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  1. Re:Some Notes on Apple's Rumored Office Suite · · Score: 1

    " Wouldn't apple be well within their rights if they sued microsoft for discontinuing MS Office support for OSX?"

    No. Microsoft can do as it pleases with its software.

    Why would you think otherwise?

  2. Re:Black void on New and Improved SETI · · Score: 1

    We only scan a fraction of the sky, for only a few years. The chances that we DO find something are pretty small to begin with, and we even scanning at 100% of what we could

  3. Re:Could we be the first? on New and Improved SETI · · Score: 1

    Ofcourse, it is possible.

    The chances, personally, are (astronomically) slim, but ofcourse we could.

    But picture it this way. Even if 2 civilizations(us and the Other Guys) started at roughly the same time. Even if intelligent life(humans, as opposed to dinosaurs) start at about the same time... Our path, on Earth, was not very 'efficient' in getting to where we are. Wars, for a start, slowed us down significantly. Then things like the Dark Ages, where we actually LOST intellectual ground for a couple hundred years.

    It is possible we are the most advanced, but mathmatically unlikely. We are, as statistics would always guess we would be, probably 'somewhere in the middle'

  4. Re:This whole thing sounds bogus on Inside the Shadow Internet · · Score: 1

    I think you are both ignorant to, and underestimate, the size of the Internet and the shady parts of it.

    You are damn right there are darknets, VPNs, and close-knit circles doing questionable trading on the Internet. You would be silly to think otherwise. The demand is there, the interest, the supply, the tools and the willingness of college kids is all there. Of course there are networks like this one in the article.

    Don't for a minute, think, that this network is 'big' or alone. Take your 'best guess' at how many darknets you think there are on the net. add a zero, and realize that you haven't even gotten to the elite networks yet.

  5. Re:The CNET article itself is terrible. on More on China's IPv6 Network Buildout · · Score: 1

    "...meaning that it is not necessary for countries up upgrade everything to IPv6 in order for their businesses to trade with China, no matter what the article implies."

    The IPv6 network was academic institutions only, from what I understood. How is this any different than the Internet2 that we (colleges, etc) have in the US?

  6. Re:What would you do with it? Re:Open Grid? on IBM Grid Near 50,000 machines - Slashdot Users #13 · · Score: 1

    It would be interesting to have a web-based 'frontend' that lets you 'signup' for or bid for timeshare of the cluster. User's donating their cycles could vote for projects to get a high priority.

    Would be really neat. To the point of being able to guarantee a certain level of computer cluster power.

    Yes, this is old becoming new again. But it would be cool.

  7. Re:Oh, well... on The Coming Atlantic Mega-Tsunami · · Score: 1

    Where would our nation's capitol be relocated to?

  8. Re:I'm so glad I have a Pentium IV Mobile on More Analysis Of Pentium M Desktops · · Score: 1

    Absolutely. I haven't played much with VMWare, only heard good(great) things about it.

    Mac OS X does have some, in my opinion, distinct advantages (and in some ways, disadvantages) and is a nice complete system. With that said, Linux is great and the ability to run VMWare would make Windows without Windows as it were very nice.

    Personally, I can't WAIT for the multi-tasking whatever IBM Power5 (G5++) processor, So I can have Mac OS X (10.5, or .6 by then) and Yellow Dog Linux and Solaris 10 interchangeably.

  9. Re:I'm so glad I have a Pentium IV Mobile on More Analysis Of Pentium M Desktops · · Score: 1

    1ghz 12" powerbook, 768MB of RAM. Nice little laptop, but I should have waited for the next revision and got the better video card.

    VPC6 runs just a hair under acceptable(with mild, realistic standards.) It is usable, but not for long term, more for testing or for fulfilling the nitch of a program or 2 (IE web-dev testing, etc). With VPC7, it isn't(according to the macworld review) much better.

    Microsoft was suppose to improve 3d acceleration(add it, actually) but hasn't I do not believe. If you set aside adequite RAM, and strip down XP (turn off ANYTHING graphical that isn't needed, no eye candy!) it would be usable.

    Overall. Yea, it is usable, with some patience and configuration(and a spare 512meg of ram in your computer), but every task and every type of program I have sought out, had a good(if not better) mac equivalent. (Note: Linux/FreeBSD software is included in the pool of mac software, IMHO).

    A Mac, IMO, is a good purchase, but not for a Windows box. It would be better to buy a crap p2 or p3 mini-tower for a hundred bucks(if you don't already have one around) and run remote desktop(free, decent quality) to your mac.

  10. Re:Lots :-) on What's Wrong with Unix? · · Score: 1

    Stress test is a good point. But it just takes a couple dedicated developers, or a bold distro, to make it the default setting. Fedora Core 4 will get 10's of thousands of stress test cases.

    It is like Linus calling an unstable system stable(2.5 -> 2.6) with the intent to get stress testing by a larger pool of users. It works, he(or Fedora) just need to be bold enough and make the switch.

    To be honest. I don't have the technical knowledge to understand the difference. But making a big change(*cough* IPv6) can be accomplished by a big player saying "ok, we are doing it, and we will support it." Both feet jumping firmly in the deep end and swallowing the technical difficulties as needed.

  11. Re:In no specific order: on What's Wrong with Unix? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the specifics, that does make some sense.

    My problem is that it is very un-apple like to have two technologies that are very similar (aliases and symlinks). It would be 'confusing' to users in the same sense a single mouse is chosen over a 2-button... no choice means you are ALWAYS right when you click the mouse.

    I am not a big symlink/alias user, really. Nor am I a shortcut user(except for Quicklaunch bar). So it doesn't really hurt or help me. Just seems like one of those loose-ends Apple never tied up in their very complete mac/unix product.

  12. Re:Man IS the problem. on What's Wrong with Unix? · · Score: 1

    How about native (alias) command names that make sense.

    It is stupid to have a creat command when it should be create. It is stupid to save 1 letter to save time in command names.

    I would almost like to see a unified (API almost) set of commands. Help, New, Edit, etc. That map to that distro or Unixes preferred program that fills that role.

    unpackage or uncompress(or whatever) might be mapped to "tar-zxvf" on some systems, but on Solaris, the flags are different. Why should the user memorize the different flags when they just want to tage a .tar file and unpack them?

    "less" is the superior(apparently) version of "more". You have to be told that specifically to know these things.

    Archaic/hard to remember commands are no longer justified.

    And man pages(or any preferred help system. I would like a "help vi" rather than "man vi" personally. But it should also be "vi --help") that are written in simple english, but include the information for power users. This isn't hard, just no one does it.

  13. Re:In no specific order: on What's Wrong with Unix? · · Score: 1

    Just a small aside. Darwin(OS X's core/kernel/etc) has a debian apt-get port. Along with (i think) gentoo's app and a native .pkg (which I don't believe is tied to a specific program in the sense that .deb is... granted, .deb is not tied either, but you know what I mean.)

    Darwin is actually a pretty decent system in that sense. Has a lot of potential and whatnot.

    Solaris' low-level features would be great. I think a closer knit group of freebsd 5 or darwin(or both, etc) would be able to lead to this.

    I really do think Apple is best able to address most of these feature requests. They have a community development group, but Apple still has a strong hand in where their system goes.

    My annoyance for OS X: aliases (Windows shortcuts) != symlinks. They seem to be the same thing for GUI vs CLI, but they are two distinct things. They should be unified.

  14. Re:Sounds good... on Dutch Fine Spammers, AOL Reports Drop in Spam · · Score: 1

    And by "real cash" you mean... American Dollar? Euros are 'cash' just as the US greeback is 'cash'. But I am in a bored/good mood, so here you go.

    According to CNN Money and Yahoo Finance:

    25,000 Euro == 34,054.75 USD
    42,500 Euro == 57,893.07 USD

  15. Re:Explain something to me, please. on Dutch Fine Spammers, AOL Reports Drop in Spam · · Score: 1

    Because the federal government shouldn't be so actively fighting on the part of for-profit organizations. The organization should do their own fighting. Beyond which, most /.ers feel the copyright laws that ARE getting inforced are rediculous or outdated.

    The government 'focusing' on spam (passing the can-spam act, not exactly focusing IMO) means to /.ers that the government whom (again, many /.ers feel) do not focus on real or relevant are finally doing something that pisses off millions of the citizens these politicians represent.

  16. Re:OBVIOUS. on Dutch Fine Spammers, AOL Reports Drop in Spam · · Score: 1

    adding false-positives to their spam box would increase spam, not decrease it. And no, I don't think they check and say "oh, we were wrong 36.54% of the time, so we must have 36.54% less incoming spam!"

    What is wrong with requiring valid anythings and adhereing to standards? We flame Microsoft for NOT following standards, then flame AOL for following them to precisely? Where is the logic?

  17. Re:not necessarily a shortage on China Lights Pure IPv6 Network · · Score: 1

    I think we should move to IPv6 for many reasons, but one is to simply destroy all reasonable arguments about ipv4 addresses. Yes, with NAT and other technologies, we may very well be able to live on the v4 addresses. But why should we 'get by' with 32 bit addresses when 128 bit addresses not only solve any nagging issues of the limited ammount of remaining addresses, but also introduces mandatory security (ipsec) gives us almost unimaginable option into how to split up addresses(each sovereign nation could get a Class A of Class A's, just because), removes issues like port scanning huge percentages of all internet addresses and has other benefits as well.

    We should/do use computer/host/dns names already, making the 'ugliness' of ipv6 address less of an issue. We have abbreviation for address (::), and if we use NAT, we can still use 10.x.x.x for LAN and just have an IPv4v6 gateway at the WAN connection or what not.

    For a industry that is all about the latest and greatest. It is nothing more than pathetic to think IPv6 is still a toy and not a backbone technology.

  18. Re:Free Software vs. Freeware on Free Windows Software Without Spyware/Adware · · Score: 0

    I think your terminology is too vague. Freeware = "Free Software." Free is free.

    Now I know the beer/speech analogy, and that is where you are drawing your line, but I don't think you should. Free Software is not necessarily Open Software, and thus, you cannot 'check' to see it does not contain Adware.

    Freeware is free to use. Sometime you can redistribute, etc. But in general most simple terms, it is "free to use."

    Of-course, there is Open software, in which you can check the code. Open Software is not necessarily free to use, but most often is. for instance, many large companies have signed contracts that if they ever go out of business, customer X is allowed get access to the code (held by a neutral third-party, like a bank) for use in support and troubleshooting. Open software is almost always free in reality, but isn't necessarily. Open is "comes with source code".

    FOSS(Free and Open Source Software) is really the most accurate way to refer to what you called "Free Software". It is both free and open. Such as Linux, Apache or OpenOffice.org.

    PS: No, I am not an idiot. Yes, I see your UID is ridiculously low. No, you do not need to make a witty remark referencing it.

    I am just saying "Free Software" isn't "Open Software" isn't "Free & Open Software" and it is important for others reading this to know that.

  19. Re:You fools! This is the beginning of the end! on Post-Googleism At IBM With Piquant · · Score: 1

    Personally. I would build my AI as a clustered rack of servers, for processing, raid backups, etc. Fully self-contained.

    However, it would not be plugged into the internet. It would only learn through a cd-rom. an non-burnable sole cd-rom drive. So information is only 1 way.

    I wouldn't want it to be able to spider the web. Learn how to make itself into a virus and spread itself to every PC on the planet.

    Then again, I would also have it be a self-healing self-administrating Linux system. With remote viewing abiltiy(so we can keep an eye on it) and backup/restore... Almost like a groundhog's day, once it has a certain level of 'intelligence' it decides what and how things are placed and installed. kernel up. When it kernel panics or crashes, we take it 1 day back in history. show it the fuck up, and let it try again.

    Talk about natural evolution.

  20. Re:Google is more than a search engine... on What's Next For Google? · · Score: 1

    Metadata/Google update-discovery APIs would be cool. But not for the entire web. Not yet. Google's ability to update its search as the sites in question are updated would be great.

    What if they offered it to only uber-popular sites. In the same way google's web ads will advertise for themselves on sites that get more than X hits a month(/. is one of them), That criteria could be used to flag sites that get updated. (/. Time, CNN, etc).

    Updating and improving their spider is a given. I think they really just need to do a regular (weekly or monthly, i don't care) of Images as well. That index hasn't been updated in months, year the web index is updated monthly and recently doubled its index size!

  21. Re:Instant Messaging on What's Next For Google? · · Score: 1

    I think integration with Gmail contacts and integration with Desktop Search for IM logs would be very useful, personally.

    Plus. In the same way iChat is an official AIM-compatible client, Gtalk(or whatever) would be as well. Along with Jabber support. It would also be able to do a corporate intranet-only chat... And somehow integrate with Google's corporate appliance search server.

  22. Re:Don't forget Poland on More on the Microsoft v. EU Decision on Software Patents · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We never mocked them.

    (Some) Americans mocked Bush, not Poland, for calling the group he had formed a 'strong' coalition. When it was anything but. 1,000 brave Polish men and woman are in Iraq. 120,000 brave American men and woman are in Iraq.

    Some of us, while deeply respecting the sacrifices both nation's soldiers have made, do not call that a 'coalition. Alteast, not anywhere(anywhere!) near the same level the first gulf war had. THAT was a coalition.

  23. Re:In theory yes on Next G5 Multitasks Operating Systems · · Score: 1

    Yea. It was called the AIM Alliance, and they all had a big say it in. I am just saying, this is in IBM's best interest, making Apple happy is an added bonus, but not the driving force.

  24. Re:In theory yes on Next G5 Multitasks Operating Systems · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "But in reality, i believe this is so apple can release "big iron" type systems (servers), the VM would allow Multiple versions of the server OS to run for maximum uptime, protection etc..."

    Personally, I don't think Apple has any importance to the decision. IBM is looking to beef up their powerPC chip. They want to migrate their mainframes and servers and even workstations to it. The more systems that use the processors, the more money they make that can be put into further developing the processor, etc.

    This is just a case, IMHO, where IBM is adding features needed by its highend/mainframe systems so that they can be migrated to the Power5 line of processor and unify the IBM system lineup.

  25. Re:PowerPC version of Windows NT? on Next G5 Multitasks Operating Systems · · Score: 1

    Yes, a stripped down, highly-customized, non-workstation capable, DRMed version will run on the Xbox. But that has nothing to do with running NT 4 or even Server 2003 as a workstation/server on the next G5's.