I guess the idea of a redundant rover is to make sure that errors are not a total loss. But it's nice to have both, especially since Opportunity seems to have found evidence of water. This has been really exciting to follow.
This will put the modchip industry in a frenzy. It will involve totally new boards, and thus require new modchips. XBox Linux hackers will spend a while getting back on track...
... HOWEVER, I see a combination of advantage and disadvantage. On the one hand this will require starting from scratch; I'm sure GNU/Linux can be customized to run with flash memory, or from optical media like Knoppix, but it will take time. On the other hand, Microsoft's security attention will be drawn away from the legacy model. This means that the old XBox is up for grabs, and we can expect minimal future security blockades. Old XBoxen will be VERY big sellers among Linux enthusiasts, possibly selling secondhand for as much as they sold as new, if not more.
But regarding backaward compatibility, I wouldn't worry about it. Remember that Microsoft bought Connectix, the maker of Virtual PC, and has been looking into technologies for running virtual machines. This may be related to those efforts, and running i386 game code on a PowerPC 970 might be doable with the right emulation built into the OS.
What really surprises me is that Windows code is well-organized enough that Microsoft thinks they can port it to another platform at all.
I also disagreed with the war... but while I disagreed, I always knew that there were huge benefits for Iraqis if the war went well. While I don't like the preemptive strategy, and think the assertions of nuclear capabilities and al Quaeda ties were way off target, Iraq could end up doing quite well sans-Saddam.
I found the tone of this interview really fascinating. It's good to hear from someone on the inside, not just about Linux and technology issues, but about the general mood and state of society there. It's especially interesting to hear that as long as the sun is out, this guy's not afraid to be outdoors. That contradicts a lot of what you might think about Iraq these days.
Yeah, this guy had WAY too much time on his hands. I couldn't believe how much unbroken text (i.e., no pictures) he had on that page. I read the first few items and then started scrolling down... and scrolling down... and scrolling down... and decided to abandon it and write this comment.
At the end of the day these are very faithful adaptations of the books. In fact, when I saw the first film I actually thought it was pretty much exactly as the book had been because I hadn't read the book in a few years. Someone who knows every detail will spot differences, but differences are not errors.
A direct translation would be at least ten movies long, have lots of boring bits of walking from place to place and eating at campfires and multiple five-minute-long songs. Not to mention a lack of decent exposition (unless you add an annoying narrator for any non-spoek exposition). It works in the books (I've read them three times), but it wouldn't work on film without exactly the sort of tweaking Jackson and Boyens did. If someone ever makes a 100% accurate adaptation of these books, I'm not interested in seeing it.
Good point. Though what I mean is, even with millions lying around (or billions, in Microsoft's case) can they get anywhere by claiming copyright infringement when the claim involves a phoenetic variation on their name? Their name is a registered trademark. Isn't copyright infringement as silly a claim against Mike Rowe as patent infringement would be?
You'd be less successful than Mike. Remember, his actual name is Mike Rowe, so mikerowesoft.com is somthing he might have gotten away with since it doesn't even contain the word Microsoft. Also, he wasn't in the business of registering domain names and then squatting. They crack down on squatters, but in this case Mike only had one domain and didn't solicit its sale (except under stress in a reply to a Microsoft offer).
One odd thing: I keep reading about copyright violations in these stories, but shouldn't Microsoft's claims be trademark-related? Copyright doesn't apply to a business name as far as I know.
Regarding the settlement: it mentions the MCSE, the XBox and so forth, but I'm guessing there's money in there somewhere, too. This was a very bad PR situation for Microsoft. Since Mike had the PR on his side, yet is giving up the domain, I'm guessing he got more than just some courses, plane tickets and a game console in return.
Isn't it strange to hear quotes from people at the RIAA that don't sound stupid? They could rant and sue, but instead they calmly compliment the ad. Something has clearly changed in that organization. I won't go so far as to say they're not evil, but they almost seem less evil than before.
Re:i think its quite simple
on
United Linux Dead
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I agree. I never quite grokked UnitedLinux. Basically everyone worth mentioning except Red Hat joined forces to combat Red Hat, but didn't do a thorough or convincing job of it. Perhaps if they had merged instead of creating a consortium, and picked a better name, it might have been taken seriously and made a good alternative to Red Hat.
It's hard to blame SCO for the downfall of something that never made sense to begin with. SCO, in its typical scizophrenic form, thought they could make a good product by joining forces with others, rather than by improving Caldera Linux (long overdue). "Hey, we don't have to fire the lawyers and hire coders - let's just share progress with the other non-Red Hats." Yeah, right. I never took UL seriously, and now I'm glad I didn't.
Quite right - it was still there. And I knew this, so I rolled back the IP address change. And sure enough, the forces of poor-LDAP configuration realigned, and the users returned. But this presented an issue. If I couldn't switch the machines, I'd have to rebuild. So I'd have to export the user data... but this does not include the passwords, Apple informed me. So yes, my instinct was the same as yours - let's dump the directory to an LDIF or something and put it back after reconfiguration. But Apple was not optimistic.
So my point is, Linux is a better solution for this group. They're not savvy enough that the GUI tools would be helpful to them, and I can use cron to replicate the important information. The point of their system is to have the servers mirror everything, including user accounts and passwords, and that's easier and more flexible for me to set up on Linux.
I'm sure 10.3 is a lot better under the hood (though the article mentions the admin tools crashing, whch sounds familiar). But the main point of my post was that the password server IP issue, coupled with the password dumping omission, is inexcusable. Yeah, it's great that Apple built an IP-changing tool. But this version 10.3. If this is a server OS, why wasn't that simple capability in 10.2. Much simpler OS's handle this much more gracefully. It's an important enough detail that they should have had it nailed in 10.2... or I should get 10.3 for no charge. I've wasted a lot of time on this system, and as a "server" I expected a lot more of it.
Thanks for the tip on BRU. I'm checking it out now.
I've been totally turned off to OS X Server. I help a lab that has two servers (one is a backup/mirror). When I first started helping them they had AppleShare IP 6. This was useable, but it crashed frequently. We upgraded to OS X 10.2 Server hoping to get some added stability from UNIX, but ran into immediate problems.
When I had both machines in place I ran into an issue where I had to rebuild the main one, so I transferred the data to the secondary server and planned to swap them. I changed their settings and IP addresses... and all of the user accounts on the primary file server disappeared.
This was odd.
I Googled for it and came up with the answer: if you set up a password server on 10.2 Server you can't change the machine's IP address. This has to do with how Apple built the LDAP system that manages passwords, so it's a requirement if you want Windows file sharing (Samba in disguise) enabled. Which I did.
I called Apple tech support and they confirmed it: if I wanted to do Windows file sharing, I needed to set up a "password server" (LDAP). And if I set up a password server, I couldn't change the IP address of the machine. Ever. If I did, the users and groups would vanish into thin air. I asked if I could back up the user and group databases and then upload them again... and they said no. Not without stripping the passwords out. So I'd have to have my users reset their passwords.
I was stunned. The inability to back up user account information, complete with passwords, and to change the IP address is ridiculous, and not the mark of a true, flexible server OS. So right now I'm migrating them to PPC Linux with Samba. I know 10.3 Server probably addresses these issues, but Linux is just simpler. Heck, all I have to do with Linux/Samba is replicate the passwd, group, shadow and smbpasswd files between the machines. Instant mirror servers. And it'll just work.
Besides, tar and mt will give me better control over tape backups than Retrospect did. Retrospect was always propting me for tapes of a particular set, and rejecting tapes that were from the wrong set. I don't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about backup sets. On Linux, it's just "See that tape drive? Put the data there, and shut up about it." And it does. And it's good.
I personally think you don't have to adopt any ideology wholeheartedly. If you think of the government as having a balanced role in peoples' lives, the choice ceases to be one of either abandoning all legislation or overlegislating. A government can split up the occasional monopoly, prevent Enrons from tweaking their accounting and so forth without being a completely "central control" approach.
SCO has just released licenses for Australasia and claims enquiries by several companies already.
A dozen enquiries, the article says. I'd like to know who's asking about this IP "licensing" plan, since I'm thinking of selling the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which I inherited via my uncle, and was looking for someone in Australia to buy it.
That's a good overstatement. But how about this one:
Novell's false and misleading representations that it owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights has caused SCO irreparable harm to its copyrights, its business, and its reputation.
Yeah, right: SCO's pristine reputation is tarnished... from THIS day forward? Those litigious bastards...
I like it because it had guts, and because it filled in a time period that we really didn't know much about prior to Enterprise. I enjoy the fairly graceful way they've dealt with transitions between our time and, say, TOS or TNG. You can already see the importance of the Prime Directive, even though it doesn't exist yet.
And you can see how the workings of a starship evolved to what we see in the later-period series. Yes, Archer has moral dilemmas that cause him to take risks that later captains would never take. But I think that's the point. His ship is the very first of its kind, and there is no precedent. He'll do things that make little sense given our knowledge of how these ships work later on - but similarly, after seeing TNG it's weird to look back at a TOS episode and see Kirk accompany EVERY away team mission, jeopardizing his own life. Things change, so I think (flat screens aside) that this series has actually been really good at continuity.
I really disagree that the characters aren't very good - I'll always miss TNG's characters more, of course. But I think they had a good crew sooner in the series than TNG ever did. And despite what other posters have said above, I'll never be convinced this series (or any of them) can be worse than Voyager.
I agree. The show has its flaws, but I think it's the best of the Star Trek series. and that's saying a lot, because THG and DS9 were both very strong shows.
Something about this series had me interested right from episode 1, and I can't say that about the others. With every Star Trek series there has been a period of growing pains. Spock smiling, Data using contrations, Riker without a beard, etc. But Enterprise had their characters and concepts nailed as soon as it started. I hope this can be saved. I'll miss this show.
I knew how to program my VCR back when I owned one, and had the clock set correctly (not blinking 12). So perhaps I'm technologically gifted, and unfairly judging people who aren't. I guess I'm comparing how I use cars (where I'm not an expert) with how other people use computers (where I am more of an expert). But that might not be a good comparison...
Good point. I do, and in Massachusetts, so I know exactly what you mean. But I think my point is still sound. I know more about the features of my car than most people know of their computer. Where I lack knowledge is under the hood.
Contrast this to computers, where people are similarly ignorant about what's under the hood (quite understandable for a non-expert), but are also ignorant of the computer equivalents of cruise control, odometer trip measurements, and the presence of both FM 1 and FM2 on the radio presets. In computing a lot of people are ignorant both above and below the hood. So while there are plenty of bad drivers out there, I don't think it nearly equates to desktop computing.
I'm sure even bad drivers use cruise control. My point is, why don't bad computer users use pop-up blocking? Why is computing somehow different?
What's really surprising is how few people use these pop-up blocking features and add-ins, even when they are readily available. I spent a long time annoyed by pop-ups so now I use Mozilla Firebird. But I'm a tech support worker, and I regularly run across Mozilla and Netscape users who experience pop-ups all the time. And they do nothing, because they don't know the feature exists in their browser. They endure inconvenence via ignorance.
Most people don't understand what their computers can do, right now. I regularly amaze the users I support by helping them back up data and so forth, sometimes transferring data - like magic - over the network. People are amazed when they see they can send a document to their friend... without using e-mail! It's all relatively mundane stuff, but it's beyond the comprehension of people who use computers... drumroll please... EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES. Think about that. Is there any other industry where regular, daily users of a technology are nevertheless bumbling novices at it?
I think it will take Microsoft's inclusion of this in IE to really shift these numbers. Until technology is forced upon people, most won't even realize they have the option.
Whilst many Americans seem to feel they have no reason to look beyond the shores of their own country, they seem to naturally assume those of us outside of the US spend all our lives watching what they do and taking it all in.
Not at all in my case - though I agree that most Americans seem to have a narrow world view. But please don't judge an entire population's mentality by a single Slashdot post. I know that not all Brits make sweeping judgements about America based upon sarcastic criticisms of URLs, as you did, because I used to live in Britain.
My post was a joke more than anything else. I live in the US, but like you I have also never visited the Supreme Court's site. And I don't need to. While this story is about the court, the court's site doesn't contain the content referenced in the story, so I thought the URL was redundant. You could easily get it on Google in a heartbeat. I always like it when Slashdot stories link to the relevant information within a site rather than to the site's main page. If you don't, I think I can understand. But please don't blast my country based upon a very small joke.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess the idea of a redundant rover is to make sure that errors are not a total loss. But it's nice to have both, especially since Opportunity seems to have found evidence of water. This has been really exciting to follow.
... HOWEVER, I see a combination of advantage and disadvantage. On the one hand this will require starting from scratch; I'm sure GNU/Linux can be customized to run with flash memory, or from optical media like Knoppix, but it will take time. On the other hand, Microsoft's security attention will be drawn away from the legacy model. This means that the old XBox is up for grabs, and we can expect minimal future security blockades. Old XBoxen will be VERY big sellers among Linux enthusiasts, possibly selling secondhand for as much as they sold as new, if not more.
But regarding backaward compatibility, I wouldn't worry about it. Remember that Microsoft bought Connectix, the maker of Virtual PC, and has been looking into technologies for running virtual machines. This may be related to those efforts, and running i386 game code on a PowerPC 970 might be doable with the right emulation built into the OS.
What really surprises me is that Windows code is well-organized enough that Microsoft thinks they can port it to another platform at all.
I found the tone of this interview really fascinating. It's good to hear from someone on the inside, not just about Linux and technology issues, but about the general mood and state of society there. It's especially interesting to hear that as long as the sun is out, this guy's not afraid to be outdoors. That contradicts a lot of what you might think about Iraq these days.
At the end of the day these are very faithful adaptations of the books. In fact, when I saw the first film I actually thought it was pretty much exactly as the book had been because I hadn't read the book in a few years. Someone who knows every detail will spot differences, but differences are not errors.
A direct translation would be at least ten movies long, have lots of boring bits of walking from place to place and eating at campfires and multiple five-minute-long songs. Not to mention a lack of decent exposition (unless you add an annoying narrator for any non-spoek exposition). It works in the books (I've read them three times), but it wouldn't work on film without exactly the sort of tweaking Jackson and Boyens did. If someone ever makes a 100% accurate adaptation of these books, I'm not interested in seeing it.
Search results.
Someone set them up the Google bomb.
Good point. Though what I mean is, even with millions lying around (or billions, in Microsoft's case) can they get anywhere by claiming copyright infringement when the claim involves a phoenetic variation on their name? Their name is a registered trademark. Isn't copyright infringement as silly a claim against Mike Rowe as patent infringement would be?
One odd thing: I keep reading about copyright violations in these stories, but shouldn't Microsoft's claims be trademark-related? Copyright doesn't apply to a business name as far as I know.
Regarding the settlement: it mentions the MCSE, the XBox and so forth, but I'm guessing there's money in there somewhere, too. This was a very bad PR situation for Microsoft. Since Mike had the PR on his side, yet is giving up the domain, I'm guessing he got more than just some courses, plane tickets and a game console in return.
Isn't it strange to hear quotes from people at the RIAA that don't sound stupid? They could rant and sue, but instead they calmly compliment the ad. Something has clearly changed in that organization. I won't go so far as to say they're not evil, but they almost seem less evil than before.
It's hard to blame SCO for the downfall of something that never made sense to begin with. SCO, in its typical scizophrenic form, thought they could make a good product by joining forces with others, rather than by improving Caldera Linux (long overdue). "Hey, we don't have to fire the lawyers and hire coders - let's just share progress with the other non-Red Hats." Yeah, right. I never took UL seriously, and now I'm glad I didn't.
Yeah, that is stated. The problem is that there is some functionality unavailable (at least in 10.2) without a permanent IP address.
So my point is, Linux is a better solution for this group. They're not savvy enough that the GUI tools would be helpful to them, and I can use cron to replicate the important information. The point of their system is to have the servers mirror everything, including user accounts and passwords, and that's easier and more flexible for me to set up on Linux.
Thanks for the tip on BRU. I'm checking it out now.
When I had both machines in place I ran into an issue where I had to rebuild the main one, so I transferred the data to the secondary server and planned to swap them. I changed their settings and IP addresses ... and all of the user accounts on the primary file server disappeared.
This was odd.
I Googled for it and came up with the answer: if you set up a password server on 10.2 Server you can't change the machine's IP address. This has to do with how Apple built the LDAP system that manages passwords, so it's a requirement if you want Windows file sharing (Samba in disguise) enabled. Which I did.
I called Apple tech support and they confirmed it: if I wanted to do Windows file sharing, I needed to set up a "password server" (LDAP). And if I set up a password server, I couldn't change the IP address of the machine. Ever. If I did, the users and groups would vanish into thin air. I asked if I could back up the user and group databases and then upload them again ... and they said no. Not without stripping the passwords out. So I'd have to have my users reset their passwords.
I was stunned. The inability to back up user account information, complete with passwords, and to change the IP address is ridiculous, and not the mark of a true, flexible server OS. So right now I'm migrating them to PPC Linux with Samba. I know 10.3 Server probably addresses these issues, but Linux is just simpler. Heck, all I have to do with Linux/Samba is replicate the passwd, group, shadow and smbpasswd files between the machines. Instant mirror servers. And it'll just work.
Besides, tar and mt will give me better control over tape backups than Retrospect did. Retrospect was always propting me for tapes of a particular set, and rejecting tapes that were from the wrong set. I don't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about backup sets. On Linux, it's just "See that tape drive? Put the data there, and shut up about it." And it does. And it's good.
End of rant.
Probably. Either way the enquirers are Anonymous Cowards like yourself, so I'd imagine that any type of contact counts as an "enquiry."
I personally think you don't have to adopt any ideology wholeheartedly. If you think of the government as having a balanced role in peoples' lives, the choice ceases to be one of either abandoning all legislation or overlegislating. A government can split up the occasional monopoly, prevent Enrons from tweaking their accounting and so forth without being a completely "central control" approach.
A dozen enquiries, the article says. I'd like to know who's asking about this IP "licensing" plan, since I'm thinking of selling the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which I inherited via my uncle, and was looking for someone in Australia to buy it.
Novell's false and misleading representations that it owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights has caused SCO irreparable harm to its copyrights, its business, and its reputation.
Yeah, right: SCO's pristine reputation is tarnished ... from THIS day forward? Those litigious bastards ...
And you can see how the workings of a starship evolved to what we see in the later-period series. Yes, Archer has moral dilemmas that cause him to take risks that later captains would never take. But I think that's the point. His ship is the very first of its kind, and there is no precedent. He'll do things that make little sense given our knowledge of how these ships work later on - but similarly, after seeing TNG it's weird to look back at a TOS episode and see Kirk accompany EVERY away team mission, jeopardizing his own life. Things change, so I think (flat screens aside) that this series has actually been really good at continuity.
I really disagree that the characters aren't very good - I'll always miss TNG's characters more, of course. But I think they had a good crew sooner in the series than TNG ever did. And despite what other posters have said above, I'll never be convinced this series (or any of them) can be worse than Voyager.
Something about this series had me interested right from episode 1, and I can't say that about the others. With every Star Trek series there has been a period of growing pains. Spock smiling, Data using contrations, Riker without a beard, etc. But Enterprise had their characters and concepts nailed as soon as it started. I hope this can be saved. I'll miss this show.
I knew how to program my VCR back when I owned one, and had the clock set correctly (not blinking 12). So perhaps I'm technologically gifted, and unfairly judging people who aren't. I guess I'm comparing how I use cars (where I'm not an expert) with how other people use computers (where I am more of an expert). But that might not be a good comparison ...
Contrast this to computers, where people are similarly ignorant about what's under the hood (quite understandable for a non-expert), but are also ignorant of the computer equivalents of cruise control, odometer trip measurements, and the presence of both FM 1 and FM2 on the radio presets. In computing a lot of people are ignorant both above and below the hood. So while there are plenty of bad drivers out there, I don't think it nearly equates to desktop computing.
I'm sure even bad drivers use cruise control. My point is, why don't bad computer users use pop-up blocking? Why is computing somehow different?
Most people don't understand what their computers can do, right now. I regularly amaze the users I support by helping them back up data and so forth, sometimes transferring data - like magic - over the network. People are amazed when they see they can send a document to their friend ... without using e-mail! It's all relatively mundane stuff, but it's beyond the comprehension of people who use computers ... drumroll please ... EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES. Think about that. Is there any other industry where regular, daily users of a technology are nevertheless bumbling novices at it?
I think it will take Microsoft's inclusion of this in IE to really shift these numbers. Until technology is forced upon people, most won't even realize they have the option.
Whilst many Americans seem to feel they have no reason to look beyond the shores of their own country, they seem to naturally assume those of us outside of the US spend all our lives watching what they do and taking it all in.
Not at all in my case - though I agree that most Americans seem to have a narrow world view. But please don't judge an entire population's mentality by a single Slashdot post. I know that not all Brits make sweeping judgements about America based upon sarcastic criticisms of URLs, as you did, because I used to live in Britain.
My post was a joke more than anything else. I live in the US, but like you I have also never visited the Supreme Court's site. And I don't need to. While this story is about the court, the court's site doesn't contain the content referenced in the story, so I thought the URL was redundant. You could easily get it on Google in a heartbeat. I always like it when Slashdot stories link to the relevant information within a site rather than to the site's main page. If you don't, I think I can understand. But please don't blast my country based upon a very small joke.
Thanks for providing a link to The Supreme Court. Now I can visit its site to find out what it is. Good thing posters on on Slashdot privide hyperlinks to every page on the World Wide Web that they reference. Otherwise we'd all be confused idiots.
Well, there it is - my first rudely sarcastic post.
Yeah, I agree that we should keep posts on topic. But the people who run Slashdot are not hippies. At least, I don't think they are. Are you?