Wouldn't the idea of making a GNU slash Linux-based tax filer be completely contrary to the ideals of the Free Software movement, for which we have fought so long?
There is nothing "free as in freedom" about paying taxes. No sirree. I'll have none of this and neither should you. Why should I share with my neighbor the right to let the government hoard my precious property? That's right I went there. GNU is communism.
You need an AOL login to acces the "PREMIUM SECTION", which is indeed all flash. Unless AOL has done another website redesign since about two days ago. I wouldn't be surprised.
Some day I'm going to find the person responsible for making decisions at AOL and bludgen him with a blunt stick.
AOL had a browser. In fact, they had a whole browser company. They chose to run it into the ground, like seemingly everything else they've touched. (Proper respect for at least funding Mozilla development, though)
Now they plan to introduce a bloated IE shell (of which there are already several superior ones) with the intent of allowing their customers access to AOL's premium content. First of all, there is nothing left on AOL that the rest of the world would be particularly interested in. The global, public Internet has already won resoundingly against AOL's private little sanitized domain.
And then they finish off with this bit of idiocy:
That approach no longer makes sense, said Kerry Pearce-Parkins, director of AOL Product Management. For one, corporations generally prohibit their employees from installing software. That means many subscribers can't access AOL programming during the day.
Clearly offerring another program to install will solve the "people can't install our software" problem.
Why doesn't AOL at least work on improving their horrible web portal if they're so keen on getting people to access their worthless content? Oh that's right, they did... they made it all flash. How delightfully MODERN!
What a worthless company. I bed Ted Turner still shits his pants daily thinking of the mistake he made merging with them. Everything AOL touches turns to shit.
Low-Carb Movement Gains Internet Celebrity Support Low-Carb Movement Gains Internet Celebrity Support
Noted Internet fatass cowboyneal has a new reason to eat a pound of ground
beef, only this time it is not deep fried in corn batter and surrounded by
curly fries. No, on a routine trip to Carl's jr. he tells me that he discovered
the low carb six dollar burger purely by accident, originally thinking of it as
a way to eat more fat and not be filled with bread. It became more of an
obsession than linux douchebaggery. The psychological heirarchy of needs is
proven once again.
Instead of his normal deep fried vegetable fat intake this is animal fat,
something that feeds the carnal nature of all man. It is also the main stay of
one of the most popular low-carb diet crazes to hit the market. The atkin's
nutritional approach is driven not by a lower fat intake, or a particularly low
caloric intake but rather high protein and high fat in the initial stages of
the diet, it is safe to continue induction for up to six months. This induction
phase is what cowboyneal had stumbled upon.
GNAA reporter GuyNiguere questioned Carl's jr. employee and undercover
informant JesuitX about cowboyneal's visits to the fast food chain. Upon
questioning JesuitX pulled his 2-foot nigger cock out of the mayonnaise vat and
began cursing the franchise owner and anyone who looked like that "chink Korean
penny pinching assface with the black heart of a Jew banker foreclosing on a
struggling rural family in western Nebraska". Having never actually answered
any questions GuyNiguere decided to stake the restaurant out him self. These
are the findings of the stake out:
GuyNiguere, stake out report. Day 1
After a morning of no relevant activity I believe I have hit the motherlode
so to speak, after feeling several small tremors and noticing the scent of
burning pork and Marlboro light cigarettes he appeared. This magnificent
behemoth of a man resembling a pasty white pre-surgery Al Roker genetically
crossed with a tokyox hog. I knew at once it was the unspeakable, the terrible,
the unimaginable, CowBoyNeal. After slipping on his own sweat and having three
employees with a hand truck prop him up at the counter he proceeded to order
fourteen low-carb six-dollar burgers. Enough beef to feed the children of an
entire AOL call center.
I feel I must talk to this incredible beast but the crunch of burger
wrappers and commotion of Carl's jr. employees is just too much for me. Today
has been a momentous day, and I would love to get the story first hand from the
man, but surely his failing eyesight, latent racism, and my natural nigger
tendencies to wear bright colors could mean certain death. Perhaps tomorrow, I
need to regain my strength.
The GNAA reporter had every right to be afraid, for the next day he
attempted to talk to the infamous butterball and was likely savagely devoured
much to the amazement of the GNAA. Always the forward thinker he decided to use
his stolen laptop to broadcast the interview live via irc. This shocking moment
in slashdot/gnaa relations is both disturbing and enlightening.
GuyNiguere: I'm here with cowboyneal, I am about to go ask him about his weight loss, I may die, but to leave this world in service of the GNAA is the most noble way to go.
GuyNiguere: Cowboyneal, I see you've lost a lot of weight, how did you manage to do it?
GuyNiguere: He says that I look tasty and that he has lost almost a quarter of his weight 475 lbs. so far by simply eating nothing more than six-dollar burgers dripping with ranch dressing.
GuyNiguere: How did you notice the weight loss, forgive me but a quarter of your weight isn't all that much in the scope of things.
GuyNiguere: He says the first indication was when his wife found his penis and he's been pumping the porker ever since she figured out how to support his cockapron with a pneumatic cylinder.
GuyNiguere: How has your new diet changed your life?
What disturbs me is that a 'standards body' would've considered a completely closed, proprietary codec anyway. Patent-encumbered is one thing. Black-box is another. What were they thinking?
The other day, when I first saw mention of 'CherryOS', the first thing that came to mind was "I bet they're using PearPC code without attribution.". A full-featured PPC emulator (an incredibly difificult accomplishment) coming out so soon after another?
Glad to see that my fears were vindicated. DIE, HOARDER SCUM.
Someone open-sourcing something causes more people to use it?!?!?
If it weren't for the fact that this is MS's open source creation being used, this would not be news.
In any case, kudos to MySQL for taking the first step with Wix and to Microsoft for trying something they have otherwise sworn against.
Hopefully more people will use Wix, and most importantly, will modify it and contribute changes. That would be a nice way of showing MS just what open source can offer, something which everyone else seems to have figured out already.
I sure hope they were using Gentoo, because if not they couldn't take advantage of those incredible speeds with some hot -O3 -funroll-loops action:P
In all seriousness, this is pretty amazing, but I can't really see the usefulness. For sheer geek pride, sure, why not? But as far as I can tell the expense involved outweighs any gain in performance; for probably half of what these poor folks spent getting a P4 to run stably at 6 ghz (and it doesn't even sound super-stable from what I've read) they could've probably bought a couple more CPUs and had a proper SMP system instead. Regardless, I admire their tenacity and mourn for the warranty on their poor CPU:P
Before the inevitable barrage of comments about how nobody with a pirated company would in their right mind agree to this, I'd like to focus on the particular group which Microsoft is actually targetting with this:
...
it is a sensitive group of customers Microsoft is targeting with the program--namely, people who bought a computer that they thought had a legitimate copy of Windows, but are somewhat unsure. Microsoft wants those people as customers, so it wants to be sure to treat them kindly, even as the company seeks to encourage legitimate Windows use.
Who are these people? Being a freelance computer tech (and knowing many others in my trade), I know exactly who these folks are. They're the ones who got a particularly good deal when buying a home-made computer from someone's garage... or, more likely, those who had an OEM copy installed with their retail computer, messed it up dreadfully, and whoever worked on it decided to forego using the "restore disks" (which are often missing, since many people have no idea what they're for, and which are generally dreadfully broken in the first place) and install a questionable copy of XP. I've faced this dillema myself, before, but I always opt to try to fix the existing installation, or inform the customer that their decision to visit every gambling and porn site under the sun necessitates that they buy a new copy of Windows.
These are the folks who can often be genuinely uncertain whether their copy of Windows is legitimate. These are the folks who click "OK" on everything anyway. The question is what they have to gain from this knowledge, and, more importantly, what Microsoft has to gain.
What information can Microsoft harvest, exactly? They surely know how widespread these practices are; after all, they practically encourage them with their cutthroat OEM policies. Also, they insist (at least according to the article) that they won't treat those with an unlicensed copy any differently from those with a legitimate one. My guess, among other things, is they'll start harvesting illegitimate license codes (like they have in the past... FCKGW anyone?) and perhaps block them a year in advance.
Yes, a firewall and/or NAT is all you really need. Evidently Norton Internet Security did not live up to its promise, which comes as little surprise to me, I must admit.
I've had success installing Windows XP and upgrading it with only Microsoft's Internet Connection Firewall enabled.
This may get modded down, but the guy who posted the article is an utter moron.
He's already posted this link on two message boards (Ars Technica and Something Awful), to be informed that his copy of IIS Personal Web Server, included with Windows, which allows a maximum of 5 connections, couldn't stand up to the onslaught.
Evidently, he decided posting it on Slashdot was a logical next step.
I was long awaiting the unveiling of another 'bird' app to complete the collection, but then Mozilla threw consistency to the winds with the renaming of Firebird... now I don't know what to think:(
On the upside, Sunbird looks like a pretty nice app, but it comes with so much baggage (basically a whole NSPR/Gecko runtime). 11 megs for a calendar app? If Mozilla is going to continue spinning off parts of their suite as individual apps, they should at least consider taking the otherwise redundant parts and keeping them in one shared directory. Of course, with hard drive space and memory being available for so cheap these days, who cares except for the pycklers like myself:(
Objective-C literally takes about 5 minutes to learn.
It adds a few keywords to C (it's in the single-digits, I believe) and one syntactic structure.
The idea that people aren't picking up Objective-C because they don't want to learn another language is preposterous. They're not picking it up because the only complete platform to develop with it is Apple's Cocoa, and that's just not large enough of a platform to be worthwhile to a lot of development houses. Once GNUstep is up to par (in my opinion it already is if you're willing to be a hacker, but that's obviously not true for most) I think exactly that raison-d'etre will be delivered.
No. What is missing is the final (and most important) piece of the cross-platform idea - Windows. I'm a Mac guy, and I love Cocoa, and I've been a Linux user since 1994 and a Solaris user befor that, but I understand the realities of the world today. For a development platform like GNUStep to succeed, it has to be able to run on Windows and, and here's the kicker, act like a native Windows application.
A salient point, and one on which you would find surprising agreement from the fine denizens of the gnustep-discuss mailing list.
It is recognized that GNUstep pretty much utterly fails on Win32 (at least in terms of the Application Kit... Foundation Kit is relatively functional but of course provides no GUI functionality). I foresee a future where the actual drawing of widgets and interaction with the user is abstracted away into different backend libraries on each platform, and interfaces are coded in XML which is parsed by XSLT stylesheets into the proper layouts for each platform.
I suggested this idea on gnustep-discuss and it received a lukewarm response, but I'm considering working on it myself, starting off with Nicola Pero's excellent Renaissance framework.
That is indeed something that was pointed out in the article. Don't forget, however, Carbon is simply a stepping-stone API. It was created by Apple so their legacy developers wouldn't be caught out in the sands with a completely new OS and a completely new API. Apple knew that combination would be disastrous so they created a new API from scratch that was mostly source-compatible with the old one to allow for easy porting.
Carbon, however, will never be deployed on other platforms. It's a horrible, messy kludge composed of about 15 years of Macintosh API evolution plus the necessary changes to make it work on OS X. There's nothing about it that's appealing from a "beginning to code for" standpoint... it's just there for transition.
Cocoa has all that potential because it is a beautiful, clean API in a modern object-oriented language plus it already has cross-platform support in the form of GNUstep. The article decried the lack of interest in starting to code for Cocoa (and thus to create new Mac OS apps) by new developers precisely because it's only really supported on OS X and thus not attractive... I think GNUstep already proves that false to a degree and will do so further in the future.
I just perused the majority of that blog entry and...
No mention of GNUstep?
GNUstep is a complete reimplementation of the OPENSTEP (i. e. Cocoa) frameworks which works on GNU/Linux, BSD, and several other *NIX platforms... it already provides the portability necessary and an environment to develop apps against that framework for free.
What it's missing is a few crucial pieces which are slowly starting to fall together:
1).NIB compatibility. Apple never released the specs for their NIB (NeXTStep Interface Builder) format in which Cocoa interfaces are saved. Thus GNUstep had to create their own (first.gmodel, and then.gorm), neither of which are compatible with Apple's, which requires developers to reimplement interface files on each platform (trust me, this is a royal pain in the ass). However, a framework called Renaissance, which builds on OS X and GNUstep and allows you to specify your interfaces in XML, is starting to take hold. All it lacks is a graphical interface builder, and word on the grapevine is that such a thing is coming soon. 2). $$$. GNUstep has no major corporate backer. Most of the people who work on it work on it because they love it. KDE, Gnome, and Mono all have the Novell monstrosity behind them. GNUstep has nothing. 3). Lack of distributed objects compatibility. See (1) 4). Outdated interface. The OPENSTEP look is, needless to say, passe. Apple did well redesigning their interface completely. GNUstep still looks like OPENSTEP did 10 years ago. This needs to change.
If Apple were to throw their weight behind GNUstep ( a tough decision, but an interesting one which could potentially bode well for both Apple and the free software community ) we could have the outcome the author asks for... Apple pushing a disruptive technology based on their own frameworks into free software, and taking hold of the market. Pipe dream? Maybe. But we can dream;)
I guess we can consider the fact that it's still up a testament to OpenBSD:)
In all seriousness, though, OpenBSD has been a blessing for running Metawire. I joined the admin team a few months ago, after having been a lowly user and an active member of the community since last year, and have found (as Danny put so well in his article) that the biggest challenges in terms of maintaining a secure and stable server with thousands of users are well met by a system with a philosophy like OpenBSD's.
The challenges that OpenBSD and a proper user management system (which I have been an active developer on since I was made an admin) can not handle are those that plague any provider of a free service, namely the ages-old Tragedy of the Commons.
Garret Hardin's prophetic essay deals mainly with the human tendency for one to maximize the usage of any communal space for his own personal gain, and at the same time to shirk the responsibilities of its upkeep since it is not "his". As this applies to being a free shell provider on the Internet, you have to deal constantly with users who apply, abuse the service, are given the boot, and then show up again. As far as they are concerned it is a common space, freely available, for which they are not responsible. Since they do not take ownership in any sense, what responsibility to they have to keep things OK for others?
The "tragedy of the commons" manifests itself in the biggest administrative headaches the team has had to face so far. People signing up to use bandwidth-hogging psyBNCs/IRC proxies to get past bans on networks or keep nicknames alive, people using our service to mailbomb, people using it to host illegal materials... Had they been using a paid shell (which are widely available) for which they had some degree of "ownership" and at least an implied responsibility to follow the rules, their behavior might be less destructive, but because they are using a free resource, they feel unburdened by any responsibility towards other users and the administrative staff.
I could let these failings of human nature get me down, but thankfully there is another tool which can fill in where OpenBSD fails. Perhaps even the vagaries of man can be overcome...
Heh... Interesting that the first trojan horse/virus yet to be seen for OS X uniquely exploits the discordance between the "Classic" pre-OS X way of specifying file types (File Type/Creator metadata) and the new, inherited-from-Windows, file extension method.
The basic gist of this trojan from what I've read so far (there is very little information aside from what Intego has on their own web site) is that it is a file with type AAPL (executable application) but with an.mp3 extension... the Finder thus displays an MP3 icon for it yet launches it as an application when the user double-clicks.
What this basically comes down to, then, is the Finder making the wrong decision as to how to present the file to the user. Specifically that it presents it in one way, but acts upon it (when double-clicked) in the other. Whether it should first obey the deprecated file type metadata or the file extension is left to be argued about... what's certain is that it should always behave with the file the same way it presents it. I predict a bug fix for this will be in OS X shortly.
*footnote: Verisign does, however, operate 2 of the root servers, A and J. In fact, Verisign operates them quite well, and in co-operation with the other root-server operators. But all root servers have the same data, provided by ICANN. The list of root servers (and who operates them) can be found here.
Ah, so that's what my BIND server has been feeding off of:)
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has no authority to prevent VeriSign from rolling out a search engine for users who mistype Internet addressees, VeriSign said, as well as another feature that allows users to sign up for a waiting list for desirable domain names.
Nice and misleading explanation right there. We're talking about a 'search engine' that impacts any internet application querying a non-existent domain. Once again, the "THE INTERNET IS ONLY THE WEB" mindset that low-grade tech journalism seems to be stuck in is preventing people from realizing the destructive nature of something as profound as adding a wildcard to major TLDs.
"This brazen attempt by ICANN (news - web sites) to assume 'regulatory power' over VeriSign's business is a serious abuse of ICANN's technical coordination function," said VeriSign in the suit, which was filed in U.S. court in Los Angeles.
Errmm... Last I checked, regulating internet infrastructure with regards to assigned names and numbers is ICANN's job. Anything less than a "brazen attempt" and they would be failing at enforcing the RFCs and other regulations they've been entrusted to enforce. Since when do Verisign's business interests trump this?
Though ICANN restructured itself to operate more efficiently last year, a VeriSign official said the group was still too cumbersome.
"Working the ICANN process is like being nibbled to death by ducks," said Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president for government relations. "It takes forever, it doesn't make sense, and in the end we're still dead in the water."
At least they respond to complains with action, instead of stonewalling anyone who disagrees with them, as Verisign so eagerly did when the SiteFinder controversy first broke.
Screw Verisign. I've seen plenty of companies with brazen, my-way-or-the-highway attitudes, but this one is entrusted with managing a major international public resource, and have been caught with their pants down abusing that trust. To whine like this is a sign of just how out of step Verisign really is. Frankly, they deserve to have all authority over the root servers taken away from them before they do more harm in their quest for profits.
So soon after the "Bluetooth is Dying" article we get this.
Methinks a conspiracy!
In all honesty, this looks like quite nice tech though I can imagine some of the implementation will be a real pill. Problems like how to manage roaming a device from one cluster to the next will surely require some ingenuity, especially given that backwards compatibility with classic USB devices is a goal (though I presume that those will only be adjuncts to the cluster, sitting at a wirelesswired bridge).
Bluetooth has fulfilled quite well the idea of a truly ad-hoc network among devices, but I assume that will be a much more difficult thing to achieve with WUSB, making some, I'm sure, doubt the point of the project. I think the idea of devices beaming data around to each other at 480 mbits answers that one quite nicely. I look forward to this*
*linux and OS X support for this; until then, I ain't touchin' it:)
I've experienced the same frustration plenty of times myself, having ushered several family members and friends on to the internet, only to be confronted by the same ridiculous ( HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!?!?! ) behaviors.
The fact of the matter is, most people treat computers like a glorified appliance. A computer should more aptly be treated like a motor vehicle; yeah, you can go have some fun in it but you'd better drive defensively and know how to operate the thing properly. You don't just take it out of the box and start pressing buttons
Can we really blame the users though? After having dealt with plenty of computer illiterates in my day, I've come to realize that advertising and computer companies are at least as responsible as the users themselves. Inasmuch as they may be advertised to be so, a computer is not "plug and play". It requires maintenance and careful attention! Computer companies have put the average consumer into a "PRES BUTAN TO INTERNET!!!" mindset, and it's a bit hard to get them out of it.
Frankly, though, I can't say that it bothers me too much. Computer illiterates are my best source of favors. You need all that spyware removed and windows reinstalled? Yeah, well I need some vodka. Of course the fact that they do a nice job of filling my inbox with crap (both viruses themselves, and spam from hijacked machines) certainly gets on my nerves, but I've got my fingers crossed waiting for the next breed of mail protocol which should solve these problems altogether.
Sometimes things just work out:)
Oh Darl, when will you ever learn?
on
Darl Goes to Harvard
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Erica's question (the second to last, as McBride claimed "that girl really wants to ask a question") was "You've said you like the GPL, that you distribute GPL products, and that people should be able to contribute however they want. Why then did you claim in December that you believe the GPL violates the constitution, and US patent and trademark law?"
McBride's response was essentially "look, over there, something shiny! next question!"
Seems like the MIT students did a nice job putting him on the spot, but it's obvious that ol' Darl is pretty adept at deflecting any criticism or challenging questions and changing the subject when he finds the current one uncomfortable.
What will it take to get him to address all the contradictory statements and lies that he and his cohorts seem to spout at every opportunity?
Perhaps it's time to try to get that court date pushed up:)
Slashdot Mirror
Wouldn't the idea of making a GNU slash Linux-based tax filer be completely contrary to the ideals of the Free Software movement, for which we have fought so long?
There is nothing "free as in freedom" about paying taxes. No sirree. I'll have none of this and neither should you. Why should I share with my neighbor the right to let the government hoard my precious property? That's right I went there. GNU is communism.
This post is first.
Long live Comrade Stallman.
You need an AOL login to acces the "PREMIUM SECTION", which is indeed all flash. Unless AOL has done another website redesign since about two days ago. I wouldn't be surprised.
Boy, it's a hoot.
AOL had a browser. In fact, they had a whole browser company. They chose to run it into the ground, like seemingly everything else they've touched. (Proper respect for at least funding Mozilla development, though)
Now they plan to introduce a bloated IE shell (of which there are already several superior ones) with the intent of allowing their customers access to AOL's premium content. First of all, there is nothing left on AOL that the rest of the world would be particularly interested in. The global, public Internet has already won resoundingly against AOL's private little sanitized domain.
And then they finish off with this bit of idiocy:
Clearly offerring another program to install will solve the "people can't install our software" problem.
Why doesn't AOL at least work on improving their horrible web portal if they're so keen on getting people to access their worthless content? Oh that's right, they did... they made it all flash. How delightfully MODERN!
What a worthless company. I bed Ted Turner still shits his pants daily thinking of the mistake he made merging with them. Everything AOL touches turns to shit.
Low-Carb Movement Gains Internet Celebrity Support
Noted Internet fatass cowboyneal has a new reason to eat a pound of ground beef, only this time it is not deep fried in corn batter and surrounded by curly fries. No, on a routine trip to Carl's jr. he tells me that he discovered the low carb six dollar burger purely by accident, originally thinking of it as a way to eat more fat and not be filled with bread. It became more of an obsession than linux douchebaggery. The psychological heirarchy of needs is proven once again.
Instead of his normal deep fried vegetable fat intake this is animal fat, something that feeds the carnal nature of all man. It is also the main stay of one of the most popular low-carb diet crazes to hit the market. The atkin's nutritional approach is driven not by a lower fat intake, or a particularly low caloric intake but rather high protein and high fat in the initial stages of the diet, it is safe to continue induction for up to six months. This induction phase is what cowboyneal had stumbled upon.
GNAA reporter GuyNiguere questioned Carl's jr. employee and undercover informant JesuitX about cowboyneal's visits to the fast food chain. Upon questioning JesuitX pulled his 2-foot nigger cock out of the mayonnaise vat and began cursing the franchise owner and anyone who looked like that "chink Korean penny pinching assface with the black heart of a Jew banker foreclosing on a struggling rural family in western Nebraska". Having never actually answered any questions GuyNiguere decided to stake the restaurant out him self. These are the findings of the stake out:
GuyNiguere, stake out report. Day 1
After a morning of no relevant activity I believe I have hit the motherlode so to speak, after feeling several small tremors and noticing the scent of burning pork and Marlboro light cigarettes he appeared. This magnificent behemoth of a man resembling a pasty white pre-surgery Al Roker genetically crossed with a tokyox hog. I knew at once it was the unspeakable, the terrible, the unimaginable, CowBoyNeal. After slipping on his own sweat and having three employees with a hand truck prop him up at the counter he proceeded to order fourteen low-carb six-dollar burgers. Enough beef to feed the children of an entire AOL call center.
I feel I must talk to this incredible beast but the crunch of burger wrappers and commotion of Carl's jr. employees is just too much for me. Today has been a momentous day, and I would love to get the story first hand from the man, but surely his failing eyesight, latent racism, and my natural nigger tendencies to wear bright colors could mean certain death. Perhaps tomorrow, I need to regain my strength.
The GNAA reporter had every right to be afraid, for the next day he attempted to talk to the infamous butterball and was likely savagely devoured much to the amazement of the GNAA. Always the forward thinker he decided to use his stolen laptop to broadcast the interview live via irc. This shocking moment in slashdot/gnaa relations is both disturbing and enlightening.
GuyNiguere: I'm here with cowboyneal, I am about to go ask him about his weight loss, I may die, but to leave this world in service of the GNAA is the most noble way to go.
GuyNiguere: Cowboyneal, I see you've lost a lot of weight, how did you manage to do it?
GuyNiguere: He says that I look tasty and that he has lost almost a quarter of his weight 475 lbs. so far by simply eating nothing more than six-dollar burgers dripping with ranch dressing.
GuyNiguere: How did you notice the weight loss, forgive me but a quarter of your weight isn't all that much in the scope of things.
GuyNiguere: He says the first indication was when his wife found his penis and he's been pumping the porker ever since she figured out how to support his cockapron with a pneumatic cylinder.
GuyNiguere: How has your new diet changed your life?
GuyNiguere: He said I look l
What disturbs me is that a 'standards body' would've considered a completely closed, proprietary codec anyway. Patent-encumbered is one thing. Black-box is another. What were they thinking?
The other day, when I first saw mention of 'CherryOS', the first thing that came to mind was "I bet they're using PearPC code without attribution.". A full-featured PPC emulator (an incredibly difificult accomplishment) coming out so soon after another?
Glad to see that my fears were vindicated. DIE, HOARDER SCUM.
Wait, so what you're implying is...
Someone open-sourcing something causes more people to use it?!?!?
If it weren't for the fact that this is MS's open source creation being used, this would not be news.
In any case, kudos to MySQL for taking the first step with Wix and to Microsoft for trying something they have otherwise sworn against.
Hopefully more people will use Wix, and most importantly, will modify it and contribute changes. That would be a nice way of showing MS just what open source can offer, something which everyone else seems to have figured out already.
I sure hope they were using Gentoo, because if not they couldn't take advantage of those incredible speeds with some hot -O3 -funroll-loops action :P
:P
In all seriousness, this is pretty amazing, but I can't really see the usefulness. For sheer geek pride, sure, why not? But as far as I can tell the expense involved outweighs any gain in performance; for probably half of what these poor folks spent getting a P4 to run stably at 6 ghz (and it doesn't even sound super-stable from what I've read) they could've probably bought a couple more CPUs and had a proper SMP system instead. Regardless, I admire their tenacity and mourn for the warranty on their poor CPU
Who are these people? Being a freelance computer tech (and knowing many others in my trade), I know exactly who these folks are. They're the ones who got a particularly good deal when buying a home-made computer from someone's garage... or, more likely, those who had an OEM copy installed with their retail computer, messed it up dreadfully, and whoever worked on it decided to forego using the "restore disks" (which are often missing, since many people have no idea what they're for, and which are generally dreadfully broken in the first place) and install a questionable copy of XP. I've faced this dillema myself, before, but I always opt to try to fix the existing installation, or inform the customer that their decision to visit every gambling and porn site under the sun necessitates that they buy a new copy of Windows.
These are the folks who can often be genuinely uncertain whether their copy of Windows is legitimate. These are the folks who click "OK" on everything anyway. The question is what they have to gain from this knowledge, and, more importantly, what Microsoft has to gain.
What information can Microsoft harvest, exactly? They surely know how widespread these practices are; after all, they practically encourage them with their cutthroat OEM policies. Also, they insist (at least according to the article) that they won't treat those with an unlicensed copy any differently from those with a legitimate one. My guess, among other things, is they'll start harvesting illegitimate license codes (like they have in the past... FCKGW anyone?) and perhaps block them a year in advance.
Yes, a firewall and/or NAT is all you really need. Evidently Norton Internet Security did not live up to its promise, which comes as little surprise to me, I must admit.
I've had success installing Windows XP and upgrading it with only Microsoft's Internet Connection Firewall enabled.
This may get modded down, but the guy who posted the article is an utter moron.
He's already posted this link on two message boards (Ars Technica and Something Awful), to be informed that his copy of IIS Personal Web Server, included with Windows, which allows a maximum of 5 connections, couldn't stand up to the onslaught.
Evidently, he decided posting it on Slashdot was a logical next step.
I was long awaiting the unveiling of another 'bird' app to complete the collection, but then Mozilla threw consistency to the winds with the renaming of Firebird... now I don't know what to think :(
:(
On the upside, Sunbird looks like a pretty nice app, but it comes with so much baggage (basically a whole NSPR/Gecko runtime). 11 megs for a calendar app? If Mozilla is going to continue spinning off parts of their suite as individual apps, they should at least consider taking the otherwise redundant parts and keeping them in one shared directory. Of course, with hard drive space and memory being available for so cheap these days, who cares except for the pycklers like myself
Objective-C literally takes about 5 minutes to learn.
It adds a few keywords to C (it's in the single-digits, I believe) and one syntactic structure.
The idea that people aren't picking up Objective-C because they don't want to learn another language is preposterous. They're not picking it up because the only complete platform to develop with it is Apple's Cocoa, and that's just not large enough of a platform to be worthwhile to a lot of development houses. Once GNUstep is up to par (in my opinion it already is if you're willing to be a hacker, but that's obviously not true for most) I think exactly that raison-d'etre will be delivered.
A salient point, and one on which you would find surprising agreement from the fine denizens of the gnustep-discuss mailing list.
It is recognized that GNUstep pretty much utterly fails on Win32 (at least in terms of the Application Kit... Foundation Kit is relatively functional but of course provides no GUI functionality). I foresee a future where the actual drawing of widgets and interaction with the user is abstracted away into different backend libraries on each platform, and interfaces are coded in XML which is parsed by XSLT stylesheets into the proper layouts for each platform.
I suggested this idea on gnustep-discuss and it received a lukewarm response, but I'm considering working on it myself, starting off with Nicola Pero's excellent Renaissance framework.
That is indeed something that was pointed out in the article. Don't forget, however, Carbon is simply a stepping-stone API. It was created by Apple so their legacy developers wouldn't be caught out in the sands with a completely new OS and a completely new API. Apple knew that combination would be disastrous so they created a new API from scratch that was mostly source-compatible with the old one to allow for easy porting.
Carbon, however, will never be deployed on other platforms. It's a horrible, messy kludge composed of about 15 years of Macintosh API evolution plus the necessary changes to make it work on OS X. There's nothing about it that's appealing from a "beginning to code for" standpoint... it's just there for transition.
Cocoa has all that potential because it is a beautiful, clean API in a modern object-oriented language plus it already has cross-platform support in the form of GNUstep. The article decried the lack of interest in starting to code for Cocoa (and thus to create new Mac OS apps) by new developers precisely because it's only really supported on OS X and thus not attractive... I think GNUstep already proves that false to a degree and will do so further in the future.
I just perused the majority of that blog entry and...
.NIB compatibility. Apple never released the specs for their NIB (NeXTStep Interface Builder) format in which Cocoa interfaces are saved. Thus GNUstep had to create their own (first .gmodel, and then .gorm), neither of which are compatible with Apple's, which requires developers to reimplement interface files on each platform (trust me, this is a royal pain in the ass). However, a framework called Renaissance, which builds on OS X and GNUstep and allows you to specify your interfaces in XML, is starting to take hold. All it lacks is a graphical interface builder, and word on the grapevine is that such a thing is coming soon.
;)
No mention of GNUstep?
GNUstep is a complete reimplementation of the OPENSTEP (i. e. Cocoa) frameworks which works on GNU/Linux, BSD, and several other *NIX platforms... it already provides the portability necessary and an environment to develop apps against that framework for free.
What it's missing is a few crucial pieces which are slowly starting to fall together:
1)
2). $$$. GNUstep has no major corporate backer. Most of the people who work on it work on it because they love it. KDE, Gnome, and Mono all have the Novell monstrosity behind them. GNUstep has nothing.
3). Lack of distributed objects compatibility. See (1)
4). Outdated interface. The OPENSTEP look is, needless to say, passe. Apple did well redesigning their interface completely. GNUstep still looks like OPENSTEP did 10 years ago. This needs to change.
If Apple were to throw their weight behind GNUstep ( a tough decision, but an interesting one which could potentially bode well for both Apple and the free software community ) we could have the outcome the author asks for... Apple pushing a disruptive technology based on their own frameworks into free software, and taking hold of the market. Pipe dream? Maybe. But we can dream
Metawire.org, my precious server, slashdotted!
:)
:P
I guess we can consider the fact that it's still up a testament to OpenBSD
In all seriousness, though, OpenBSD has been a blessing for running Metawire. I joined the admin team a few months ago, after having been a lowly user and an active member of the community since last year, and have found (as Danny put so well in his article) that the biggest challenges in terms of maintaining a secure and stable server with thousands of users are well met by a system with a philosophy like OpenBSD's.
The challenges that OpenBSD and a proper user management system (which I have been an active developer on since I was made an admin) can not handle are those that plague any provider of a free service, namely the ages-old Tragedy of the Commons.
Garret Hardin's prophetic essay deals mainly with the human tendency for one to maximize the usage of any communal space for his own personal gain, and at the same time to shirk the responsibilities of its upkeep since it is not "his". As this applies to being a free shell provider on the Internet, you have to deal constantly with users who apply, abuse the service, are given the boot, and then show up again. As far as they are concerned it is a common space, freely available, for which they are not responsible. Since they do not take ownership in any sense, what responsibility to they have to keep things OK for others?
The "tragedy of the commons" manifests itself in the biggest administrative headaches the team has had to face so far. People signing up to use bandwidth-hogging psyBNCs/IRC proxies to get past bans on networks or keep nicknames alive, people using our service to mailbomb, people using it to host illegal materials... Had they been using a paid shell (which are widely available) for which they had some degree of "ownership" and at least an implied responsibility to follow the rules, their behavior might be less destructive, but because they are using a free resource, they feel unburdened by any responsibility towards other users and the administrative staff.
I could let these failings of human nature get me down, but thankfully there is another tool which can fill in where OpenBSD fails. Perhaps even the vagaries of man can be overcome...
by Perl
WebObjects is not free software.
GNUstepWeb, however, is.
And yes, it's a complete clone of WebObjects and Enterprise Object Framework.
Heh... Interesting that the first trojan horse/virus yet to be seen for OS X uniquely exploits the discordance between the "Classic" pre-OS X way of specifying file types (File Type/Creator metadata) and the new, inherited-from-Windows, file extension method.
.mp3 extension... the Finder thus displays an MP3 icon for it yet launches it as an application when the user double-clicks.
The basic gist of this trojan from what I've read so far (there is very little information aside from what Intego has on their own web site) is that it is a file with type AAPL (executable application) but with an
What this basically comes down to, then, is the Finder making the wrong decision as to how to present the file to the user. Specifically that it presents it in one way, but acts upon it (when double-clicked) in the other. Whether it should first obey the deprecated file type metadata or the file extension is left to be argued about... what's certain is that it should always behave with the file the same way it presents it. I predict a bug fix for this will be in OS X shortly.
I have an account on a box hosted at EV1. The owner of the box, a rather blatant Linux zealot, will not be happy to hear this news.
As soon as I get in touch with him, I'm asking him to move his sytem elsewhere. No way in hell is a dime of money from my hosting bills going to SCO.
Ah, so that's what my BIND server has been feeding off of
Nice and misleading explanation right there. We're talking about a 'search engine' that impacts any internet application querying a non-existent domain. Once again, the "THE INTERNET IS ONLY THE WEB" mindset that low-grade tech journalism seems to be stuck in is preventing people from realizing the destructive nature of something as profound as adding a wildcard to major TLDs.
Errmm... Last I checked, regulating internet infrastructure with regards to assigned names and numbers is ICANN's job. Anything less than a "brazen attempt" and they would be failing at enforcing the RFCs and other regulations they've been entrusted to enforce. Since when do Verisign's business interests trump this?
At least they respond to complains with action, instead of stonewalling anyone who disagrees with them, as Verisign so eagerly did when the SiteFinder controversy first broke.
Screw Verisign. I've seen plenty of companies with brazen, my-way-or-the-highway attitudes, but this one is entrusted with managing a major international public resource, and have been caught with their pants down abusing that trust. To whine like this is a sign of just how out of step Verisign really is. Frankly, they deserve to have all authority over the root servers taken away from them before they do more harm in their quest for profits.
So soon after the "Bluetooth is Dying" article we get this.
:)
Methinks a conspiracy!
In all honesty, this looks like quite nice tech though I can imagine some of the implementation will be a real pill. Problems like how to manage roaming a device from one cluster to the next will surely require some ingenuity, especially given that backwards compatibility with classic USB devices is a goal (though I presume that those will only be adjuncts to the cluster, sitting at a wirelesswired bridge).
Bluetooth has fulfilled quite well the idea of a truly ad-hoc network among devices, but I assume that will be a much more difficult thing to achieve with WUSB, making some, I'm sure, doubt the point of the project. I think the idea of devices beaming data around to each other at 480 mbits answers that one quite nicely. I look forward to this*
*linux and OS X support for this; until then, I ain't touchin' it
I've experienced the same frustration plenty of times myself, having ushered several family members and friends on to the internet, only to be confronted by the same ridiculous ( HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!?!?! ) behaviors.
:)
The fact of the matter is, most people treat computers like a glorified appliance. A computer should more aptly be treated like a motor vehicle; yeah, you can go have some fun in it but you'd better drive defensively and know how to operate the thing properly. You don't just take it out of the box and start pressing buttons
Can we really blame the users though? After having dealt with plenty of computer illiterates in my day, I've come to realize that advertising and computer companies are at least as responsible as the users themselves. Inasmuch as they may be advertised to be so, a computer is not "plug and play". It requires maintenance and careful attention! Computer companies have put the average consumer into a "PRES BUTAN TO INTERNET!!!" mindset, and it's a bit hard to get them out of it.
Frankly, though, I can't say that it bothers me too much. Computer illiterates are my best source of favors. You need all that spyware removed and windows reinstalled? Yeah, well I need some vodka. Of course the fact that they do a nice job of filling my inbox with crap (both viruses themselves, and spam from hijacked machines) certainly gets on my nerves, but I've got my fingers crossed waiting for the next breed of mail protocol which should solve these problems altogether.
Sometimes things just work out
Seems like the MIT students did a nice job putting him on the spot, but it's obvious that ol' Darl is pretty adept at deflecting any criticism or challenging questions and changing the subject when he finds the current one uncomfortable.
What will it take to get him to address all the contradictory statements and lies that he and his cohorts seem to spout at every opportunity?
Perhaps it's time to try to get that court date pushed up