You don't have to block specific subnets. You just configure your MTA to do reverse lookup in DNS. If the IP addy of the sending MTA doesn't have a PTR record, you send a failure response and close the connection. This will block mail from pretty much 100% of Asia and just about none of North America or Europe. Problem solved.
And if Asian ISPs ever gets with the program and enter some PTR records, then that'll make it about 500 times easier to trace the source of spam coming from there (because you can whois the domain and get contact info). See? Everyone benefits.
Quite so. Webserver, I can just tell you, Linux will walk away with, but I'd be very interested to see such a comparison for the database server, (SMB) fileserver, thinclient server, and whatever other categories the people organising the comparison think important. (Print server is probably not necessary any longer, at least not with the high-end hardware, now that you can get a really nice network printer with a full maintenance contract and also use it as a color photocopier on the side... but I'm sure there are other uses for which the comparison could be done.)
> It bothers me when I see people with a whole lot of experience on > one OS and some experience on another OS criticizing something > about the one in which they have little experience, and this > applies in any direction.
I have more experience with Win9x than any other OS, but I criticise it more than any other OS except pre-X MacOS. Actually, in general, I tend to criticise OSes in direct proportion to how much experience I have with them, because it's by experience that you learn the foibles, the things that are _wrong_ (not just different) with an OS.
I switched to running Linux full-time on my desktop about a year ago this past April or so (though I'd multibooted for a while before that), and I'm getting now a pretty good feel for what's wrong with Linux (or, at least, with Mandrake).
> So far, most of the tests I have seen have either not been > comprehensive enough, or have been slanted by the bias of > the testing group.
Indeed, and that goes both ways. Microsoft pays some "Research" group to prove NT is better, and then the Linux blogs post stories showing that Linux is better, written by Linux geeks. I don't trust either side of that. And then of course Apple will tell you that Mac OS X is the best; it might be a _little_ easier to believe they know what they're saying if they hadn't said that about Mac OS 8 and 9 too, which didn't even have multitasking, but even then I'd still rather hear it from someone who gave each system a fair shake.
And yeah, I'd want proponents of each OS to configure that OS, and then the people doing the judging to compare. Either that, or all three OSes should be left in their out-of-the-box state, in which case it might matter deeply which distro is selected to represent Linux.
> Sun should be very scared. Their Dual 1.2GHz 64bit offering > is $14,995. Ouch!
Those things get sold as part of $100000 (or more) solutions. And you can get SparcStations for a good deal less than $14995. Bear in mind that dual CPU is generally not necessary for a 64-bit workstation; the dual-proc model is probably a server, and it probably gets deployed to support N SunRay thin clients.
Actually, I'm a little surprised, but it appears that a low-end SPARC workstation can run under $2000. And it comes with Solaris, which undeniably has one of the coolest sounding names of any operating system.
> Cheap is a relative term. I think that the new G5s are very > good value if you actually need a fast machine. At the moment, > however, my 1.33GHz Athlon feels fast, and while I would like a > Mac, I don't really need one much faster than my current system.
Indeed. A significant problem with Apple, one of the big things keeping me from buying Apple hardware, is that there is no midrange system. You have your choice between one-piece systems that stick you with an unacceptably small monitor (eMac, iMac) and have zero room for expansion, or a high-end system ($2000 or more).
In the PC world, you can spend $1000 and get a decent midrange system in a nice tower case that's very flexible in terms of your ability to upgrade individual components for years afterward. It won't be a screaming fast model, but it will have what I need and room to grow. I don't need 2GHz. I *do* need the ability to add multiple drives, add RAM a couple years later when RAM prices drop, use an 18" viewable monitor, and so forth. In the Apple world you have to buy the $2000 (or more) PowerMacs to get those abilities.
Yeah, the Apple models that exist compare decently with comparable PC models (in as much as anything can be comparable when it's an entirely different architecture); they cost a little more, but not bad, and it's good hardware. But the problem is, Apple doesn't make the model I need.
That, and the Mac OS *still* doesn't have the ability to actually define system-wide colour prefs (including app window backgrounds, darnit) and have the apps all follow them. Most people don't seem to care, but it's a feature I really can't live without.
You know what cases I like? (Besides Lian Li, I mean.) Bear in mind I'm talking just about the cases, but those new Dell models, the cases *rock*. You push in two easy buttons, and the thing opens just like a book. Drives on one side, motherboard on the other side -- so the drives don't block access to any part of it. Very very cool. If I were buying a prebuilt PC (instead of building my own, as all true geeks do in order to individually select each component) I would be seriously tempted to get a Dell just so as to have a nice case to work with. Apple should make cases like that (but with more Apple-ish external decoration; the Dell cases look okay, but they don't look Applish, if you know what I mean).
Not entirely. They have the power, and surely they may be adopted in some instances, but in many cases Sun workstations are installed as part of a package deal ("enterprise solution") with the Sun servers and business-field-specific application suites. These suites of business software in some cases are specifically written for Solaris (not Unix in general, but Solaris specifically). The G5 isn't going to be compatible for that, so it would be not just an upgrade-type replacement but a full switch.
So there will be Sun workstations for years to come. A similar argument applies to AlphaStations (though there are fewer of those than SparcStations, and VMS may be passing away faster than Solaris, what with the nested buyout and resulting FUD).
> It will take an excellent sales and marketing team
That part Apple could handle, but to break into the workstations market they'd have to sell their platform to solutions vendors, who would then in turn target it with their next major product line, which would be 2-4 years out from release in most cases, and after it's released most of the customer sites drag their feet for 2-4 years before doing the migration.
For example, in the field of library automation software: some time in the mid 90s Microsoft managed to sell Gaylord Information Systems (makers of the Galaxy library catalog/circulation suite) on the merits of going from VMS to NT. Circa 2000 GIS announced the release of Polaris, their replacement for Galaxy. There are still *way* more Galaxy installations than Polaris at this time. The library where I work is not planning to move from Galaxy for two more years at least. Ad interim, we're still buying DEC hardware, maintaining a maintenance contract with HP (who own Compaq and thus DEC).
[I'm about to seem to wander off-topic, but it relates back...]
Oh, and I would prefer to change jobs before we migrate to Polaris, for three reasons. One, all the staff have to be retrained, and Polaris will require mouse and GUI use, and some of our staff are sufficiently technophobic that this is an excruciating prospect. Galaxy tells 'em what buttons to push (literally: the word printed on the key on the keyboard appears in inverse video after "Press "), but Polaris requires knowledge of how standard widgets work -- scrollbars, drop-down lists ([shudder]),... Two, we'll have to replace all of our catalog terminals (VT510s) with Windows PCs -- a bunch of extra Windows PCs out in parts of the library where patrons have unobserved physical access to them, whee. Three, the web catalog will run on IIS. Oh, and four, VMS is solid (in terms of never needing any maintenance, other than changing out the backup tape, and never stopping running unless the hardware breaks -- every VMS problem I've seen was hardware failure); I'm less confident about NT, even recent versions of NT. ObTopic...
As you can imagine, IT folks (and even execs) in various other industries may feel similarly about switching from what they know and are comfortable with ("FooSolution", which runs on Solaris or whatever) to something else different. So it takes years for the vendors to get all their customers migrated. That means _even after_ a new server & workstation maker sells their platform to the ISVs, it's _years_ before the revenue pours in.
So, just because the G5 is as powerful as a SPARC and a lot cheaper doesn't mean the SparcStations will all be replaced with PowerMacs any time soon.
No, I think it was "world's first 64-bit PPC processor", which seems to be what I read on another site.
There are SPARC-based desktops, though they are considered to be more high-end than your 32-bit desktops. (The term "workstation" is generally used in preference to "PC".) Also AXP.
Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any Opteron desktops; all the Opteron systems I've seen to date are rackmount servers.
Additionally, it won't be the first 64-bit laptop processor either, as there are SPARC laptops too. But it is without much question the first 64-bit PPC processor, which is a significant thing.
The 400MHz G3 you can pass to me, so I can have something to play with the Mac OS on, as currently all I've got is a PC (albeit a pretty decent one) and a MicroVax. In exchange, I'm willing to consider letting you have my ITT XTRA, despite my irrational sentimental attachment to it. It's only 4.77 MHz, and the 20MB hard drive is dead, but it has a full 640K of RAM, and the 360K floppy drive still works! (Note: This is not the "pretty decent" PC I was talking about, but my previous one.)
> The computer lab should be "policed" by the librarians anyways.
We keep all our public internet stations within clear view of a circulation desk; anything that can be seen from ten feet away can be seen by staff. (Also, we use 18" viewable monitors, for a different reason (because otherwise elderly patrons can't read jack squat).)
*This* (keeping all stations within N feet of a supervising staffperson) is what the law should require. Filtering content is provably AI-complete; it should never be fully automated (though partial automation, as with blacklisting known problems, is okay; I've been known to throw sites in the hosts file for doing unacceptable things to the browser settings (e.g., I once blacklisted Cartoon Network for repeatedly changing the browser start page in MSIE; it's out on parole now because we switched to Netscape 7, which doesn't permit this abuse; bonzi.com shall remain blocked as long as I work here)).
> You are only required to give the source to those that you give > the binaries to.
This is noteworthy, because it has an impact on the ecconomics of distributing GPL stuff. You do NOT have to maintain a public distribution system for everyone. Most distros do, but it's not required. For example, if a hardware OEM wants to sell computers that run OSS, including a lot of GPL'd software, they can do that _without_ providing any public download site, provided the computers they sell include on the hard drive (or CD or whatever) the source for all the GPL'd software that is included.
Whether doing it that way would result in the best PR is a separate question, but the GPL allows it.
In addition to the source, of course, you also have to give the *license* to the people you give the binaries (or source) to, and the nature of the license is such that they can then pass it along to others. But they do that at their expense; you don't have to pay for the bandwidth.
> Come on bro, a 36 and you can't see the writing on the wall? > 80% of those diagnosed with (pick one) scored 32 or higher.
The converse is not necessarily true, however.
I'm geeky, in the sense of being different from a lot of other people, but I'm geeky in very _different ways_ from someone with Asperger's. I do have one major trait in common with them, though: focus. I'm very focused, way more than average, pretty much the diametric opposite of ADD. This manifests itself in a lot of ways and played a significant role in a number of my answers on the test. But AS is about more than just focus.
> First of all you managed to almost perfectly full justify > (right and left sides) your freehand post.
That's because I've been communicating mostly via email since 1997. (Or, I might have been editing my reply in Emacs that day and hit M-q -- I don't recall whether that was the case or not in this instance.) This relates primarily to my being an ochlophobe, which is a different affliction from Asperger's.
> You used perfect spelling, grammar and punctuation.
My parents treated me like a human being when I was a kid. Instead of "Goo goo Gaa gaa" I got "Hey, Nathan, would you like to help Daddy study his Greek? Do you remember what the letter on this flashcard is called? Pick up your toy vehicles, and then after I finish studying, I'll read you the next chapter from _Voyage of the Dawn Treader_ before bed, okay?" That, and then they sent me to private school through sixth grade. (Not boarding school or summers, just regular private school.)
> Not that I should talk. Scored a frigging 40.
Even at 40, you're not a sure thing for Asperger's. You (or people who know you) may know things about yourself that lead you to believe you do have it, but merely scoring a 40 is not in itself enough reason to believe that. (To suspect it, to wonder, perhaps.) Of course, if you are concerned about it, you could consult a psychologist.
Also 40 is significantly more worrisome than 36 -- not because 4 points are a big deal just anywhere on the scale, but because unless I have missed my guess 40 is vanishingly close to the top of the scale, which means a score of 40 may actually be more, rather like the difference between 790 and 800 on an SAT section. The 790 is probably about 790 (plus or minus some tollerance value), but the 800 may represent a value that the scale can't measure. (OTOH, the 800 (or the 40) may also be just that. The only way to establish the difference would be to use a measurement with a scale that goes further.)
XNews has a fairly impressive feature list... and an almost equally impressive list of features it doesn't have, that users of even some of the really incapable clients (*cough* Outlook Express) take for granted. For example, last I knew, XNews makes absolutely zero provision for offline reading. For people on dialup (that's most of us still), this makes it pretty much totally unusable.
A shame, because some of its features really are quite powerful.
> Why won't somebody answer the question as to what is wrong > with Messenger?
Because I don't have an hour to type up a post so long slashcode would reject it. Where to begin? Oh, hey, how about just for starters, bugs 9413, 9417, 9942, 166356, 3744, 3746, 3764, 95623, 169614, 17796, 27768, 23394, 11045, 12916, 16913, 23633, 43278, 62033, 72493, 89939, 93426, 97186, 118899, 131371, 150274, 161968, 11034, 16750, 19402, 19442, 37654, 59821, 62598, 80439, 158032,...
These are not esoteric requests for innovative new features. These all represent basic functionality that other clients have. A number of them represent extremely basic functionality that has been present in many clients for years and in a couple of cases even decades. Regex filtering for example has been in all even remotely capable clients since time out of mind. The ability to launch an external app as a filter action has been in Pegasus since before there was a Netscape. These are *very* basic features.
I did include one feature on the list that a lot of otherwise capable clients still lack: the ability to correctly rewrap quoted text. I included it because Gnus has had it since time out of mind, although few other clients have it. I speculate this is because it's very hard to do in C/C++, which most clients are written in, but the presense of certain language features in elisp (mainly, markers) makes it much much easier. Still, that's no excuse: modern mail/news clients ought to have this extremely useful feature.
Someday, a Mozilla.org mail/news client will have these features, but at this time they are lacking.
The interface for installing the extensions is just one (really nice) feature. The overwhelming majority of those extensions is also available for Mozilla.
> I've also found that Firebird swaps a lot less frequently than > the old Mozilla.
That depends on how much RAM you have. FB does have a smaller memory footprint, but only because it's smaller, which is mostly because it has fewer features. Over the next several milestones Firebird will grow somewhat, as features are added in that were already present in Navigator. It will not be as large as Mozilla, because it won't have the various non-browser components (Mail/News, IRC, Calendar, Composer, and so forth), but it will (if all of the features are added in) grow to _approximately_ the size of Navigator (Mozilla without all the non-browser components).
Now, the splitting apart is a good thing (because not everyone needs all of the components) in the long run, but when you put Firebird together with a decent app in each of those categories, it'll add up to a size much more comparable with Mozilla. So, to say that it's better because it's smaller is at best a matter of perspective. It is better to have it split than all together, but only if the split versions of the apps have all the features that the suite has -- which currently is not the case. (In time, it will be.)
> Al Gore announced he wasn't running late last year, and > Hillary! isn't either. Interesting. Actually, Gore's not running is good for the Dems, because if he ran he'd get the nomination, but he'd never get elected at this point.
> John Kerry (senator haircut, has more money than ideas) Who? > Howard Dean (more like Who?-ard dean, Quite.
> Joe Lieberman He has enough name recognition to potentially get the nomination. The act of running for either Pres or Vice gets you six or eight years' worth of very solid name recognition.
> Dick Gepheardt -- makes Bob Doll (without viagra) look exciting Even more name recognition than Lieberman and, frankly, just about as much as Gore. He'd have a very real chance.
> Al Sharpton ('nuff said) > Carol Mosley Braun ('nuff said) > Dennis Kasinuch (sp) -- Ohio (?) congressman I *live* in Ohio, and I have *no* idea who these people are.
Agreed. I read that, and I immediately realised the author was smoking something a lot stronger than crack. What does he think email is, the US Postal Service?
Thirty seconds would be noticeable, but possibly acceptable. An hour is right out.
When I read the term greylisting, it made me think of something else... it made me think of an MTA that scores the MTA on the other end on a scale of spam-likelihood based on several otherwise unrelated criteria. Certainly, whether the MTA has sent a message with the same envelope from and to fields before could be *one* such criterion. Whether there's a PTR record in DNS for its IP address could be another. (Hey, Asian spammers, this means you.) Whether an SMTP callback determines that the envelope from address is valid could be another. Whether the user in the envelope to field has ever sent a message to that mail exchanger could be another. And so forth. If a certain percentage fail, quarantine the message and require the sender to authenticate.
I scored a 36, but I'm nothing like autistic. (Geeky, yes, but not in that way.) Raw scores based on simple questions are inherently simplistic; the complexities of human character and personality don't break down that simply. A given answer to one of those questions can mean different things, depending on why you selected it. If you really want to know if you have Asperger's, consult a psychologist or two.
For email, try Pegasus Mail. You'll *never* go back to Messenger. The one bad thing about Pegasus Mail is that it's tied to a specific platform (Windows), so if you're on another platform or anticipate moving to another platform you have to settle for less in the mailreader department. Or you can use Gnus, but it has a big learning curve.
Usenet is trickier. The only usenet client I've found so far that's any good whatsoever is Gnus, and it's a long way from perfect. (It has a huge learning curve, plus some substantial problems in the offline-reading department, and it's not properly multithreaded.) You could try Agent; it's arguably better than Messenger, but that's not saying a great deal.
Regarding Mozilla, the Navigator component is without question *way* better than the Messenger component. However, with the split for 1.5, Navigator is being set aside in favour of the Firebird browser (formerly Phoenix), which while not altogether bad is not yet up to the level of Navigator, feature-wise. (It is smaller, though, and so performs better on older systems.)
After 1.4, I don't expect another good solid release until at least 1.6 for the browser, probably more like 1.7 -- and I don't expect the Thunderbird project to produce anything that resembles a usable mail/news reader 2-5 years. Note, however, that I am using higher standards here than most people do; email is important to me and I expect a great deal from my mailreader. If you consider Eudora and Outlook and the current Messenger to all be perfectly wonderful, then Thunderbird may reach that level a good deal sooner than the timeframe I'm predicting (say, 1.7 maybe).
> Maybe Microsoft has finally come up with something innovative.
The idea itself (while both sound and interesting) is not really innovative. Be tried it years ago, but on the hardware of that day they couldn't get acceptable performance. It ought to be possible now.
The innovation will be not in the idea, but in the implementation. If Microsoft can pull this off by 2005 as they claim (or even by 2006), and if it doesn't suck, it will be the first successful, non-sucky implementation of the concept, and a noteworthy advance.
Of course, compatibility will be lacking at first, but hey, we're *still* waiting for good working read/write support for NTFS in anything other than the NT product line, so this will only be incrementally worse in that regard. For compatibility you still pretty much have to use some type of FAT fs, or ISO9660.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't have to block specific subnets. You just configure your
MTA to do reverse lookup in DNS. If the IP addy of the sending MTA
doesn't have a PTR record, you send a failure response and close
the connection. This will block mail from pretty much 100% of Asia
and just about none of North America or Europe. Problem solved.
And if Asian ISPs ever gets with the program and enter some PTR
records, then that'll make it about 500 times easier to trace the
source of spam coming from there (because you can whois the domain
and get contact info). See? Everyone benefits.
Quite so. Webserver, I can just tell you, Linux will walk away with,
but I'd be very interested to see such a comparison for the database
server, (SMB) fileserver, thinclient server, and whatever other
categories the people organising the comparison think important.
(Print server is probably not necessary any longer, at least not
with the high-end hardware, now that you can get a really nice
network printer with a full maintenance contract and also use it
as a color photocopier on the side... but I'm sure there are
other uses for which the comparison could be done.)
> It bothers me when I see people with a whole lot of experience on
> one OS and some experience on another OS criticizing something
> about the one in which they have little experience, and this
> applies in any direction.
I have more experience with Win9x than any other OS, but I criticise
it more than any other OS except pre-X MacOS. Actually, in general,
I tend to criticise OSes in direct proportion to how much experience
I have with them, because it's by experience that you learn the
foibles, the things that are _wrong_ (not just different) with an OS.
I switched to running Linux full-time on my desktop about a year
ago this past April or so (though I'd multibooted for a while before
that), and I'm getting now a pretty good feel for what's wrong with
Linux (or, at least, with Mandrake).
> So far, most of the tests I have seen have either not been
> comprehensive enough, or have been slanted by the bias of
> the testing group.
Indeed, and that goes both ways. Microsoft pays some "Research"
group to prove NT is better, and then the Linux blogs post stories
showing that Linux is better, written by Linux geeks. I don't
trust either side of that. And then of course Apple will tell
you that Mac OS X is the best; it might be a _little_ easier to
believe they know what they're saying if they hadn't said that
about Mac OS 8 and 9 too, which didn't even have multitasking,
but even then I'd still rather hear it from someone who gave
each system a fair shake.
And yeah, I'd want proponents of each OS to configure that OS,
and then the people doing the judging to compare. Either that,
or all three OSes should be left in their out-of-the-box state,
in which case it might matter deeply which distro is selected
to represent Linux.
It's much harder to do globbing with a GUI, among other things.
Me, I find myself doing some of my file management with Perl
one-liners, because there are some things that are just too hard
to do with bash...
> "This sucks! Linux is supposed to be complicated and user
;-)
> hostile so that only the techno-elite can even approach it!
No, no, that's BSD
> any web site containing pornography, Barney, or Martha Stewart
> will find itself under constant attack by a wave of vigilante
> 'Script Mommiez'.
And in what way would that be a _bad_ thing?
> Sun should be very scared. Their Dual 1.2GHz 64bit offering
> is $14,995. Ouch!
Those things get sold as part of $100000 (or more) solutions.
And you can get SparcStations for a good deal less than $14995.
Bear in mind that dual CPU is generally not necessary for a 64-bit
workstation; the dual-proc model is probably a server, and it
probably gets deployed to support N SunRay thin clients.
Actually, I'm a little surprised, but it appears that a low-end
SPARC workstation can run under $2000. And it comes with Solaris,
which undeniably has one of the coolest sounding names of any
operating system.
> Cheap is a relative term. I think that the new G5s are very
> good value if you actually need a fast machine. At the moment,
> however, my 1.33GHz Athlon feels fast, and while I would like a
> Mac, I don't really need one much faster than my current system.
Indeed. A significant problem with Apple, one of the big things
keeping me from buying Apple hardware, is that there is no midrange
system. You have your choice between one-piece systems that stick
you with an unacceptably small monitor (eMac, iMac) and have zero
room for expansion, or a high-end system ($2000 or more).
In the PC world, you can spend $1000 and get a decent midrange
system in a nice tower case that's very flexible in terms of your
ability to upgrade individual components for years afterward. It
won't be a screaming fast model, but it will have what I need and
room to grow. I don't need 2GHz. I *do* need the ability to add
multiple drives, add RAM a couple years later when RAM prices drop,
use an 18" viewable monitor, and so forth. In the Apple world you
have to buy the $2000 (or more) PowerMacs to get those abilities.
Yeah, the Apple models that exist compare decently with comparable
PC models (in as much as anything can be comparable when it's an
entirely different architecture); they cost a little more, but
not bad, and it's good hardware. But the problem is, Apple doesn't
make the model I need.
That, and the Mac OS *still* doesn't have the ability to actually
define system-wide colour prefs (including app window backgrounds,
darnit) and have the apps all follow them. Most people don't seem
to care, but it's a feature I really can't live without.
You know what cases I like? (Besides Lian Li, I mean.) Bear in
mind I'm talking just about the cases, but those new Dell models,
the cases *rock*. You push in two easy buttons, and the thing
opens just like a book. Drives on one side, motherboard on the
other side -- so the drives don't block access to any part of it.
Very very cool. If I were buying a prebuilt PC (instead of
building my own, as all true geeks do in order to individually
select each component) I would be seriously tempted to get a Dell
just so as to have a nice case to work with. Apple should make
cases like that (but with more Apple-ish external decoration; the
Dell cases look okay, but they don't look Applish, if you know
what I mean).
Sure there is. It results from a combination of preparation and
hard work.
> these new machines have the potential to do it.
... Two, we'll have to replace all of our
Not entirely. They have the power, and surely they may be adopted
in some instances, but in many cases Sun workstations are installed
as part of a package deal ("enterprise solution") with the Sun
servers and business-field-specific application suites. These
suites of business software in some cases are specifically written
for Solaris (not Unix in general, but Solaris specifically). The
G5 isn't going to be compatible for that, so it would be not just
an upgrade-type replacement but a full switch.
So there will be Sun workstations for years to come. A similar
argument applies to AlphaStations (though there are fewer of
those than SparcStations, and VMS may be passing away faster
than Solaris, what with the nested buyout and resulting FUD).
> It will take an excellent sales and marketing team
That part Apple could handle, but to break into the workstations
market they'd have to sell their platform to solutions vendors,
who would then in turn target it with their next major product
line, which would be 2-4 years out from release in most cases,
and after it's released most of the customer sites drag their
feet for 2-4 years before doing the migration.
For example, in the field of library automation software: some
time in the mid 90s Microsoft managed to sell Gaylord Information
Systems (makers of the Galaxy library catalog/circulation suite)
on the merits of going from VMS to NT. Circa 2000 GIS announced
the release of Polaris, their replacement for Galaxy. There are
still *way* more Galaxy installations than Polaris at this time.
The library where I work is not planning to move from Galaxy for
two more years at least. Ad interim, we're still buying DEC
hardware, maintaining a maintenance contract with HP (who own
Compaq and thus DEC).
[I'm about to seem to wander off-topic, but it relates back...]
Oh, and I would prefer to change jobs before we migrate to
Polaris, for three reasons. One, all the staff have to be
retrained, and Polaris will require mouse and GUI use, and
some of our staff are sufficiently technophobic that this is
an excruciating prospect. Galaxy tells 'em what buttons to
push (literally: the word printed on the key on the keyboard
appears in inverse video after "Press "), but Polaris requires
knowledge of how standard widgets work -- scrollbars, drop-down
lists ([shudder]),
catalog terminals (VT510s) with Windows PCs -- a bunch of
extra Windows PCs out in parts of the library where patrons
have unobserved physical access to them, whee. Three, the
web catalog will run on IIS. Oh, and four, VMS is solid (in
terms of never needing any maintenance, other than changing
out the backup tape, and never stopping running unless the
hardware breaks -- every VMS problem I've seen was hardware
failure); I'm less confident about NT, even recent versions
of NT. ObTopic...
As you can imagine, IT folks (and even execs) in various other
industries may feel similarly about switching from what they
know and are comfortable with ("FooSolution", which runs on
Solaris or whatever) to something else different. So it takes
years for the vendors to get all their customers migrated.
That means _even after_ a new server & workstation maker sells
their platform to the ISVs, it's _years_ before the revenue
pours in.
So, just because the G5 is as powerful as a SPARC and a lot
cheaper doesn't mean the SparcStations will all be replaced
with PowerMacs any time soon.
No, I think it was "world's first 64-bit PPC processor", which
seems to be what I read on another site.
There are SPARC-based desktops, though they are considered to be
more high-end than your 32-bit desktops. (The term "workstation"
is generally used in preference to "PC".) Also AXP.
Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any Opteron desktops; all
the Opteron systems I've seen to date are rackmount servers.
Additionally, it won't be the first 64-bit laptop processor either,
as there are SPARC laptops too. But it is without much question
the first 64-bit PPC processor, which is a significant thing.
The 400MHz G3 you can pass to me, so I can have something to play
with the Mac OS on, as currently all I've got is a PC (albeit a
pretty decent one) and a MicroVax. In exchange, I'm willing to
consider letting you have my ITT XTRA, despite my irrational
sentimental attachment to it. It's only 4.77 MHz, and the 20MB
hard drive is dead, but it has a full 640K of RAM, and the 360K
floppy drive still works! (Note: This is not the "pretty decent"
PC I was talking about, but my previous one.)
Section "Pointer"
Protocol "imps/2"
Device "/dev/psaux"
ZAxisMapping 4 5
EndSection
That would be redundant. The G in gcc is the Gnu, so expressly
mentioning GCC covers the bases, albeit in an abbreviated fashion.
> The computer lab should be "policed" by the librarians anyways.
We keep all our public internet stations within clear view of a
circulation desk; anything that can be seen from ten feet away
can be seen by staff. (Also, we use 18" viewable monitors, for
a different reason (because otherwise elderly patrons can't read
jack squat).)
*This* (keeping all stations within N feet of a supervising
staffperson) is what the law should require. Filtering content
is provably AI-complete; it should never be fully automated
(though partial automation, as with blacklisting known problems,
is okay; I've been known to throw sites in the hosts file for
doing unacceptable things to the browser settings (e.g., I once
blacklisted Cartoon Network for repeatedly changing the browser
start page in MSIE; it's out on parole now because we switched
to Netscape 7, which doesn't permit this abuse; bonzi.com shall
remain blocked as long as I work here)).
> You are only required to give the source to those that you give
> the binaries to.
This is noteworthy, because it has an impact on the ecconomics of
distributing GPL stuff. You do NOT have to maintain a public
distribution system for everyone. Most distros do, but it's not
required. For example, if a hardware OEM wants to sell computers
that run OSS, including a lot of GPL'd software, they can do that
_without_ providing any public download site, provided the
computers they sell include on the hard drive (or CD or whatever)
the source for all the GPL'd software that is included.
Whether doing it that way would result in the best PR is a separate
question, but the GPL allows it.
In addition to the source, of course, you also have to give the
*license* to the people you give the binaries (or source) to, and
the nature of the license is such that they can then pass it along
to others. But they do that at their expense; you don't have to
pay for the bandwidth.
> Come on bro, a 36 and you can't see the writing on the wall?
> 80% of those diagnosed with (pick one) scored 32 or higher.
The converse is not necessarily true, however.
I'm geeky, in the sense of being different from a lot of other
people, but I'm geeky in very _different ways_ from someone with
Asperger's. I do have one major trait in common with them,
though: focus. I'm very focused, way more than average, pretty
much the diametric opposite of ADD. This manifests itself in
a lot of ways and played a significant role in a number of my
answers on the test. But AS is about more than just focus.
> First of all you managed to almost perfectly full justify
> (right and left sides) your freehand post.
That's because I've been communicating mostly via email since
1997. (Or, I might have been editing my reply in Emacs that
day and hit M-q -- I don't recall whether that was the case or
not in this instance.) This relates primarily to my being an
ochlophobe, which is a different affliction from Asperger's.
> You used perfect spelling, grammar and punctuation.
My parents treated me like a human being when I was a kid.
Instead of "Goo goo Gaa gaa" I got "Hey, Nathan, would you like
to help Daddy study his Greek? Do you remember what the letter
on this flashcard is called? Pick up your toy vehicles, and
then after I finish studying, I'll read you the next chapter
from _Voyage of the Dawn Treader_ before bed, okay?" That,
and then they sent me to private school through sixth grade.
(Not boarding school or summers, just regular private school.)
> Not that I should talk. Scored a frigging 40.
Even at 40, you're not a sure thing for Asperger's. You (or
people who know you) may know things about yourself that lead
you to believe you do have it, but merely scoring a 40 is not
in itself enough reason to believe that. (To suspect it, to
wonder, perhaps.) Of course, if you are concerned about it,
you could consult a psychologist.
Also 40 is significantly more worrisome than 36 -- not because
4 points are a big deal just anywhere on the scale, but because
unless I have missed my guess 40 is vanishingly close to the top
of the scale, which means a score of 40 may actually be more,
rather like the difference between 790 and 800 on an SAT section.
The 790 is probably about 790 (plus or minus some tollerance
value), but the 800 may represent a value that the scale can't
measure. (OTOH, the 800 (or the 40) may also be just that.
The only way to establish the difference would be to use a
measurement with a scale that goes further.)
XNews has a fairly impressive feature list... and an almost
equally impressive list of features it doesn't have, that users
of even some of the really incapable clients (*cough* Outlook
Express) take for granted. For example, last I knew, XNews
makes absolutely zero provision for offline reading. For people
on dialup (that's most of us still), this makes it pretty much
totally unusable.
A shame, because some of its features really are quite powerful.
> Why won't somebody answer the question as to what is wrong
...
> with Messenger?
Because I don't have an hour to type up a post so long slashcode
would reject it. Where to begin? Oh, hey, how about just for
starters, bugs 9413, 9417, 9942, 166356, 3744, 3746, 3764, 95623,
169614, 17796, 27768, 23394, 11045, 12916, 16913, 23633, 43278,
62033, 72493, 89939, 93426, 97186, 118899, 131371, 150274, 161968,
11034, 16750, 19402, 19442, 37654, 59821, 62598, 80439, 158032,
These are not esoteric requests for innovative new features.
These all represent basic functionality that other clients have.
A number of them represent extremely basic functionality that
has been present in many clients for years and in a couple of
cases even decades. Regex filtering for example has been in
all even remotely capable clients since time out of mind. The
ability to launch an external app as a filter action has been
in Pegasus since before there was a Netscape. These are *very*
basic features.
I did include one feature on the list that a lot of otherwise
capable clients still lack: the ability to correctly rewrap
quoted text. I included it because Gnus has had it since time
out of mind, although few other clients have it. I speculate
this is because it's very hard to do in C/C++, which most clients
are written in, but the presense of certain language features
in elisp (mainly, markers) makes it much much easier. Still,
that's no excuse: modern mail/news clients ought to have this
extremely useful feature.
Someday, a Mozilla.org mail/news client will have these features,
but at this time they are lacking.
The interface for installing the extensions is just one (really
nice) feature. The overwhelming majority of those extensions
is also available for Mozilla.
> I've also found that Firebird swaps a lot less frequently than
> the old Mozilla.
That depends on how much RAM you have. FB does have a smaller
memory footprint, but only because it's smaller, which is mostly
because it has fewer features. Over the next several milestones
Firebird will grow somewhat, as features are added in that were
already present in Navigator. It will not be as large as Mozilla,
because it won't have the various non-browser components (Mail/News,
IRC, Calendar, Composer, and so forth), but it will (if all of
the features are added in) grow to _approximately_ the size of
Navigator (Mozilla without all the non-browser components).
Now, the splitting apart is a good thing (because not everyone
needs all of the components) in the long run, but when you put
Firebird together with a decent app in each of those categories,
it'll add up to a size much more comparable with Mozilla. So,
to say that it's better because it's smaller is at best a matter
of perspective. It is better to have it split than all together,
but only if the split versions of the apps have all the features
that the suite has -- which currently is not the case. (In time,
it will be.)
> Al Gore announced he wasn't running late last year, and
> Hillary! isn't either.
Interesting. Actually, Gore's not running is good for the Dems,
because if he ran he'd get the nomination, but he'd never get
elected at this point.
> John Kerry (senator haircut, has more money than ideas)
Who?
> Howard Dean (more like Who?-ard dean,
Quite.
> Joe Lieberman
He has enough name recognition to potentially get the nomination.
The act of running for either Pres or Vice gets you six or eight
years' worth of very solid name recognition.
> Dick Gepheardt -- makes Bob Doll (without viagra) look exciting
Even more name recognition than Lieberman and, frankly, just
about as much as Gore. He'd have a very real chance.
> Al Sharpton ('nuff said)
> Carol Mosley Braun ('nuff said)
> Dennis Kasinuch (sp) -- Ohio (?) congressman
I *live* in Ohio, and I have *no* idea who these people are.
Agreed. I read that, and I immediately realised the author was
smoking something a lot stronger than crack. What does he think
email is, the US Postal Service?
Thirty seconds would be noticeable, but possibly acceptable.
An hour is right out.
When I read the term greylisting, it made me think of something
else... it made me think of an MTA that scores the MTA on the
other end on a scale of spam-likelihood based on several otherwise
unrelated criteria. Certainly, whether the MTA has sent a message
with the same envelope from and to fields before could be *one*
such criterion. Whether there's a PTR record in DNS for its
IP address could be another. (Hey, Asian spammers, this means
you.) Whether an SMTP callback determines that the envelope from
address is valid could be another. Whether the user in the
envelope to field has ever sent a message to that mail exchanger
could be another. And so forth. If a certain percentage fail,
quarantine the message and require the sender to authenticate.
I scored a 36, but I'm nothing like autistic. (Geeky, yes, but not
in that way.) Raw scores based on simple questions are inherently
simplistic; the complexities of human character and personality
don't break down that simply. A given answer to one of those
questions can mean different things, depending on why you selected
it. If you really want to know if you have Asperger's, consult a
psychologist or two.
For email, try Pegasus Mail. You'll *never* go back to Messenger.
The one bad thing about Pegasus Mail is that it's tied to a
specific platform (Windows), so if you're on another platform
or anticipate moving to another platform you have to settle for
less in the mailreader department. Or you can use Gnus, but it
has a big learning curve.
Usenet is trickier. The only usenet client I've found so far that's
any good whatsoever is Gnus, and it's a long way from perfect. (It
has a huge learning curve, plus some substantial problems in the
offline-reading department, and it's not properly multithreaded.)
You could try Agent; it's arguably better than Messenger, but that's
not saying a great deal.
Regarding Mozilla, the Navigator component is without question
*way* better than the Messenger component. However, with the
split for 1.5, Navigator is being set aside in favour of the
Firebird browser (formerly Phoenix), which while not altogether
bad is not yet up to the level of Navigator, feature-wise. (It
is smaller, though, and so performs better on older systems.)
After 1.4, I don't expect another good solid release until at
least 1.6 for the browser, probably more like 1.7 -- and I don't
expect the Thunderbird project to produce anything that resembles
a usable mail/news reader 2-5 years. Note, however, that I am
using higher standards here than most people do; email is important
to me and I expect a great deal from my mailreader. If you consider
Eudora and Outlook and the current Messenger to all be perfectly
wonderful, then Thunderbird may reach that level a good deal sooner
than the timeframe I'm predicting (say, 1.7 maybe).
> Maybe Microsoft has finally come up with something innovative.
The idea itself (while both sound and interesting) is not really
innovative. Be tried it years ago, but on the hardware of that
day they couldn't get acceptable performance. It ought to be
possible now.
The innovation will be not in the idea, but in the implementation.
If Microsoft can pull this off by 2005 as they claim (or even by
2006), and if it doesn't suck, it will be the first successful,
non-sucky implementation of the concept, and a noteworthy advance.
Of course, compatibility will be lacking at first, but hey, we're
*still* waiting for good working read/write support for NTFS in
anything other than the NT product line, so this will only be
incrementally worse in that regard. For compatibility you still
pretty much have to use some type of FAT fs, or ISO9660.