It seems that the protocol is meant to decrease the amount of time it takes to fully utilize a certain (large) amount of bandwidth. TCP isn't designed to quickly utilize huge amounts of bandwidth, so they are compensating for that. To quote from their site:
In order for TCP to increase its window for full utilization of 10Gbps with 1500-byte packets, it requires over 83,333 RTTs [round trip times]. With 100ms RTT, it takes approximately 1.5 hours...
If I understand correctly, they are not making the inherent speed faster, they are just making the protocol able to understand the nature of the bandwidth more quickly, thus improving its ability to efficiently utilize the bandwidth. Thus, instead of requiring 1.5 hours to ramp up, theirs might take a few seconds or minutes.
My guess is that you aren't going to see huge gains from this for the average person; you'd need scads and scads of bandwidth in order to really need something like this -- TCP doesn't have any problem saturating a small 56kbps.
I hope that nobody is using this article as a base for their opinion of this bill. That had to be one of the most biased articles I've read lately. Here's just a few of the problems:
Googe, Yahoo, cNet, and eBay are involved, but the writer never directly quotes them, favoring to paraphrase their letter.
There are no opposition quotes.
The only quoted source is Avi Naider, who is the CEO of an adware company that is hurt by the bill.
MediaDailyNews is not an unbiased source; it is in their best interest to see this bill fail.
I'm not sure whether this is supposed to be actual
"news" or just a PR release. I know nothing about the actual bill, but this article definitely did not help me understand it. Why is Slashdot covering such a biased piece?
Who's making a sales speech? I don't live in any UTOPIA areas, nor am I part of any of the companies involved. I'm simply stating UTOPIA's plan. Save your vitriol for your real opponents.
anything even remotely associated with the government is not self-sustaining
Isn't everything remotely associated with the government? By the same logic, businesses in general aren't sustainable because you have to have things like business licenses (and the associated overhead), OSHA (and the associated overhead), roads to the businesses (and the associated overhead), politicians to debate the roads... it goes on forever.
I don't argue that some entities don't earn enough to cover their true costs; many small businesses that receive breaks from the government never generate enough benefit to society to cover the cost of the breaks. I tend to think, though, that UTOPIA might be able to cover the costs. Even if it never directly generated more tax revenue than it cost, it would serve to fuel the local tech economy. Utah would have one of the best municipal networks in the country, which could be appealing to many companies looking to relocate.
home mortgage rates are increased, insurance premiums and deductibles are raised
Can you point to any study that shows this, or are you just pulling this out of the air? I've listened to a lot of debate on UTOPIA and I've never heard this argument used by anyone, including Qwest and Comcast. I've searched a bit on Google and I can't find anyone using this argument there, either. Please show me where to get research on this issue.
I can't speak for any other implementations, but Utah's UTOPIA is not run by the city, state, or any other government. It is a private company that is seeking government backing on some bonds (they get a much lower interest rate if they have the cities as cosigners.) The network is supposed to be self-sustaining, in terms of revenue. That means that, assuming that enough people and providers sign up for the service, UTOPIA will never receive any tax money.
Utah is fading as a tech center. Let's go through a quick list of Utah tech companies:
Novell: They have been sucking canal water for the last while. Hopefully their acquisition of SuSE will pull them out of their tailspin, but in any case, I don't believe that their Linux development is going to be moving to Utah. PLUS, they recently moved their corporate headquarters to the east coast.
Iomega: No longer a major player and their corporate offices are no longer here.
WordPerfect: Gone the way of the dodo.
Evans and Sutherland: I don't know a lot about them, but I do hear that they are having serious problems. I wouldn't doubt it if they either moved, went bankrupt, or got bought out.
SCO: OK, this could be the bright future of Utah's tech sector. Of course, if that happens then I'll be moving; I couldn't stand to live in the same state as those scoundrels.
All in all, Utah ain't the tech haven that it used to be.
I agree completely. There will always be someone who is given priority on a certain frequency. My point is that that "someone" is not fixed in stone. Ham may currently be a priority, but that could easily change if Ham operators (a very small group) start pissing off potential BPL customers and providers (a much larger and more powerful group.) All it takes is a bunch of ordinary citizens ganging up with the power companies and Ham will go the way of the dodo.
You may not see it as important, but the government does.
Let's face it: the average person couldn't care less if some Ham junkie loses the ability to talk to other junkies in Nepal. They do care about emergency services, though, which is my point; if the Ham operators want to win, they need use their best argument, not some head-in-the-sand, arrogant claim to having some sort of inherent right to frequencies. Given the fact that the government will do whatever companies and/or the majority want, the FCC's opinion of Ham radio could change very quickly.
What a ridiculous approach! Every time there is a BPL story, half of the Ham operators say this. In case everyone isn't aware of it, the Ham frequency isn't written into the Constitution. If you start pissing off your neighbors and say, "I'm a licensed operator and you're not, so eat it," they're going to work to get your license revoked.
A much better approach is to take the intelligent route. Don't act like a soccer mom in an SUV, trampling over everyone else just because you can, but rather appeal to their better senses. Tell them, "You don't want this because it will interfere with emergency services." That will get them on your side, not some sort of macho man attitude.
I, for one, could care less about Ham radio, but I do care about emergency services. If BPL will interfere with those, then I would be willing to oppose it. On the other hand, when I see a bunch of arrogant Hams trumping up their frequency rights, I feel like signing up for BPL tomorrow.
The carpool lanes are the only thing my taxes pay for that I'm not permitted to use.
Guess again. Your taxes fund research at universities, but you don't necessarily get to participate in the research team. Your taxes might be used for building private homes, but that doesn't mean you can personally use those homes. Your taxes fund various welfare programs, but you probably don't qualify to get a share of them.
If I read the article correctly, the officer didn't know the names in the first place; he had simply heard a report of a couple fighting, no names attached. Thus, the point of verifying the identities doesn't hold.
The fact of the matter is, young males commit most crimes
Maybe or maybe not, but what does that matter? If there were a statistic that said that 90% of car thefts are done by people under 5 feet tall, does that mean that a cop can pull someone over if they are short and drive a nice car? No! It's the same thing with this guy; the cop had no logical reason to suspect him of doing anything wrong, he just had a "hunch." Call me crazy, but I don't like cops with illogical hunches, and I don't think they should be able to question people for no legitimate reason.
stopping people who look suspicious...is not something I consider a breach of privacy
What does it mean to "look suspicious"? Does a black guy with expensive jewelry and a nice car qualify? No. How about a guy walking around a neighborhood at night? No. Now, if the cop had received a complaint that the guy was hanging around someone else's house, that would be suspicious, but talking a late-night constitutional is hardly criminal!
First, buy a copy of something like "Computer Networks" by Andrew Tanenbaum. Study it and try to make sense of it all. You don't need to understand every word, instead you just need to realize that it is a good introduction to what you'll be doing in network research. If you just want to set up Cisco routers in fancy ways, then network research probably isn't what you want to do and a few good Cisco certifications are you're best bet.
If you still are interested, then get into Computer Science (or possibly CE). CS is not so much about programming, but rather is much more focused on a wide range of abstract computer-related topics. For example: data structures and algorithms, computer architecture, operating systems, and networking (all very important in network theory.)
If you just want to be a big IT network guy at some business, you'd be better served by getting a non-computer major (business would be great), a CS/CE minor, and a bunch of networking certifications. Your diversity will give you a huge advantage, and you'll be able to cross into another field if the computer thing doesn't pan out.
Though it was nice of him to do some legal research that he thought would help, I don't think that Linus' discovery actually helps. Apparently he forgot that, by placing a work under the GPL, you are not transferring the copyright but are simply granting a license. Thus, the copyright is never given to anyone else and there is no "financial gain" involved.
I would assume that the transmitter would not be operating continually. I don't know how feasible it is, but I would have the device simply make a cell phone call to a special 1-800 number every hour or three and report the current GPS location. That way, you wouldn't need to drain the battery continually.
As for the GPS reception, perhaps it would be able to detect when it got a good signal and perform the 'phone home' then. So, it wouldn't bother trying to transmit when it is sitting in the warehouse or store, but it would call when you bought it and were carrying it with you in your car. It wouldn't be a perfect scheme, but it might give the company a general idea where the can is.
Don't care. If my client were so stupid as to ignore my advice not to enforce it because he doesn't have a chance of success in court, it's his problem. And my gain, yes, that's right again.
Ah yes, the classic "Don't Care" attitude. It's wonderful not having to take a moral position on your employer, isn't it?
EUR 50k (or even less) to EUR 400k
How many small businesses do you know that have a EUR 50-400k budget for legal expenses? My father-in-law runs a small business and owns several patents. I am positive that an expense like that would put him out of business, despite a possible eventual repayment of his attorney's fees.
And there's no competition now? Sure, there is. Even with patents...companies in this field seldom prevent other from using technology, they only ask for a small fee.
Interesting argument. Let's say that I want to create a web browser in your world where Netscape holds several patents that they license out. Microsoft, not wanting to be caught with its pants down, creates some new functionality in its browser and patents it. Of course, Microsoft then licenses the technology back to Netscape for a "small fee". Here I am, an open-source developer with no money. How am I supposed to create a web browser? I have no money to license the dozens of patents from Netscape and Microsoft. This creates a significant economic barrier to entry, which effectively limits competition to the richest companies. Is this an ideal world? I say no.
I agree with your idea of protecting innovation, but I believe that software patents are hurting it, not helping it.
IMO It's not the one who writes the patent who's to blame, but the one who enforces the patent in a way that bars all competition and development.
Perhaps, but a good question to ask is: would you feel that you acted in an ethical manner if you were the one who wrote up the "one-click" patent? Just as a trial lawyer may choose to bail out on a client if they feel he or she is guilty, a patent attorney should do the same.
In other words: it's probably the only way for small enterprises to protect themselves against the large companies.
Baloney. Being a patent attorney, you will no doubt be able to share with us what it would cost for a small company to defend its patents against, oh say, IBM or a "large company in the North West of the US." Would a small business owner really be able to come up with that kind of cash, especially if the case were dragged out for multiple years?
Imagine when graphical web browsing would have been patented by the NCSA or Netscape would have patented a lot of improvements. Who would know Microsoft Internet Explorer?
Is this supposed to be a positive thing? I think you've missed all of the good things that have come from a little thing called competition. Also, had Netscape been able to patent the web browser or its "improvements", they would never have open-sourced it, thus the Mozilla project would never have existed. In addition, Konqueror and the others would have been sued into the dirt before they could have even gotten off the ground.
I think that simply trading one "master" for another is hardly a good thing. There needs to be a moratorium on software patents to allow for competition in a field that the patent offices obviously know little about.
Not true. The new rules have very little to do with radio market caps. There were only two ways that ClearChannel was affected by the new rules:
A) They were now free to buy newspapers in markets where they had not already hit their media cap.
B) They were no longer free to create JSAs.
Now, argue about the fairness of A all you want, but they still could not have exceeded their pre-existing and unmodified market caps. Therefore, the JSA part of the FCC rules is still very important. Like I said, it is unfortunate that the Senate didn't see fit to keep at least that single rule. As it is, ClearChannel is now still free to create virtual 'shell' companies that it does not technically own but still controls.
Part of the FCC's new rules banned the creation of new joint-sales agreements. For those not in the know, this is a tactic used by some very large media companies (read: ClearChannel) to get around the radio market caps.
Unfortunately, the Senate has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and struck down the JSA ban along with everything else. At least the House had the sense to just strike down the higher market caps and leave the rest in place...
Even if this bill gets though the House, the Senate, and even the President, it won't matter. Read that again, folks, because it is true: this bill doesn't matter.
The rules have already been stayed by a judge, so there isn't a possibility of sudden waves of consolidation yet. Whatever ruling is set down in the current case in Philidelphia will be appealed to the Supreme Court. This thing is going to be dragged through the courts all the way to the top. That is where the buck will stop.
So what you've got to ask yourself is, "Do I feel lucky?" Do you think the Supreme Court will rule for or against the media consolidation rules? Before you answer, please review the history of media deregulation. In particular, read up on the cable-broadcast cross-ownership ruling that came out of the D.C. court which prompted this whole fiasco (Fox v. FCC, if I remember correctly.)
I'll tell you this: there is a significant probability that these new ownership rules will be upheld, not rejected, especially given the conservative leanings of the high court.
This 2002 ruling criticized the FCC for the "arbitrary and capricious" 35% national ownership cap and told the FCC to reconsider it. Though he probably enjoyed doing it, Powell thus had very little choice in the matter of changing the cap, despite what everyone likes to believe. In fact, he has referred to this fact over and over
again.
It may be possible to justify the 35% cap somehow. The judge did not destroy the cap, he basically just vacated it. On the other hand, he did wipe out the cable-broadcast cross-ownership rule completely because he didn't think that it could be justified. The same logic is easily applied to the other major part of the June 2003 rule changes: newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. There is no point in arguing that point of the rules, as the Judicial Branch would throw it out the window immediately.
So, if you are all looking for someone to verbally crucify, look towards the judicial bench that prompted this rather than the FCC.
You need to implement as much caching as possible. Avoid as many recalculations of the same data as you can and save the results in temporary files on the disk.
Of course, caching may not be a viable option for you, depending on your specific situation. I wouldn't know.NET if it hit me in the face, so I don't have a clue as to how it works in the Microsoft world. If you can pull it off, though, you'll get near static-HTML performance for a lot of your hits, saving you the cost of another server or two.
Am I the only one who is sick of completely non-critical reviews of books? Many of the book reviews seem to be "this is what the book said," rather than "this is what I thought of the book."
This review, in particular, almost seems like it was copied straight off of Amazon or something. Some of the quotes seem to come from a marketing firm rather than an independent critic:
Whether you are completely new to OpenOffice.org or just moving from its predecessor StarOffice, you'll want to take a look at OpenOffice.org 1.0 Resource Kit from Prentice Hall PTR.
If only there were some sort of meta-moderation for book reviews...
I don't understand why so many ostensibly clueful people are so enamored with the whole concept of binary distributions.
...
Obviously, for large software packages, you probably don't have time to read every last line of code.
That is the understatement of the year. I would dare say that in order to read and understand a program that is on the order of five million lines, it could take you a year or two. For a non-expert programmer (or even an expert with no operating systems experience) it could take forever to just begin to understand something like the Linux kernel source.
But what I generally do is untar the source and then grep through it for suspicious things.
That's great if you know what you are an expert programmer (and if you think that a simple grep will help you that much.) But what of the small business that doesn't employ you? Do they need to perform that same review? Of course, they could skip it and just compile the thing, but that is the same as just using the binary packages!
You may as well just hang your Linux box out on the net with 500 open ports and no firewalls.
Baloney.
Because a well-hacked program will allow the hacker to get at your data, firewall or not.
A well-hacked program will be completely invisible to you, as well. Your grep methodology is too simplistic to catch any sort of sophisticated trojan. Even if you were to laboriously go through the code, line by line, you still wouldn't catch anything but the most obvious of hacks/problems.
The only way you can be completely sure is to read the source.
No, the only way is to not run it. Software is not a mathematical formula that you can "prove". Large programs are horribly complex, as you most likely already know. Binary packages serve a very useful purpose for many people. If you choose not to use them and to perform some limited form of code review, then that is great for you, but don't try to demean anyone who doesn't do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
In order for TCP to increase its window for full utilization of 10Gbps with 1500-byte packets, it requires over 83,333 RTTs [round trip times]. With 100ms RTT, it takes approximately 1.5 hours...
If I understand correctly, they are not making the inherent speed faster, they are just making the protocol able to understand the nature of the bandwidth more quickly, thus improving its ability to efficiently utilize the bandwidth. Thus, instead of requiring 1.5 hours to ramp up, theirs might take a few seconds or minutes.
My guess is that you aren't going to see huge gains from this for the average person; you'd need scads and scads of bandwidth in order to really need something like this -- TCP doesn't have any problem saturating a small 56kbps.
PDF describing Bic-TCP
I'm not sure whether this is supposed to be actual "news" or just a PR release. I know nothing about the actual bill, but this article definitely did not help me understand it. Why is Slashdot covering such a biased piece?
Who's making a sales speech? I don't live in any UTOPIA areas, nor am I part of any of the companies involved. I'm simply stating UTOPIA's plan. Save your vitriol for your real opponents.
anything even remotely associated with the government is not self-sustaining
Isn't everything remotely associated with the government? By the same logic, businesses in general aren't sustainable because you have to have things like business licenses (and the associated overhead), OSHA (and the associated overhead), roads to the businesses (and the associated overhead), politicians to debate the roads... it goes on forever.
I don't argue that some entities don't earn enough to cover their true costs; many small businesses that receive breaks from the government never generate enough benefit to society to cover the cost of the breaks. I tend to think, though, that UTOPIA might be able to cover the costs. Even if it never directly generated more tax revenue than it cost, it would serve to fuel the local tech economy. Utah would have one of the best municipal networks in the country, which could be appealing to many companies looking to relocate.
home mortgage rates are increased, insurance premiums and deductibles are raised
Can you point to any study that shows this, or are you just pulling this out of the air? I've listened to a lot of debate on UTOPIA and I've never heard this argument used by anyone, including Qwest and Comcast. I've searched a bit on Google and I can't find anyone using this argument there, either. Please show me where to get research on this issue.
Wow. I hope you aren't thinking of ever going into education.
I can't speak for any other implementations, but Utah's UTOPIA is not run by the city, state, or any other government. It is a private company that is seeking government backing on some bonds (they get a much lower interest rate if they have the cities as cosigners.) The network is supposed to be self-sustaining, in terms of revenue. That means that, assuming that enough people and providers sign up for the service, UTOPIA will never receive any tax money.
Novell: They have been sucking canal water for the last while. Hopefully their acquisition of SuSE will pull them out of their tailspin, but in any case, I don't believe that their Linux development is going to be moving to Utah. PLUS, they recently moved their corporate headquarters to the east coast.
Iomega: No longer a major player and their corporate offices are no longer here.
WordPerfect: Gone the way of the dodo.
Evans and Sutherland: I don't know a lot about them, but I do hear that they are having serious problems. I wouldn't doubt it if they either moved, went bankrupt, or got bought out.
SCO: OK, this could be the bright future of Utah's tech sector. Of course, if that happens then I'll be moving; I couldn't stand to live in the same state as those scoundrels.
All in all, Utah ain't the tech haven that it used to be.
I agree completely. There will always be someone who is given priority on a certain frequency. My point is that that "someone" is not fixed in stone. Ham may currently be a priority, but that could easily change if Ham operators (a very small group) start pissing off potential BPL customers and providers (a much larger and more powerful group.) All it takes is a bunch of ordinary citizens ganging up with the power companies and Ham will go the way of the dodo.
You may not see it as important, but the government does.
Let's face it: the average person couldn't care less if some Ham junkie loses the ability to talk to other junkies in Nepal. They do care about emergency services, though, which is my point; if the Ham operators want to win, they need use their best argument, not some head-in-the-sand, arrogant claim to having some sort of inherent right to frequencies. Given the fact that the government will do whatever companies and/or the majority want, the FCC's opinion of Ham radio could change very quickly.
A much better approach is to take the intelligent route. Don't act like a soccer mom in an SUV, trampling over everyone else just because you can, but rather appeal to their better senses. Tell them, "You don't want this because it will interfere with emergency services." That will get them on your side, not some sort of macho man attitude.
I, for one, could care less about Ham radio, but I do care about emergency services. If BPL will interfere with those, then I would be willing to oppose it. On the other hand, when I see a bunch of arrogant Hams trumping up their frequency rights, I feel like signing up for BPL tomorrow.
Guess again. Your taxes fund research at universities, but you don't necessarily get to participate in the research team. Your taxes might be used for building private homes, but that doesn't mean you can personally use those homes. Your taxes fund various welfare programs, but you probably don't qualify to get a share of them.
If I read the article correctly, the officer didn't know the names in the first place; he had simply heard a report of a couple fighting, no names attached. Thus, the point of verifying the identities doesn't hold.
Maybe or maybe not, but what does that matter? If there were a statistic that said that 90% of car thefts are done by people under 5 feet tall, does that mean that a cop can pull someone over if they are short and drive a nice car? No! It's the same thing with this guy; the cop had no logical reason to suspect him of doing anything wrong, he just had a "hunch." Call me crazy, but I don't like cops with illogical hunches, and I don't think they should be able to question people for no legitimate reason.
stopping people who look suspicious...is not something I consider a breach of privacy
What does it mean to "look suspicious"? Does a black guy with expensive jewelry and a nice car qualify? No. How about a guy walking around a neighborhood at night? No. Now, if the cop had received a complaint that the guy was hanging around someone else's house, that would be suspicious, but talking a late-night constitutional is hardly criminal!
If you still are interested, then get into Computer Science (or possibly CE). CS is not so much about programming, but rather is much more focused on a wide range of abstract computer-related topics. For example: data structures and algorithms, computer architecture, operating systems, and networking (all very important in network theory.)
If you just want to be a big IT network guy at some business, you'd be better served by getting a non-computer major (business would be great), a CS/CE minor, and a bunch of networking certifications. Your diversity will give you a huge advantage, and you'll be able to cross into another field if the computer thing doesn't pan out.
Though it was nice of him to do some legal research that he thought would help, I don't think that Linus' discovery actually helps. Apparently he forgot that, by placing a work under the GPL, you are not transferring the copyright but are simply granting a license. Thus, the copyright is never given to anyone else and there is no "financial gain" involved.
As for the GPS reception, perhaps it would be able to detect when it got a good signal and perform the 'phone home' then. So, it wouldn't bother trying to transmit when it is sitting in the warehouse or store, but it would call when you bought it and were carrying it with you in your car. It wouldn't be a perfect scheme, but it might give the company a general idea where the can is.
Ah yes, the classic "Don't Care" attitude. It's wonderful not having to take a moral position on your employer, isn't it?
EUR 50k (or even less) to EUR 400k
How many small businesses do you know that have a EUR 50-400k budget for legal expenses? My father-in-law runs a small business and owns several patents. I am positive that an expense like that would put him out of business, despite a possible eventual repayment of his attorney's fees.
And there's no competition now? Sure, there is. Even with patents...companies in this field seldom prevent other from using technology, they only ask for a small fee.
Interesting argument. Let's say that I want to create a web browser in your world where Netscape holds several patents that they license out. Microsoft, not wanting to be caught with its pants down, creates some new functionality in its browser and patents it. Of course, Microsoft then licenses the technology back to Netscape for a "small fee". Here I am, an open-source developer with no money. How am I supposed to create a web browser? I have no money to license the dozens of patents from Netscape and Microsoft. This creates a significant economic barrier to entry, which effectively limits competition to the richest companies. Is this an ideal world? I say no.
I agree with your idea of protecting innovation, but I believe that software patents are hurting it, not helping it.
Perhaps, but a good question to ask is: would you feel that you acted in an ethical manner if you were the one who wrote up the "one-click" patent? Just as a trial lawyer may choose to bail out on a client if they feel he or she is guilty, a patent attorney should do the same.
In other words: it's probably the only way for small enterprises to protect themselves against the large companies.
Baloney. Being a patent attorney, you will no doubt be able to share with us what it would cost for a small company to defend its patents against, oh say, IBM or a "large company in the North West of the US." Would a small business owner really be able to come up with that kind of cash, especially if the case were dragged out for multiple years?
Imagine when graphical web browsing would have been patented by the NCSA or Netscape would have patented a lot of improvements. Who would know Microsoft Internet Explorer?
Is this supposed to be a positive thing? I think you've missed all of the good things that have come from a little thing called competition. Also, had Netscape been able to patent the web browser or its "improvements", they would never have open-sourced it, thus the Mozilla project would never have existed. In addition, Konqueror and the others would have been sued into the dirt before they could have even gotten off the ground.
I think that simply trading one "master" for another is hardly a good thing. There needs to be a moratorium on software patents to allow for competition in a field that the patent offices obviously know little about.
A) They were now free to buy newspapers in markets where they had not already hit their media cap.
B) They were no longer free to create JSAs.
Now, argue about the fairness of A all you want, but they still could not have exceeded their pre-existing and unmodified market caps. Therefore, the JSA part of the FCC rules is still very important. Like I said, it is unfortunate that the Senate didn't see fit to keep at least that single rule. As it is, ClearChannel is now still free to create virtual 'shell' companies that it does not technically own but still controls.
Unfortunately, the Senate has thrown the baby out with the bathwater and struck down the JSA ban along with everything else. At least the House had the sense to just strike down the higher market caps and leave the rest in place...
The rules have already been stayed by a judge, so there isn't a possibility of sudden waves of consolidation yet. Whatever ruling is set down in the current case in Philidelphia will be appealed to the Supreme Court. This thing is going to be dragged through the courts all the way to the top. That is where the buck will stop.
So what you've got to ask yourself is, "Do I feel lucky?" Do you think the Supreme Court will rule for or against the media consolidation rules? Before you answer, please review the history of media deregulation. In particular, read up on the cable-broadcast cross-ownership ruling that came out of the D.C. court which prompted this whole fiasco (Fox v. FCC, if I remember correctly.)
I'll tell you this: there is a significant probability that these new ownership rules will be upheld, not rejected, especially given the conservative leanings of the high court.
Just some food for thought.
Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: New York power outage, deregulation disaster or the work of SCO terrorists... discuss!"
This 2002 ruling criticized the FCC for the "arbitrary and capricious" 35% national ownership cap and told the FCC to reconsider it. Though he probably enjoyed doing it, Powell thus had very little choice in the matter of changing the cap, despite what everyone likes to believe. In fact, he has referred to this fact over and over again.
It may be possible to justify the 35% cap somehow. The judge did not destroy the cap, he basically just vacated it. On the other hand, he did wipe out the cable-broadcast cross-ownership rule completely because he didn't think that it could be justified. The same logic is easily applied to the other major part of the June 2003 rule changes: newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. There is no point in arguing that point of the rules, as the Judicial Branch would throw it out the window immediately.
So, if you are all looking for someone to verbally crucify, look towards the judicial bench that prompted this rather than the FCC.
Of course, caching may not be a viable option for you, depending on your specific situation. I wouldn't know .NET if it hit me in the face, so I don't have a clue as to how it works in the Microsoft world. If you can pull it off, though, you'll get near static-HTML performance for a lot of your hits, saving you the cost of another server or two.
This review, in particular, almost seems like it was copied straight off of Amazon or something. Some of the quotes seem to come from a marketing firm rather than an independent critic:
Whether you are completely new to OpenOffice.org or just moving from its predecessor StarOffice, you'll want to take a look at OpenOffice.org 1.0 Resource Kit from Prentice Hall PTR.
If only there were some sort of meta-moderation for book reviews...
OpenOffice.org Resource Kit Review (Score: -1, Uninformative)
Obviously, for large software packages, you probably don't have time to read every last line of code.
That is the understatement of the year. I would dare say that in order to read and understand a program that is on the order of five million lines, it could take you a year or two. For a non-expert programmer (or even an expert with no operating systems experience) it could take forever to just begin to understand something like the Linux kernel source.
But what I generally do is untar the source and then grep through it for suspicious things.
That's great if you know what you are an expert programmer (and if you think that a simple grep will help you that much.) But what of the small business that doesn't employ you? Do they need to perform that same review? Of course, they could skip it and just compile the thing, but that is the same as just using the binary packages!
You may as well just hang your Linux box out on the net with 500 open ports and no firewalls.
Baloney.
Because a well-hacked program will allow the hacker to get at your data, firewall or not.
A well-hacked program will be completely invisible to you, as well. Your grep methodology is too simplistic to catch any sort of sophisticated trojan. Even if you were to laboriously go through the code, line by line, you still wouldn't catch anything but the most obvious of hacks/problems.
The only way you can be completely sure is to read the source.
No, the only way is to not run it. Software is not a mathematical formula that you can "prove". Large programs are horribly complex, as you most likely already know. Binary packages serve a very useful purpose for many people. If you choose not to use them and to perform some limited form of code review, then that is great for you, but don't try to demean anyone who doesn't do the same.