First Mandrake 9.2 and LG CD-ROMS, now this. Is this something the hardware manufacturers are doing that violates the common standards (IDE, ATAPI, IEEE1394)? Or, is this software companies trying to squeeze out a little more performance by not adhering to a standard?
When I first wrote my parent comment, I was grasping for recursive names. Somehow, RPM stood out, although in hindsight, I started thinking that it was Redhat Package Manager.
Again, not being a big Redhat user (mostly Debian and Gentoo) I'm not really aware of the RPM format.
And, adding to the recursive names - PINE is not Elm
Whenever a Microsoft or Linux hole appears, the Apple extremists come out of the woodwork, talking about how "If Apple was the majority player, not MS, none of this would happen." Well, guess what. If Apple was the majority player, this would have just screwed the majority of computer users.
True, when Blaster was running rampant, MS refused to patch NT4 systems. But, those systems were not 1 year old either. This behavior is completely irresponsible of Apple, and should be a good example of why, even though the core is open source (Darwin), if you rely on proprietary extensions (Aqua), etc., you have the potential to get burned.
For those with short term memories, there was just recently a discussion about Appgen and their business stability. Just a consideration.
Also, if you are a small to mid-sized business, do you need an on-staff accountant? Couldn't you handle things in the office, and get monthly/quarterly/yearly reports from an accounting firm as you need them?
Hackers don't need nor want a logo. Does ESR really think that most hackers are just dying to put logos on their coffee cups, hats, shirts, etc? If a hacker wants to express himself, he'll do it through hacking.
If we do have a logo, I think it should be a vector rendered shilouete of a fat, unwashed, unshaven hacker sitting in front of a PC.
Consider, we'd have a body of code, some rather generic, and some quite specific to our edge in the market. The two parts are quite tightly bound together. We'd like to release the generic part and encourage it's enhancement, and incorporate those enhancements with our specific part, but keep the latter proprietary (or at least keep it from benefitting our commercial copmpetition).
To me, and I am not a full-time programmer, this sounds more like a case of bad factoring. You have designed software where information about your process is embeded within the code.
The solution would be to develop an engine (which you could GPL and get improvements on) and a data format (which you could create a standard for [like a DTD] but keep your data closed).
This would allow others to use and improve on your engine, while keeping the details that give you an edge hidden. The case seems similar to SQL systems, where there's a common language (SQL), but proprietary backends that give companies an edge (Oracle, IBM DB2, etc.)
I'm not sure about the demographics, but I saw a story on the local news channel about the U.S. government getting involved in spam. They said that about 30% of people request more information, and 7% of people place orders.
The best thing that could happen is that the spammers let us know who they successfully sold to, so that we can collectively beat the crap out of them for making spam a worthwhile thing for the spammers.
And, if your company is going under, are you really that concerned about the customers?
I can just see that conversation between an upper level manager and a lower level employee:
Mgr: Bob, things aren't going well. We're shutting down the operations. You'll need to handle making sure that our customers get copies of the code so they don't get screwed. Once that's done, pack up your desk and leave your badge on the security desk.
What do you think Bob would do in this situation. I know what I'd do. Each customer gets a CD-ROM with ASCII goatse.cx guy. Compile that!
If they have a patent you can't duplicate the design.
No, actually, if they have a patent, you can't duplicate the design and sell it. If you want to go down in your workshop with the patent papers from the USPTO and build one, that's legal. Just don't try to sell it to anyone.
I was just getting ready to comment on this. While the use of CSS, XHTML, etc. is a good thing, the use of these technologies to create a 599 pixel width column, centered in the page, is not. Gee, if I force my users to only use a certain amount of screen real estate, I could do these things too.
ALA, let me know when you have a page design that respects the user's preferences for browser window size. Otherwise, credit C-Net for your layout. After all, I remember that layout from 4 years ago.
Re:What's soo bad about games.slashdot.com?
on
ALA 3 Goes Online
·
· Score: 1
So what's wrong with games.* ?
Other than blinding white text on purple gradient background, nothing.
Also, I couldn't agree more on using the Lite setting for Slashdot. I only wish you could apply a custom stylesheet to that.
I know that without content, sites and magazines don't get readers, to whom they can sell advertising. But, the point here is, do the masses really need game consoles? Is this such an important thing that we should subsidize consoles for those who can't afford them?
Why do businesses think that they need to dominate the entire population with their product to be successful? What's wrong with being one of three or four players in a niche market, and having a strong share of revenue from that market? Isn't the gaming industry worth about $4 billion / year? If everything is equal, that's $1.33 billion / year each for Sony, Nintendo, and MS. I don't think you'll find a business out there that would turn down $1 billion a year in revenue.
Bottom line, not everyone needs or wants a gaming console. End of story. Move on. Get over it.
I know I'm also offtopic, but that was one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Thank you for pointing that out.
Now, to try to venture into the realm of on-topic: A blimp might cause problems in a trade show booth. The show managers are kind of relentless about what gets put where, floating things, etc. I was at one trade show where a customer, located at a "T" intersection on an aisle, used a light projector with custom lenses to project their logo down the aisle carpet. Show management came by and told them either they could pay for the additional square footage, or change to logos in the projector to show logos (which they did.)
I wonder what their control software was, and if there was some problem/exploit at the OS level (latest patch gone bad) or something more like a hardware/software failure at the user level (RAID died, new control software). The linked articles seem to be very light on details.
Also, for the record, this probably doesn't count as a "crisis." For the love of $DEITY, it's only a little alcohol. If this is a crisis, you need to seek some help
No, we should let people use Diebold machines to elect which tall people should control the intarweb. Two birds, one stone.
No, just let Diebold run the internet. After all, they've proven their ability to select a proper technology platform, maintain it, and get good results, right?
And, as Scott Adams, author of Dilbert said, when the shorter candidate wins, he usually has better hair (Kennedy vs. Nixon). Therefore, if you have a tall candidate with good hair, it's almost a lock that he'll win the election.
Is it just me, or is Linus' attitude towards Linux, Microsoft, etc. one of nonchalance? It just doesn't seem that he cares one way or another as to what happens. Is this the mark of a man of utter confidence? Or, is this someone who is just relaxed to the point of almost being stoned?
Having never met him personally, I'm curious as to what people who have interacted with him in person make of his personality.
I recently purchased a GE VCR (model VG4268) which has a feature called "Commercial Advance" which either doesn't record the commercials or skips over them automatically during playback. Since there seems to be units like this that are being sold, there must be some way to automatically stop recording or skip over the commercials in an automated manner. This is the one feature that would make the difference for me in getting a Tivo. Does anyone have more details on the feasibility of this (aside from having to manually press a FF button to skip commercials)?
From discussing something like this with a friend who used to work with one of the local university TV stations, the way these systems work is by looking for the "network black" screen as the program fades out to commercial, and comes back. You'd have to program some method of identifying this solely black screen and triggering the pause/record method around it.
Once again, yes Amazon is cheaper. However, with Amazon's patent craziness (one-click shopping, web-based sales, etc.) Slashdot chooses to support their competitor who hasn't tried to patent such blatantly obvious things.
It has less to do with kickbacks from BN.com and more to do with taking a stand (however small) against a perceived injustice. I just figure that it's common knowledge on Slashdot how much the editors / some readers don't like Amazon's patent crap.
How about split out the architectures instead? Why do I have to d/l a tarball containing MIPS, SPARC, x86-64, PPC, etc. when all I want is the i386 branch?
Since each architecture has its own branch in the tree anyway, what would prevent those from getting forked out?
Shouldn't the companies who paid to license this software sue SunnComm for making false claims of security?
After all, if Master Lock says that their padlocks are bullet-proof, crowbar proof, etc. and some kid opens it with a paperclip, isn't Master Lock responsible for telling me their product was better than it actually is?
Slashdot Mirror
First Mandrake 9.2 and LG CD-ROMS, now this. Is this something the hardware manufacturers are doing that violates the common standards (IDE, ATAPI, IEEE1394)? Or, is this software companies trying to squeeze out a little more performance by not adhering to a standard?
When I first wrote my parent comment, I was grasping for recursive names. Somehow, RPM stood out, although in hindsight, I started thinking that it was Redhat Package Manager.
Again, not being a big Redhat user (mostly Debian and Gentoo) I'm not really aware of the RPM format.
And, adding to the recursive names - PINE is not Elm
Whenever a Microsoft or Linux hole appears, the Apple extremists come out of the woodwork, talking about how "If Apple was the majority player, not MS, none of this would happen." Well, guess what. If Apple was the majority player, this would have just screwed the majority of computer users.
True, when Blaster was running rampant, MS refused to patch NT4 systems. But, those systems were not 1 year old either. This behavior is completely irresponsible of Apple, and should be a good example of why, even though the core is open source (Darwin), if you rely on proprietary extensions (Aqua), etc., you have the potential to get burned.
Well, I apparently am an idiot. You're right, RPM isn't recursive. Oh well.
Any other recursive acronyms that you can think of?
For those with short term memories, there was just recently a discussion about Appgen and their business stability. Just a consideration.
Also, if you are a small to mid-sized business, do you need an on-staff accountant? Couldn't you handle things in the office, and get monthly/quarterly/yearly reports from an accounting firm as you need them?
I hadn't thought of that. Of course the logo should be recursive, it matches all the other recursive names (GNU, GNOME, RPM, etc.)
In another word, eeeewww!!!
Although, CowboyNeal would be a good model for the vector rendering. Hmmm....
Hackers don't need nor want a logo. Does ESR really think that most hackers are just dying to put logos on their coffee cups, hats, shirts, etc? If a hacker wants to express himself, he'll do it through hacking.
If we do have a logo, I think it should be a vector rendered shilouete of a fat, unwashed, unshaven hacker sitting in front of a PC.
To me, and I am not a full-time programmer, this sounds more like a case of bad factoring. You have designed software where information about your process is embeded within the code.
The solution would be to develop an engine (which you could GPL and get improvements on) and a data format (which you could create a standard for [like a DTD] but keep your data closed).
This would allow others to use and improve on your engine, while keeping the details that give you an edge hidden. The case seems similar to SQL systems, where there's a common language (SQL), but proprietary backends that give companies an edge (Oracle, IBM DB2, etc.)
I'm not sure about the demographics, but I saw a story on the local news channel about the U.S. government getting involved in spam. They said that about 30% of people request more information, and 7% of people place orders.
The best thing that could happen is that the spammers let us know who they successfully sold to, so that we can collectively beat the crap out of them for making spam a worthwhile thing for the spammers.
And, if your company is going under, are you really that concerned about the customers?
I can just see that conversation between an upper level manager and a lower level employee:
What do you think Bob would do in this situation. I know what I'd do. Each customer gets a CD-ROM with ASCII goatse.cx guy. Compile that!
It's OK. The USPTO site also shows the same thing in its glossary for the term patent. I stand corrected.
No, actually, if they have a patent, you can't duplicate the design and sell it. If you want to go down in your workshop with the patent papers from the USPTO and build one, that's legal. Just don't try to sell it to anyone.
I was just getting ready to comment on this. While the use of CSS, XHTML, etc. is a good thing, the use of these technologies to create a 599 pixel width column, centered in the page, is not. Gee, if I force my users to only use a certain amount of screen real estate, I could do these things too.
ALA, let me know when you have a page design that respects the user's preferences for browser window size. Otherwise, credit C-Net for your layout. After all, I remember that layout from 4 years ago.
Other than blinding white text on purple gradient background, nothing.
Also, I couldn't agree more on using the Lite setting for Slashdot. I only wish you could apply a custom stylesheet to that.
Hello? Editors? Slashcoders? CSS support? Please?
I know that without content, sites and magazines don't get readers, to whom they can sell advertising. But, the point here is, do the masses really need game consoles? Is this such an important thing that we should subsidize consoles for those who can't afford them?
Why do businesses think that they need to dominate the entire population with their product to be successful? What's wrong with being one of three or four players in a niche market, and having a strong share of revenue from that market? Isn't the gaming industry worth about $4 billion / year? If everything is equal, that's $1.33 billion / year each for Sony, Nintendo, and MS. I don't think you'll find a business out there that would turn down $1 billion a year in revenue.
Bottom line, not everyone needs or wants a gaming console. End of story. Move on. Get over it.
I know I'm also offtopic, but that was one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Thank you for pointing that out.
Now, to try to venture into the realm of on-topic: A blimp might cause problems in a trade show booth. The show managers are kind of relentless about what gets put where, floating things, etc. I was at one trade show where a customer, located at a "T" intersection on an aisle, used a light projector with custom lenses to project their logo down the aisle carpet. Show management came by and told them either they could pay for the additional square footage, or change to logos in the projector to show logos (which they did.)
I wonder what their control software was, and if there was some problem/exploit at the OS level (latest patch gone bad) or something more like a hardware/software failure at the user level (RAID died, new control software). The linked articles seem to be very light on details.
Also, for the record, this probably doesn't count as a "crisis." For the love of $DEITY, it's only a little alcohol. If this is a crisis, you need to seek some help
No, just let Diebold run the internet. After all, they've proven their ability to select a proper technology platform, maintain it, and get good results, right?
And, as Scott Adams, author of Dilbert said, when the shorter candidate wins, he usually has better hair (Kennedy vs. Nixon). Therefore, if you have a tall candidate with good hair, it's almost a lock that he'll win the election.
Is it just me, or is Linus' attitude towards Linux, Microsoft, etc. one of nonchalance? It just doesn't seem that he cares one way or another as to what happens. Is this the mark of a man of utter confidence? Or, is this someone who is just relaxed to the point of almost being stoned?
Having never met him personally, I'm curious as to what people who have interacted with him in person make of his personality.
From discussing something like this with a friend who used to work with one of the local university TV stations, the way these systems work is by looking for the "network black" screen as the program fades out to commercial, and comes back. You'd have to program some method of identifying this solely black screen and triggering the pause/record method around it.
Once again, yes Amazon is cheaper. However, with Amazon's patent craziness (one-click shopping, web-based sales, etc.) Slashdot chooses to support their competitor who hasn't tried to patent such blatantly obvious things.
It has less to do with kickbacks from BN.com and more to do with taking a stand (however small) against a perceived injustice. I just figure that it's common knowledge on Slashdot how much the editors / some readers don't like Amazon's patent crap.
How about split out the architectures instead? Why do I have to d/l a tarball containing MIPS, SPARC, x86-64, PPC, etc. when all I want is the i386 branch?
Since each architecture has its own branch in the tree anyway, what would prevent those from getting forked out?
Shouldn't the companies who paid to license this software sue SunnComm for making false claims of security?
After all, if Master Lock says that their padlocks are bullet-proof, crowbar proof, etc. and some kid opens it with a paperclip, isn't Master Lock responsible for telling me their product was better than it actually is?