Let's answer these in order, shall we? 1) "What do you do when you are hungry and more importantly, is it open source?"
You can order pizza. I believe there's a project on sourceforge that can contact Pizza Hut for stuff like that. You can probably make a cronjob of it using wget or whatnot.
2) "If it is not OSS, are there any copyright or patent issues that need to be dealt with?"
I suppose you can cite prior art for pizza if they try to accuse you of copyright/patent infringement.
3) "Also, is Google or Apple involved in any way?"
If you don't know how to get to the pizza hut website, I guess Google will come in handy. While you're at it, you can order some of that baked apple pie, so I guess there are apples involved.
I'm with you, man. I work at a library with an aging WinNT population (Thanks to the B&M "First Hit Is Always Free" Foundation) that would probably go catatonic if they were "upgraded" to XP. From what I understand, they're trying to raise funds to get newer machines to replace the current ones (PIII 600Mhz, 256MB RAM).
Basically, what I was wondering was what the arguments were to push for Linux where you are. I'm sure Linux would do wonders with our aging hardware here and possibly save the place some money in hardware upgrades as well as maintenance costs. However, the MS mentality is prevalent and probably difficult to sway.
I guess the questions go: 1) How'd you get Linux in past the bureaucracy? 2) What distro and what do you do for maintenance? 3) How do the patrons react? (that whole "learning curve" argument) 4) Why not cold-turkey to OO.org? Public demand for the popular and familiar hasn't stopped the government from making unpopular decisions before.;-)
The software industry is a service industry operating under the guise of a manufacturing industry.
Of course there are some exceptions -- the gaming industry, for example (though MMORPGs have the "subscription service" thing down). Unfortunately I can't name any others at the time but I'm sure there's more.:)
The GPL isn't a price-fixing scheme...it basically exposed the current artifically inflated price-fixing scheme that is proprietary software.
Adapt and evolve, baby. Or cry about it all the way to extinction.
So we have a phone that can take pictures and play music. Possibly do video as well. Might as well add all the PDA capabilities of e-mail, address book, grocery shopping list, etc.
I'm all for the convenience of an all-in-one device but have we gone far enough into the technologies that everything works well/reliably? I remember the old 3-in-1 printer devices that weren't all that reliable.
If done well (and compact), gadget convergence would be a great thing. Might as well add a TV remote to it while they're at it.
I've often asked students to speculate what motivation I have for teaching them computer security.
After letting them guess for a few minutes, I tell them I'm in it for selfish reasons. The mess they create by not being secure eventually cost me extra. ISPs start adding "free" features such as virus protection, pop-up blocking, and spam removal. Even though my machines are inherently safer, I have to pay the same "value-added" rate.
Then there are the phone calls from friends/relatives about how their machines are borked and need fixing.
I try to promote OSS for the same reasons I try to promote better computer security habits -- one of which is that those decisions will affect me in the long run both mentally and financially.
Why should I care what type of software people use? Because when they get burned, I get to hear about it...and often have to clean up their mess.
I actually like it. Then again, I'm a Kubuntu user and themes are themes, so to me this is just another "theme." Nothing that makes me go "oooh" or "wow, that's revolutionary!!!"
I see plastik with a fancy looking trash icon. Basically stuff Linux has already ripped off from XP and MacOS X.
I do hope that all this is a departure from the XP theme with those clunky title bars and gigantic/obstrusive buttons. Screen real estate is a premium (firefox got this right over IE), giant playskool buttons don't help -- they just get in the way. (on that note, "Shut Do..." won't do).
The more I hear FROM Stallman the more scared I am...Hacker Song
Though hackers may be good with code, they can't sing, hackers they can't sing!!! Some sounds can make a person's head explode Oh the pain, hackers, oh the pain.
Just a joke, RMS, no need to go GNU/Postal on me.:)
Of course that is until people look deeper into what the publicity is all about. McVoy pretty much illustrated the inherent dangers of not being Open Source -- that at a whim (of a madman?) all your data are belong to them.
Worse yet, we've illustrated that here's someone who's willing to do just that...yank his product from under a high profile project.
If your company is looking into using BK, you may wish to take these recent events into consideration or at least bring them up to those making the decisions.
Mr. Anderson, it appears you have been living two lives. By day you are Thomas Anderson -- a wannabe programmer working as a minion of the local public library. You're a smarmy bastard who occasionally helps patrons and co-workers with their computer problems. By night, you are a talentless slashbot who goes by the name Eberlin. You have bashed Microsoft, SCO, and Sun Microsystems in your spare time.
One of these lives, Mr. Anderson, has a future. One of them does not. All we're asking is that you enlist in our 1337 Division and we're willing to wipe the slate clean...
Wow, sounds like a good deal. How about I give you the three-finger salute and you give me my phonecall?
From personal experience, there's a lot of linux-phobic people out there. One of the main FUD-factors is that Linux was written by "hackers" for "hackers" and is thus a Hacker-OS. Hackers are bad, mmmmkay?
Then there's that bit about being Open-Source which means everyone can look in the code, people can poison the code, and thus people will backdoor EVERYTHING so security is very iffy.
In the end, it's a matter of ignorance and more importantly, control. Their control, that is. The current system makes them comfy and they don't care to learn anything else. The little that they DO know come from FUD, and they simply will not make any effort to investigate further.
There's something to this -- if MS were to receive some form of compensation, wouldn't there be some backlash from those that were hit by this guy's Blaster variant? Perhaps even some sort of implied responsibility on Microsoft's part (EULA be damned)?
Then again, I'm sure this was something that was already fixed and the truly vulnerable ones were those that hadn't patched (some with valid reasons nonetheless).
Just saying that it's possible that if MS took money for this, others may start looking to MS to pay for THEIR damages.
Virus writing motives: I would figure that most virus writers are more concerned about propagation than destruction, especially in this new Intarweb age.
A bunch of zombie boxes would be more useful than a bunch of useless paperweights. If nothing else, they'd rather harvest that information quietly and not alert the victim of the compromise. Then again if there's really enough malice involved, this sounds like another one of those trench runs on the Death Star. ("inherent security" except for a few fatal flaws)
Imagine on Food Network:...and here we're cooking with some geeks from Detroit. I've taken their concept of frying eggs on a hot plate atop this overclocked AMD processor, modified it a little, and with some essence, we're going to kick it up a notch.
For those of you just tuning in, we're making an omelette with this newfangled electric stove, ladies and gentlemen.
And over here, in their honor, I'm making the classic fish and chips with some haddock and steak fries. (Yeah, yeah...we're really cooking here) What I'm gonna do is dip the fish in some batter and off to the fryer it goes.
When we come back, we're gonna give you a kicked-up dessert when we batter this macintosh apple, throw it into the deep fryer, and bam it with some powdered sugar...so stick around, we'll be right back! Doc Gibbs, everybody!!!
(Man, if that wasn't a cry for help, I don't know what is.)
The concept is rather odd, but if we extend this out far enough (slippery slope, I know, but humor me for a few seconds here) -- all that offshoring and outsourcing business could generate the US a bit more revenue in taxes, right? I mean
Don't get me wrong, I do think it's quite the show of force do so such a thing (and equally stupid)...but I'm guessing that something has to be done to make offshoring less economically attractive to companies who still only look at proverbial bottom line.
Filesystem abstraction has its upsides and downsides -- you don't really need to know where a particular file is located as long as you can find it. That same idea rings true with just about every desk, closet, apartment, home as far as I'm concerned.
On the other hand, too much abstraction will dull-down an already computer illiterate population. Remember when the whole britneyspears.mp3.vbs file naming conventions caused lots of machines to go boom? Similarly, we can have spyware/adware/viruses that run as svchost, winword.exe, iexplore.exe from rogue directories if users aren't savvy enough to know the differences.
The less a user needs to know to run something, the better it will be for that user. Unfortunately, in cases like this, what the user doesn't know CAN hurt them. (to the tune of > $100 service fee from your local computer shop)
Now simplifying things by making a standard way of filing things...that would be best. My Documents in My Documents, Program Files in Program Files...as long as it's consistent. Kind of like/etc for config files,/bin for the binaries,/home for all your stuff,/var for all the logs and booting notes,/usr for...um...ok, got me there.
Anyhoo, an intuitive method would be better than abstracting the concepts completely.
Your post makes the somewhat hidden point that any speech (and most other forms of art) is judged based on two basic criteria: content and delivery.
A comedian/orator/singer without good content can only go so far, regardless of how well they deliver their non-message. (think of most of today's pop/punk bands)
On the other hand, great speech-writers/lyricists won't do much without being able to deliver the content well. (think Carrot-Top doing Shakespeare)
For those planning speeches (for a school report, a work-related project, or Amateur night at the comedy club) -- equally focus on your content and its delivery.
Then again I suppose anything can be spun through marketing. You figure something that's been lamed-down wouldn't get much play to begin with...but I guess if you spin it as the standard version, then maybe people may bite.
Also, the whole thing was created to curb off some piracy from the Asian market. That way, people who couldn't afford software may "buy" the starter edition instead of pirating an XP home or whatnot. From this standpoint, any sale they make is a bonus against rampant piracy.
Now for those folks who would rather pirate XP than use something like Linux (which I'm sure there are a lot of), I'm not really sure how best to market to them if you're a Linux Evangelist.
Re:Good LORD it's got some useless stuff!
on
KDE 3.4 Released
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There's an interesting myth based on moon-phases. It's one that states people go a little nutty during a full moon. I've heard stories from hospitals, libraries, and other public places where there's a higher amount of "strange behavior" during full moons.
Personally, I have the moon phase plugin for my gkrellm -- a somewhat-joking "heads-up" if you work with the general public.
If nothing else, knowing the moon-phase can help a little with your nethack strategy, right?
Well, it's based on Ubuntu Linux...Ubuntu means something like "Humanity to others" (the ubuntu.com page will explain this much better than I can) The distro is GNOME based...so the natural thing to do is to slap a K in front of it and it's now KDE-based! Thus Kubuntu.:)
I've got an Ubuntu installation, btw, and it's pretty cool. Hardware detection was great, runs fairly well on my old 400MHZ PII, and the whole synaptic thing makes for very easy updating. I may eventually try the Kubuntu as I'm looking for that Debian-based KDE-using distro. Currently looking at Mepis but haven't tried it yet.
The good and bad of it -- all your preferences can be saved so you can go to any machine that'll allow you to boot from CD (and one that'll run the OS, anyway).
You can probably use it to carry OO.org documents, a couple of pictures, and maybe some dev stuff...anything relatively lightweight by today's standards.
The main idea here, though is that the data isn't static. As you pointed out, that means the data is also susceptible to being hosed.
Though the namers had "Puppy" in mind as somewhat of a toy/entertaining creature, I'd call this more of a tamagotchi. Persistent info...but don't put anything in it that you haven't backed up elsewhere unless you don't really care to lose it to begin with.
There are things that need to be taken care of like rent, food, and a decent Internet connection.:) That's obviously a good baseline priority. This counts double, triple, or quadruple depending on whether you have a family and kids to support. They should come first, I think.
As for happiness, that's a perk. I've learned that in the long run, anything you do for a while becomes work. As far as morality and principles go, there's definitely some weight to it. I mean if a job is so stressful that your health and sanity deteriorate noticeably, it may be time to consider checking out. (if not for yourself, then for your family) Otherwise, you can drink the kool-aid and consider the new direction a learning experience. All depends on how you think about it sometimes.
That said, I've always told people "don't reformat your drive without a backup or an upgrade." I understand that sometimes you can't help it, but ideally it's nicer when you don't have to leap into the unknown.
The instances mentioned all seem to revolve around the idea of indexing files. Could the same be used for database driven sites? You know, like the old search for "or 1=1" trick?
Then again, it's about being organized, isn't it? A check of what should and shouldn't be allowed to go public, some sort of flag where even if it shows up in the result, it better not make its way onto the HTML being sent back. (I figure that's more DB-centric though)
Last madman rant -- Don't put anything up there that shouldn't be for public consumption to begin with!!! If you're the kind to leave private XLS, DOC, MDB, and other sensitive data on a PUBLIC server thinking it's safe just because nobody can "see" it, to put it delicately, you're an idiot.
Competition for the moon is a good thing? At first, yes, this will be a great thing since "competition encourages innovation" but in the end we're talking about a land-mass here. We all KNOW what competing over a land-mass has done to the human race throughout history.
DDOS attacks on people could get messy. The accuracy of the info is only as good as the person's aim. Packet-routing could be a bitch! Imagine the new-found creativity from those Punch-The-Monkey ads. "Are you saying I can dodge bullets?" "No, Neo, I'm saying you can READ them." The mailman can put his skills to use: BANG! BANG! You've Got Mail!!!
I understand that opening things up to a "community" can't be anything but a "Good Thing"(TM) (watch out, she's getting out soon...so everyone make sure your decors match or suffer her wrath!!!)
I have a bit of reservation here, though, since I don't see it open like Mozilla is open. Could this lead to the next Toolbar wars? I'm not afraid, for example, of the many extensions for Mozilla, but for AIM, I kind of worry about possible spyware hijacking, etc.
I guess in the end I lack the confidence in most AIM users. I guess I remember all too well what the A means.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's answer these in order, shall we?
1) "What do you do when you are hungry and more importantly, is it open source?"
You can order pizza. I believe there's a project on sourceforge that can contact Pizza Hut for stuff like that. You can probably make a cronjob of it using wget or whatnot.
2) "If it is not OSS, are there any copyright or patent issues that need to be dealt with?"
I suppose you can cite prior art for pizza if they try to accuse you of copyright/patent infringement.
3) "Also, is Google or Apple involved in any way?"
If you don't know how to get to the pizza hut website, I guess Google will come in handy. While you're at it, you can order some of that baked apple pie, so I guess there are apples involved.
4) "What degree should I get?"
Philosophy. Definitely.
I'm with you, man. I work at a library with an aging WinNT population (Thanks to the B&M "First Hit Is Always Free" Foundation) that would probably go catatonic if they were "upgraded" to XP. From what I understand, they're trying to raise funds to get newer machines to replace the current ones (PIII 600Mhz, 256MB RAM).
;-)
Basically, what I was wondering was what the arguments were to push for Linux where you are. I'm sure Linux would do wonders with our aging hardware here and possibly save the place some money in hardware upgrades as well as maintenance costs. However, the MS mentality is prevalent and probably difficult to sway.
I guess the questions go:
1) How'd you get Linux in past the bureaucracy?
2) What distro and what do you do for maintenance?
3) How do the patrons react? (that whole "learning curve" argument)
4) Why not cold-turkey to OO.org? Public demand for the popular and familiar hasn't stopped the government from making unpopular decisions before.
The software industry is a service industry operating under the guise of a manufacturing industry.
:)
Of course there are some exceptions -- the gaming industry, for example (though MMORPGs have the "subscription service" thing down). Unfortunately I can't name any others at the time but I'm sure there's more.
The GPL isn't a price-fixing scheme...it basically exposed the current artifically inflated price-fixing scheme that is proprietary software.
Adapt and evolve, baby. Or cry about it all the way to extinction.
So we have a phone that can take pictures and play music. Possibly do video as well. Might as well add all the PDA capabilities of e-mail, address book, grocery shopping list, etc.
I'm all for the convenience of an all-in-one device but have we gone far enough into the technologies that everything works well/reliably? I remember the old 3-in-1 printer devices that weren't all that reliable.
If done well (and compact), gadget convergence would be a great thing. Might as well add a TV remote to it while they're at it.
I've often asked students to speculate what motivation I have for teaching them computer security.
:)
After letting them guess for a few minutes, I tell them I'm in it for selfish reasons. The mess they create by not being secure eventually cost me extra. ISPs start adding "free" features such as virus protection, pop-up blocking, and spam removal. Even though my machines are inherently safer, I have to pay the same "value-added" rate.
Then there are the phone calls from friends/relatives about how their machines are borked and need fixing.
I try to promote OSS for the same reasons I try to promote better computer security habits -- one of which is that those decisions will affect me in the long run both mentally and financially.
Why should I care what type of software people use? Because when they get burned, I get to hear about it...and often have to clean up their mess.
Bitter? Nah.
I'll bite.
I actually like it. Then again, I'm a Kubuntu user and themes are themes, so to me this is just another "theme." Nothing that makes me go "oooh" or "wow, that's revolutionary!!!"
I see plastik with a fancy looking trash icon. Basically stuff Linux has already ripped off from XP and MacOS X.
I do hope that all this is a departure from the XP theme with those clunky title bars and gigantic/obstrusive buttons. Screen real estate is a premium (firefox got this right over IE), giant playskool buttons don't help -- they just get in the way. (on that note, "Shut Do..." won't do).
The more I hear FROM Stallman the more scared I am...Hacker Song
:)
Though hackers may be good with code,
they can't sing, hackers they can't sing!!!
Some sounds can make a person's head explode
Oh the pain, hackers, oh the pain.
Just a joke, RMS, no need to go GNU/Postal on me.
Of course that is until people look deeper into what the publicity is all about. McVoy pretty much illustrated the inherent dangers of not being Open Source -- that at a whim (of a madman?) all your data are belong to them.
Worse yet, we've illustrated that here's someone who's willing to do just that...yank his product from under a high profile project.
If your company is looking into using BK, you may wish to take these recent events into consideration or at least bring them up to those making the decisions.
Mr. Anderson, it appears you have been living two lives. By day you are Thomas Anderson -- a wannabe programmer working as a minion of the local public library. You're a smarmy bastard who occasionally helps patrons and co-workers with their computer problems. By night, you are a talentless slashbot who goes by the name Eberlin. You have bashed Microsoft, SCO, and Sun Microsystems in your spare time.
One of these lives, Mr. Anderson, has a future. One of them does not. All we're asking is that you enlist in our 1337 Division and we're willing to wipe the slate clean...
Wow, sounds like a good deal. How about I give you the three-finger salute and you give me my phonecall?
From personal experience, there's a lot of linux-phobic people out there. One of the main FUD-factors is that Linux was written by "hackers" for "hackers" and is thus a Hacker-OS. Hackers are bad, mmmmkay?
Then there's that bit about being Open-Source which means everyone can look in the code, people can poison the code, and thus people will backdoor EVERYTHING so security is very iffy.
In the end, it's a matter of ignorance and more importantly, control. Their control, that is. The current system makes them comfy and they don't care to learn anything else. The little that they DO know come from FUD, and they simply will not make any effort to investigate further.
That's unfortunate...but true.
There's something to this -- if MS were to receive some form of compensation, wouldn't there be some backlash from those that were hit by this guy's Blaster variant? Perhaps even some sort of implied responsibility on Microsoft's part (EULA be damned)?
Then again, I'm sure this was something that was already fixed and the truly vulnerable ones were those that hadn't patched (some with valid reasons nonetheless).
Just saying that it's possible that if MS took money for this, others may start looking to MS to pay for THEIR damages.
Virus writing motives: I would figure that most virus writers are more concerned about propagation than destruction, especially in this new Intarweb age.
A bunch of zombie boxes would be more useful than a bunch of useless paperweights. If nothing else, they'd rather harvest that information quietly and not alert the victim of the compromise. Then again if there's really enough malice involved, this sounds like another one of those trench runs on the Death Star. ("inherent security" except for a few fatal flaws)
Imagine on Food Network: ...and here we're cooking with some geeks from Detroit. I've taken their concept of frying eggs on a hot plate atop this overclocked AMD processor, modified it a little, and with some essence, we're going to kick it up a notch.
For those of you just tuning in, we're making an omelette with this newfangled electric stove, ladies and gentlemen.
And over here, in their honor, I'm making the classic fish and chips with some haddock and steak fries. (Yeah, yeah...we're really cooking here) What I'm gonna do is dip the fish in some batter and off to the fryer it goes.
When we come back, we're gonna give you a kicked-up dessert when we batter this macintosh apple, throw it into the deep fryer, and bam it with some powdered sugar...so stick around, we'll be right back! Doc Gibbs, everybody!!!
(Man, if that wasn't a cry for help, I don't know what is.)
The concept is rather odd, but if we extend this out far enough (slippery slope, I know, but humor me for a few seconds here) -- all that offshoring and outsourcing business could generate the US a bit more revenue in taxes, right? I mean
Don't get me wrong, I do think it's quite the show of force do so such a thing (and equally stupid)...but I'm guessing that something has to be done to make offshoring less economically attractive to companies who still only look at proverbial bottom line.
Filesystem abstraction has its upsides and downsides -- you don't really need to know where a particular file is located as long as you can find it. That same idea rings true with just about every desk, closet, apartment, home as far as I'm concerned.
/etc for config files, /bin for the binaries, /home for all your stuff, /var for all the logs and booting notes, /usr for...um...ok, got me there.
On the other hand, too much abstraction will dull-down an already computer illiterate population. Remember when the whole britneyspears.mp3.vbs file naming conventions caused lots of machines to go boom? Similarly, we can have spyware/adware/viruses that run as svchost, winword.exe, iexplore.exe from rogue directories if users aren't savvy enough to know the differences.
The less a user needs to know to run something, the better it will be for that user. Unfortunately, in cases like this, what the user doesn't know CAN hurt them. (to the tune of > $100 service fee from your local computer shop)
Now simplifying things by making a standard way of filing things...that would be best. My Documents in My Documents, Program Files in Program Files...as long as it's consistent. Kind of like
Anyhoo, an intuitive method would be better than abstracting the concepts completely.
Your post makes the somewhat hidden point that any speech (and most other forms of art) is judged based on two basic criteria: content and delivery.
A comedian/orator/singer without good content can only go so far, regardless of how well they deliver their non-message. (think of most of today's pop/punk bands)
On the other hand, great speech-writers/lyricists won't do much without being able to deliver the content well. (think Carrot-Top doing Shakespeare)
For those planning speeches (for a school report, a work-related project, or Amateur night at the comedy club) -- equally focus on your content and its delivery.
Wouldn't this be like XP Home vs XP Pro?
Then again I suppose anything can be spun through marketing. You figure something that's been lamed-down wouldn't get much play to begin with...but I guess if you spin it as the standard version, then maybe people may bite.
Also, the whole thing was created to curb off some piracy from the Asian market. That way, people who couldn't afford software may "buy" the starter edition instead of pirating an XP home or whatnot. From this standpoint, any sale they make is a bonus against rampant piracy.
Now for those folks who would rather pirate XP than use something like Linux (which I'm sure there are a lot of), I'm not really sure how best to market to them if you're a Linux Evangelist.
There's an interesting myth based on moon-phases. It's one that states people go a little nutty during a full moon. I've heard stories from hospitals, libraries, and other public places where there's a higher amount of "strange behavior" during full moons.
Personally, I have the moon phase plugin for my gkrellm -- a somewhat-joking "heads-up" if you work with the general public.
If nothing else, knowing the moon-phase can help a little with your nethack strategy, right?
Then again, maybe I'm just another Lunatic.
Well, it's based on Ubuntu Linux...Ubuntu means something like "Humanity to others" (the ubuntu.com page will explain this much better than I can) The distro is GNOME based...so the natural thing to do is to slap a K in front of it and it's now KDE-based! Thus Kubuntu. :)
I've got an Ubuntu installation, btw, and it's pretty cool. Hardware detection was great, runs fairly well on my old 400MHZ PII, and the whole synaptic thing makes for very easy updating. I may eventually try the Kubuntu as I'm looking for that Debian-based KDE-using distro. Currently looking at Mepis but haven't tried it yet.
The good and bad of it -- all your preferences can be saved so you can go to any machine that'll allow you to boot from CD (and one that'll run the OS, anyway).
You can probably use it to carry OO.org documents, a couple of pictures, and maybe some dev stuff...anything relatively lightweight by today's standards.
The main idea here, though is that the data isn't static. As you pointed out, that means the data is also susceptible to being hosed.
Though the namers had "Puppy" in mind as somewhat of a toy/entertaining creature, I'd call this more of a tamagotchi. Persistent info...but don't put anything in it that you haven't backed up elsewhere unless you don't really care to lose it to begin with.
There are things that need to be taken care of like rent, food, and a decent Internet connection. :) That's obviously a good baseline priority. This counts double, triple, or quadruple depending on whether you have a family and kids to support. They should come first, I think.
As for happiness, that's a perk. I've learned that in the long run, anything you do for a while becomes work. As far as morality and principles go, there's definitely some weight to it. I mean if a job is so stressful that your health and sanity deteriorate noticeably, it may be time to consider checking out. (if not for yourself, then for your family) Otherwise, you can drink the kool-aid and consider the new direction a learning experience. All depends on how you think about it sometimes.
That said, I've always told people "don't reformat your drive without a backup or an upgrade." I understand that sometimes you can't help it, but ideally it's nicer when you don't have to leap into the unknown.
The instances mentioned all seem to revolve around the idea of indexing files. Could the same be used for database driven sites? You know, like the old search for "or 1=1" trick?
Then again, it's about being organized, isn't it? A check of what should and shouldn't be allowed to go public, some sort of flag where even if it shows up in the result, it better not make its way onto the HTML being sent back. (I figure that's more DB-centric though)
Last madman rant -- Don't put anything up there that shouldn't be for public consumption to begin with!!! If you're the kind to leave private XLS, DOC, MDB, and other sensitive data on a PUBLIC server thinking it's safe just because nobody can "see" it, to put it delicately, you're an idiot.
Competition for the moon is a good thing? At first, yes, this will be a great thing since "competition encourages innovation" but in the end we're talking about a land-mass here. We all KNOW what competing over a land-mass has done to the human race throughout history.
DDOS attacks on people could get messy.
The accuracy of the info is only as good as the person's aim.
Packet-routing could be a bitch!
Imagine the new-found creativity from those Punch-The-Monkey ads.
"Are you saying I can dodge bullets?" "No, Neo, I'm saying you can READ them."
The mailman can put his skills to use: BANG! BANG! You've Got Mail!!!
I understand that opening things up to a "community" can't be anything but a "Good Thing"(TM) (watch out, she's getting out soon...so everyone make sure your decors match or suffer her wrath!!!)
I have a bit of reservation here, though, since I don't see it open like Mozilla is open. Could this lead to the next Toolbar wars? I'm not afraid, for example, of the many extensions for Mozilla, but for AIM, I kind of worry about possible spyware hijacking, etc.
I guess in the end I lack the confidence in most AIM users. I guess I remember all too well what the A means.