COMCAST wins. Consumers, choices, and competition in general lose.
My local cable commission has given Comcast a monopoly over cable internet. Period. End of story. Other ISP's need not apply.
For 99% of the people out there, the boxes are no good without comcast's service. The phone company, and later, cell phone companies, gave away free phones. This is not exactly earth shattering news. It is easy to do this, especially when you have a monopoly on cable-internet.
As a side note. Comcasts internet service is through @Home. They do NOT allow you to run servers (including VPN, HTTP, e-mail, etc) and they do regular port scanning to make sure you comply.
Fortunately, in my area DSL is an option with a choice of providers.
Let's do the math..
$280 for a device the plugs into my handspring and plays mp3 files. Standalone mp3 players can be bought for much less than $280? This device costs almost twice as much as a handspring!
Why waste your money?
Speaking of wasting your money. Why waste your money on a HandSpring or a Palm for that matter? Really! Like the macintosh in its 'glory years', the Palm was ahead of its time and was (is) very useful. But like the mac, the Palm didn't evolve. The Palm still uses a slow processor lacking a MMU and uses a dead-end OS. Yeah, I've had a couple palms. However, in less than a years time my Palm will sitting next to my old slide rules.
In the not too distant future you will soon be able to buy handhelds much more powerful than the HandSpring/Palm, that play mp3 files out of the box, and of course they will run linux.
Oh wait. The future is now (almost). Already you can put linux in the vtech Helio (~$150), Yopy, Ipaq, and soon the Agenda. Although still beta quality, these devices will be ready for everyday use in a matter of months.
The future is not in proprietary operating systems like WindowsCE and Palm OS. The future is now [or very soon]. The future is Linux.
However, the vtech Helio uses a unique method that allows a person to fairly easily load an OS into the flash RAM. It is possible for me to load Linux in flash ram and later load back in the vtech OS, and later load in Linux, and later..
Since the OS is in flash ram it's okay to remove the batteries without worrying about losing the OS.
I purchased a Helio from the TransVirtual people at LinuxWorld for $150 total.
Out of the box it outperforms my Palm Pilot. It runs on a 75mhz MIPs CPU with 8MB of ram and 2MB of FLASHABLE (ie. can upgrade the OS, etc) RAM. The unit uses an interesting method that allow you to completely swap in different operating systems.
I _totally_ see a big future for this little device. Below are some links
And.. If this isn't enough for you. There is another company that has put Linux on handhelds. They were at LinuxWorld also (I never saw them), and were demoing their Agenda VR3 Linux Handheld. Their web site is at:
Agenda Linux Handheld
The Agenda VR3 will not be available til around October according to their WWW site. The vtech Helio is available now. I hope they both do well, but I'd have to say the helio has an edge over the VR3 with it's sound recording features, plus the head start jump on the VR3.
Oh.. Of course TransVirtual's Linux software and Kafee software for the Helio are GPL!!!
I am putting Linux on my Helio tonight. Please post pertinent links and info. Will report back on how it went tomorrow.
I will be teaching my daughter (6th grader) computer programming.
We won't officially begin this project until June 1st. In the meantime, if you have suggestions or comments (ie. languages, methods). Please visit her page and e-mail me comments.
I am tentatively going to start by teaching her Python and maybe VB.
Actually, I think I'll teach her how to make WWW pages first, so she can update her progress.
The Microsoft antitrust case will likely be in court for many years to come.
As an example, the DR-DOS vs Microsoft case took almost three years, and was settled out of court. It was an almost petty case compared to the govt antitrust trial.
G.W. Bush has publically said many times that he would throw the MS antitrust case out if he could. It is safe to say that MS will be spending millions to get him elected.
Since Bush Junior isn't getting federal matching funds, does he have to make public the contributors to his presidential campaign? Also, does he have to list amounts $$$ ?
Regardless as to what happens to this 'Internet VCR Service', soon, we will all have some form of Digital VCR's.
Already we have the products like the ATI-All-In-Woner that let your computer digitally record & playback.
Also, products like TiVo and RePlay TV serve as a 'limited' digital VCR.
It's only a matter of time that we have inexpensive digital VCR's. Likely they will be like TiVO/RePlay, but with the additional feature of allowing one to save the recordings to a standard format and e-mail, http, ftp, sneaker-net, etc. the files to friends and family so that they too can watch.
Regardless of 'legalities' or the will of broadcasters and media conglomerates, this will occur. Media giants may slow the progress of such technology, but they will be unable to stop it.
Maybe someone has a law/proof/theorem/postulate for this. If there is, I'd like to hear it. If not, I'll create one:
"Technological progress can be slowed, but cannot be stopped." -H.Souders
The headling "Linux Directory Services surpasses WinNT & Novell" could be a reality in just a few years!
Just last night I thought about this. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Sure, samba and NFS are good. However, samba will ALWAYS be following the lead of Microsoft -- this cannot be helped. I could ramble on incessantly about how wonderful Linux Directory Services (TM GPL'd) could be and all the things it could do, but talk is cheap.
I've thought about this a long time and would like to find open source or GPL'd projects that are working on such thing.
By the way.. I have looked into LDAP and likely "Linux Directory Services" should probably not be based on it.
If anyone has any links or such sites or constructive suggestions please - post away.
Immediately after posting this message I am getting to work on this. A friend quoted a phrase recently that feels very appropriate "There are people who talk about things, and there are people who get things done."
I am no lawyer. Maybe there are one or two 'legal experts' out there reading/. that can answer this. Here is a URL from Cornell on Patent Law Some thoughts: -The patents must be 'novel' (original?) and not of an obvious nature. This new microsoft patent is neither. -Since debian's apt does the same thing this patent does, and debian has been doing it longer, what does this mean to debian users? -Am I a now a patent law violator and possible criminal since I've been using Debian for years? -Lastly, why is the U.S. Patent Office giving away patents on such obvious ideas (think Amazon's one-click shopping)??
However, probation and parole are very similar. If he were convicted on California he would be on parole now, not probation.
The point I was trying to make is that he has lost some of his Constitutional rights temporarily and probably lost some of his rights (ie. owning a firearm) permanently.
Frankly, Federal probation is oftentimes more restrictive than a state's parole.
Bottom line: - His rights are restricted
And as far as someone saying that he has already served his time.. Well, if he violates his probation he goes back to jail.
Kevin is on PAROLE. Being on parole means that he loses many of his constitutional rights. We Americans do not know how good we have it until our rights are taken away from us!
Here are some of the rights that Kevin no longer has while he is on parole: - He can be searched by police at any time - His apartment/house can be searched at any time - He has to report with a parole officer who checks up on him - He must notify his parole officer when he goes out of town. - He is not allowed to associate with known criminals. - He is regularly tested for drugs.
These are just a few of the conditions of Kevin's parole. I'm sure there are many other restrictiions
Your #3 comment states that "VA got smart and decided to purchase Andover".
I do NOT think is was a very smart purchase. VA paid almost a billion dollars for andover.net. Fiscally, this is anything but smart.
Now if VA would have bought Cygnus, or Inprise/Borland, or Corel, or LinuxCare, well... that would have been smart.
I like VA, but since the IPO they have made some poor financial decisions. Today their stock closed at 50 from a high of 320. As a linux user it is in my best interest that they stay in business. They have some really good people there that I'd like to see working at VA. However, if they don't wise-up financially then VA will end up being a footnote in the history of linux.
Re:mirror sites of Judge's ruling
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 1
I should have put a link to my mirror. Here it is. Click HERE or you can type this in:
http://www.rosecomputing.com/microsuck/index.html
mirror sites of Judge's ruling
on
Microsoft Loses
·
· Score: 2
I put up a page with links to official government sites and mirrors of the Judge's ruling. Both html and pdf versions available:
http://www.rosecomputing.com/microsuck/index.htm l
The article states that sleep deprivation causes increased brains activity -- this is not necessarily a good thing.
I recall a study comparing students that did well in math and students that did poorly. The students that did well had minor brain activity. The kids that did poorly had a LOT of brain activity.
The results of this study concluded that this might have to do with "brain efficiency" and that the increased brain activity in the kids doing poorly was causing them more problems.
I don't have URL for this study. It was about two years ago.
As I see it. Eclipse/BSD and Inferno are very much the same. That is to say, they are both CLOSED, RESTRICTED, PROPRIETARY Operating Systems.
This is BAD. The reasons why it's bad have been hashed out time and time again.
As interesting as Eclipse/BSD is, it will undoubtedly follow the firey path Inferno OS took. Maybe it will gain miniscule acceptance for very specialized situations, but in general it is doomed to fail from the start.
The QoS in Eclipse/BSD is interesting, but only for research.
Anyone read the license? It's terribly restrictive. Still, for "research" it's pretty interesting.
What I am curious about is INFERNO. Anyone remember it? A few years ago AT&T (now lucent) was hyping INFERNO as the "be all/do all" operating system that would replace unix and be much better. Well, I haven't heard a thing about INFERNO. Anyone?
It is insightful. A lot of people thought so, but their opinions were apparently overruled by a higher power.
Sorry you think my opinion is crap. I don't critique other's comments often, but when I do I can do better than saying something is "crap".
The MSCE folks around me say Linux is "crap". They have no reason for this, but when you are spreading FUD and blurting out statements about something you don't know about (they have never tried linux), well.. you don't need facts or reasons.
Again, what this company is doing is obviously wrong, and the vast majority of posters agree.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anybody take Physics anymore?
Alcohol is much better than water for cooling and has other nice properties (ie no bacteria or algae).
Yeah. Back in the day, my dad (true story) cooled his Model A hot rod with alcohol.
-=>Funk Master=-
The best portable keyboard will be, for many reasons, FREE. As in patent free, license free, royalty free, etc.
As soon as someone makes this keyboard, even if it is just mediocre (ie. QWERTY-like) it will catch on.
My local cable commission has given Comcast a monopoly over cable internet. Period. End of story. Other ISP's need not apply.
For 99% of the people out there, the boxes are no good without comcast's service. The phone company, and later, cell phone companies, gave away free phones. This is not exactly earth shattering news. It is easy to do this, especially when you have a monopoly on cable-internet.
As a side note. Comcasts internet service is through @Home. They do NOT allow you to run servers (including VPN, HTTP, e-mail, etc) and they do regular port scanning to make sure you comply.
Fortunately, in my area DSL is an option with a choice of providers.
Why waste your money?
Speaking of wasting your money. Why waste your money on a HandSpring or a Palm for that matter? Really! Like the macintosh in its 'glory years', the Palm was ahead of its time and was (is) very useful. But like the mac, the Palm didn't evolve. The Palm still uses a slow processor lacking a MMU and uses a dead-end OS. Yeah, I've had a couple palms. However, in less than a years time my Palm will sitting next to my old slide rules.
In the not too distant future you will soon be able to buy handhelds much more powerful than the HandSpring/Palm, that play mp3 files out of the box, and of course they will run linux.
Oh wait. The future is now (almost). Already you can put linux in the vtech Helio (~$150), Yopy, Ipaq, and soon the Agenda. Although still beta quality, these devices will be ready for everyday use in a matter of months.
The future is not in proprietary operating systems like WindowsCE and Palm OS. The future is now [or very soon]. The future is Linux.
I do not know about the Ipaq.
However, the vtech Helio uses a unique method that allows a person to fairly easily load an OS into the flash RAM. It is possible for me to load Linux in flash ram and later load back in the vtech OS, and later load in Linux, and later..
Since the OS is in flash ram it's okay to remove the batteries without worrying about losing the OS.
Out of the box it outperforms my Palm Pilot. It runs on a 75mhz MIPs CPU with 8MB of ram and 2MB of FLASHABLE (ie. can upgrade the OS, etc) RAM. The unit uses an interesting method that allow you to completely swap in different operating systems.
I _totally_ see a big future for this little device. Below are some links
Transvirtual's Pocket Linux Site
Helio HomePage
Sourceforge Linux on the Helio page
And.. If this isn't enough for you. There is another company that has put Linux on handhelds. They were at LinuxWorld also (I never saw them), and were demoing their Agenda VR3 Linux Handheld. Their web site is at: Agenda Linux Handheld
The Agenda VR3 will not be available til around October according to their WWW site. The vtech Helio is available now. I hope they both do well, but I'd have to say the helio has an edge over the VR3 with it's sound recording features, plus the head start jump on the VR3.
Oh.. Of course TransVirtual's Linux software and Kafee software for the Helio are GPL!!!
I am putting Linux on my Helio tonight. Please post pertinent links and info. Will report back on how it went tomorrow.
We won't officially begin this project until June 1st. In the meantime, if you have suggestions or comments (ie. languages, methods). Please visit her page and e-mail me comments.
I am tentatively going to start by teaching her Python and maybe VB.
Actually, I think I'll teach her how to make WWW pages first, so she can update her progress.
Her page is here: Rose's WWW Page
The Microsoft antitrust case will likely be in court for many years to come.
As an example, the DR-DOS vs Microsoft case took almost three years, and was settled out of court. It was an almost petty case compared to the govt antitrust trial.
G.W. Bush has publically said many times that he would throw the MS antitrust case out if he could. It is safe to say that MS will be spending millions to get him elected.
Since Bush Junior isn't getting federal matching funds, does he have to make public the contributors to his presidential campaign? Also, does he have to list amounts $$$ ?
Regardless as to what happens to this 'Internet VCR Service', soon, we will all have some form of Digital VCR's.
Already we have the products like the ATI-All-In-Woner that let your computer digitally record & playback.
Also, products like TiVo and RePlay TV serve as a 'limited' digital VCR.
It's only a matter of time that we have inexpensive digital VCR's. Likely they will be like TiVO/RePlay, but with the additional feature of allowing one to save the recordings to a standard format and e-mail, http, ftp, sneaker-net, etc. the files to friends and family so that they too can watch.
Regardless of 'legalities' or the will of broadcasters and media conglomerates, this will occur. Media giants may slow the progress of such technology, but they will be unable to stop it.
Maybe someone has a law/proof/theorem/postulate for this. If there is, I'd like to hear it. If not, I'll create one:
"Technological progress can be slowed, but cannot be stopped." -H.Souders
Just out of curiousity. What hardware was the old slashdot running under?
And, what were the biggest reasons for upgrading?
-Needed Faster CPU?
-Needed more memory?
-Needed a bigger network pipe?
-Needed clustering?
-___ ?
The headling "Linux Directory Services surpasses WinNT & Novell" could be a reality in just a few years!
Just last night I thought about this. I've been thinking about it for a long time. Sure, samba and NFS are good. However, samba will ALWAYS be following the lead of Microsoft -- this cannot be helped. I could ramble on incessantly about how wonderful Linux Directory Services (TM GPL'd) could be and all the things it could do, but talk is cheap.
I've thought about this a long time and would like to find open source or GPL'd projects that are working on such thing.
By the way.. I have looked into LDAP and likely "Linux Directory Services" should probably not be based on it.
If anyone has any links or such sites or constructive suggestions please - post away.
Immediately after posting this message I am getting to work on this. A friend quoted a phrase recently that feels very appropriate "There are people who talk about things, and there are people who get things done."
I am no lawyer. Maybe there are one or two 'legal experts' out there reading /. that can answer this. Here is a URL from Cornell on Patent Law
Some thoughts:
-The patents must be 'novel' (original?) and not of an obvious nature. This new microsoft patent is neither.
-Since debian's apt does the same thing this patent does, and debian has been doing it longer, what does this mean to debian users?
-Am I a now a patent law violator and possible criminal since I've been using Debian for years?
-Lastly, why is the U.S. Patent Office giving away patents on such obvious ideas (think Amazon's one-click shopping)??
Okay. Mitnick is on FEDERAL PROBATION.
However, probation and parole are very similar. If he were convicted on California he would be on parole now, not probation.
The point I was trying to make is that he has lost some of his Constitutional rights temporarily and probably lost some of his rights (ie. owning a firearm) permanently.
Frankly, Federal probation is oftentimes more restrictive than a state's parole.
Bottom line:
- His rights are restricted
And as far as someone saying that he has already served his time.. Well, if he violates his probation he goes back to jail.
You make the call.
HE HAS NOT FINISHED SERVING HIS TIME!!!
Kevin is on PAROLE. Being on parole means that he loses many of his constitutional rights. We Americans do not know how good we have it until our rights are taken away from us!
Here are some of the rights that Kevin no longer has while he is on parole:
- He can be searched by police at any time
- His apartment/house can be searched at any time
- He has to report with a parole officer who checks up on him
- He must notify his parole officer when he goes out of town.
- He is not allowed to associate with known criminals.
- He is regularly tested for drugs.
These are just a few of the conditions of Kevin's parole. I'm sure there are many other restrictiions
I would like to know were SCO is going with Linux?
Specifically, it what ways will SCO be contributing to the Linux community?
How does SCO plan on making money with Linux?
SCO has been a longtime business partner with Microsoft (Didn't SCO & Microsoft develope Xenix?). Do you expect retaliation from Microsoft?
Your #3 comment states that "VA got smart and decided to purchase Andover".
I do NOT think is was a very smart purchase. VA paid almost a billion dollars for andover.net. Fiscally, this is anything but smart.
Now if VA would have bought Cygnus, or Inprise/Borland, or Corel, or LinuxCare, well... that would have been smart.
I like VA, but since the IPO they have made some poor financial decisions. Today their stock closed at 50 from a high of 320. As a linux user it is in my best interest that they stay in business. They have some really good people there that I'd like to see working at VA. However, if they don't wise-up financially then VA will end up being a footnote in the history of linux.
http://www.rosecomputing.com/microsuck/index.html
I put up a page with links to official government sites and mirrors of the Judge's ruling. Both html and pdf versions available:
m l
http://www.rosecomputing.com/microsuck/index.ht
The article states that sleep deprivation causes increased brains activity -- this is not necessarily a good thing.
I recall a study comparing students that did well in math and students that did poorly. The students that did well had minor brain activity. The kids that did poorly had a LOT of brain activity.
The results of this study concluded that this might have to do with "brain efficiency" and that the increased brain activity in the kids doing poorly was causing them more problems.
I don't have URL for this study. It was about two years ago.
I appreciate the reply on Inferno (even though this started out Eclipse/BSD).
- NTL.html
You are 100% correct. Inferno has been scraped, and in fact sold off. You can read about it at:
http://www.lucent-inferno.com/inferno/VitaNuova
As I see it. Eclipse/BSD and Inferno are very much the same. That is to say, they are both CLOSED, RESTRICTED, PROPRIETARY Operating Systems.
This is BAD. The reasons why it's bad have been hashed out time and time again.
As interesting as Eclipse/BSD is, it will undoubtedly follow the firey path Inferno OS took. Maybe it will gain miniscule acceptance for very specialized situations, but in general it is doomed to fail from the start.
That said. Anyone have any info on Linux QoS?
The QoS in Eclipse/BSD is interesting, but only
for research.
Anyone read the license? It's terribly restrictive. Still, for "research" it's pretty interesting.
What I am curious about is INFERNO. Anyone remember it? A few years ago AT&T (now lucent) was hyping INFERNO as the "be all/do all" operating system that would replace unix and be much better. Well, I haven't heard a thing about INFERNO. Anyone?
It is insightful. A lot of people thought so, but their opinions were apparently overruled by a higher power.
Sorry you think my opinion is crap. I don't critique other's comments often, but when I do I can do better than saying something is "crap".
The MSCE folks around me say Linux is "crap". They have no reason for this, but when you are spreading FUD and blurting out statements about something you don't know about (they have never tried linux), well.. you don't need facts or reasons.
Again, what this company is doing is obviously wrong, and the vast majority of posters agree.