And she either ignored or hid this, but the reviewers for the journal that publishes the paper failed to spot what a random slashdotter did. Seriously, I know some people are stupid, but Occam's Razor applies sometimes.
I didn't mean it didn't boot: I meant it could do nothing useful, except give you a smug feeling of achievement once you got it to boot on 2 MB. It's an important distinction.
I know, I know. The difference between 4 and 8 or 16 MB is nothing compared to what we use nowadays. Still, if you're gonna mention numbers, be precise. Otherwise, why point numbers? Mac OS 7 used 1 MB for a graphical desktop, then. I'm sure other projects had small footprints, too.
Ahem. I was there, and I remember Windows 95 did jack shit with 4 mb of RAM. Maybe you're thinking of Windows 3.11?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_'95 : "Official system requirements were an Intel 80386 DX CPU of any speed, 4 MB of system RAM, and 50 MB of hard drive space. These minimal claims were made in order to maximize the available market of Windows 3.1 converts. This configuration was distinctly suboptimal for any productive use on anything but single tasking dedicated workstations due to the heavy reliance on virtual memory. Also, in some cases, if any networking or similar components were installed the system would refuse to boot with 4 Megabytes of RAM. It was possible to run Windows 95 on a 386 SX but this led to even less acceptable performance. To achieve optimal performance, Microsoft recommends an Intel 80486 or compatible microprocessor with at least 8 MB of RAM."
I admit that I don't know much about the tech, but otherwise, apart from the annoyance that the users of the forum would face by having to answer so many captchas, it seems possible to me. Indeed, I think I've heard of spammers paying people to answer captchas, which is a more expensive way of doing the same thing.
A thing that occurs to me is that most forums form with communities, and big forums moreso. If the owners or admins of a big forum were found out doing such stuff, the forum would be deserted. Furthermore, I don't think spammers want to go to the trouble of maintaining a community forum for these gains.
Problem: this has to be simple. Asking users (think of a blog you want to post in, or a site you want to buy from) to answer more than one question is a sure-fire recipe of losing clients.
Doesn't work well: a bot will be right 25% of the times, just by answering at random. And more pictures mean difficult layout, or small picture size. Plus, it becomes an undue hassle on real users.
For all the fun we poke at them for mixing imperial and metric units, they've done a fantastic job with the Rover, still working so long after its "due date". Congratulations to all people involved.
It's not a restriction on creation, but on sale. Quite a different thing.
Sorry if I repeat myself, but I can't explain it better than this: Freedom of speech would IMO be at stake if people were stopped from actually creating games. This law seems to address something different: make your game as violent or otherwise explicit, but stores can't sell it to minors. Happens in the rest of the world, mostly with R rated movies or reading material, and in some countries with games, too. PEGI is the equivalent of the ESRB in Europe, and videogames carry similar notices. I'm not actually sure about it being illegal to sell M rated games to minors, but it wouldn't surprise me. If their parents are ok with it, they can buy the games themselves, can't they? Ratings, mandated by law or not, haven't stopped anyone from creating porn, which is actually one of the most successful media industries anywhere, period.
I think some people confuse "a right to free speech" with "a right to free speech without consequences".
Though I realise I don't know enough of USA law to argue further. I understand that some (I'd say "most", but Bush did get reelected) people don't want to see their real or perceived freedoms curtailed, and that this ticks them off. Sorry about it, but a) As others say, this law will probably get shot down soonish on constitutional grounds, so it'll be "just" a matter of misspent taxpayer's money. Sucks, I know. Won't be the last time, either. b) If it was really that important to the USA/. public, they could pull their asses from their TiVOs or keyboards, and do something about it, instead of only making an effort to save doomed tv series. Seriously, if half the effort spent on the Firefly, Star Trek and Jericho went to a few good ads or commercials on a few select papers or tv channels, things could be different.
I don't see how this law restricts that freedom. It's an idiotic law, certainly, but people aren't stopped from creating games directly because of it. It's maybe when they try to sell their creation that they might find difficulties.
Since it's still at a very early phase of development, I'd say that there's plenty of time (or none at all, if we think of the original problem) to make it work, and then make it friendly. Though it's possible that, without being somewhat friendly, it will not work -as in be useful and used- at all.
"currently I have less than 30 false negatives and essentially zero false positives. I do not check my junk mail folder, simply can't afford to."
So you actually don't know what the % of false positives is, you just popped a number. I assume you say it is "essentially zero" because nobody tells you of mail you missed.
"that's the problem with large OSS projects - there's often no contact information for submitting bugs other than the link to the bug-tracking software."
Sorry, that hasn't been my experience at all. Most big projects I know of have at least a mailing list and an IRC channel, in addition to the bug tracker. Maybe we're thinking of different areas of OSS?
Slashdot Mirror
And she either ignored or hid this, but the reviewers for the journal that publishes the paper failed to spot what a random slashdotter did. Seriously, I know some people are stupid, but Occam's Razor applies sometimes.
Ext3 was introduced in 2001, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3 . Three years after HFS+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS_Plus Ext2 and Ext3 are compatible, but not the same thing.
Oh, the news was dated June 3. Not so much foresight, then.
Suddenly, last weeks' Doonesbury strips seem prescient:t ml?uc_full_date=20070604
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.h
I didn't mean it didn't boot: I meant it could do nothing useful, except give you a smug feeling of achievement once you got it to boot on 2 MB. It's an important distinction.
You're kindly invited to edit the wikipedia page, then :)
I know, I know. The difference between 4 and 8 or 16 MB is nothing compared to what we use nowadays. Still, if you're gonna mention numbers, be precise. Otherwise, why point numbers? Mac OS 7 used 1 MB for a graphical desktop, then. I'm sure other projects had small footprints, too.
Ahem. I was there, and I remember Windows 95 did jack shit with 4 mb of RAM. Maybe you're thinking of Windows 3.11?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_'95 :
"Official system requirements were an Intel 80386 DX CPU of any speed, 4 MB of system RAM, and 50 MB of hard drive space. These minimal claims were made in order to maximize the available market of Windows 3.1 converts. This configuration was distinctly suboptimal for any productive use on anything but single tasking dedicated workstations due to the heavy reliance on virtual memory. Also, in some cases, if any networking or similar components were installed the system would refuse to boot with 4 Megabytes of RAM. It was possible to run Windows 95 on a 386 SX but this led to even less acceptable performance. To achieve optimal performance, Microsoft recommends an Intel 80486 or compatible microprocessor with at least 8 MB of RAM."
I admit that I don't know much about the tech, but otherwise, apart from the annoyance that the users of the forum would face by having to answer so many captchas, it seems possible to me. Indeed, I think I've heard of spammers paying people to answer captchas, which is a more expensive way of doing the same thing.
A thing that occurs to me is that most forums form with communities, and big forums moreso. If the owners or admins of a big forum were found out doing such stuff, the forum would be deserted. Furthermore, I don't think spammers want to go to the trouble of maintaining a community forum for these gains.
Problem: this has to be simple. Asking users (think of a blog you want to post in, or a site you want to buy from) to answer more than one question is a sure-fire recipe of losing clients.
Doesn't work well: a bot will be right 25% of the times, just by answering at random. And more pictures mean difficult layout, or small picture size. Plus, it becomes an undue hassle on real users.
For all the fun we poke at them for mixing imperial and metric units, they've done a fantastic job with the Rover, still working so long after its "due date". Congratulations to all people involved.
It's not a restriction on creation, but on sale. Quite a different thing.
/. public, they could pull their asses from their TiVOs or keyboards, and do something about it, instead of only making an effort to save doomed tv series. Seriously, if half the effort spent on the Firefly, Star Trek and Jericho went to a few good ads or commercials on a few select papers or tv channels, things could be different.
Sorry if I repeat myself, but I can't explain it better than this: Freedom of speech would IMO be at stake if people were stopped from actually creating games. This law seems to address something different: make your game as violent or otherwise explicit, but stores can't sell it to minors. Happens in the rest of the world, mostly with R rated movies or reading material, and in some countries with games, too. PEGI is the equivalent of the ESRB in Europe, and videogames carry similar notices. I'm not actually sure about it being illegal to sell M rated games to minors, but it wouldn't surprise me. If their parents are ok with it, they can buy the games themselves, can't they? Ratings, mandated by law or not, haven't stopped anyone from creating porn, which is actually one of the most successful media industries anywhere, period.
I think some people confuse "a right to free speech" with "a right to free speech without consequences".
Though I realise I don't know enough of USA law to argue further. I understand that some (I'd say "most", but Bush did get reelected) people don't want to see their real or perceived freedoms curtailed, and that this ticks them off. Sorry about it, but
a) As others say, this law will probably get shot down soonish on constitutional grounds, so it'll be "just" a matter of misspent taxpayer's money. Sucks, I know. Won't be the last time, either.
b) If it was really that important to the USA
You do know about R rated movies and magazines, don't you? How is this any different?
I don't see how this law restricts that freedom. It's an idiotic law, certainly, but people aren't stopped from creating games directly because of it. It's maybe when they try to sell their creation that they might find difficulties.
Since it's still at a very early phase of development, I'd say that there's plenty of time (or none at all, if we think of the original problem) to make it work, and then make it friendly. Though it's possible that, without being somewhat friendly, it will not work -as in be useful and used- at all.
Hey, you were the one to say "The "fix" against phising is a better authentication method." I didn't say it'd be ipso facto apt for mom and pop.
Besides, the explanation to developers on mozdev isn't necessarily the one I'd give to grandma, but I hoped it wouldn't be necessary to say this.
For any technical comments about enigform, you are more than welcome to address the comments on the site, not to a random slashdotter.
What about a Mozilla Firefox extension that provides you the ability to digitally sign HTTP requests, even those generated via AJAX calls?
Has anyone got a continent-sized roll of newspaper? This puppy needs punishment, it shat on the carpet again.
I so wish this could be done, and that it was useful in any way...
You can't: it's a spelling error, not a grammar error.
Certainly not gud speling.
It's "amateurs" i.e. "people who do something because of passion". Thus ends the lesson.
"currently I have less than 30 false negatives and essentially zero false positives. I do not check my junk mail folder, simply can't afford to."
So you actually don't know what the % of false positives is, you just popped a number. I assume you say it is "essentially zero" because nobody tells you of mail you missed.
I didn't have money to spend on tech, so I just blame Canada.
No need, here it is
"that's the problem with large OSS projects - there's often no contact information for submitting bugs other than the link to the bug-tracking software."
Sorry, that hasn't been my experience at all. Most big projects I know of have at least a mailing list and an IRC channel, in addition to the bug tracker. Maybe we're thinking of different areas of OSS?