You know, sometimes it's amazing what you don't realize that people don't understand if you don't stop and adjust your thinking... And then explain to them.
I hope that the people out there who also understand this happen to be people in positions of power or some sort of authority (whether by the hoi polloi, or the understanding of the Wizard of OZ.)
I call a large amount of BS upon you, AC! There's a lot more to what they do over there than tier one peering. There's also a high-quality NOC out there, as well as some route optimizing stuff that whups mightily upon some of the BB providers own network diagrams. in addition, they recently just purchased some large co-lo company, Co-Space, and so they're only getting better...
For my 2 cents, not that it matters down here in moderator land, but I think the best way to get a quick fix on the quality of your co-lo is to call and ask them to locate a particular machine. Some providers, believe it or not, are incapable of actually doing this. I've seen a night tech out at verio essentially say "uhh, to find that machine, I'm going to have to just shut down the connection and wait to see which CSU/DSU lights up..."
I hate to think that this _didn't_ occur to anyone when Apple ANNOUNCED this, right? You know, back when they mentioned integrating a UNIX-DERIVATIVE into their mainstream, desktop-ruling, dumb-people-can-use-this product, remember that??!!
I hate to say it, but the people here are just a teensy, little bit focused on linux sometimes. The BSD's are really something, and anyone who doesn't recognize by now the fact that there's room out there for _lots_ of OS's which each suit a different segment of the population, then you've forgotten that we used to be a people that did things any way we liked until TV came along and taught us all how to imitate each other so well...
Now, is it DEFINITELY going to happen? Of course not. Even if Linus was _sure_ that this or that module would be available in time for a certain kernel release, we'd still have to take that with a little grain of salt, now wouldn't we? But it seems likely now, and how can we know today what tomorrow brings us, eh?
Wow. OK, so You don't have a clue. I'll refute this now before moving on to the above more intellegent comment:
The InterNAP architecture and basic service model is available for all to see on their web page, at least the part that solves the problem described above. While I'm sure they have other more secret and therefore proprietary things involved as well, I was mostly making use of their clear description of the problem and of a very scalable solution that could be applied elsewhere. Anyone can replicate the basic idea of multiple-connect backbone peering across a multiple level connection without building private (expensive) backbones. One of the key ideas is the one that someone else brought up: telco's like em cause they are a customer, but are also competing with em for customers of their own, all with the advantage of not building cross-country backbones, but focusing on the building of efficient and clean Private Network Access Points.
Just cause you're too uninformed to check what they mean when they say "Proprietary" and automatically assume its a bad word doesn't mean that they are a threat to any of the open-source cooperative spirit of the Internet. I will note, after deciding to look at the clause you mention, that they happen to have a corporate policy that specifically encourages creation of GPL-code, not that that is any of your or my business. Mark another one up to "Slashdot Uninformed Reactionary Zealot"...
I hate to say this, but it appears that you are missing the point: it is a common misconception that all we need to do is "peer" more, something I think the telco's spread to their broadband access customers, who are often linux fans and gaming subscribers. But just because you can run traceroute doesn't mean you understand some of the larger architectural issues present if you dont step back and look at the backbone providers and the model they have set up. Jon Postel was a godsend, but now we have to clarify and refine his model...
Many people here in Seattle also complain because this or that company won't peer with that one, and they watch traffic go all the way down to California before bouncing back to here. ATT's @home customers in seattle, when trying to reach the University of Washington (who may be across the street) get to the meet-me room in the Westin Building, go out over some backbone down to the California MAE-west to the closest peering point that @home (a minor BB player who can only afford peering at open exchanges) shares with someone like UUNET or Sprint or whatever. The logic by the end customer is "Why go to the Westin, bounce to california and then bounce back to the Westin building, 20 feet away, all just to cross the street?"
That's braindead, but the problem is that the peering model itself provides no motivation to the larger players to correct the issue. Sure, the customer service department for @home takes a few more complaints, but overall they really don't care to lose the money it would cost to peer privately with someone like oh INTERNET2, who connects to the University, at the Westin Building. Furthermore, @home residential customers, who likely are making low demands on the outbound pipe, but pull large datastreams back (think of the http request model, for example) are unlikely to bring anything of value to those they peer with. Amazon.com employees don't really need a faster way to get to @home customers, they want @home customers to have a faster way of reaching them. So unless Amazon can PAY large sums of money and change the BB providers' mind, the BB provider like UUNET has no incentive to offer or allow peering at closer more convenient and sane peering points. Like one only 20 feet away in the meet-me room.
So do the large Backbone Providers bully smaller ISP's into doing what is best for THEM, for their bottom line? Absolutely. Anything less would be against capitalism. But is that necessarily what is best for the customers, or the largest number or the public? Probably not. So it appears necessary to re-design the public peering model to better serve all participants, Backbone providers, ISPs, content providers, and of course, the shareholders...
I thought it was an interesting article, myself...
I appreciate the insightful commentary for once...
However, I would like to point out something: I'm not saying that anyone is doing something they shouldn't, I am saying that the public peering model is fundamentally broken, and that what we currently have results in asymetric routing and high packet loss at peak times. Why should traffic hit these bottlenecks if it isn't necessary? Why not use private peerings with multiple backbones? Extra hops are introduced, and eficciency is lost. That's why I think what they are doing over at InterNAP is so cool: they want to re-architect the system so that all participants receive maximum benefit. I'm not a nutcase, and I know I keep bringing them into this discussion, but if you ever hear their CTO talk, you'll get chills at the ideas they work with....
These large backbone providers are essentially advertising (Qwest, for example) "We have the largest, fastest backbone in the world!", but who cares? If you get dumped at the competitors network immediately, you spend all your time in transit as a freeloader on someone else's network. BB prov's don't pay each other for this transit, so it gets lower priority on everyone else's network. That's not a good system, because participants have competing agendas....
The Public Exchanges? MAE-East and MAE-West (metropolitan Area Exchange) handle 70-80% of all traffic that goes from one backbone to another., and are paid for by the government. It's the one place where everyone can peer for free, so it is where the smaller backbone providers peer at, so they don't have to pay exhorbitant rates to UUNET or the other fatties...
InterNAP is getting it right, and is beginning to get noticed around here and elsewhere. Check out their web page for a good explanation. They provide to some of the biggest blue-chips in the country, including M$ and Amazon. They have a different way of doing this stuff that solves the public peering problem.
There's a very underreported problem with the way that peering is set up right now on the network. "Peering", as it has been, is only going to become worse and worse, because of the kludges we have had to provide to keep things just as they are aren't enough anymore. 90% of all routed traffic going from one backbone to another goes through one of the MAE exchanges, or in other words, through a public access node that is paid for with tax dollars alone. This being the case, those facilities are massively insufficient for the load they bear, which is why on peak times, you can get 20-30% packet loss. This is absolutely unaceptable. And the worse of it is, the more loss, the more traffic, as the TCP protocol simply has hosts re-send what didn't get through...
Some people in the high up networking world are getting a clue, and have actually solved the problem. For more information, a better and more thourough explanation, and more technical details on the solution, go to this site .
To continue, the tier1 providers refuse to peer with smaller ones, as the article suggests. UUNET gets pretty much whatever it wants because they own 30% of all the destination ip-space. What the big guys do is dump your traffic off at the local public exchange points at the soonest opportunity, making their competitors carry the load. But of course, since they all do this, everyone gets a worse QOS unless they just happen to be going to someone located on their own backbone.
Thats not good, and that is what I think this article is (rightfully) pointing out.
I am being picky about a source of so-called news because I like to try and be conscious of the agendas that people speak from when they attempt to influence my behaviour or my opinion. You have only to watch an hour or so of "Ziff-Davis TV" (is that only in Seattle, or do they actually send that out in other areas too?) before you begin to realize that they are the very exemplar of what another poster above stated: they will give you "facts" that support whoever has paid the ad-bill for the next thirty seconds, and getting technical advice from them, or changing your opinions based on the things they tell you only makes you dumb.
Granted, many other news organizations get paid for what they do, but often there is not so closely knit relationship between the products a company sells and the agenda that it promotes in its "objective" reporting. Who likes feeling like they are listening to propoganda?
You may note that in my post above, I don't really state an opinion one way or the other on the Napster/OS/RIAA debate. I think there are lot of valid viewpoints. How do you know whether or not I agree with the article? If I liked it or not? I wasn't making much of a point on the article, just the organization reporting it.
However, I find your personal attack besides the point, and immature at best. I'm not advocating that nobody make money from reporting news. And I wasn't seriously proposing copyright violation. Just pointing out that ZD isn't a natural "friend" of the average Open-Source person, contrary to appearances.
I mean, think about it: What here is news? Did something happen somewhere, did some fact that the slashdot population needed to know come up?
NO! ZD was probably just looking through their quote file for Linus Torvalds, and found something off color. They call him to get a juicy quote, and then bounce that on over to the other "OS gurus" to get their reactions. Post em all up, with a headline that's guaranteed to make a slashdot reader twitch, and BAM! You got yourself 500,000 ad impressions, with little-to-no effort. Sure, Linus hedges his statements at the end so that the actual quote isn't really all that inflamatory, but they seperate that part and put it down into the bottom. And what goes at the end of a story? The junk they don't care if you read it or not! They've already downloaded 50 ads to your screen by then...
You know, it's awefully weird to have ZDNet posting something about "moral compunctions" that is obviously slashdot-bait.
I don't like the oily feeling I get when I read their articles, knowing that their idea of news is tied directly to their revenue from ad-driven articles aimed for specific audiences. They obviously by now have identified slashdot as one of those target markets, and makes news stories that specifically "bait" everyone here into clicking onto their page.
I think I'd prefer if when news from them came out, if it was _really_ necessary to see the article that someone would post the text here, so I wouldn't have to go to their site. Oh wait, they'd probably sue/. just like MS. Just like the RIAA.
Don't be fooled by this non-freind of Open source, and don't be baited into silly anger at their statements...
("slashdot, a site for novice linux enthusiasts") (WTF? No bearded smug people from VAX days read slashdot anymore? Silly ZDNet!)
Homogeneity in the field leads to a _very_ large damage radius if anyone ever discovers the slightest hole in the "secure" way of doing things. If everyone implements it slightly differently, no single problem can expose the widest audience to risk. Remember the Windows "Ping of Death" problem? Homogeneity in the field made it worse than it might otherwise have been...
Although it seems like co-ordinated anarchy, it's important that there is no single point of failure.
Not at all. You can record digitally from another device, ripping byte-for-byte exactly what is on the CD, similar to ripping mp3s. You just have to use the optical in and digital cable that comes with the units these days.
Minidiscs use the ATRAC format, which is comparable to MP3. In fact, there is less loss when compared to mp3 at similar bit-rates, although the end product is slightly larger.
There are also, as I said before, home decks that record MD's which rip digitally, in faster than realtime, as well as soundcards you can get that output the cd info directly to the MD. There is _no_ discernable difference introduced, and in fact the sound can be enhanced with effects like additive bass. MD's sound incredible with good headphones or speakers.
Go to www.minidisk.org and get the facts, MD's are too good to pass up anymore.
BTW, the CD players that play mp3 CDs and regulars: expensive ($300 min). Skips, cause it's a cd player and can be jostled. large, comparatively, as are the media. MD is palm sized and smaller every day. Possibly much more fragile than the rugged MD players. They can be found by going to some links off of mp3.com, if you still want one.
And not only that, but if you actually get one of the newer MD recording decks out there, they include features like faster than realtime recording, so you can dump a cd to MD in 5 minutes.
Also, (and this is the kicker for me) the time it takes to reload your collection and get a fresh new mix of music: the time it takes to eject a disk and insert another. I just don't get the big push for solid-state only. The tech just ISNT good enough right now, and with SDMI looming in the background, I don't think its going to get better anytime now.
All current devices store something like an hour or two of audio, but why settle, because when you get tired of that list, you have to go back to a computer to reload the collection. That takes time! I just carry 4 or 5 disks (tiny) in my pocket while walking around on campus. Viola, all my moods can be satisfied while in transit, no going back to base. The 10 hour battery life doesn't hurt either...
And btw, you can get a nice unit (slightly larger than state-of-the-art) for about $200 at minidisco.com. Much cheaper.
Mandrake is no longer just Redhat with pentium optimisations. If you bother to go look at their website or at the spinoff site mandrakeuser.org (a good start page for many a newbie), you detect all the signs of something that is more than Redhat.
Cooker is the CVS version that gets devel work. They have several ambitious projects like Lothar, DrakConf, DiskDrake, and more, all independant of anything really from RH, and in my opinion, nicer too. The system really has a different feel top to bottom, one that I appreciate more for a desktop system. I'm not aware of any security level presets in RH, and there are no "preferred ftp access" type areas as per RH (a way to charge for updates, hello?).
A system can be made into anything you want, distro comparison can only be based upon presets and defaults, and the harder to quantify "feel" of the set. This is my favorite dist of linux for home and personal use. It also has a very good response rate on the newbie and expert mailing lists, high Signal-to-Noise ratio.
>Or maybe one of the network card manufacturers. If they designed a special NIC with the IP stack implemented in hardware >or firmware, then the OS kernel wouldn't need any modification other than a simplified device driver module. I think that >would eliminate the bottleneck you're referring to.
Isn't this what a winmodem is? Didn't they offer negligable performance increase?
I bet I'm thinking something totally stupid, so please tell me what I'm missing..
Micro$oft is probably too large and incompetent to do anything of the sort anymore, and certainly not without any leaks getting out. And think about the timing of this with anti-trust investigations. No worries from Redmond.
(besides, the 'ship date' of their "y2k-linux-worm" would prolly slip well into 2002, second quarter...) (G)
I'm easily able to O/C up to 488 or so, and past 500 when I'm not doing anything graphic (which I suspect is the AGP vid card's fault.
I'm not sure how a 466 would affect your ability to OC, if that's your thing, but the 433 all on it's own is more than sufficient for current games. You're likely to hit another limit before your processor gets to be too slow, like not enough RAM, or a fast enough graphics board.
Before 50 billion people jump down this persons throat, let's remember the forum, and remember that this is all pretty offtopic stuff.
But for you sir, I would say that indeed more research on your part might perhaps lend a different opinion. In addition to some of the things you bring up, there are also other very important issues at stake, such as national sovereignty and the like, and that enough people _from around the world_ felt it was a big deal that they gathered to enact the LARGEST protest and civil demonstration in all of american history, including the civil rights movement. It's not just 'seattleites', but indeed upwards of 40 to 50 thousand people.
I can assure the geek population (what does this have to do with 'news for nerds', btw?) that, to paraphrase another individual, reports are greatly exagerrated. The mainstream media and local coverage will begin to cover in more depth some of the amazing things that happened at the protest shortly, as soon as the idiots who have nowhere else to go disperse. Right now all that can be shown is just the blow-by-blow of what's going on in the streets right now. But this protest was an amazing success, one that will be remembered for some time to come, both for the things that _did_ happen, and for the things that did not (bloodshed, truely widespread looting, massive arrests, or truly violent confrontation).
Since I would not use this as a forum for political activism or similar unrelated offtopic discussion, I won't go into further detail, but if interested, email me.
Something to point to when reactionary idiots say uninformed things like how Redhat is like Microsoft:
RedHat funds other people to develop technology, and makes it available to everyone. Microsoft buys out competing technology or intimidates it out of the market until they have their own implementation.
I've been doing this for the last month since I picked up a Sharp 722 for $200 bucks from minidisco.com. There is no end of the advantages to having MD over plain old mp3 player.
* everytime you want a new song or want to tweak the contents of your MD, you have to reload the whole thing. I feel like a new playlist, I just pop in a new disk.
*Easily dump cd's, mp3s, voice, or mic to the MD. Everything you can dump to a mp3 player.
* MD is standardized. No worries about what nastiness the RIAA can cook up.
* similar battery capacity and size of current mp3 players.
Now that the price for portables has dropped quite a bit, I really think MD's gonna start heading into the mainstream in america. They're insanely popular in japan, and have been for awhile.
What kind of redundancy do you build into the server system for such a large and important site, ie. round-robin style servers or large, beefy superboxes, etc...
use video and sound simultaneously. It just requires a higher end machine or dual processor config...
This is just because the code at this point is not optimized. It will be soon, since a large chunk of the interested geek communities (sound & video geeks + computer nerds) overlap...
Slashdot Mirror
You know, sometimes it's amazing what you don't realize that people don't understand if you don't stop and adjust your thinking... And then explain to them.
I hope that the people out there who also understand this happen to be people in positions of power or some sort of authority
(whether by the hoi polloi, or the understanding of the Wizard of OZ.)
I hate to slam the /. editors, but
"never attribute to malice what can be accounted for with stupidity"
(or something to that effect.)
yeah, I mangled it, but you get the gist...
I call a large amount of BS upon you, AC! There's a lot more to what they do over there than tier one peering. There's also a high-quality NOC out there, as well as some route optimizing stuff that whups mightily upon some of the BB providers own network diagrams. in addition, they recently just purchased some large co-lo company, Co-Space, and so they're only getting better...
For my 2 cents, not that it matters down here in moderator land, but I think the best way to get a quick fix on the quality of your co-lo is to call and ask them to locate a particular machine. Some providers, believe it or not, are incapable of actually doing this. I've seen a night tech out at verio essentially say "uhh, to find that machine, I'm going to have to just shut down the connection and wait to see which CSU/DSU lights up..."
Jeez.
I hate to think that this _didn't_ occur to anyone when Apple ANNOUNCED this, right? You know, back when they mentioned integrating a UNIX-DERIVATIVE into their mainstream, desktop-ruling, dumb-people-can-use-this product, remember that??!!
I hate to say it, but the people here are just a teensy, little bit focused on linux sometimes. The BSD's are really something, and anyone who doesn't recognize by now the fact that there's room out there for _lots_ of OS's which each suit a different segment of the population, then you've forgotten that we used to be a people that did things any way we liked until TV came along and taught us all how to imitate each other so well...
Now, is it DEFINITELY going to happen? Of course not. Even if Linus was _sure_ that this or that module would be available in time for a certain kernel release, we'd still have to take that with a little grain of salt, now wouldn't we? But it seems likely now, and how can we know today what tomorrow brings us, eh?
Wow. OK, so You don't have a clue. I'll refute this now before moving on to the above more intellegent comment:
The InterNAP architecture and basic service model is available for all to see on their web page, at least the part that solves the problem described above. While I'm sure they have other more secret and therefore proprietary things involved as well, I was mostly making use of their clear description of the problem and of a very scalable solution that could be applied elsewhere. Anyone can replicate the basic idea of multiple-connect backbone peering across a multiple level connection without building private (expensive) backbones. One of the key ideas is the one that someone else brought up: telco's like em cause they are a customer, but are also competing with em for customers of their own, all with the advantage of not building cross-country backbones, but focusing on the building of efficient and clean Private Network Access Points.
Just cause you're too uninformed to check what they mean when they say "Proprietary" and automatically assume its a bad word doesn't mean that they are a threat to any of the open-source cooperative spirit of the Internet. I will note, after deciding to look at the clause you mention, that they happen to have a corporate policy that specifically encourages creation of GPL-code, not that that is any of your or my business. Mark another one up to "Slashdot Uninformed Reactionary Zealot"...
I hate to say this, but it appears that you are missing the point: it is a common misconception that all we need to do is "peer" more, something I think the telco's spread to their broadband access customers, who are often linux fans and gaming subscribers. But just because you can run traceroute doesn't mean you understand some of the larger architectural issues present if you dont step back and look at the backbone providers and the model they have set up. Jon Postel was a godsend, but now we have to clarify and refine his model...
Many people here in Seattle also complain because this or that company won't peer with that one, and they watch traffic go all the way down to California before bouncing back to here. ATT's @home customers in seattle, when trying to reach the University of Washington (who may be across the street) get to the meet-me room in the Westin Building, go out over some backbone down to the California MAE-west to the closest peering point that @home (a minor BB player who can only afford peering at open exchanges) shares with someone like UUNET or Sprint or whatever. The logic by the end customer is "Why go to the Westin, bounce to california and then bounce back to the Westin building, 20 feet away, all just to cross the street?"
That's braindead, but the problem is that the peering model itself provides no motivation to the larger players to correct the issue. Sure, the customer service department for @home takes a few more complaints, but overall they really don't care to lose the money it would cost to peer privately with someone like oh INTERNET2, who connects to the University, at the Westin Building. Furthermore, @home residential customers, who likely are making low demands on the outbound pipe, but pull large datastreams back (think of the http request model, for example) are unlikely to bring anything of value to those they peer with. Amazon.com employees don't really need a faster way to get to @home customers, they want @home customers to have a faster way of reaching them. So unless Amazon can PAY large sums of money and change the BB providers' mind, the BB provider like UUNET has no incentive to offer or allow peering at closer more convenient and sane peering points. Like one only 20 feet away in the meet-me room.
So do the large Backbone Providers bully smaller ISP's into doing what is best for THEM, for their bottom line? Absolutely. Anything less would be against capitalism. But is that necessarily what is best for the customers, or the largest number or the public? Probably not. So it appears necessary to re-design the public peering model to better serve all participants, Backbone providers, ISPs, content providers, and of course, the shareholders...
I thought it was an interesting article, myself...
I appreciate the insightful commentary for once...
...
However, I would like to point out something: I'm not saying that anyone is doing something they shouldn't, I am saying that the public peering model is fundamentally broken, and that what we currently have results in asymetric routing and high packet loss at peak times. Why should traffic hit these bottlenecks if it isn't necessary? Why not use private peerings with multiple backbones? Extra hops are introduced, and eficciency is lost. That's why I think what they are doing over at InterNAP is so cool: they want to re-architect the system so that all participants receive maximum benefit. I'm not a nutcase, and I know I keep bringing them into this discussion, but if you ever hear their CTO talk, you'll get chills at the ideas they work with....
These large backbone providers are essentially advertising (Qwest, for example) "We have the largest, fastest backbone in the world!", but who cares? If you get dumped at the competitors network immediately, you spend all your time in transit as a freeloader on someone else's network. BB prov's don't pay each other for this transit, so it gets lower priority on everyone else's network. That's not a good system, because participants have competing agendas.
The Public Exchanges? MAE-East and MAE-West (metropolitan Area Exchange) handle 70-80% of all traffic that goes from one backbone to another., and are paid for by the government. It's the one place where everyone can peer for free, so it is where the smaller backbone providers peer at, so they don't have to pay exhorbitant rates to UUNET or the other fatties...
InterNAP is getting it right, and is beginning to get noticed around here and elsewhere. Check out their web page for a good explanation. They provide to some of the biggest blue-chips in the country, including M$ and Amazon. They have a different way of doing this stuff that solves the public peering problem.
Now hold on a second, there.
There's a very underreported problem with the way that peering is set up right now on the network. "Peering", as it has been, is only going to become worse and worse, because of the kludges we have had to provide to keep things just as they are aren't enough anymore. 90% of all routed traffic going from one backbone to another goes through one of the MAE exchanges, or in other words, through a public access node that is paid for with tax dollars alone. This being the case, those facilities are massively insufficient for the load they bear, which is why on peak times, you can get 20-30% packet loss. This is absolutely unaceptable. And the worse of it is, the more loss, the more traffic, as the TCP protocol simply has hosts re-send what didn't get through...
Some people in the high up networking world are getting a clue, and have actually solved the problem. For more information, a better and more thourough explanation, and more technical details on the solution, go to this site .
To continue, the tier1 providers refuse to peer with smaller ones, as the article suggests. UUNET gets pretty much whatever it wants because they own 30% of all the destination ip-space. What the big guys do is dump your traffic off at the local public exchange points at the soonest opportunity, making their competitors carry the load. But of course, since they all do this, everyone gets a worse QOS unless they just happen to be going to someone located on their own backbone.
Thats not good, and that is what I think this article is (rightfully) pointing out.
Ok, now, without the personal attacks:
I am being picky about a source of so-called news because I like to try and be conscious of the agendas that people speak from when they attempt to influence my behaviour or my opinion. You have only to watch an hour or so of "Ziff-Davis TV" (is that only in Seattle, or do they actually send that out in other areas too?) before you begin to realize that they are the very exemplar of what another poster above stated: they will give you "facts" that support whoever has paid the ad-bill for the next thirty seconds, and getting technical advice from them, or changing your opinions based on the things they tell you only makes you dumb.
Granted, many other news organizations get paid for what they do, but often there is not so closely knit relationship between the products a company sells and the agenda that it promotes in its "objective" reporting. Who likes feeling like they are listening to propoganda?
You may note that in my post above, I don't really state an opinion one way or the other on the Napster/OS/RIAA debate. I think there are lot of valid viewpoints. How do you know whether or not I agree with the article? If I liked it or not? I wasn't making much of a point on the article, just the organization reporting it.
However, I find your personal attack besides the point, and immature at best. I'm not advocating that nobody make money from reporting news. And I wasn't seriously proposing copyright violation. Just pointing out that ZD isn't a natural "friend" of the average Open-Source person, contrary to appearances.
So grow up...
I mean, think about it: What here is news? Did something happen somewhere, did some fact that the slashdot population needed to know come up?
NO! ZD was probably just looking through their quote file for Linus Torvalds, and found something off color. They call him to get a juicy quote, and then bounce that on over to the other "OS gurus" to get their reactions. Post em all up, with a headline that's guaranteed to make a slashdot reader twitch, and BAM! You got yourself 500,000 ad impressions, with little-to-no effort. Sure, Linus hedges his statements at the end so that the actual quote isn't really all that inflamatory, but they seperate that part and put it down into the bottom. And what goes at the end of a story? The junk they don't care if you read it or not! They've already downloaded 50 ads to your screen by then...
(sigh)
You know, it's awefully weird to have ZDNet posting something about "moral compunctions" that is obviously slashdot-bait.
/. just like MS. Just like the RIAA.
I don't like the oily feeling I get when I read their articles, knowing that their idea of news is tied directly to their revenue from ad-driven articles aimed for specific audiences. They obviously by now have identified slashdot as one of those target markets, and makes news stories that specifically "bait" everyone here into clicking onto their page.
I think I'd prefer if when news from them came out, if it was _really_ necessary to see the article that someone would post the text here, so I wouldn't have to go to their site. Oh wait, they'd probably sue
Don't be fooled by this non-freind of Open source, and don't be baited into silly anger at their statements...
("slashdot, a site for novice linux enthusiasts")
(WTF? No bearded smug people from VAX days read slashdot anymore? Silly ZDNet!)
For one very important Reason:
Homogeneity in the field leads to a _very_ large damage radius if anyone ever discovers the slightest hole in the "secure" way of doing things. If everyone implements it slightly differently, no single problem can expose the widest audience to risk. Remember the Windows "Ping of Death" problem? Homogeneity in the field made it worse than it might otherwise have been...
Although it seems like co-ordinated anarchy, it's important that there is no single point of failure.
Just ask the Death Star... =-)
Not at all. You can record digitally from another device, ripping byte-for-byte exactly what is on the CD, similar to ripping mp3s. You just have to use the optical in and digital cable that comes with the units these days.
Minidiscs use the ATRAC format, which is comparable to MP3. In fact, there is less loss when compared to mp3 at similar bit-rates, although the end product is slightly larger.
There are also, as I said before, home decks that record MD's which rip digitally, in faster than realtime, as well as soundcards you can get that output the cd info directly to the MD. There is _no_ discernable difference introduced, and in fact the sound can be enhanced with effects like additive bass. MD's sound incredible with good headphones or speakers.
Go to www.minidisk.org and get the facts, MD's are too good to pass up anymore.
BTW, the CD players that play mp3 CDs and regulars: expensive ($300 min). Skips, cause it's a cd player and can be jostled. large, comparatively, as are the media. MD is palm sized and smaller every day. Possibly much more fragile than the rugged MD players. They can be found by going to some links off of mp3.com, if you still want one.
And not only that, but if you actually get one of the newer MD recording decks out there, they include features like faster than realtime recording, so you can dump a cd to MD in 5 minutes.
Also, (and this is the kicker for me) the time it takes to reload your collection and get a fresh new mix of music: the time it takes to eject a disk and insert another. I just don't get the big push for solid-state only. The tech just ISNT good enough right now, and with SDMI looming in the background, I don't think its going to get better anytime now.
All current devices store something like an hour or two of audio, but why settle, because when you get tired of that list, you have to go back to a computer to reload the collection. That takes time! I just carry 4 or 5 disks (tiny) in my pocket while walking around on campus. Viola, all my moods can be satisfied while in transit, no going back to base. The 10 hour battery life doesn't hurt either...
And btw, you can get a nice unit (slightly larger than state-of-the-art) for about $200 at minidisco.com. Much cheaper.
Mandrake is no longer just Redhat with pentium optimisations. If you bother to go look at their website
or at the spinoff site mandrakeuser.org (a good start page for many a newbie), you detect all the signs of
something that is more than Redhat.
Cooker is the CVS version that gets devel work. They have several ambitious projects like Lothar,
DrakConf, DiskDrake, and more, all independant of anything really from RH, and in my opinion,
nicer too. The system really has a different feel top to bottom, one that I appreciate more for a desktop system.
I'm not aware of any security level presets in RH, and there are no "preferred ftp access" type areas as per RH
(a way to charge for updates, hello?).
A system can be made into anything you want, distro comparison can only be based upon presets and defaults,
and the harder to quantify "feel" of the set. This is my favorite dist of linux for home and personal use.
It also has a very good response rate on the newbie and expert mailing lists, high Signal-to-Noise ratio.
very minor question here, all respect intended:
>Or maybe one of the network card manufacturers. If they designed a special NIC with the IP stack implemented in hardware
>or firmware, then the OS kernel wouldn't need any modification other than a simplified device driver module. I think that
>would eliminate the bottleneck you're referring to.
Isn't this what a winmodem is? Didn't they offer negligable performance increase?
I bet I'm thinking something totally stupid, so please tell me what I'm missing..
Comforting thought....
Micro$oft is probably too large and incompetent to do anything of the sort anymore, and certainly not without any leaks getting out. And think about the timing of this with anti-trust investigations. No worries from Redmond.
(besides, the 'ship date' of their "y2k-linux-worm" would prolly slip well into 2002, second quarter...) (G)
I'm easily able to O/C up to 488 or so, and past 500 when I'm not doing anything graphic (which I suspect is the AGP vid card's fault.
I'm not sure how a 466 would affect your ability to OC, if that's your thing, but the 433 all on it's own is more than sufficient for current games. You're likely to hit another limit before your processor gets to be too slow, like not enough RAM, or a fast enough graphics board.
Before 50 billion people jump down this persons throat, let's remember the forum, and remember that this is all pretty offtopic stuff.
But for you sir, I would say that indeed more research on your part might perhaps lend a different opinion. In addition to some of the things you bring up, there are also other very important issues at stake, such as national sovereignty and the like, and that enough people _from around the world_ felt it was a big deal that they gathered to enact the LARGEST protest and civil demonstration in all of american history, including the civil rights movement. It's not just 'seattleites', but indeed upwards of 40 to 50 thousand people.
I can assure the geek population (what does this have to do with 'news for nerds', btw?) that, to paraphrase another individual, reports are greatly exagerrated. The mainstream media and local coverage will begin to cover in more depth some of the amazing things that happened at the protest shortly, as soon as the idiots who have nowhere else to go disperse. Right now all that can be shown is just the blow-by-blow of what's going on in the streets right now. But this protest was an amazing success, one that will be remembered for some time to come, both for the things that _did_ happen, and for the things that did not (bloodshed, truely widespread looting, massive arrests, or truly violent confrontation).
Since I would not use this as a forum for political activism or similar unrelated offtopic discussion, I won't go into further detail, but if interested, email me.
Something to point to when reactionary idiots say uninformed things like how Redhat is like Microsoft:
RedHat funds other people to develop technology, and makes it available to everyone.
Microsoft buys out competing technology or intimidates it out of the market until they have their own implementation.
Way to go Redhat.
I've been doing this for the last month since I picked up a Sharp 722 for $200 bucks from minidisco.com. There is no end of the advantages to having MD over plain old mp3 player.
* everytime you want a new song or want to tweak the contents of your MD, you have to reload the whole thing. I feel like a new playlist, I just pop in a new disk.
*Easily dump cd's, mp3s, voice, or mic to the MD. Everything you can dump to a mp3 player.
* MD is standardized. No worries about what nastiness the RIAA can cook up.
* similar battery capacity and size of current mp3 players.
Now that the price for portables has dropped quite a bit, I really think MD's gonna start heading into the mainstream in america. They're insanely popular in japan, and have been for awhile.
What kind of redundancy do you build into the server system for such a large and important site,
ie. round-robin style servers or large, beefy superboxes, etc...
use video and sound simultaneously. It just requires a higher end machine or dual processor config...
This is just because the code at this point is not optimized. It will be soon, since a large chunk of the interested geek communities (sound & video geeks + computer nerds) overlap...