desktop known to man and machine. It is what convinced me to dump Windows altogether. It is THE killer app. That is all.
Where were you when Windows 95 Premiered?
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Windows 95 Turns 10
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· Score: 1
I was busy installing RedHat GNU/Linux over top of the Win95 installation that screwed my previously Win 3.1 (blech) box. I never looked back. I was a former Mac guy at that point.
The problem with standardized GUIs is that they suit no one. You have many camps and they all have valid points:
1. Luser - I want it to work just like Windows because it's all I know 2. Bearded Unix God - GUIs are only for being able to display multiple xterms that can be seen simultaneously. If GNU screen could do that, I'd drop X. 3. Eye Candy Addicts (me) - But dammit the Windows GUI looks like crap and Apple's GUI is too limiting. Give me the power and lightness of Enlightenment!! 4. Bean Counters - X uses too much memory as it is. I think we should do away with all window managers but twm. Why do I need 32-bit gradients and drop shadows on my desktop? I just want to work dammit! 5. X Windows is teh suck - X Windows (should be "X Window System" folks) sucks because it's slow and it's slow because it sends everything over the network even if your apps are local! Get rid of network transparency!! Get rid of X and replace it with something more like what Windows has!!! 6. The politician - GNOME is preferable over KDE because it's licensing is purer in FOSS terms and it's part of the GNU project which believes in true freedom. 7. The self proclaimed pragmatist - KDE is prefereable over GNOME because it is more user friendly, customizable and has much better integration between applications due to the uase of C++.
You can't please all these people with a stanardized GUI. Basically, this is never going to go away. You might get the majority of people to adopt one GUI as a "standard", but it's not going to be like the stunted Windows/Macintosh worlds. There are going to be other distributions that will package different GUIs as their default. My perfect OS distro would be something that runs on PPC, is 64-bit, uses Enlightement 17 as it's default environment, with GNOME filling in where there are no Enlightenment apps, would be based on the GNU/HURD. Obviously there isn't anything like that, and there isn't likely to be unless I build it. The diversity is a good thing because one size does not fit all.
...because we can't let the worthless peons below "suit" level make more money, god forbid. Sorry, but coders do the REAL work(tm) and should be making at least 75-90% of what execs currently do. Whereas execs should be making about 60-75% of their current pay.
Sadly, there are a lot of us who don't like to be social. Not that we don't like to hang out with friends and have fun, but the idea of "social gathering places" is very unappealing compared to a nice quiet library with plenty of options for secluding one's self. Taking that away is yet one more way that society is trying to stamp out people who are naturally averse to socializing in groups. This is really a sad thing.
Well, the server I run is intended to be private. It's how I keep in touch with my friends and family and don't have to worry about my chat becoming someone else's intellectual property. (Until some ISPs start claiming copyright on everything that traverses their networks from the way things are going)
Hehehehe. You sound like me. I still remember all the hype about Pink Taligent being the "convergence box" of the future.
See here for a good synopsis of the history of the PPC chip. As usual Wikipedia comes through for me again.
As a side note, I remember I had this one math teacher in high school (1987) who got me into computers. He did this really cool "paper computer" in his class where we had to act as CPUs and use our own registers on paper to work out a simple math problem. You didn't have to know the answer to the problem necessarily since you were actually moving bits on paper and should get the right answer anyway. This guy was also into the Timex Sinclair ZX81/1000 (Zilog Z80 CPU) computer. I swear he mentioned something about having connected several of them together at home and used them for various home automation tasks. Pretty cool guy. Math teachers CAN rule.
I can just see the new troll: "PPC is dying. Anandtech confirms it".
Heh. I remember getting all excited about PPC back in 1994 when Apple first announced the move. It seemed like it was a natural and logical extension from the 680x0 family (one of the best CPUs ever for desktop systems). It's kind of sad how it didn't wind up being as much of a player as it should have. Even the guy who wrote Minix quipped back then that the future would be everyone running some kind of *nix OS on their PPC desktops. Now that dream is gone because even Apple went with Intel. I sure hope Intel can get it together and make a decent CPU/Mobo combo that dumps all backwards compatibility, BIOS and segmented memory.
I'm very happy that this indicates they may be using the Jabber protocol for IM. I've been using it for my friends and family (I run my own Jabber server behind an OpenVPN network) for quite some time now and it's a much nicer protocl than any of the other ones out there. The main reason being that it's free/open. Plus, I don't need to change my chosen clients to talk to the rest of the world now since anyone who matters (to me) has a GMail account. Here's to Google making a wise choice yet again!:)
I'm not a geek, but an artist who uses computers. I had a pony tail between 1989 and 1992. This was because I grew up with crew cuts and buzz cuts. As soon as I moved out of my parent's house (I had a real bedroom, not the fabled basement) to seek fame and fortune as a techno pop musician I decided to try growing my hair long to see what I'd look like. It took me a little over a year to get to the point where I could have an actual pony tail. At that point I figured I'd put all that effort into it, I may as well live with it for a bit. But I used all kinds of product to keep it clean and healthy and shiny. A lot of my female friends said they envied my hair.:) But I got tired of people not noticing my hair after a while, so I decided to be bold and just have my stylist hack it all off and go to a Peter Murphy style short cut again. The coolest thing was that everyone noticed and I got comments for quite some time. But, I was never tempted to grow it out again so I haven't. And I'm not in my late teens/early twenties anymore so I sod anyone who doesn't notice my hair!:)
When it came to technology and art, Bob Moog actually "got it" compared to nearly everyone else in the IT world. (See my Slashdot profile for my statement about why I believe technology exists) He knew that he was the engineer (a brilliant one at that) and not the musician. He knew that the musician was the one with the "magical connection" to the instrument. This is what seems to be lacking in the rest of IT when thinking about the end users. He "got it" and nearly everyone else doesn't.
Now THAT is the most logical and rational argument I've read in all the responses to my original post. I agree with you coming from a business perspective. But, I tend to look at things from the technical perspective because I could give a rat's ass about money or business.
Slashdot Mirror
For one thing, when you allow just anyone to run a Jabber server, you're assuming they know HOW to run one and run it securely. Hell, even I run a Jabber server, but there ain't no way that thing is EVER going to be on the net in the open or do S2S with any other servers outside of my close circle of friends who *I KNOW PERSONALLY IN REAL LIFE*. My Jabber server is used by friends and family over OpenVPN. I really don't think anyone in their right mind believes in decentralized stuff unless they're doing something illegal or they're libertarians (who I am not so sure are in their right minds). I like a good top down solution with centralized control because it "just works" and you don't have to worry about weirdo incompatibilities since you define compatibility.
Really. Has the opposite effect on me. Whenever I read it, I take a look at what I'm doing and think, "wow, I didn't realize that this was a negative thing regarding freedom, I guess it's time to change". Kind of in the same way that I know only morons drive SUVs, or only idiots invest in companies that pollute, or that buying crap from Walmart might save me money but will destroy the US economy and worker's rights. That's why I drive a small Japanese compact, make conscious efforts to avoid investments unless I know the company is green, and refuse to buy anything at Walmart no matter how much it will save me. Are you sure you read the same writing? He's kind of an inspiration to those of us who look forward to a more enlightened future.
To be a "cracker" requires a lot of skills that average folks don't possess. You have to be super type-A for one thing. You must be able to memorize every step you've taken so you can backtrack and put things back if need be. I think that certain types of habitual liars could make good crackers. The kinds who can have multiple threads of lies among multiple people and actually be able to keep the story straight. Hackers? Totally different. You still need abilities that most people don't have a large part of those abilties being deductive logic and curiosity about how things work. Too many people don't care how things work, they just want to use them. Those people can never and will never be hackers.
What about Total Cost of 0wn3r5h1p? I hear that is more common on the Windows side than the Linux side but you never know, do you? I still have yet to see a rooted Windows or Linux box on any network I have had access to. That doesn't mean that haven't been cracked. I've seen worms on the Windows side, but that's the norm. On the Linux side, I have yet to see any odd behavior. But, if boxes are being cracked by knowledgable crackers, they are going to be able to cover their trails on any OS.
Much like Digital they only employ people who "get it" when it comes to technology and real innovation. Theire chosen back end OS? Linux. Wise choice especially on the technical end. Unfortunately, there are some people who think that technology should exist for business and that's when things go sour. That's what happened to Digital. They were run by some of the most brilliant engineers, but they hhad to compete against other companies run by suits who only care about making money and not advancing technology or society. Most of the time techs can't beat suits at business. Let's hope this isn't the case with Google. I really like seeing companies that are more focussed on moving technology forward and less focussed on insane profit. (Yeah, I know they make a lot of money from ads, but they apparently aren't totally focussed on it because they've been coming out with the most innovative stuff due to their sole focus on the advancement and innovation with technology.)
They really only ever got it right once. The Rio Karma is the perfect music player and at the recent pricepoint of $180, it's exactly everything a music player should be. The problem was that they originally asked too much for it. I mean 20 Gigs of music for $500? That's ridiculous. But 20 gigs for $180, that's reasonable. I just got my Karma in May and I have to say I love even more than the iPod I had before. It does a perfect job of segueing from one track to the next with no blank hole like the iPod. Absolute perfection. But having one good product and a slew of failed products is what makes a company go out of business... So bye bye Rio.
Unix forces you to be organized otherwise you fail as an admin. Windows allows you to be sloppy due to it's "user friendly" aspects. Unix changes the way you think if you successfully integrate into the OS. I didn't used to be as organized before I started using Unix. One misstep and you could be toast. Nothing to force you into being organized than a job threatening mistake... ;P
Please mod parent up. If only I had mod points... Doesn't enyone here recognize comic genius when they see it?
The practical skillset required to admin Unix systems, could provide some people with the skills needed to maintain mainframe systems:
1. Strong memory to be able to know which command to use in which context
2. Thorough understanding of logic (this stuff started on mainframes where logic was impreative)
3. Organization. You can't properly admin a *nix box if you don't keep yourself organized. The same applies to mainframes. Windows doesn't really prepare people for this kind of thinking.
Having worked on a VAX and a few Alphas running OpenVMS, I can say that the underlying concepts between mainframe OSes and *nix aren't as far apart as Windows is from mainframe OSes.
All I can think of is Vivian from that classic 80s series "The Young Ones" and Rick yammering on saying, "Have we got a video"? when they had a video. How many 80s kids here remember that?
That why you gotta run your own mail server mah boy!!! Us "old folks" got sick of having other people get things wrong, so we all run mail servers at home. I have 500 Gigs of storage for my mail and 500 gigs of backup. It's the only way to go. Then you can choose your own web mail interface or mail client (Outlook sucks). However, there are times when you need a light web mail client, and GMail is THE lightest and most full featured I've seen of the commercial providers. So if you HAVE to use web mail that you don't run yourself, use GMail!
You said: does that mean that mankind is a dead end street? That would be a resounding yes. I am working on developing the eventual sentience in machines. That is where things are going. ;p
...the greatest desktop known to man and machine. It is what convinced me to dump Windows altogether. It is THE killer app. That is all.
I was busy installing RedHat GNU/Linux over top of the Win95 installation that screwed my previously Win 3.1 (blech) box. I never looked back. I was a former Mac guy at that point.
The problem with standardized GUIs is that they suit no one. You have many camps and they all have valid points:
1. Luser - I want it to work just like Windows because it's all I know
2. Bearded Unix God - GUIs are only for being able to display multiple xterms that can be seen simultaneously. If GNU screen could do that, I'd drop X.
3. Eye Candy Addicts (me) - But dammit the Windows GUI looks like crap and Apple's GUI is too limiting. Give me the power and lightness of Enlightenment!!
4. Bean Counters - X uses too much memory as it is. I think we should do away with all window managers but twm. Why do I need 32-bit gradients and drop shadows on my desktop? I just want to work dammit!
5. X Windows is teh suck - X Windows (should be "X Window System" folks) sucks because it's slow and it's slow because it sends everything over the network even if your apps are local! Get rid of network transparency!! Get rid of X and replace it with something more like what Windows has!!!
6. The politician - GNOME is preferable over KDE because it's licensing is purer in FOSS terms and it's part of the GNU project which believes in true freedom.
7. The self proclaimed pragmatist - KDE is prefereable over GNOME because it is more user friendly, customizable and has much better integration between applications due to the uase of C++.
You can't please all these people with a stanardized GUI. Basically, this is never going to go away. You might get the majority of people to adopt one GUI as a "standard", but it's not going to be like the stunted Windows/Macintosh worlds. There are going to be other distributions that will package different GUIs as their default. My perfect OS distro would be something that runs on PPC, is 64-bit, uses Enlightement 17 as it's default environment, with GNOME filling in where there are no Enlightenment apps, would be based on the GNU/HURD. Obviously there isn't anything like that, and there isn't likely to be unless I build it. The diversity is a good thing because one size does not fit all.
...because we can't let the worthless peons below "suit" level make more money, god forbid. Sorry, but coders do the REAL work(tm) and should be making at least 75-90% of what execs currently do. Whereas execs should be making about 60-75% of their current pay.
Sadly, there are a lot of us who don't like to be social. Not that we don't like to hang out with friends and have fun, but the idea of "social gathering places" is very unappealing compared to a nice quiet library with plenty of options for secluding one's self. Taking that away is yet one more way that society is trying to stamp out people who are naturally averse to socializing in groups. This is really a sad thing.
Well, the server I run is intended to be private. It's how I keep in touch with my friends and family and don't have to worry about my chat becoming someone else's intellectual property. (Until some ISPs start claiming copyright on everything that traverses their networks from the way things are going)
See here for a good synopsis of the history of the PPC chip. As usual Wikipedia comes through for me again.
As a side note, I remember I had this one math teacher in high school (1987) who got me into computers. He did this really cool "paper computer" in his class where we had to act as CPUs and use our own registers on paper to work out a simple math problem. You didn't have to know the answer to the problem necessarily since you were actually moving bits on paper and should get the right answer anyway. This guy was also into the Timex Sinclair ZX81/1000 (Zilog Z80 CPU) computer. I swear he mentioned something about having connected several of them together at home and used them for various home automation tasks. Pretty cool guy. Math teachers CAN rule.
I can just see the new troll: "PPC is dying. Anandtech confirms it".
Heh. I remember getting all excited about PPC back in 1994 when Apple first announced the move. It seemed like it was a natural and logical extension from the 680x0 family (one of the best CPUs ever for desktop systems). It's kind of sad how it didn't wind up being as much of a player as it should have. Even the guy who wrote Minix quipped back then that the future would be everyone running some kind of *nix OS on their PPC desktops. Now that dream is gone because even Apple went with Intel. I sure hope Intel can get it together and make a decent CPU/Mobo combo that dumps all backwards compatibility, BIOS and segmented memory.
I'm very happy that this indicates they may be using the Jabber protocol for IM. I've been using it for my friends and family (I run my own Jabber server behind an OpenVPN network) for quite some time now and it's a much nicer protocl than any of the other ones out there. The main reason being that it's free/open. Plus, I don't need to change my chosen clients to talk to the rest of the world now since anyone who matters (to me) has a GMail account. Here's to Google making a wise choice yet again! :)
You are correct sir. Believe it or not, that WAS a typo.
I'm not a geek, but an artist who uses computers. I had a pony tail between 1989 and 1992. This was because I grew up with crew cuts and buzz cuts. As soon as I moved out of my parent's house (I had a real bedroom, not the fabled basement) to seek fame and fortune as a techno pop musician I decided to try growing my hair long to see what I'd look like. It took me a little over a year to get to the point where I could have an actual pony tail. At that point I figured I'd put all that effort into it, I may as well live with it for a bit. But I used all kinds of product to keep it clean and healthy and shiny. A lot of my female friends said they envied my hair. :) But I got tired of people not noticing my hair after a while, so I decided to be bold and just have my stylist hack it all off and go to a Peter Murphy style short cut again. The coolest thing was that everyone noticed and I got comments for quite some time. But, I was never tempted to grow it out again so I haven't. And I'm not in my late teens/early twenties anymore so I sod anyone who doesn't notice my hair! :)
When it came to technology and art, Bob Moog actually "got it" compared to nearly everyone else in the IT world. (See my Slashdot profile for my statement about why I believe technology exists) He knew that he was the engineer (a brilliant one at that) and not the musician. He knew that the musician was the one with the "magical connection" to the instrument. This is what seems to be lacking in the rest of IT when thinking about the end users. He "got it" and nearly everyone else doesn't.
Now THAT is the most logical and rational argument I've read in all the responses to my original post. I agree with you coming from a business perspective. But, I tend to look at things from the technical perspective because I could give a rat's ass about money or business.