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User: jake_the_blue_spruce

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  1. Re:Obvious and Sophmoric. Where's Something Origin on Mono and dotGnu: What's the Point? · · Score: 2, Informative
  2. Obvious and Sophmoric. Where's Something Original? on Mono and dotGnu: What's the Point? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A bit late to be controversial on this. I assume that he also thinks that WINE (which allows windows binaries to be installed and executed as if it was Windows) is also a bad idea, and that the idea of doing everything windows does and more besides is either not feasable or not a good way to attract users. If he believes it is feasible, then I further assume he believes the same thing is true of Microsoft's Embrace and Extend strategy.

    The threat of patents makes his a valid view, that has been well elucidated some months ago. I would have preferred if the article had broken new ground, and used all the prior conversations as a jumping off point.

    An interesting analysis would be what is thought about Mono's preparation for the threat of patents. They are developing a completely seperate and patent free stack of libraries using GTK#, etc. rather than Windows.Forms, etc., etc. for everything not submitted as royalty free to the standards body. The upcoming MonoDevelop project is a port of SharpDevelop from Microsoft's .NET to the Mono environment in such a way as to be unencumbered from any patents, as a proof of concept, and as a much needed Linux IDE for C#.

    As a comparison, he might wish to bring up the GCJ project, which native compiles Java code, and the Gnome Java bindings. (or Eclipse + SWT)

    Either effort could stand to attract greater resources. For instance, if Sun + IBM seriously got behind GCJ + Gnome Java bindings, or if Apple got behind Mono.

    Anyway, the Register is usually wonderfully edgy, bitingly sarcastic, and controversial. I was very disappointed with this article.

  3. Re:Oh please on Better Than Bit Torrent, For Internet2 Users? · · Score: 1

    I know it was a joke, but last I checked, infrequently referenced files fall off Freenet. BitTorrent allows people to champion files that may not be popular now, but later on become wildly so (or even just mildly so). To a certain extent, I think they're both targetted at fundamentally different purposes, with some overlap.

  4. Re:services in the u.s. on Sony-Ericsson P900 Released · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I've got a p800 with T-Mobile service, but it's not locked, so any GSM provider will work. T-Mobile was the cheapest that had coverage out here. I sync it with Evolution using Multisync (multisync.sourceforge.net)

  5. Re:Studies Showing The Opposite Too on Praying Doesn't Help · · Score: 1

    I thought she admitted on her deathbed that she had fudged her own study to give hope to the hopeless. Can anyone else confirm?

  6. Re:Free Software Voting Machines on Free Software for Politics · · Score: 1

    Weird. Links got mangled.
    Academic Free software Voting Machine Project:

    http://gnosis.cx/voting-project/announce.html

    GNU Free Software Internet Voting:

    http://www.free-project.org/

    Diebold Scandal:

    http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/09/23/bev _h arris/index1.html

  7. Free Software Voting Machines on Free Software for Politics · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A group of computer scientist professors is creating . This is not the same as GNU's Free Software Internet Voting. Given the Diebold fiasco there's a greater need for these than for the software to discuss potential candidates.

  8. Finally! A JDK compiled with GCC 3.2! on Blackdown Releases a 1.4.1 JDK · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Now we can finally build mozilla with 3.2 and drop all this crazy crap we've been doing to work around it. I can't believe Sun hasn't put out a 3.2 compiled version yet (plans for 1.4.2 to be though). I don't know about IBM. Anyone?

  9. Rail Gun Rockets (or at least maglev) on Columbia Coverage · · Score: 1

    If we built a magnetic accelerator on the side of some mountain, how much would it reduce the amount of propellant needed to reach escape velocity?

  10. Re:Slight change to Content Addressible Web on P2P Content Delivery for Open Source · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure how much that helps. The "Slashdot" effect is typically against recent content which has probably been updated more recently than content expiry settings of the hosting website. Many websites do not have any explicit freshness information set. Is that information mirrored forever, never to be requested?

    The CAW spec explains how originator servers work, but not how mirrors should operate.

    By the way, the OCN-dev list does not appear to be accepting new members when you reply to the confirmation e-mail. Don't know if there's a human in the loop or what.

  11. Slight change to Content Addressible Web on P2P Content Delivery for Open Source · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I see a slight problem, depending on how CAW is implemented.

    Scenario #1:
    Assuming the Originator Apache responds with HTTP headers such as those in CAW to advertise site-wide mirrors like this:
    X-URI-RES: http://urnresolver.com/uri-res/N2L?urn:sha1:; N2L

    When the originator Apache site updates any documents, the URN resolver (or mirror) will silently fail without realizing which document has been updated. It would need to rescan the entire website, even when only one document has changed.

    Scenario #2:
    The opposite problem occurs with the Originator Apache responding with HTTP headers such as this:
    X-URI-RES: http://untrustedmirror.com/pub/file.zip; N2R

    The mirror will respond successfully, but will give an out-of-date version of the file without the client or the mirror realizing it. The mirror would then have to manually scan the website on a regular basis (even when nothing has changed) to prevent anything getting too out of date.

    Scenario #3 (Solution):
    However, if the Originator Apache responds with HTTP headers such as this:
    X-URI-RES: http://untrustedmirror.com/pub/file-mirrors.list; N2Ls; urn:sha1

    When the URN resolver or Mirror sees the SHA-1 hash mismatch, it knows which document needs to be updated, and can respond by doing so for just that document.

    I realize that CAW is mainly designed with static files in mind (images, PDFs, ISOs) where updates occur rarely (or never). And no, I don't see Apache calculating the SHA-1 for dynamic pages like Slashdot anytime soon. However, updates do occur to images, PDFs, ISOs, etc. on occasion. I do think CAW(#3) could be used (and useful) for large, heavily subscribed RSS feeds without too much trouble. Maybe elsewhere in dynamic content.

  12. Solution: Decentralized Collaborative Filters on Collapsing P2P Networks · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Collobarative Recommendations such as Amazon.com uses, (or Eigentaste or RecTree in academia) finally have algorithms that make it fast enough for an average PC to perform the operations. A decentralized version would not only foil spoofing and spamming, but would let you discover new things beyond the industry marketing machine. Does anyone have information on such work?

  13. Re:Computing power on Philanthropy Redefined · · Score: 3

    Patents expire in 20 years. If the cure for cancer is found using this method, it will take 20 years for any patent to expire. It has nothing to do with Moore's law. Please moderate Dillon's mistake down. However, I think academic institutions like Oxford are less prone to patent abuse than if it was a private research company.

  14. I work for such a company, so I know on What Pitfalls Exist When Outsourcing Code? · · Score: 4

    If you send stuff overseas, you're using many undertrained workers. Some tasks are suited to that, like Y2k or bug fixing ('many eyes make shallow bugs'), or where the goals are very explicit (format 'a' convert to format 'b'). Design and technical work are *not* a good idea. I'm one of the guys that cleans up after the overseas folks screw something like that up, and it is very common that I'll have to start from scratch.

    If you have something a horde of interns could be thrown on, it's a candidate for overseas. Otherwise, don't bother.

  15. Dragon Half on Essential Anime · · Score: 1

    I have not been able to find Dragon Half episodes after the first three anywhere! Were they ever made (even in Japan)?

    Definitely the funniest series I ever saw. I'm so sad I can't find more episodes.

  16. DAML and Tim Berners-Lee on What AI Elements Could Improve the Web? · · Score: 1

    Tim Berners-Lee and James Hendler is working on DAML- The DARPA Agent Markup Language. Most of the AI guys (that I know) that are doing web stuff are writing spider/crawlers. The interesting ones are using RDF and XML spiders to be able to search by content, rather than keyword.

  17. Not as widespread as indicated on Backdoor In Microsoft Web Software? · · Score: 1

    I just went and cleaned all our internal servers.
    I'm not being really responsbile in verifying my facts, but this is what it looks like from initial survey.
    The dvwssr.dll is indeed installed on machines which have Frontpage 98 *Application* installed. On machines that only had FP98 *server extensions*, I didn't find the file. If you upgraded to frontpage 2000 from 98, the file doesn't appear to be removed, so the bug stays. However, you should *never* ever install frontpage on a production server exposed to the internet. It's buggy and terribly insecure even without this one hole. The protocol is a mess. It's little better than basic authentication over non-SSL connection for eavesdroppers getting passwords.

  18. SSL Monkeywrench on On Building High Volume Dynamic Web Sites · · Score: 2

    When your site uses SSL, the certificate is for one IP, mod_backhand and round robin DNS all respond with different IP addresses. Reverse proxying doesn't scale beyond 4 servers or so. How does Amazon or whatever handle load balancing among SSL web servers?

    Of course, I posted this late, so no one will probably read this question...

  19. Some Gnome math tools come close on Open Source Symbolic Math Program? · · Score: 1

    The GNOME math tools here show promise, but I still tend to derive interpolation functions by hand, just because it's often easier, even if you've got Maple handy.

  20. Re:So then what *IS* good organization? on Ask Jakob Nielsen Almost Anything · · Score: 1

    Whups. Found it (although it wasn't easy).
    Here is the example and methodology for Intranet organization.
    Here is a less specific document about Intranet portals.

  21. So then what *IS* good organization? on Ask Jakob Nielsen Almost Anything · · Score: 1

    Your web site extolls the virtue of good organization in a website, but neglects to give examples or even guidelines for good hierarchies. Could you give a really brief example of, say, an Intranet website or something to explain the difference between good and bad organization?

  22. Hidden Agendas on the Web? on Learn About Political Campaigning on the Internet · · Score: 1

    The web can be a great resource for voters, but I worry that websites can also be great sources of misinformation and innuendo that mainstream media wouldn't propogate. How can you know whether websites such as Vote Smart or Go Vote can be trusted? For instance, those sites could be funded by special interest groups and give skewed or inaccurate information, and it would be difficult for average voters to know.

    Further, I got several forwarded e-mail messages about Gore, which all turned out to be hoaxes, some saying that he'd misquoted the bible, others saying he'd been pro-life when he was young. Since it is in the Gore campaign's interest to refute the allegations, it was difficult to find trusted, authoritive refutation. How do you recommend voters find accurate, trusted, authoritative information on the Web outside of the candidates own websites (which are suspect)?

  23. Your HTML coding drives W3C bonkers on Special Interview: Rob Malda and Jeff Bates · · Score: 5

    The W3C made a tool to clean up HTML called HTML Tidy. Just for kicks, I tried it on Slashdot. It blew a fuse after logging several thousand violations. :) Usually works great though.

    Any idea if Slashdot's code will ever be cleaned up? Would open sourcing help things?

  24. JRun for JSP on NT under IIS on Java Success Stories · · Score: 1

    On winNT/IIS we use JRun and have great success. On Linux, apache Jserv rocks (they're upcoming XML-Java stuff is very exciting).

  25. Re:Distributed Computing on Interviews: We Have 2! 1st, L0pht Heavy Industries · · Score: 1

    Shoot. Cosm is at http://cosm.mithral.com/. I thought I checked that link.