His concerns may be valid. But his reputation is also a very valid concern when he brings up things like this. People like Alex Jones are *constantly* claiming wild out-of-the-blue things, with virtually no evidence. 99% of them are complete and utter bullshit. Of course, the way he presents his stories, he claims the lack of evidence is proof of government censorship and a massive coverup. Like it or not, when you do things like that, your credibility goes down the hole. Every time you suggest something, no one will believe you because you've said so much bullshit in the past.
Also, check the comments again. There's no lack of technical discussion about his claims. My favorite explanation from the comments above was that when the bills were stacked, the tiny magnetic metal fragments in the ink reacted similar to the tags you see in stores to prevent theft. You, however, chose to pick a comment which casts doubt on his credibility and scream bloody murder about it.
In summary, this guy is a nut. His track record has proved it. Of course, people are still debating his point, so I guess you're attacking a problem that isn't really there. Welcome to the straw man attack.
In this case, Aunt Tillie usually uses a very sophisticated hardware hack. She puts the computers near each other, and plugs the printer into the one she needs to print from. Not the most elegant solution, but it works, and it doesn't require the local high school kid to set up.
If the local high school kid stops by, he's liable to say "Aunt Tillie, that's horrible! You could just run some CAT5 and install..." High school kid sets it up, and it's okay for now, but Aunt Tillie doesn't understand how it works, and the computer slips a little farther towards being a mystery.
The moral that I'm trying to get across with this hypothetical example is "Don't fix it if it isn't broken."
You're basically saying that because you had an unhappy childhood, it's not worth helping other people who need it. What an incredibly childish world-view. Let me let you in on a little secret: not everybody is an asshole. Even those who might be smarter, better looking, or more talented than you. A lot of them spend their time doing things for other people with no expectation of reward. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't have a lot of the things you take for granted today. If you don't want to help other people, that's fine by me. But don't spit on their countless contributions to a good cause or say they shouldn't do what they want just because you have a gripe with your 2nd grade class.
Some Intel motherboards (i810 at least) have a random number generator in hardware, but I don't know if it's widely used in operating systems. I wouldn't be surprised if Linux used it as an input for/dev/random or something
You're absolutely correct about the ability of Hotspot to generate optimized code for higher processor architectures. However, you also make a big assumption that's probably not true: that the native code software you're running must be compiled for 386/486. Nobody who cares about performance would run unoptimized, 386-compiled code. If you have a P4 doing intensive calculations, you're going to use software compiled for P4 using SSE2. With open source software, that's a given, but even many proprietary vendors provide binaries optimized for different processors. Hotspot only has an advantage when you want to run the *exact* same binary on multiple processors.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the processing time spent deciding on those 2 lines of code is most likely many hundred times as long as the execution of the 4 line version. Thus, this will only pay off if you run the same code over and over again without reloading it into memory. Hardly what I would call the normal case.
First, I do know WFT[sic] I'm talking about. I've used quite a few Java apps, from Ant to Netbeans to a little JSP/Servelets. I've also written a lot of C++ and C. It's ridiculous to say that Java is always as fast of faster than C and C++. In certain heavily optimized situations, it can be. But simply due to the extra overhead from GC and the VM, there's a significant slowdown compared to any language that compiles to native machine code. I'm excluding Java code that's natively compiled, because that gives up much of what makes Java good.
You're completely avoiding the real issue here. You can say "Java is as fast as C++" as much as you'd like, but that doesn't change the fact that most Java apps ARE slower to the end user. This may be because the libraries aren't loaded or the UI isn't as responsive, but the bottom line is that Java isn't keeping up.
You refer to "cheating-ass windows programs". I assume you're referring to programs like Office or Mozilla who have a quickstart option that loads the program into memory on boot. That's a whole different issue. Most native code programs start fast because there isn't much to start up, not because they cheat. There's a lot more to it than that, but my post is getting long already, so I'll explain the rest if you really want to hear it.
In short, just because a lot of people claiming Java is slow are idiots doesn't mean that you can just dismiss their complaints. There are a lot of smart people who want a faster Java too.
Good point, actually, but coming up with a unique, marketable name is a lot harder than it seems. Lots of projects try to make a witty or cute name to try to get people to like their project, but most of them fail miserably. There are two ways you're going to be accepted with a funky name: One, you can have a huge corporate-backed advertising campaign. See.NET and Java. In this case, it actually turns into a brand name and works for you. Two, you can just be good enough that they can't ignore you. Apache before they branched out was a good example.
The open source project name that always sticks in my head as being horrible is Double Choco Latte. It's a web based project management suite, but you'd never be able to guess based on the name. Something like that is difficult to sell to the higher-ups because it just doesn't sound professional. You can scream all you want about how the name shouldn't matter, or that they should judge based on utility alone, but that's just not the way it happens. Better would be if they'd have just called it DCL with no explanation.
GIMP suffers from the same problem, but in the opposite way - it's acronym forms a word that's a synonym for "Cripple". Not the kind of image you want to project for a high quality software project. If I called my AI-based chess engine the "RETARD Engine To Avoid Repeated Defeat", or "RETARD", I'd probably have a tough time getting serious users unless it was *incredibly* good.
In other words, they want the application to manage it's own windows. Surely this is a job for your window manager?
It sure is. Unfortunately, most window managers are an all or nothing affair. Either you let them manage your windows, a la GIMP, or you do it all yourself. I think the next version of GTK should have a general method of doing subwindows. I guess the GTK developers are very against this, though. Oh well. If they won't do semi-MDI, I guess my next choice would be an interface where each image has it's own set of controls that are only shown when the image has focus.
I think what original poster was referring to is that the clicks are being collected not by the article or it's authors, but by whoever submitted the link. If you went via the actual address of the article, only the article's server (gorank.com) would get that referrer. Due to the addition in the link, all visitors from slashdot get redirected through a page on searchguild.com, which may be collecting data.
Umm, unless everyone who's explained DSL to me is lying, you have a phone line. You just don't have voice service on it. This hasn't been possible in the US before simply because there wasn't much demand. Before cell phones really started to catch on and begin fully replacing people's landline, it was unthinkable not to have a phone line with voice because nearly everybody used it. Now, that isn't so much the case.
Saying something's a Catch 22 doesn't make you right, either. It doesn't remove the requirement for evidence. Neither does making analogies. There was a movie vaguely resembling the situation you accuse MS of. So what? Just because they're closed-source doesn't mean they're necesarily stealing code. In response to your original post, yes, I do believe MS wrote Windows 1.0 from scratch, or from legally obtained licensed code. There's simply no reason not to believe it. Thousands of people or more, both MS employees and people at various universities and companies, have seen the Windows source code over the years, and I think it would've come out one way or another if MS was blatantly stealing large amounts of code.
P.S. - Maybe it's because I don't watch Star Trek or "Screamers", but neither of your analogies made any sense whatsoever. I couldn't relate either to stealing source code no matter how hard I tried
So I should put a box in public that will _not_ be supported by its vendor and has known vulnerabilities to boot.
If you actually read the chain of posts, neither I nor sugapablo said anything of the sort. We were talking about a home-hosted server, presumably used for low traffic personal usage. Original poster asked what could provide the same functionality as Debian on certain low-end hardware, and I gave an example. I'd use that NT4 box for a personal server, if properly secured behind a firewall. All ports closed except Web and FTP. I'd do the same if I was running any OS. Apache and PostgreSQL run fine on NT4, and I'm sure there's a nice open source ftp server for Windows too. Realistically, I don't think that's a great machine for hosting, but given that hardware, I gave a usable alternative.
I haven't met Bill Gates or Linux Torvalds in person, and am therefore completely unable to judge their intellectual capacity. What makes you so qualified? If you're going to suggest that MS has stolen code, back it up with at least a little bit of evidence. Asking questions about something with no support does not make you "Interesting" or "Insightful"
NT4 Server with an appropriate SQL Server, perhaps?
You do realize that when boxes of that speed came out, they were servers also, right? Just because you can't run the latest and greatest Windows Server 2003 doesn't mean that all MS software is bloated shit. You wouldn't try running Fedora Core with KDE 3.2 on that hardware either. I agree, Debian is awesome for servers and low-end hardware, but don't pretend that it's the only software that can possibly do the job.
Ok, I get that he's technically correct according to Codd. However, by his definitions, there isn't a database I've seen that fully implements the relational model. If you have an example of a mature, widely database system that qualifies as a relational database system, I'll stop calling Firebird and Oracle and DB2 relational. Until then, I'll let the marketers call their products whatever they want, because they've produced a useful product that's used by millions. Codd's research is useful, but the word relational has changed in meaning since his time.
There might be a reason why you're a DBA looking for a job. SQL is a query language, relational is a database design paradigm. As it says all over their homepage, Firebird is a relational database that uses SQL.
This isn't any different than before in respect to DoS. The difference is that you can't use it to execute arbitrary code, so the virus would have to spread using a different security hole. DoS attacks are remarkably hard to prevent due to their very nature. If a service is open to the Internet, it's vulnerable.
Your distinction between soft and hard links doesn't make much sense. I don't think there's any type of link that, when deleted, also deletes the target. The way I learned it:
Softlink (aka symlink): Has it's own file, but any access gets routed to the real file. This is what most links I deal with are. If you delete the real file, the link breaks, but stays there.
Hardlink: Doesn't have own file. Behaves exactly like the original in all ways, but has a different name. If you delete a hardlink or the original file, nothing happens until *all* instances are gone. Hardlinks must be on the same partition.
In Linux under ext2, hardlinks are files with the same inode number. I don't know exactly how softlinks work, but they have different inode numbers than the original.
Windows with NTFS supports hardlinks as mentioned in other posts, and softlinks as shortcuts.
So to sum up, the links you were referring to were hardlinks, and as such rightfully can't go across network. The pseudolinks you were talking about are simply shortcuts, and usually don't work in applications due to shoddy programming.
Slashdot Mirror
His concerns may be valid. But his reputation is also a very valid concern when he brings up things like this. People like Alex Jones are *constantly* claiming wild out-of-the-blue things, with virtually no evidence. 99% of them are complete and utter bullshit. Of course, the way he presents his stories, he claims the lack of evidence is proof of government censorship and a massive coverup. Like it or not, when you do things like that, your credibility goes down the hole. Every time you suggest something, no one will believe you because you've said so much bullshit in the past.
Also, check the comments again. There's no lack of technical discussion about his claims. My favorite explanation from the comments above was that when the bills were stacked, the tiny magnetic metal fragments in the ink reacted similar to the tags you see in stores to prevent theft. You, however, chose to pick a comment which casts doubt on his credibility and scream bloody murder about it.
In summary, this guy is a nut. His track record has proved it. Of course, people are still debating his point, so I guess you're attacking a problem that isn't really there. Welcome to the straw man attack.
"Oh Sex Box"
I like it. I'll take 4.
Why would you want to jam e911?
In this case, Aunt Tillie usually uses a very sophisticated hardware hack. She puts the computers near each other, and plugs the printer into the one she needs to print from. Not the most elegant solution, but it works, and it doesn't require the local high school kid to set up.
If the local high school kid stops by, he's liable to say "Aunt Tillie, that's horrible! You could just run some CAT5 and install..." High school kid sets it up, and it's okay for now, but Aunt Tillie doesn't understand how it works, and the computer slips a little farther towards being a mystery.
The moral that I'm trying to get across with this hypothetical example is "Don't fix it if it isn't broken."
You're basically saying that because you had an unhappy childhood, it's not worth helping other people who need it. What an incredibly childish world-view. Let me let you in on a little secret: not everybody is an asshole. Even those who might be smarter, better looking, or more talented than you. A lot of them spend their time doing things for other people with no expectation of reward. If it weren't for them, you wouldn't have a lot of the things you take for granted today. If you don't want to help other people, that's fine by me. But don't spit on their countless contributions to a good cause or say they shouldn't do what they want just because you have a gripe with your 2nd grade class.
Grow up.
You're absolutely correct about the ability of Hotspot to generate optimized code for higher processor architectures. However, you also make a big assumption that's probably not true: that the native code software you're running must be compiled for 386/486. Nobody who cares about performance would run unoptimized, 386-compiled code. If you have a P4 doing intensive calculations, you're going to use software compiled for P4 using SSE2. With open source software, that's a given, but even many proprietary vendors provide binaries optimized for different processors. Hotspot only has an advantage when you want to run the *exact* same binary on multiple processors.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the processing time spent deciding on those 2 lines of code is most likely many hundred times as long as the execution of the 4 line version. Thus, this will only pay off if you run the same code over and over again without reloading it into memory. Hardly what I would call the normal case.
First, I do know WFT[sic] I'm talking about. I've used quite a few Java apps, from Ant to Netbeans to a little JSP/Servelets. I've also written a lot of C++ and C. It's ridiculous to say that Java is always as fast of faster than C and C++. In certain heavily optimized situations, it can be. But simply due to the extra overhead from GC and the VM, there's a significant slowdown compared to any language that compiles to native machine code. I'm excluding Java code that's natively compiled, because that gives up much of what makes Java good.
You're completely avoiding the real issue here. You can say "Java is as fast as C++" as much as you'd like, but that doesn't change the fact that most Java apps ARE slower to the end user. This may be because the libraries aren't loaded or the UI isn't as responsive, but the bottom line is that Java isn't keeping up.
You refer to "cheating-ass windows programs". I assume you're referring to programs like Office or Mozilla who have a quickstart option that loads the program into memory on boot. That's a whole different issue. Most native code programs start fast because there isn't much to start up, not because they cheat. There's a lot more to it than that, but my post is getting long already, so I'll explain the rest if you really want to hear it.
In short, just because a lot of people claiming Java is slow are idiots doesn't mean that you can just dismiss their complaints. There are a lot of smart people who want a faster Java too.
Good point, actually, but coming up with a unique, marketable name is a lot harder than it seems. Lots of projects try to make a witty or cute name to try to get people to like their project, but most of them fail miserably. There are two ways you're going to be accepted with a funky name: One, you can have a huge corporate-backed advertising campaign. See .NET and Java. In this case, it actually turns into a brand name and works for you. Two, you can just be good enough that they can't ignore you. Apache before they branched out was a good example.
The open source project name that always sticks in my head as being horrible is Double Choco Latte. It's a web based project management suite, but you'd never be able to guess based on the name. Something like that is difficult to sell to the higher-ups because it just doesn't sound professional. You can scream all you want about how the name shouldn't matter, or that they should judge based on utility alone, but that's just not the way it happens. Better would be if they'd have just called it DCL with no explanation.
GIMP suffers from the same problem, but in the opposite way - it's acronym forms a word that's a synonym for "Cripple". Not the kind of image you want to project for a high quality software project. If I called my AI-based chess engine the "RETARD Engine To Avoid Repeated Defeat", or "RETARD", I'd probably have a tough time getting serious users unless it was *incredibly* good.
I think what original poster was referring to is that the clicks are being collected not by the article or it's authors, but by whoever submitted the link. If you went via the actual address of the article, only the article's server (gorank.com) would get that referrer. Due to the addition in the link, all visitors from slashdot get redirected through a page on searchguild.com, which may be collecting data.
Umm, unless everyone who's explained DSL to me is lying, you have a phone line. You just don't have voice service on it. This hasn't been possible in the US before simply because there wasn't much demand. Before cell phones really started to catch on and begin fully replacing people's landline, it was unthinkable not to have a phone line with voice because nearly everybody used it. Now, that isn't so much the case.
I'd appreciate it if you didn't insult my race by labeling us all as "racist buggers".
People see what they want to see. People who have views like that are reinforced by thinking their ideas are repressed or censored.
Saying something's a Catch 22 doesn't make you right, either. It doesn't remove the requirement for evidence. Neither does making analogies. There was a movie vaguely resembling the situation you accuse MS of. So what? Just because they're closed-source doesn't mean they're necesarily stealing code. In response to your original post, yes, I do believe MS wrote Windows 1.0 from scratch, or from legally obtained licensed code. There's simply no reason not to believe it. Thousands of people or more, both MS employees and people at various universities and companies, have seen the Windows source code over the years, and I think it would've come out one way or another if MS was blatantly stealing large amounts of code.
P.S. - Maybe it's because I don't watch Star Trek or "Screamers", but neither of your analogies made any sense whatsoever. I couldn't relate either to stealing source code no matter how hard I tried
If you actually read the chain of posts, neither I nor sugapablo said anything of the sort. We were talking about a home-hosted server, presumably used for low traffic personal usage. Original poster asked what could provide the same functionality as Debian on certain low-end hardware, and I gave an example. I'd use that NT4 box for a personal server, if properly secured behind a firewall. All ports closed except Web and FTP. I'd do the same if I was running any OS. Apache and PostgreSQL run fine on NT4, and I'm sure there's a nice open source ftp server for Windows too. Realistically, I don't think that's a great machine for hosting, but given that hardware, I gave a usable alternative.
I haven't met Bill Gates or Linux Torvalds in person, and am therefore completely unable to judge their intellectual capacity. What makes you so qualified? If you're going to suggest that MS has stolen code, back it up with at least a little bit of evidence. Asking questions about something with no support does not make you "Interesting" or "Insightful"
NT4 Server with an appropriate SQL Server, perhaps?
You do realize that when boxes of that speed came out, they were servers also, right? Just because you can't run the latest and greatest Windows Server 2003 doesn't mean that all MS software is bloated shit. You wouldn't try running Fedora Core with KDE 3.2 on that hardware either. I agree, Debian is awesome for servers and low-end hardware, but don't pretend that it's the only software that can possibly do the job.
If FooNet is as evil as some other posters have claimed, I wouldn't be surprised if their "DDOS protection package" was similar to Mafia protection...
Thanks. I'll check them out.
Ok, I get that he's technically correct according to Codd. However, by his definitions, there isn't a database I've seen that fully implements the relational model. If you have an example of a mature, widely database system that qualifies as a relational database system, I'll stop calling Firebird and Oracle and DB2 relational. Until then, I'll let the marketers call their products whatever they want, because they've produced a useful product that's used by millions. Codd's research is useful, but the word relational has changed in meaning since his time.
This isn't any different than before in respect to DoS. The difference is that you can't use it to execute arbitrary code, so the virus would have to spread using a different security hole. DoS attacks are remarkably hard to prevent due to their very nature. If a service is open to the Internet, it's vulnerable.
That's pretty much what I meant, but it was 2am and I was too tired to go into refcounting and such. Thanks for clearing that up!
Your distinction between soft and hard links doesn't make much sense. I don't think there's any type of link that, when deleted, also deletes the target. The way I learned it:
Softlink (aka symlink): Has it's own file, but any access gets routed to the real file. This is what most links I deal with are. If you delete the real file, the link breaks, but stays there.
Hardlink: Doesn't have own file. Behaves exactly like the original in all ways, but has a different name. If you delete a hardlink or the original file, nothing happens until *all* instances are gone. Hardlinks must be on the same partition.
In Linux under ext2, hardlinks are files with the same inode number. I don't know exactly how softlinks work, but they have different inode numbers than the original.
Windows with NTFS supports hardlinks as mentioned in other posts, and softlinks as shortcuts.
So to sum up, the links you were referring to were hardlinks, and as such rightfully can't go across network. The pseudolinks you were talking about are simply shortcuts, and usually don't work in applications due to shoddy programming.