The moderation page should simply state that offtopic yet interesting and/or too deep in the thread to matter should be ignored by the moderator. Besides, that's what meta-moderating is for... "no, that wasn't fair!"
My pet peave with moderation is that I have to read the articles three or four days late to see what the highscoring responses are... and two weeks late to catch the posts by the people who don't read things right away.
It's a simple typo... Redhat 6.1 comes with 2.2.12... but I love your sig;)
Gnome -- I use... for the three panels I have running (autohiding) with clock / stats / etc.
I may get rid of them entirely at some point as Enlightenment's support for Epplets allows me to do the same things (and its root menus drop down the Gnome and KDE menus so I don't need little feet:).
The Distribution HOWTO is probably a good start. Distributions, to summarize, are packages of software, including a Linux base operating system.
Think of Windows without all the extra software (IE, WordPad, etc.). Then think of Microsoft selling the base Windows system to any company who wanted it (Symantec comes to mind) and those companies selling packages of Windows + Office + Extra software all together.
Distributions are basically that; they take the Linux kernel (the common denominator) and package software around it in a typical Unix style (sometimes they change how the files are laid out on the drive, etc.) and sometimes add their own custom software to make life easier for configuration and installation.
As long as distributions are testing the software they're packaging together and making life easier for those of us who want to keep an up-to-date Linux box, distributions (and paying for the support) are a good thing.
Please consider visiting Tom's Hardware Guide for information on the difference between chipsets, memory types and chips themselves. Very informative and fairly easy to follow.
Pepsi is my preference too, and their marketing's been much better in the last 20 years (think Coke's "new coke" concept). Mind you, Barq's is good... it doesn't bite;). </Offtopicsh>
I guess you don't understand how little bandwidth even heavy users account for. If all users are online at once, and they're heavy users, some stats would show as little as 5% bandwidth per user on average (over time, not instantaneously). Therefore, if you have 1 meg of bandwidth with 20 people, each will probably receive full 1 M/s transfers -WHEN THEY FETCH- because they aren't fetching simultaneously (especially seeing as the fetches finish almost instantaneously).
Yes, if everyone is downloading the redhat ISO at once, you will notice aggregate speed decreases, but for normal web use, even online gaming, you're not going to notice each other at all. That's the gamble that all ISPs work on. You ALWAYS sell more bandwidth than you have... because it won't be all used at once.
I just rifled off an E-mail to turbolinux yesterday re: maintenance of their patches. I was wondering if they would receive approval for their patches from Linus and if not, if they would continue to maintain their patches as patches against the kernel, not as complete kernel releases. In this way, some, if not all of their patches can be incorporated, and others can be downloaded and applied as necessary by those who want them (such as the secure linux patches at kerneli.org).
Definitely - there seems to be a level of paranoia about 12-year-old "superhackers" that makes people think they're a danger to society. The punishment should be the same as punishment for any other sort of vandalism that caused about $2 in damage that's easily fixed. Whatever punishment you'd give to somebody who sprayed shaving cream on your car is what you should give to this kid...
In an earlier article someone cited the use of piracy to refer to copying software. Considering its original use as meaning the attack of pirates on large ships, carrying off their wares and killing lots of crew members (and each other).
This type of term usage may evolve "naturally" but doesn't always "fit the crime" as well noted by Trepidity. I would like to see appropriate media coverage of these issues. After all, the kid in my hometown (Sudbury, Ontario) who broke into NASA's computers by a backdoor modem deserves to be called a malicious (or at least highly curious) hacker. He probably deserves what the FBI are going to do to him (extradition and all).
Part of the problem is that large companies don't want to say "oh look, we have a common security problem that was exploited by an easily downloaded script -- let's fix it". They'd much rather state that "a malicious and very talented hacker got through our almost impenetrable firewalls and routers and managed somehow to get access to our webservers!" Let's make the media realise that these exploits are common and simple to implement so there is some public recognition of the delinquent but not horrific nature of script kiddies (in general).
PS, some people consider spray-painting bridges to be a serious offense. Personally, it's not. However, websites are more easily restored (in general) than bridges are repainted, and at much lower costs.
Much of the research done in the research community doesn't directly produce anything consumer-useable. You'd be surprised, however, at how many of those supposedly useless research projects end up giving us the understanding necessary to go the next mile and get somewhere important.
For instance, there are nanotech facilities that create little bugs -- this doesn't help us as a society a lot as most of us aren't too fond of bugs (sorry to all you entymology people). But since this experimentation and research slowly brings down the sizes of componentry, we get ever closer to being able to work at thos sizes effectively, at which point we start making useful consumer technologies.
I think the issue should not be that "it's not available on Linux, so it sucks", but rather, "it's not the only format, why do people only use it?" After all, high bandwidth realvideo is a pretty good codec, and Intel's multiple bandwidth video codecs are very nice as well. It would be nice, IMHO, to see better QT support on Linux, but I wouldn't say the moderators were wrong to post this article.
Yes, colour LCDs are getting their chance now that they're actually useable (anyone looked at an old 386 laptop recently?)
The Psion series 7 is available now as a larger version of the Series 5 with full colour as well.
I'm not actually that big on the difference between colour and grayscale on a handheld (coming from someone who owns a Messagepad), but as they get cheaper, it'll be nice for the sake of what we'll be doing with them.
For the sake of browsing the web, etc. though, I'd still rather be using a Psion type machine than a Palm although a Palm is definately better for "in your pocket" quickly writing in an appointment.
Interestingly, part of the RMS Linux result will be to ask "how much does the community really care about 'free'ness vs. openness?"
For all some people will talk about how software must be free, many, many people care more about the openness. It's not an awareness issue in many cases either, people simply believe what they believe and it doesn't make sense to most people that a software product "must be free".
OTOH, $1 is actually a good piece of the pie considering Redhat mentions in their SEC filing and elsewhere that they do not make money on their CD distributions in general. Their money is made through support contracts, training, etc.
Just out of question -- you mean that to turn on a light by flipping the switch up is counter-intuitive? Or to open a door with the handle on the left? Or to lift the handle on a minivan trunk? Maybe I'm just reverse programmed here:) (That's waht my wife, in Psych. studies seems to believe at least)
The OSS movement also exists because many of us disagree with RMS on the "nature" of the digital world. Not all of us believe that digital media must be free (as in speach, of course.
It happens to be that many intelligent business will see the advantages of open source software, but probably won't agree re: free software per se because it goes against the nature of what they're doing in most cases (selling software). RMS has said many things about this, so I won't bother any more... read his writings.
I think it would be interesting to see what questions actually came up more than the answers themselves. The answers would of course be carefully considered with PR and the court case in mind... but I think there's a large group of slashdotters who say nothing re: Microsoft because they don't think it's that evil of a company even if the vocal ones say it loudly.
It'd be worth a try... good PR opportunity for him at least.
.NET was designed to be the companies part of making the Internet a network... that would be ISPs, large and small. From sprint.com's ISP section to uu.net (also uunet.com) to (as I mentioned) tyenet(.com).
Having both.com and.net addresses? Yes, this seems plausible... although they should have different homepages in my mind... one geared toward "Hi, we're a company, here is what we do" and the other "Hi, we're involved in the Internet..."
Interestingly enough, I think that if Bill Gates ever wanted to get his hands on a few billion of those dollars he has tied up in shares, the value of MS common stock would plummet and he'd only be worth 10 billion instead of 100 overnight:).
<disclaimer> This comment contains forward-looking statements. These should not be used to base your purchase of... oh, never mind. >/disclaimer>
We all know that the most successful CEOs are very good on the hot seat. I don't believe that Bill Gates came into $100 Billion (US) in the last 15 years or so by being a relatively nice guy who doesn't care much about money or power.
I think he's done an excellent job of maintaining Microsoft as being the head of the pack in some areas (Windows has been very successful in its own right, not just because of monopoly). I think however, that he makes people believe what you've taken away from it so that he doesn't get slammed for being so powerful.
There are two ways to be powerful; Donald Trump and the Mafia... one builds huge towers so everyone knows he's got money, the other silently kills off competitors but acts like a really nice guy in public.
I'd put Bill Gates in the second category.
But hey, to each their own... he's not evil necessarily, just not quite the angel this article makes him out to be.
While we're ranting... how many of you have Internet providers that aren't.NET's? And how many.COMs should be.ORGs? I know dozens and dozens. I worked at tyenet.com... which bugged me... tye.net maybe... tyenet.net sure... but tyenet.com? We were an ISP!:) </rant>
You've brought a wonderful example to mind. If one searches news.com for AMD reports of about two years ago, one will find numerous stories pointing to how AMD is way behind because everyone is moving to Slot-1. Not moving to slot-1 is bad. After all, it's "impossible" to put the cache on the chip.
Ooops. AMD did it first.
Ooops, they never did become Slot-1 compatible. Are they using a cartridge now? Yes. Are they Intel technology compatible? Not a chance... they're going their own route (instruction compatible of course) that is better. Now the media applauds them for their technological superiority and regurgitates the next Intel piece of FUD -- they can't produce volume; they'll lose to Intel again.
Nobody's intelligent or objective these days... that's why tech people don't read News.com for the real information... just for the cute little stories:).
BTW, I wrote this purposely without reading the original person's credentials on their info page. They're in R&D (developing included?) at Borland. Does this make much of a difference to me? Not really. It just shows a little of what yesteryear's people thought and how yesterday's companies operate. I would comment that Borland has lost most of its marketshare to Microsoft... who hires fresh young idealistic programmers (and spits them out).
Well no programmer of Loki's ever wrote 100,000 lines of code that they couldn't leave the showroom with and got hired by Loki. Maybe the learning experience is enough for the first 2 years of a hacker's life but eventually you want to expand your goals to not just learning but producing something you can use after you're done coding it.
So old-school... I'm glad there's such a variety of perspectives on Slashdot:).
At any rate, most of us would (obviously) disagree with you on several points. First, I don't know how you know that no programmer will ever be hired by Loki by writing 100k lines of code (etc.)... after all, that's what you inferred. You weren't just saying that none there had done it (the opportunity probably hadn't arisen) but that the exercise was entirely pointless on the part of the hackers in question (in the sense of getting a job). Since Loki themselves hinted that they'd be headhunting at this event, you're wrong. Period.
Also, you don't seem to understand that those who write code and enjoy doing it aren't inherently inferior to those who just do it to get paid. Cross-reference the recent interview with John Carmack of ID software. He actually enjoys working very long hours on code. Sometimes its because it has to get done, and many others because he likes doing it... he's happy to be getting paid (very well!) for something he likes doing. I would bet however, that he wouldn't be getting paid what he is now if it weren't for his hacking at code when he was younger and just enjoying it (that and making bombs:).
He's the exception?
Nope.
Microsoft has a recruiting centre on campus at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada where they hire students in Comp.Eng. programs in second year sometimes without requiring them to finish school because they want to juice them for their creative energies. Why do I mention it? Because you state that these Loki programmers all have C.S. degrees as though that were something truly beneficial too all programmers.
I hate to force this down your throat, but although many open source programmers could use some basic Comp Sci training in the sense of good coding technique, they're going to end up doing very well for themselves in life with their cumulative experience... but wait, you said:
You have to start looking at costs and benefits of doing these things more and more and coding just for the experience less and less.... whatever open source projects they did in the past were a tiny blip when they got hired.
Maybe so... but that's "when they got hired"... not in the near future. I'd love to meet a software company in two years who doesn't care if you've been involved in serious OSS projects. Everyone knows "us" now, we're in the news all the time and those who do well get hired by companies wanting that fervent talent. Examples? Try MesaGL for starters. More? Ok, raster and mandrake of Enlightenment fame. More? Come now, you get the point.
You're wrong (or just bitter about the lack of respect Comp.Sci. persons get these days)...
Slashdot Mirror
The moderation page should simply state that offtopic yet interesting and/or too deep in the thread to matter should be ignored by the moderator. Besides, that's what meta-moderating is for ... "no, that wasn't fair!"
... and two weeks late to catch the posts by the people who don't read things right away.
My pet peave with moderation is that I have to read the articles three or four days late to see what the highscoring responses are
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
It's a simple typo ... Redhat 6.1 comes with 2.2.12 ... but I love your sig ;)
... for the three panels I have running (autohiding) with clock / stats / etc.
:).
Gnome -- I use
I may get rid of them entirely at some point as Enlightenment's support for Epplets allows me to do the same things (and its root menus drop down the Gnome and KDE menus so I don't need little feet
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
The Distribution HOWTO is probably a good start. Distributions, to summarize, are packages of software, including a Linux base operating system.
Think of Windows without all the extra software (IE, WordPad, etc.). Then think of Microsoft selling the base Windows system to any company who wanted it (Symantec comes to mind) and those companies selling packages of Windows + Office + Extra software all together.
Distributions are basically that; they take the Linux kernel (the common denominator) and package software around it in a typical Unix style (sometimes they change how the files are laid out on the drive, etc.) and sometimes add their own custom software to make life easier for configuration and installation.
As long as distributions are testing the software they're packaging together and making life easier for those of us who want to keep an up-to-date Linux box, distributions (and paying for the support) are a good thing.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Please consider visiting Tom's Hardware Guide for information on the difference between chipsets, memory types and chips themselves. Very informative and fairly easy to follow.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Pepsi is my preference too, and their marketing's been much better in the last 20 years (think Coke's "new coke" concept). Mind you, Barq's is good
</Offtopicsh>
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I guess you don't understand how little bandwidth even heavy users account for. If all users are online at once, and they're heavy users, some stats would show as little as 5% bandwidth per user on average (over time, not instantaneously). Therefore, if you have 1 meg of bandwidth with 20 people, each will probably receive full 1 M/s transfers -WHEN THEY FETCH- because they aren't fetching simultaneously (especially seeing as the fetches finish almost instantaneously).
... because it won't be all used at once.
Yes, if everyone is downloading the redhat ISO at once, you will notice aggregate speed decreases, but for normal web use, even online gaming, you're not going to notice each other at all. That's the gamble that all ISPs work on. You ALWAYS sell more bandwidth than you have
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I just rifled off an E-mail to turbolinux yesterday re: maintenance of their patches. I was wondering if they would receive approval for their patches from Linus and if not, if they would continue to maintain their patches as patches against the kernel, not as complete kernel releases. In this way, some, if not all of their patches can be incorporated, and others can be downloaded and applied as necessary by those who want them (such as the secure linux patches at kerneli.org).
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
In an earlier article someone cited the use of piracy to refer to copying software. Considering its original use as meaning the attack of pirates on large ships, carrying off their wares and killing lots of crew members (and each other).
This type of term usage may evolve "naturally" but doesn't always "fit the crime" as well noted by Trepidity. I would like to see appropriate media coverage of these issues. After all, the kid in my hometown (Sudbury, Ontario) who broke into NASA's computers by a backdoor modem deserves to be called a malicious (or at least highly curious) hacker. He probably deserves what the FBI are going to do to him (extradition and all).
Part of the problem is that large companies don't want to say "oh look, we have a common security problem that was exploited by an easily downloaded script -- let's fix it". They'd much rather state that "a malicious and very talented hacker got through our almost impenetrable firewalls and routers and managed somehow to get access to our webservers!" Let's make the media realise that these exploits are common and simple to implement so there is some public recognition of the delinquent but not horrific nature of script kiddies (in general).
PS, some people consider spray-painting bridges to be a serious offense. Personally, it's not. However, websites are more easily restored (in general) than bridges are repainted, and at much lower costs.
My encryption and security ...
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Much of the research done in the research community doesn't directly produce anything consumer-useable. You'd be surprised, however, at how many of those supposedly useless research projects end up giving us the understanding necessary to go the next mile and get somewhere important.
For instance, there are nanotech facilities that create little bugs -- this doesn't help us as a society a lot as most of us aren't too fond of bugs (sorry to all you entymology people). But since this experimentation and research slowly brings down the sizes of componentry, we get ever closer to being able to work at thos sizes effectively, at which point we start making useful consumer technologies.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
I think the issue should not be that "it's not available on Linux, so it sucks", but rather, "it's not the only format, why do people only use it?" After all, high bandwidth realvideo is a pretty good codec, and Intel's multiple bandwidth video codecs are very nice as well. It would be nice, IMHO, to see better QT support on Linux, but I wouldn't say the moderators were wrong to post this article.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Yes, colour LCDs are getting their chance now that they're actually useable (anyone looked at an old 386 laptop recently?)
The Psion series 7 is available now as a larger version of the Series 5 with full colour as well.
I'm not actually that big on the difference between colour and grayscale on a handheld (coming from someone who owns a Messagepad), but as they get cheaper, it'll be nice for the sake of what we'll be doing with them.
For the sake of browsing the web, etc. though, I'd still rather be using a Psion type machine than a Palm although a Palm is definately better for "in your pocket" quickly writing in an appointment.
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
Interestingly, part of the RMS Linux result will be to ask "how much does the community really care about 'free'ness vs. openness?"
For all some people will talk about how software must be free, many, many people care more about the openness. It's not an awareness issue in many cases either, people simply believe what they believe and it doesn't make sense to most people that a software product "must be free".
Very well stated :)
OTOH, $1 is actually a good piece of the pie considering Redhat mentions in their SEC filing and elsewhere that they do not make money on their CD distributions in general. Their money is made through support contracts, training, etc.
Just out of question -- you mean that to turn on a light by flipping the switch up is counter-intuitive? Or to open a door with the handle on the left? Or to lift the handle on a minivan trunk? Maybe I'm just reverse programmed here :) (That's waht my wife, in Psych. studies seems to believe at least)
The OSS movement also exists because many of us disagree with RMS on the "nature" of the digital world. Not all of us believe that digital media must be free (as in speach, of course.
... read his writings.
It happens to be that many intelligent business will see the advantages of open source software, but probably won't agree re: free software per se because it goes against the nature of what they're doing in most cases (selling software). RMS has said many things about this, so I won't bother any more
Nobody frowns on the millions MS employees donate to charities, just that they believe those millions are significant in light of available funds.
Thanks for agreeing with me ... since that's what I noted in a later post ... yes, if Bill wanted that money, it would practically disappear IMHO. :)
I think it would be interesting to see what questions actually came up more than the answers themselves. The answers would of course be carefully considered with PR and the court case in mind ... but I think there's a large group of slashdotters who say nothing re: Microsoft because they don't think it's that evil of a company even if the vocal ones say it loudly.
... good PR opportunity for him at least.
It'd be worth a try
"Yes but ..." :-)
... that would be ISPs, large and small. From sprint.com's ISP section to uu.net (also uunet.com) to (as I mentioned) tyenet(.com).
.com and .net addresses? Yes, this seems plausible ... although they should have different homepages in my mind ... one geared toward "Hi, we're a company, here is what we do" and the other "Hi, we're involved in the Internet ..."
... :)
.NET was designed to be the companies part of making the Internet a network
Having both
Just my $0.02
Interestingly enough, I think that if Bill Gates ever wanted to get his hands on a few billion of those dollars he has tied up in shares, the value of MS common stock would plummet and he'd only be worth 10 billion instead of 100 overnight :).
... oh, never mind.
<disclaimer>
This comment contains forward-looking statements. These should not be used to base your purchase of
>/disclaimer>
We all know that the most successful CEOs are very good on the hot seat. I don't believe that Bill Gates came into $100 Billion (US) in the last 15 years or so by being a relatively nice guy who doesn't care much about money or power.
... one builds huge towers so everyone knows he's got money, the other silently kills off competitors but acts like a really nice guy in public.
... he's not evil necessarily, just not quite the angel this article makes him out to be.
...
I think he's done an excellent job of maintaining Microsoft as being the head of the pack in some areas (Windows has been very successful in its own right, not just because of monopoly). I think however, that he makes people believe what you've taken away from it so that he doesn't get slammed for being so powerful.
There are two ways to be powerful; Donald Trump and the Mafia
I'd put Bill Gates in the second category.
But hey, to each their own
- Not "misguided", "misguiding"
While we're ranting
</rant>
Ooops. AMD did it first.
Ooops, they never did become Slot-1 compatible. Are they using a cartridge now? Yes. Are they Intel technology compatible? Not a chance
Nobody's intelligent or objective these days
BTW, I wrote this purposely without reading the original person's credentials on their info page. They're in R&D (developing included?) at Borland. Does this make much of a difference to me? Not really. It just shows a little of what yesteryear's people thought and how yesterday's companies operate. I would comment that Borland has lost most of its marketshare to Microsoft ... who hires fresh young idealistic programmers (and spits them out).
So old-school
At any rate, most of us would (obviously) disagree with you on several points. First, I don't know how you know that no programmer will ever be hired by Loki by writing 100k lines of code (etc.)
Also, you don't seem to understand that those who write code and enjoy doing it aren't inherently inferior to those who just do it to get paid. Cross-reference the recent interview with John Carmack of ID software. He actually enjoys working very long hours on code. Sometimes its because it has to get done, and many others because he likes doing it
He's the exception?
Nope.
Microsoft has a recruiting centre on campus at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada where they hire students in Comp.Eng. programs in second year sometimes without requiring them to finish school because they want to juice them for their creative energies. Why do I mention it? Because you state that these Loki programmers all have C.S. degrees as though that were something truly beneficial too all programmers.
I hate to force this down your throat, but although many open source programmers could use some basic Comp Sci training in the sense of good coding technique, they're going to end up doing very well for themselves in life with their cumulative experience
Maybe so
You're wrong (or just bitter about the lack of respect Comp.Sci. persons get these days)