User loads page from A.com, reads it for a short while -- say 30 seconds. User clicks on a link in that page to B.com.
The log for A.com will show a hit at time x, the log for B.com will show a hit at time 'x plus 30 seconds'. There is absolutely no way to correlate the two. The user could have looked at the A.com page for 200ms or 5 days before clicking on the link to B.com.
Besides, the notion of two completely unrelated sites somehow sharing complete logs is a little, uh, contrived.
Re:BitTorrent is no-go for small files..
on
RSS & BT Together?
·
· Score: 1
Nope, there's a huge difference. If each client reported to the tracker every time it got a piece the system would be useless. Torrents typically have 1000 or more pieces and if the client went to the tracker every time it got one the tracker would suffer a complete and total meltdown if it was tracking a moderate # of clients. Instead the client polls every 'n' minutes, telling the tracker its percentage finished -- which the tracker doesn't use for anything other than determining if the client has the complete file or not. The tracker really does not know squat about the torrent, it's just there to help clients meet up with each other. That is quite different than what the OP was trying to say.
Re:BitTorrent is no-go for small files..
on
RSS & BT Together?
·
· Score: 1
False. The tracker has no idea of the piece structure of the torrent, nor do clients contact it after completing a piece. All the tracker knows about is IP addresses, and the percentage complete that the client reports. The clients poll the tracker every 20 minutes or so (configurable by the tracker admin.)
This is not deserving of an +5 status as it shows a complete lack of understanding of how BitTorrent works.
LWP really just replaces the fetching part, it doesn't do anything to extract the data. It will definitely be easier than curl on the command line, no parameter passing to worry about.
To get the data from the page you can either use a bunch of regexps (as you've done, apparently) or a parser like HTML::TokeParser::Simple. The advantage of a parser is that it makes it more robust and immune to site changes. You also get higher quality data, for example if something subtle changes in the site's html source you sometimes get something like "this is the data <A href="whatever"..." In other words, you don't have to worry about quoting or tag boundaries or anything like that. Naturally, if your script allows user interaction this will tend to be more secure as there is less chance of a XSS and/or SQL injection vuln.
But, using a parser takes a little bit of investment up front in terms of time. With the '::Simple' variant it's really pretty easy, but it still requires that you be a little familiar with the tree structure of the page so that you can pull out the stuff you want.
All in all, if it works don't switch, but in the future you'll have a more robust and maintainable setup if you use LWP and a parser instead of commandline curl and regexps.
That's just bullshit. By that logic, every company that has ever sold a product must support it indefinitely, otherwise the cost of their products is automatically some godawful "tax." That's just not the case. Nothing is supported forever, and no one is forcing you to stay with Windows. If you choose to use commerical software then you choose to pay to upgrade it every so often. Frankly, the fact that modern stuff still works moderately well with an OS that's close to 6 years old is astounding. By that logic, getting your timing belt changed at 60,000 miles is the "GM tax" and replacing a burnt out light bulb is the "GE tax." That's just ridiculous.
The reason for the term "Microsoft tax" is when referring to purchase of a new PC from all the popular vendors requiring the purchase of a Windows license as well. In this sense it is mandatory, you have no control over it. (Unless you go to a no-name vendor or built it yourself, of course.) In this sense it's much closer to a tax in that it's not optional. If you want to buy a PC from Dell, Gateway, etc. then you must by a Windows license. THIS is the reason it's called a tax, because for most people it's compulsory. That Microsoft is in the business of selling software and new versions cost money does NOT make it a tax of any sort.
I agree completely. I don't know what kind of backwater these people are living in, but the thought of actually having to move the mouse pointer over to some thin little scroll widget to move text up and down gives me shivers. The scroll wheel is a godsend, and looking back I don't know how I got along without it.
I happen to have my middle button/scroll wheel mapped to "close window" which I find very useful. It takes a little getting used to but I find that the action of moving over the little "X" widget to close a window or dismiss a dialog is so common that I save a great deal of time being able to do it with a single click, without moving the pointer. And yes, I find the scroll wheel 100% usable as a mouse button, with no regrets. It may take a little practice but it's definitely worth it for the scrolling function gained.
One thing to watch out for is cheap mice. I can certainly see how crappy $5 mice might have a substandard scroll whell. I have a branded mouse and the click of the wheel is perfect.
Re:everyone knows this is a scam...
on
Stealth Inflation
·
· Score: 1
That really doesn't make any sense. If you didn't pay all of your bill then it's a simple matter for their system to determine that the amount you have paid is less than what it's supposed to be. Likewise, if you overpay you are credited on the next cycle. No one is saying that the "errors" are coming from the part of the system that does the actual math. These "errors" stem from the logic that sets the amount of the bill. Your not paying the designated amount is not the same as them deciding that you should owe more than you think you should.
They weren't wrong. 32 bits will be sufficient for anoter 20 to 30 years, the "IP address scarcity" is some myth that seems to make sense that people like to believe, but it's not true. There was a slashdot story on this not too long ago.
Designing a computer protocol that remains viable for 50 years and is backward-compatible is no insignificant feat, and you could argue that 50 years in the computer industry is about as "foreseeable" as you can get. It's like early automotive designers saying, "This should be adequate for the next few centuries." You have to draw the line somewhere, it's categorically impossible to design something that will last forever. There's no point in speculating on events and trends ridiculously far into the future -- especially if it has a substantal negative impact on the present, as would have making the TCP/IP headers a variable length.
It's probably safe to say that whatever it costs them, it's not 24 dollars a month.
If cheap dialup ISPs can survive on $5-$10/month plans then it stands to reason that AOL still has around $14/month to fund all of their "value added" services above and beyond basic internet access, and customer support. It's left as an exercise to the reader to decide whether it costs $14/month from EVERY subscriber to maintain chat rooms and discussion groups that are themselves chock full of ads, and customer support that basically amounts to reading a few prepared scripts of troubleshooting.
RTFA! She clearly said she wasn't aware that all that stuff was being shared and made available to others. Kazaa does have that default of sharing your download directory so that anything you download and don't move somewhere else is available to others.
That's not to say that what she was doing wasn't illegal (regardless of her sharing or not), just that if she had known that people were able to get all that stuff from her she probably would have stopped, given all the attention this has had recently.
And, for the last time: copyright infringement is NOT theft.
Riiiiiiight. So you're saying that you're ACTUALLY willing to risk a judgement of millions of dollars against you on the chance that the RIAA's lawyers will not be able to prove to a judge that you knew damn well what you were doing, and that the directions you read on the back cover of "Defend yourself in 21 days!" will be sufficient for you to not be laughed out of the court by the judge? Please.
Sure sounds to me like Lawrence Lessig would be a pretty good candidate to play the part of "outspoken, articulate, well-educated respected law guy that suits take seriously."
But we've already had this for a long time. There are plenty of bots that hang out in channels and index everything offered for XDCC transfer or on FSERVs.
I'm sure there are more. And I'm not saying that Google's version of this wouldn't be useful or tastefully done. But this sort of thing has been around for a long time and it's hardly ground-breaking.
How is this insightful? Who modded this garbage up?
The HDs in the XBox are a meager 8GB... Actually, they're larger than that since no one actually makes 8GB drives anymore, but only the first 8GB are used. In any case a hard drive that size costs nowhere near $155. Pricewatch lists a 25GB 5400rpm Western Digital for $35 shipped.
For $155 you should be able to get about 180 or 200GB of space.
I know that you're both joking, but if you want IE with tabbed browsing and mouse gestures you can have it now. Just download CrazyBrowser and StrokeIt, both freeware. Instant IE+tabs+popup blocking+gestures. And all of this software has existed for several years. I know ThunderBird is nice but if you can't wean yourself from the IE teet it's still possible to have a very functional browser.
Man, that is such typical PR/marketroid-speak. "We are strongly against spam. What we are doing is not spam, because we say so. We are simply giving you the opportunity to learn more about this valuable service."
Well guess what, I'm giving you the opportunity to deal with the fact that I will never buy any of your shitty overpriced cables or other gear again.
Don't forget ATI. My first PC graphics card, circa 1991, was an "ATI VGA Wonder" with 512K ram, if I recall correctly. It's interesting that ATI still has the Wonder nameplate to this day.
Oh sure, just double everything. Riiiight. You've obviously never worked in construction.
The whole skill here is balancing cost vs. risk. If it costs 10X to design for 40' of movement vs 20' of movement, then it's obviously not practical in the least. It's a much better choice to design for 20', and invest part of the massive savings in a "rainy day" insurance policy that covers the slim chance of a larger-than-expected earthquake. Financially this comes out way ahead of your fanciful "double everything" policy, regardless of the outcome.
Just because you say it's good to double everything doesn't mean that it's practical. Often times the right solution isn't the one that's the nicest or prettiest, it's the one that balances all of the options against each other and arrives at the appropriate compromise. You will not get very far in construction if you have such an unwavering "fuck everything, damn the cost" viewpoint. It's just not how the world works.
See, the thing is, in the long run logos work because people LIKE them, not because someone comes up with them and then says, "This is what our logo is going to be." The BSD beastie is cute. Tux is cute. The perl camel almost has a cute expression that's at least a little bit interesting. Even the GNU has a smug expression that you can at least appreciate even if you aren't a Stallman fan. But this? A tic-tac-toe board with 5 dots? Wow, blow me away, I mean, shit that speaks to me on such a--<snoooooore>
The only ones confused are those operating at the mindset of a 6-year old.
Microsoft has done some bad things WRT to its Windows monopoly. That doesn't mean that they should automatically lose this case, which has nothing to do with their prior questionable acts and everything to do with ANOTHER sleazy company trying to bend them over a chair. Those of us that have a mindset more sophisticated than the linux fanboy "MS bad! snort!" have no problems at all with this supposed conflict of interests.
Slashdot Mirror
...and that differs from the majority of slashdot articles, how??
QRIO??? Who came up with that gem. "Yeah, check out our new awesome robot! It's called queerio and it... Hey, stop it, why are you giggling?"
Uh, what? Take the following scenario:
User loads page from A.com, reads it for a short while -- say 30 seconds.
User clicks on a link in that page to B.com.
The log for A.com will show a hit at time x, the log for B.com will show a hit at time 'x plus 30 seconds'. There is absolutely no way to correlate the two. The user could have looked at the A.com page for 200ms or 5 days before clicking on the link to B.com.
Besides, the notion of two completely unrelated sites somehow sharing complete logs is a little, uh, contrived.
Nope, there's a huge difference. If each client reported to the tracker every time it got a piece the system would be useless. Torrents typically have 1000 or more pieces and if the client went to the tracker every time it got one the tracker would suffer a complete and total meltdown if it was tracking a moderate # of clients. Instead the client polls every 'n' minutes, telling the tracker its percentage finished -- which the tracker doesn't use for anything other than determining if the client has the complete file or not. The tracker really does not know squat about the torrent, it's just there to help clients meet up with each other. That is quite different than what the OP was trying to say.
False. The tracker has no idea of the piece structure of the torrent, nor do clients contact it after completing a piece. All the tracker knows about is IP addresses, and the percentage complete that the client reports. The clients poll the tracker every 20 minutes or so (configurable by the tracker admin.)
This is not deserving of an +5 status as it shows a complete lack of understanding of how BitTorrent works.
LWP really just replaces the fetching part, it doesn't do anything to extract the data. It will definitely be easier than curl on the command line, no parameter passing to worry about.
To get the data from the page you can either use a bunch of regexps (as you've done, apparently) or a parser like HTML::TokeParser::Simple. The advantage of a parser is that it makes it more robust and immune to site changes. You also get higher quality data, for example if something subtle changes in the site's html source you sometimes get something like "this is the data <A href="whatever"..." In other words, you don't have to worry about quoting or tag boundaries or anything like that. Naturally, if your script allows user interaction this will tend to be more secure as there is less chance of a XSS and/or SQL injection vuln.
But, using a parser takes a little bit of investment up front in terms of time. With the '::Simple' variant it's really pretty easy, but it still requires that you be a little familiar with the tree structure of the page so that you can pull out the stuff you want.
All in all, if it works don't switch, but in the future you'll have a more robust and maintainable setup if you use LWP and a parser instead of commandline curl and regexps.
That's just bullshit. By that logic, every company that has ever sold a product must support it indefinitely, otherwise the cost of their products is automatically some godawful "tax." That's just not the case. Nothing is supported forever, and no one is forcing you to stay with Windows. If you choose to use commerical software then you choose to pay to upgrade it every so often. Frankly, the fact that modern stuff still works moderately well with an OS that's close to 6 years old is astounding. By that logic, getting your timing belt changed at 60,000 miles is the "GM tax" and replacing a burnt out light bulb is the "GE tax." That's just ridiculous.
The reason for the term "Microsoft tax" is when referring to purchase of a new PC from all the popular vendors requiring the purchase of a Windows license as well. In this sense it is mandatory, you have no control over it. (Unless you go to a no-name vendor or built it yourself, of course.) In this sense it's much closer to a tax in that it's not optional. If you want to buy a PC from Dell, Gateway, etc. then you must by a Windows license. THIS is the reason it's called a tax, because for most people it's compulsory. That Microsoft is in the business of selling software and new versions cost money does NOT make it a tax of any sort.
I agree completely. I don't know what kind of backwater these people are living in, but the thought of actually having to move the mouse pointer over to some thin little scroll widget to move text up and down gives me shivers. The scroll wheel is a godsend, and looking back I don't know how I got along without it.
I happen to have my middle button/scroll wheel mapped to "close window" which I find very useful. It takes a little getting used to but I find that the action of moving over the little "X" widget to close a window or dismiss a dialog is so common that I save a great deal of time being able to do it with a single click, without moving the pointer. And yes, I find the scroll wheel 100% usable as a mouse button, with no regrets. It may take a little practice but it's definitely worth it for the scrolling function gained.
One thing to watch out for is cheap mice. I can certainly see how crappy $5 mice might have a substandard scroll whell. I have a branded mouse and the click of the wheel is perfect.
And for the really lazy:
Airborne Humans, Biblical Taxation, Billboards That Know You, Bite-Size Nukes, Body Language Reveals All, Cancer Vaccine, The, Cinema Meets Real Life, Civil Disobedience Against Affirmative Action, Coincidence Theory, Darknets, Drought-Proof Lawn, The, Enough Debating -- Let's Start Hating, Espresso You Can't Mess Up, Ethical Sneaker, The, Fish-Eater's Cheat Sheet, The, Flop Penance, Food Simulator, The, Foolproof Umpire, The, Forget the South, Futures Markets in Everything, G.I. Bill for College Athletes, Give Felons the Vote, G.P.S. Art, Gratitude Visits, Gray-Goo Problem, The, Hammock Doesn't Work Anymore, The, Hit Song Science, Homeland-Security Neighborhood Watch, The, Injectable Beauty, Instantly Passe Trend, The, Iraq, Outsourced, Jules Verne Project, The, Junk Food Is Good for You, Kid Power, Labor Disputes Can Be Deadly for Consumers, Makeup for Men, Mind Over Matter, for Real, New Tools for an Occupation, News Guarantees, Nicotini, The, Offloading Your Memories, Pod Car, The, Post-Belief
That really doesn't make any sense. If you didn't pay all of your bill then it's a simple matter for their system to determine that the amount you have paid is less than what it's supposed to be. Likewise, if you overpay you are credited on the next cycle. No one is saying that the "errors" are coming from the part of the system that does the actual math. These "errors" stem from the logic that sets the amount of the bill. Your not paying the designated amount is not the same as them deciding that you should owe more than you think you should.
They weren't wrong. 32 bits will be sufficient for anoter 20 to 30 years, the "IP address scarcity" is some myth that seems to make sense that people like to believe, but it's not true. There was a slashdot story on this not too long ago.
Designing a computer protocol that remains viable for 50 years and is backward-compatible is no insignificant feat, and you could argue that 50 years in the computer industry is about as "foreseeable" as you can get. It's like early automotive designers saying, "This should be adequate for the next few centuries." You have to draw the line somewhere, it's categorically impossible to design something that will last forever. There's no point in speculating on events and trends ridiculously far into the future -- especially if it has a substantal negative impact on the present, as would have making the TCP/IP headers a variable length.
It's probably safe to say that whatever it costs them, it's not 24 dollars a month.
If cheap dialup ISPs can survive on $5-$10/month plans then it stands to reason that AOL still has around $14/month to fund all of their "value added" services above and beyond basic internet access, and customer support. It's left as an exercise to the reader to decide whether it costs $14/month from EVERY subscriber to maintain chat rooms and discussion groups that are themselves chock full of ads, and customer support that basically amounts to reading a few prepared scripts of troubleshooting.
RTFA! She clearly said she wasn't aware that all that stuff was being shared and made available to others. Kazaa does have that default of sharing your download directory so that anything you download and don't move somewhere else is available to others.
That's not to say that what she was doing wasn't illegal (regardless of her sharing or not), just that if she had known that people were able to get all that stuff from her she probably would have stopped, given all the attention this has had recently.
And, for the last time: copyright infringement is NOT theft.
Riiiiiiight. So you're saying that you're ACTUALLY willing to risk a judgement of millions of dollars against you on the chance that the RIAA's lawyers will not be able to prove to a judge that you knew damn well what you were doing, and that the directions you read on the back cover of "Defend yourself in 21 days!" will be sufficient for you to not be laughed out of the court by the judge? Please.
Sure sounds to me like Lawrence Lessig would be a pretty good candidate to play the part of "outspoken, articulate, well-educated respected law guy that suits take seriously."
...hacking into his nTAG to put it into sleep mode...
Also known as "taking out one of the batteries." Sheer genius!
But we've already had this for a long time. There are plenty of bots that hang out in channels and index everything offered for XDCC transfer or on FSERVs.
isohunt
ircspy
xdccspy
I'm sure there are more. And I'm not saying that Google's version of this wouldn't be useful or tastefully done. But this sort of thing has been around for a long time and it's hardly ground-breaking.
How is this insightful? Who modded this garbage up?
The HDs in the XBox are a meager 8GB... Actually, they're larger than that since no one actually makes 8GB drives anymore, but only the first 8GB are used. In any case a hard drive that size costs nowhere near $155. Pricewatch lists a 25GB 5400rpm Western Digital for $35 shipped.
For $155 you should be able to get about 180 or 200GB of space.
I know that you're both joking, but if you want IE with tabbed browsing and mouse gestures you can have it now. Just download CrazyBrowser and StrokeIt, both freeware. Instant IE+tabs+popup blocking+gestures. And all of this software has existed for several years. I know ThunderBird is nice but if you can't wean yourself from the IE teet it's still possible to have a very functional browser.
Man, that is such typical PR/marketroid-speak. "We are strongly against spam. What we are doing is not spam, because we say so. We are simply giving you the opportunity to learn more about this valuable service."
Well guess what, I'm giving you the opportunity to deal with the fact that I will never buy any of your shitty overpriced cables or other gear again.
Don't forget ATI. My first PC graphics card, circa 1991, was an "ATI VGA Wonder" with 512K ram, if I recall correctly. It's interesting that ATI still has the Wonder nameplate to this day.
You could have just posted a link to that day's slashdot headlines, you know. http://slashdot.org/?issue=yyyymmdd Try it sometime...
Oh sure, just double everything. Riiiight. You've obviously never worked in construction.
The whole skill here is balancing cost vs. risk. If it costs 10X to design for 40' of movement vs 20' of movement, then it's obviously not practical in the least. It's a much better choice to design for 20', and invest part of the massive savings in a "rainy day" insurance policy that covers the slim chance of a larger-than-expected earthquake. Financially this comes out way ahead of your fanciful "double everything" policy, regardless of the outcome.
Just because you say it's good to double everything doesn't mean that it's practical. Often times the right solution isn't the one that's the nicest or prettiest, it's the one that balances all of the options against each other and arrives at the appropriate compromise. You will not get very far in construction if you have such an unwavering "fuck everything, damn the cost" viewpoint. It's just not how the world works.
See, the thing is, in the long run logos work because people LIKE them, not because someone comes up with them and then says, "This is what our logo is going to be." The BSD beastie is cute. Tux is cute. The perl camel almost has a cute expression that's at least a little bit interesting. Even the GNU has a smug expression that you can at least appreciate even if you aren't a Stallman fan. But this? A tic-tac-toe board with 5 dots? Wow, blow me away, I mean, shit that speaks to me on such a--<snoooooore>
The only ones confused are those operating at the mindset of a 6-year old.
Microsoft has done some bad things WRT to its Windows monopoly. That doesn't mean that they should automatically lose this case, which has nothing to do with their prior questionable acts and everything to do with ANOTHER sleazy company trying to bend them over a chair. Those of us that have a mindset more sophisticated than the linux fanboy "MS bad! snort!" have no problems at all with this supposed conflict of interests.