Do you understand that NASA subdomain servers are often just single boxes with Apache running on them? It's not like everyone's running a server farm, and if one day their pictures suddenly become popular, well... they don't have the funding to do much more than watch the boxes start smoking. It's also not as if they're each connected to the web on their own gigabit pipe.
If www.nasa.gov went down, I'd be concerned, but let's be reasonable...
If you open memory sticks to random third parties, you've just nuked Sony's business plan of licensing developers and games. Why bother dealing with Sony when you don't have to? Just sell CDs with the games on them to consumers, and let them deal with getting them on memory sticks.
The current high price of the MS Duo makes this less likely to be an actual business plan, but if it ever goes down (and if the PSP is a success, that will happen), it could be a serious problem for Sony.
A _better_ plan would be Sony to freely distribute an SDK for making non-commercial products. You still get a third-party community, yet it can't be abused for circumventing Sony's licensing scheme.
While I don't think Connectiva was a _bad_ name, I agree with your sentiment that they really dropped the ball on this one. Mandriva only makes sense in the context of a single, little-known corporate merger. In a couple years, it'll be just a bad name.
Dragonux, for example, would have been a better choice. It conjures thoughts of both UNIX/Linux and the dragon - fearsome in some cultures, a harbringer of good luck in others. It also plays on Mandrake's old name.
Mandriva plays on Mandrake's old name, but makes no sense otherwise.
Anandtech is hardly the site I'd be holding up as an example of payola. The man has reasonable benchmarks, asks for user input on tests, and isn't afraid to say "hey, your product has no place in the market". They only gave a silver to the SN25P, even though it more or less shined in every conceivable way. Nobody buys 2nd place.
Anand's probably rolling in dough because not only is his hardware site one of the most popular, but he also has one of the most popular forums on the Internet in it. If you factor in that the ads on there are actually pretty well-targetted, I wouldn't be surprised to hear he has an excellent click-through rate.
It's probably difficult to remain objective, but that's what professionals do. Anand and his crew are obviously professionals.
I would second Subversion. Excellent tool - beats the snot out of CVS in pretty much every way. It can also run over HTTP(S), which reduces the number of people you have to let in via ssh.
There are some reasonable concerns that can be made about Subversion's maturity (bdb vs fsfs comes to mind), but overall, it's my favorite source code control system.
"Also, worst case scenario -> imagine that trade blockade expands to the level of a cold war - how long would the US last with the EU and china blocking middle eastern oil?"
I don't know. But I can tell you that China's navy is non-existent, and Europe's isn't geared for a full-out surface action, either. The US has nine _FULL SIZE_ aircraft carriers not these half-sized parodies the British and French field. That's not even talking about the other vessels they can field - of which they have an unsurpassed number If someone was so stupid as to pick a fight with the US on the ocean, they would quickly regret it.
And, you know, it's an act of war when you blockade a country. Would Europe really declare war on their oil supply? Do you think the Arabs would suddenly think you their friend for cutting off their largest customer?
Please stop talking out of your ass. Thanks. If it ever got to the point we were talking about oil blockades, nukes would be flying.
"Another possibility is that MS could stop selling Windows in Europe and Europe could respond by nationalizing the copyright on all Microsoft, Inc properties and releasing them into the public domain."
I love how this "solution" is bandied about. Is this really the precedent you want to set? IE, a European country suddenly is doing "too well" in the US, so they just nationalized? Europeans love to talk tough about how their software industry is just going to _pulverize_ the US's, but if everyone just keeps ignoring the other guy's copright, there won't be much industry left.
_Real people_ own Microsoft. It's not like it's just some shadowy group of owners plotting evil against the world. If you're an American with _any_ money in the stock market (which includes such things as 401k's, mutual funds, IRAs, etc), you most likely own some Microsoft stock. The political repercussions of hitting Microsoft like this are FAR greater than most Europeans on here apparently imagine. Five rich guys don't amount to much. Fify million middle-class Joes are a rather substantial voting bloc, and the last thing you want for them to start voting is "SCREW THE EU!"
The least of such sanctions would be from the WTO. Are you just going to ignore those, proving, in reality, you don't give a fig about keeping your word than Microsoft? That all this talk of "international rules" is really just doublespeak for organized mob rule?
In fact, it could lead to a full out economic embargo - you can't just take what you want when it becomes convienient in the civilized world, because people will simply stop giving. If the EU does indeed have a trade surplus, you just shot your own foot making some sort of idiotic statement about the EU.
"HOWEVER: People in the USA have the education and the financial resources to go out and make friends... but they choose not to."
Travelling to the other coast of the US is like travelling from Spain to Russia. Americans don't get out of the country too much because they already have way more country to explore than your average European does.
You are also forgetting that the current exchange rates make it a much better option for Europeans to come to the US than vica versa. When the dollar rises a bit, and the cost of travel becomes cheaper, I would expect to see more foriegn travel.
"With the advent of Sea and Air travel it was considered an ideal to go visit distance places..."
This was "ideal" was most likely invented by the travel industry. Different people and cultures have different priorities, often influenced by geographical factors.
" PCs that can boot from USB/1394 drives are still pretty rare."
This is flatly untrue. Pretty much any post-Pentium!!! motherboard will do it. Hell, I would bet most later-model Pentium!!! and Athlon (non-XP) boards could handle it, too.
The "story" is hardly news, and the iPod angle is just more fanboy masturbation. A bus-powered drive makes far more sense than an iPod in any event - and I'm sure I saw someone selling one of those online.
But, the thing is, they're not making money off open-source software. They're making money off of the closed-source libraries they sell. It is indeed a cunning business strategy, but I don't think it fits the ideal picture of a free software world.
Compare this to Red Hat, which has no closed-source stuff in their distributions, and is obviously making money hand over fist in comparison to TrollTech.
Whatever you're interested in. The exact degree makes zero difference, as long as it's not theatre or something.
I got (am getting, to be precise - finishing the one last course this semester) a BS in CS and Economics. I got into econ because I liked it, but it's got elements of business and statistics in it - quite handy as a supporting major.
I would also suggest that intelligent extra-currics can be good, too. I was an active officer of my LUG for a few years, and it was instrumental in getting me my current (and awesome) job. ACM and AWC are similarly good - they help you network, and that's handy as hell.
"This gives them a huge advantage in breaking encryption."
It does?
Funny, because I recall that most algorithms that are considered secure take a few thousand years of computation power with all of the _theoretical_ computing power in the universe to break. Unless you're somehow advocating NSA has a few thousand times the theoretical computing power of the universe in a basement in Fort Meade, it gives them no real advantage to breaking really secure algorithms.
However, they do have some brilliant people, and those are worth a hundred times their weight in gold for this sort of activity. Certainly, the computing power is helpful, but tons of computers just sitting there don't help anyone.
"Such as what? If the town/city screws it up then people can purchase their own service. It should be up to the taxpayers to decide if they want this or not. And if you're a tax payer who does not want your money wasted on this, then fight it in your city."
The problem is that the city can bury it in other taxes. You never actually know the "cost" of something because you're not paying on an individual basis. There is real incentive to make something efficient from a business standpoint, because your customers see the real cost of the service in their bill every month.
Taxes, on the other hand, are not so clear cut. Your "free" WiFi might actually be costing a hundred bucks a month per person, more than the, say, $60 a commercial provider might charge, but since it's in taxes, you never actually know this. And, things will never get better, since commercial providers can't compete against "free". Everyone loses.
I believe the unstated debate on this issue is whether Internet access should be considered a utility along the lines of power and water, and, if it is, is WiFi access a necessary utility? It wouldn't surprise me that the technocratic elite of Slashdot (and that's what we are, honestly) wouldn't think twice about declaring it a utility, but for the average person, I'm not sure it's so clear cut.
I believe a good compromise (if we were to deem this a utility) would be for the city to contract out the service to a commercial provider. Take bids, see who'll do it for the lowest price. Then, every four years or so, the contract is up, and the bidding starts again. This helps prevent government waste, and harnesses the efficieny of a private corporation (which, naturally, wants to be profitable).
If the lowest bid seems too high, this is a signal that the service is _not_ worth providing! Either the government reasses the value of said service (and then pays the higher amount), or they realize, quite simply, that it is not an efficient, necessary thing to do at this time.
"how long until applications make full use of this"
Full use? Probably never. There's always improvements to be made, and multi-threaded programs are a bitch and a half to debug, at least in Linux. Making "full use" of SMP would _generally_ decrease program reliability due to complexity, I would imagine.
But, with an SMP-aware OS (Win2k, WinXP Pro, Linux, etc.), you'll definitely see some multi-tasking benefits immediately. I think the real question is, how will Microsoft adjust their licensing with this new paradigm? Will it be per-core, or per socket/slot?
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Longhorn will support 2-way SMP even for the "Home" version.
"The 2.6 tree is effectively now in a state of permanent beta, with any stable releases happening purely by luck."
Sure, if you're using a vanilla kernel. Those of us who faithfully use the much-maligned distribution-vendor kernels will simply trust that the vendor knows what they're doing - and I have a good deal of faith in Red Hat and Novell, at least.
"For every artist you represent, there are 1.000 artists you don't."
And the quality of these artists is?
For all of their unethical behavior (and, note: I don't think their pricing is unethical, just too high), the RIAA's members have a good bit of skill at picking out good artists. If ALL of their music was crap, no one would buy it. The fact is, some of it is pretty damn good, even if your tastes force you to go through back-catalog to find it.
The reason that 99.99% of those independent artists aren't signed is because they aren't as good as the competition, or more simply, because they suck. There might be a diamond in the rough, but if it was so obvious who they were, they would already have been discovered.
And, you know what? If iTunes suddenly drops the RIAA, consumers can still turn to Napster. Apple has a majority of the market share, but that could turn around in a New York minute if they do something as stupid as dropping all RIAA music.
"Since plenty of commercial products "attach" to Linux and seem to be protected from the GPL, I have to assume that the scenario I describe is possible."
And you know what assumption is the mother of, too.
To be more precise: Windows XP Home: 1 Windows XP Pro / Windows 2000: 2 Windows 2000 Server: 4 Windows 2000 Advanced Server: 8 Windows 2000 Datacenter Server: 32
I'm not a Windows-user, but I wouldn't sell Microsoft so short.
"Independent scientists: 100% believe in global warming"
These "independent" scientists get money from where?
There's no such thing as an independent scientist, because they all get money from somewhere. Environmental groups, for instance, have a very vested interested in making sure global warming turns out to be fact and not fiction. Do you think such groups are going to be sending grants to folks who are busily disproving their alarmism? I think not.
We also ignore the role of ego in this whole discussion. Do you think that, after agreeing to cripple your industrial capacity with Kyoto and slowing down the advancement of your economy dramatically, you'd be at all inclined to believe evidence that global warming isn't caused by humans? No way - you'd believe it anyways, because you'd want to believe your sacrifices actually meant something.
The same goes for the reverse, of course - if you've just staked your reputation on human-caused global warming being false, do you think you'd at all want to admit you're wrong? No, of course not.
These same ego problems apply to scientists as well. If your career has been staked on being "the guy who's proving humans cause global warming", and suddenly, you see evidence that you're totally wrong, would you suddenly issue an announcement that you've been wrong for 30 years?
This sort of egotism becomes even easier with statistics, which is what most "proof" either way depends on. Don't like your result? Make a new model and change your input data until you get the results you want. Discard your previous results as just being wrong - after all, they don't agree with your hypothesis, and you just KNOW that's right!
It seems like most "scientists" these days start out with a hypothesis, and then set out to prove it no matter what the facts are.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you understand that NASA subdomain servers are often just single boxes with Apache running on them? It's not like everyone's running a server farm, and if one day their pictures suddenly become popular, well... they don't have the funding to do much more than watch the boxes start smoking. It's also not as if they're each connected to the web on their own gigabit pipe.
If www.nasa.gov went down, I'd be concerned, but let's be reasonable...
-Erwos
If you open memory sticks to random third parties, you've just nuked Sony's business plan of licensing developers and games. Why bother dealing with Sony when you don't have to? Just sell CDs with the games on them to consumers, and let them deal with getting them on memory sticks.
The current high price of the MS Duo makes this less likely to be an actual business plan, but if it ever goes down (and if the PSP is a success, that will happen), it could be a serious problem for Sony.
A _better_ plan would be Sony to freely distribute an SDK for making non-commercial products. You still get a third-party community, yet it can't be abused for circumventing Sony's licensing scheme.
-Erwos
Read the second half of it. That's why the Reg article made no sense to me.
-Erwos
While I don't think Connectiva was a _bad_ name, I agree with your sentiment that they really dropped the ball on this one. Mandriva only makes sense in the context of a single, little-known corporate merger. In a couple years, it'll be just a bad name.
Dragonux, for example, would have been a better choice. It conjures thoughts of both UNIX/Linux and the dragon - fearsome in some cultures, a harbringer of good luck in others. It also plays on Mandrake's old name.
Mandriva plays on Mandrake's old name, but makes no sense otherwise.
-Erwos
Anandtech is hardly the site I'd be holding up as an example of payola. The man has reasonable benchmarks, asks for user input on tests, and isn't afraid to say "hey, your product has no place in the market". They only gave a silver to the SN25P, even though it more or less shined in every conceivable way. Nobody buys 2nd place.
Anand's probably rolling in dough because not only is his hardware site one of the most popular, but he also has one of the most popular forums on the Internet in it. If you factor in that the ads on there are actually pretty well-targetted, I wouldn't be surprised to hear he has an excellent click-through rate.
It's probably difficult to remain objective, but that's what professionals do. Anand and his crew are obviously professionals.
-Erwos
I would second Subversion. Excellent tool - beats the snot out of CVS in pretty much every way. It can also run over HTTP(S), which reduces the number of people you have to let in via ssh.
There are some reasonable concerns that can be made about Subversion's maturity (bdb vs fsfs comes to mind), but overall, it's my favorite source code control system.
-Erwos
"Also, worst case scenario -> imagine that trade blockade expands to the level of a cold war - how long would the US last with the EU and china blocking middle eastern oil?"
I don't know. But I can tell you that China's navy is non-existent, and Europe's isn't geared for a full-out surface action, either. The US has nine _FULL SIZE_ aircraft carriers not these half-sized parodies the British and French field. That's not even talking about the other vessels they can field - of which they have an unsurpassed number If someone was so stupid as to pick a fight with the US on the ocean, they would quickly regret it.
And, you know, it's an act of war when you blockade a country. Would Europe really declare war on their oil supply? Do you think the Arabs would suddenly think you their friend for cutting off their largest customer?
Please stop talking out of your ass. Thanks. If it ever got to the point we were talking about oil blockades, nukes would be flying.
-DMZ
"Another possibility is that MS could stop selling Windows in Europe and Europe could respond by nationalizing the copyright on all Microsoft, Inc properties and releasing them into the public domain."
I love how this "solution" is bandied about. Is this really the precedent you want to set? IE, a European country suddenly is doing "too well" in the US, so they just nationalized? Europeans love to talk tough about how their software industry is just going to _pulverize_ the US's, but if everyone just keeps ignoring the other guy's copright, there won't be much industry left.
_Real people_ own Microsoft. It's not like it's just some shadowy group of owners plotting evil against the world. If you're an American with _any_ money in the stock market (which includes such things as 401k's, mutual funds, IRAs, etc), you most likely own some Microsoft stock. The political repercussions of hitting Microsoft like this are FAR greater than most Europeans on here apparently imagine. Five rich guys don't amount to much. Fify million middle-class Joes are a rather substantial voting bloc, and the last thing you want for them to start voting is "SCREW THE EU!"
The least of such sanctions would be from the WTO. Are you just going to ignore those, proving, in reality, you don't give a fig about keeping your word than Microsoft? That all this talk of "international rules" is really just doublespeak for organized mob rule?
In fact, it could lead to a full out economic embargo - you can't just take what you want when it becomes convienient in the civilized world, because people will simply stop giving. If the EU does indeed have a trade surplus, you just shot your own foot making some sort of idiotic statement about the EU.
-Erwos
Life isn't fair. And when some other country makes their own new Internet, they can take the base TLDs, too.
This is a rather mean-spirited way of saying "the US originally funded development of the Internet, ergo TLDs are US-centric". Get over it.
-Erwos
"HOWEVER: People in the USA have the education and the financial resources to go out and make friends... but they choose not to."
Travelling to the other coast of the US is like travelling from Spain to Russia. Americans don't get out of the country too much because they already have way more country to explore than your average European does.
You are also forgetting that the current exchange rates make it a much better option for Europeans to come to the US than vica versa. When the dollar rises a bit, and the cost of travel becomes cheaper, I would expect to see more foriegn travel.
"With the advent of Sea and Air travel it was considered an ideal to go visit distance places..."
This was "ideal" was most likely invented by the travel industry. Different people and cultures have different priorities, often influenced by geographical factors.
-Erwos
VR.5 left off on a cliff-hanger, too... that show deserved to have a proper funeral if it couldn't live longer.
-Erwos
" PCs that can boot from USB/1394 drives are still pretty rare."
This is flatly untrue. Pretty much any post-Pentium!!! motherboard will do it. Hell, I would bet most later-model Pentium!!! and Athlon (non-XP) boards could handle it, too.
The "story" is hardly news, and the iPod angle is just more fanboy masturbation. A bus-powered drive makes far more sense than an iPod in any event - and I'm sure I saw someone selling one of those online.
-Erwos
I was under the impression that high-end Pentium M's ran in the $600 range. Those prices actually struck me as quite low.
-Erwos
But, the thing is, they're not making money off open-source software. They're making money off of the closed-source libraries they sell. It is indeed a cunning business strategy, but I don't think it fits the ideal picture of a free software world.
Compare this to Red Hat, which has no closed-source stuff in their distributions, and is obviously making money hand over fist in comparison to TrollTech.
-Erwos
"I'm thinking that a few generals should meet up with Jack Chick and have a good long discussion about the evils of role playing."
Because, as you know, the _Jewish_ generals of the IDF really give a crap about what some psychotic _Christian_ thinks about D&D and religion.
But, blah blah, cue the anti-Israel rants, however OT they may be.
-DMZ
Whatever you're interested in. The exact degree makes zero difference, as long as it's not theatre or something.
I got (am getting, to be precise - finishing the one last course this semester) a BS in CS and Economics. I got into econ because I liked it, but it's got elements of business and statistics in it - quite handy as a supporting major.
I would also suggest that intelligent extra-currics can be good, too. I was an active officer of my LUG for a few years, and it was instrumental in getting me my current (and awesome) job. ACM and AWC are similarly good - they help you network, and that's handy as hell.
-Erwos
"This gives them a huge advantage in breaking encryption."
It does?
Funny, because I recall that most algorithms that are considered secure take a few thousand years of computation power with all of the _theoretical_ computing power in the universe to break. Unless you're somehow advocating NSA has a few thousand times the theoretical computing power of the universe in a basement in Fort Meade, it gives them no real advantage to breaking really secure algorithms.
However, they do have some brilliant people, and those are worth a hundred times their weight in gold for this sort of activity. Certainly, the computing power is helpful, but tons of computers just sitting there don't help anyone.
-Erwos
"Such as what? If the town/city screws it up then people can purchase their own service. It should be up to the taxpayers to decide if they want this or not. And if you're a tax payer who does not want your money wasted on this, then fight it in your city."
The problem is that the city can bury it in other taxes. You never actually know the "cost" of something because you're not paying on an individual basis. There is real incentive to make something efficient from a business standpoint, because your customers see the real cost of the service in their bill every month.
Taxes, on the other hand, are not so clear cut. Your "free" WiFi might actually be costing a hundred bucks a month per person, more than the, say, $60 a commercial provider might charge, but since it's in taxes, you never actually know this. And, things will never get better, since commercial providers can't compete against "free". Everyone loses.
I believe the unstated debate on this issue is whether Internet access should be considered a utility along the lines of power and water, and, if it is, is WiFi access a necessary utility? It wouldn't surprise me that the technocratic elite of Slashdot (and that's what we are, honestly) wouldn't think twice about declaring it a utility, but for the average person, I'm not sure it's so clear cut.
I believe a good compromise (if we were to deem this a utility) would be for the city to contract out the service to a commercial provider. Take bids, see who'll do it for the lowest price. Then, every four years or so, the contract is up, and the bidding starts again. This helps prevent government waste, and harnesses the efficieny of a private corporation (which, naturally, wants to be profitable).
If the lowest bid seems too high, this is a signal that the service is _not_ worth providing! Either the government reasses the value of said service (and then pays the higher amount), or they realize, quite simply, that it is not an efficient, necessary thing to do at this time.
-Erwos
"how long until applications make full use of this"
Full use? Probably never. There's always improvements to be made, and multi-threaded programs are a bitch and a half to debug, at least in Linux. Making "full use" of SMP would _generally_ decrease program reliability due to complexity, I would imagine.
But, with an SMP-aware OS (Win2k, WinXP Pro, Linux, etc.), you'll definitely see some multi-tasking benefits immediately. I think the real question is, how will Microsoft adjust their licensing with this new paradigm? Will it be per-core, or per socket/slot?
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Longhorn will support 2-way SMP even for the "Home" version.
-Erwos
"The 2.6 tree is effectively now in a state of permanent beta, with any stable releases happening purely by luck."
Sure, if you're using a vanilla kernel. Those of us who faithfully use the much-maligned distribution-vendor kernels will simply trust that the vendor knows what they're doing - and I have a good deal of faith in Red Hat and Novell, at least.
-Erwos
Groklaw was objective about SCO? You're joking, right?
/. thinking that for news to be objective, it has to follow your opinions...
Of course, this follows with the stereotypical
-DMZ
"For every artist you represent, there are 1.000 artists you don't."
And the quality of these artists is?
For all of their unethical behavior (and, note: I don't think their pricing is unethical, just too high), the RIAA's members have a good bit of skill at picking out good artists. If ALL of their music was crap, no one would buy it. The fact is, some of it is pretty damn good, even if your tastes force you to go through back-catalog to find it.
The reason that 99.99% of those independent artists aren't signed is because they aren't as good as the competition, or more simply, because they suck. There might be a diamond in the rough, but if it was so obvious who they were, they would already have been discovered.
And, you know what? If iTunes suddenly drops the RIAA, consumers can still turn to Napster. Apple has a majority of the market share, but that could turn around in a New York minute if they do something as stupid as dropping all RIAA music.
-Erwos
"Since plenty of commercial products "attach" to Linux and seem to be protected from the GPL, I have to assume that the scenario I describe is possible."
And you know what assumption is the mother of, too.
-Erwos
"Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP support 2."
To be more precise:
Windows XP Home: 1
Windows XP Pro / Windows 2000: 2
Windows 2000 Server: 4
Windows 2000 Advanced Server: 8
Windows 2000 Datacenter Server: 32
I'm not a Windows-user, but I wouldn't sell Microsoft so short.
-Erwos
"Independent scientists: 100% believe in global warming"
These "independent" scientists get money from where?
There's no such thing as an independent scientist, because they all get money from somewhere. Environmental groups, for instance, have a very vested interested in making sure global warming turns out to be fact and not fiction. Do you think such groups are going to be sending grants to folks who are busily disproving their alarmism? I think not.
We also ignore the role of ego in this whole discussion. Do you think that, after agreeing to cripple your industrial capacity with Kyoto and slowing down the advancement of your economy dramatically, you'd be at all inclined to believe evidence that global warming isn't caused by humans? No way - you'd believe it anyways, because you'd want to believe your sacrifices actually meant something.
The same goes for the reverse, of course - if you've just staked your reputation on human-caused global warming being false, do you think you'd at all want to admit you're wrong? No, of course not.
These same ego problems apply to scientists as well. If your career has been staked on being "the guy who's proving humans cause global warming", and suddenly, you see evidence that you're totally wrong, would you suddenly issue an announcement that you've been wrong for 30 years?
This sort of egotism becomes even easier with statistics, which is what most "proof" either way depends on. Don't like your result? Make a new model and change your input data until you get the results you want. Discard your previous results as just being wrong - after all, they don't agree with your hypothesis, and you just KNOW that's right!
It seems like most "scientists" these days start out with a hypothesis, and then set out to prove it no matter what the facts are.
-Erwos