Maybe, maybe not. I bet the porn/music/pirate software downloaders use way more than that average Slashdotter.. Oops, wait, did I just describe the average Slashdotter? I thought they all bought indie music on CDs, used open-source, and wrote code all day?
Nevermind... the parent was right. Slashdotters would be the major bandwidth users.
Does the article say that? It hints at it, but I don't see how someone discovered and exploited a totally new zero-day exploit in a closed-source product during the process of this competition.
Finally, while most home systems would certainly be running users as Administrator, most managed corporate systems would not. 90% is a ridiculous over-estimate of how many XP systems only have "Administrator" users. Not true. Even today, there is a plethora of Windows applications that require you to run as administrator. That's why Vista has "adminsitrator" and "administrator, but constantly prompt for for stuff." However, most managed corporate systems would not have the user running as a Domain Administrator. But they still have enough access to screw-up their own PC, and all th network shares that they probably have write-access to.
I find it interesting that the states are refusing to implement REAL ID, but the state's representatives voted for it. So who are they representing if their state is willing to flat-out refuse a law? This is a very serious breakdown of representation. It is absolute confirmation that the representative democracy is not working.
The other aspect of all this is that while Slashdotters are praising the states for standing-up for civil rights, the reality is that the states are fighting REAL ID because of funding issues, not because of civil rights issues. If the government tied federal funding of schools (or highways, or parks, or somethng) to the implementation of REAL ID, then the states would quietly fall-in line.
I got to play with one of these at the Game Developers Conference. It can determine if you are being "meditative" or "focused." It was kinda neat, with two limitations: 1) It didn't work at all one some people (me being on of them). 2) The company says it is useless for games.
It's funny that there is an article about this being for games, because the reps at the show said that it wasn't really useful for games, and they were instead looking into military and commercial apps. For example, using it to see if drivers are awake. Or if a pilot is in need of a stimulant. But as for games, you really can't change your mental focus while doing something else. In the demo game, the rep would move your character around for you and click on things because it wasn't realistic for the player to be in a "meditative" state while doing those things. And since the whole contraption can only measure one axis, it is a lot of complexity for very little value.
It was a nice tech demo but there was only so much that could be done with it. It is definitely not the next big thing in gaming.
The problem has nothing to do with who owns the lines. The problem is that the government grants the owner of the lines a monopoly to deliver content over them. This would not be an issue if Comcast owned and maintained the lines, and Earthlink/Covad/First Communications/AOL competed to provide ISP services over those lines.
IANAL. IANS. IANAPA. (I am not Swedish. I am not a pirate, arrr!)
If you have admissible evidence that someone is committing a crime, such as copyright infringement, I see no reason you cannot go to a judge, get a warrant, and get the IP address of the culprits. I see no reason that you cannot take the evidence for any number of such crimes, and go to a judge, and get a warrant to get the IP addresses of all of the culprits. The problem with the RIAA is that they really don't do that. They taken blanket unsubstatiated information and then go directly to the ISP/school/whatever. However, given a reasonable due process, this is quite reasonable.
And this really doesn't impact The Pirate Bay. If The Pirate Bay hosts torrents, and those torrents lead to people who are illegally copying files, then I see no reason that the copyright holder's ability to get that IP address has anything to do with the person hosting the files or the torrents. Either way, they are not liable any more than a bank is liable if someone puts drugs into their safe deposit box. No more than if someone agrees to a drug deal while drinking coffee at your restaurant.
Hey Gibbs, I was thinking about Kevin when I saw this article. A few years ago the guys at TEP made a tribute page to him (personal stories and stuff), but last time I looked it was down. I emailed them but got no reply. I don't think I have the URL any longer. Do you know if the page is still up and what the URL is? Could you drop me an email? I don't have contact with any of those guys since I live in Baltimore (where we grew up).
How many times have you all had to reinstall your grandpappy's mangled, crapware-infested OS(which shall remain nameless...*wink*)? Never. But I've reinstalled my younger brother's computers so many times I can't count it. And doing house calls, it is always the teenage son who downloads questionable applications and trashes the PC. Or the teenage daughter's free music downloading program that does it. But grandma and grandpa's computer still runs whatever version of Office it came with the day they bought it, Pplus the latest Quicken: without flaw.
There's more to the equation of serving data that the number of pageviews. You make it sound like serving 1 billion records is the same as serving 10 records. The time of a search scales according to the number of records. That means more database records, CPU, storage, memory, and cache. Those things aren't free.
You are making the logical fallacy of assuming that because the increase in marginal cost of one article is insignificant, that the increase of any number of articles is also insignificant. The Wikimedia foundation is constantly trying to raise money, and one of my biggest fears is that Wikipedia will vanish forever due to overload. They have had multipel instances in the past of server problems, and they've redesigned the search and front page several times to minimize bandwidth. So yes, additional articles do cost a significant amount of money.
Anybody here work for Wikimedia who wants to add specific numbers?
Furthermore, nobody carries a zip-loc bag of toothpaste: they carry a zip-loc bag with a tube of toothpaste. So it wouldn't condense on the plastic bag if it was nested inside yet another plastic container.
You know, I don't want things to become like the old west either, but this absurd over-pacifism is ridiculous. If someone comes on to my property to sell drugs, or some other illegal activity, and I yell at them - that's not illegal. If I shoot them with a water gun that isn't assault. It's that person being an ass, and me being an ass back. The difference is that their ass is on my property conducting an illegal activity, and they know it. So they leave because my charge of trespassing and drug sales is bigger than their charge of assault by a water pistol.
There's nothing wrong with citizens taking these types of minor things into their own hands. I don't want a world where every time I step on someone's grass they call the police. The reason we are moving in that direction, as a society, is because a small small small number of people are so trigger happy (with real live guns) that even the minor everyday cases of someone protecting themselves runs the risk of becoming a life or death situation. So we all live in fear.
The reality is that the police cannot be everywhere at once, and if someone has a safe way to protect themselves like this, then they should be allowed to do it. Yes, it is probably assault according to the letter of the law, but not according to the spirit of it.
I used to work at Akamai so I have a pretty good firsthand knowledge of how their stuff works. I doubt a lot of their algorithms they use would pass the "obviousness" test... I'm reading the linked patent now, and I think the problem is that what is patented is not an algorithm, but a network architecture. This is furthermore a mucky issue because according to patent law, algorithms are not patentable. In the US "mental processes" are not patentable either. But the patent office grants "algorithm" patents so long as the submitter is implementing it in hardware or software. Oddly enough, even things like RLE are patented even though they can easily be done in your head.
I am not familiar with this particular case, but the big issue here is that Akamai might be trying to patent the general concept of distributing cache servers around the world. This is the kind of thing that the patent office should not allow. If I have a better way to do this, or even the same way, I should be allowed to do it. Akamai is the leader in this industry and they are well set and nobody is going to knock them off the map suddenly one day by copying them. They don't need patent protection. Furthermore, this is the kind of thing any group of competent developers can create, and 10 different groups would have 10 different ways of doing it. Even if a patent is appropriate here, it should not be used to squash similar competing services.
Has anybody actually tried the link? It's awful. They made a single web page with hundreds of JPEGs, one for each page of the text. The images aren't sharp or fully black, so they are hard to read. And it takes forever to load. They added a nice AJAX "loading..." message over the top while you scroll, but sheesh - I'd far rather just go to the library or buy the book.
I was at the IGF awards ceremony last year when Alexey was given the The Pioneer Award. He was surrounded by a the best of both indie and professional game developers. This year, one of the IGF winners thanked open-source software for making his game possible. He thanked GIMP, STL, and lots of other things I can't recall. It's twisted that Alexey stood in front of a group of people who were thanking him for his contribution, and that the next year he puts down the very tools that made it possible for him to be there, and the tools that made it possible for the game industry to even present him with the award.
I had my service turned-off by them, and when I called, they told me it was because I downloaded a TV show over P2P. They accurately told me the file name that I downloaded and the date that I did it. F'n scary. It's especially frustrating because I am Mr. Anti-Piracy -- but I was watching a series and missed an episode and I didn't want to fall behind...
I use Cavalier Telephone DSL and they've been doing this for years. I called them about it and they suggested that I use alternate DNS servers. Nobody has complained, nobody even cares. IMHO, this is another network neutrality-type issue. Followed the protocols, provide access - don't reroute/intercept/redirect me. (FYI to anyone else using them - they monitor your BitTorrent downloads too.)
IMHO, the choice would be dangerous because it allows the rich to perform a subtle mind-control on the poor. Let me explain:
Part of the problem with network neutrality isn't just that it is not fair. It is that the people who are on the non-neutral internet get a biased view of the world around them. Suppose for a moment that the only news you could see is Fox News. Or if the only online music store you could access was iTunes. That would be a very scary world because people's political and social views would be tainted by the limited world they had access too.
Now I know that we aren't saying that people would not have access to other news sites -- but by charging more, or slowing down other sites - that is effectively what we would do. If people must encounter inconvenience or pay a premium to see the larger world, they mostly will choose not to out of convenience. Or because they don't understand. This would make the "digital divide" that the pundits talk about into an economic reality. The media companies and ISPs could say that people have the choice to visit other news sites - but they don't choose to do so, so obviously it is their own fault. But the reality is that people do what is easiest and most convenient. That is human nature.
So I conclude that it is socially and economically dangerous to offer people the option of being cut-off. Especially for those people who can't afford otherwise.
I don't know what "traffic interference" means so I don't think I can answer that.
On the note of "I wouldn't call it cable any longer" - ehh... isn't it called "fiber optic cable?" Although I suppose, by that definition, "cable" could apply to the telecom companies. I think today "cable company" means "that company that runs cables to the home but isn't a telephone company, and used to provide wired television service." I guess the lines will blur with time, but for now, they are regulated differently.
After presiding over the 13-day trial, Matsch wrote that McDermott's lawyers not only disregarded his instructions during the trial but argued "with full awareness that their case was without merit." (IANAL). If the lawyers disregarded the judge's instructions, shouldn't the judge have found them in contempt of court and declared a mistrial? It seems like waiting until the jury came to a decision and then overturning it doesn't result in a fair verdict.
Death can be funny. This is demonstrated in movies and games all the time. Unfortunately, it is permanent IRL. Some games even capitalize on this by making death the main part of the game. Worms Armageddon, for example. Death was constant and funny.
I used to play the original Quake, and I was so bad it was ridiculous. Custom levels with pits became a constant source of problem. The funniest events where when you got 200 health + 200 armor + regeneration, and you are buffeted about by multiple rockets only to fall to your death in the lava. Those moments had me ROLFMAO because it was just so absurd and unlikely.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe, maybe not. I bet the porn/music/pirate software downloaders use way more than that average Slashdotter.. Oops, wait, did I just describe the average Slashdotter? I thought they all bought indie music on CDs, used open-source, and wrote code all day?
Nevermind... the parent was right. Slashdotters would be the major bandwidth users.
Does the article say that? It hints at it, but I don't see how someone discovered and exploited a totally new zero-day exploit in a closed-source product during the process of this competition.
I find it interesting that the states are refusing to implement REAL ID, but the state's representatives voted for it. So who are they representing if their state is willing to flat-out refuse a law? This is a very serious breakdown of representation. It is absolute confirmation that the representative democracy is not working.
The other aspect of all this is that while Slashdotters are praising the states for standing-up for civil rights, the reality is that the states are fighting REAL ID because of funding issues, not because of civil rights issues. If the government tied federal funding of schools (or highways, or parks, or somethng) to the implementation of REAL ID, then the states would quietly fall-in line.
I got to play with one of these at the Game Developers Conference. It can determine if you are being "meditative" or "focused." It was kinda neat, with two limitations:
1) It didn't work at all one some people (me being on of them).
2) The company says it is useless for games.
It's funny that there is an article about this being for games, because the reps at the show said that it wasn't really useful for games, and they were instead looking into military and commercial apps. For example, using it to see if drivers are awake. Or if a pilot is in need of a stimulant. But as for games, you really can't change your mental focus while doing something else. In the demo game, the rep would move your character around for you and click on things because it wasn't realistic for the player to be in a "meditative" state while doing those things. And since the whole contraption can only measure one axis, it is a lot of complexity for very little value.
It was a nice tech demo but there was only so much that could be done with it. It is definitely not the next big thing in gaming.
The problem has nothing to do with who owns the lines. The problem is that the government grants the owner of the lines a monopoly to deliver content over them. This would not be an issue if Comcast owned and maintained the lines, and Earthlink/Covad/First Communications/AOL competed to provide ISP services over those lines.
IANAL. IANS. IANAPA. (I am not Swedish. I am not a pirate, arrr!)
If you have admissible evidence that someone is committing a crime, such as copyright infringement, I see no reason you cannot go to a judge, get a warrant, and get the IP address of the culprits. I see no reason that you cannot take the evidence for any number of such crimes, and go to a judge, and get a warrant to get the IP addresses of all of the culprits. The problem with the RIAA is that they really don't do that. They taken blanket unsubstatiated information and then go directly to the ISP/school/whatever. However, given a reasonable due process, this is quite reasonable.
And this really doesn't impact The Pirate Bay. If The Pirate Bay hosts torrents, and those torrents lead to people who are illegally copying files, then I see no reason that the copyright holder's ability to get that IP address has anything to do with the person hosting the files or the torrents. Either way, they are not liable any more than a bank is liable if someone puts drugs into their safe deposit box. No more than if someone agrees to a drug deal while drinking coffee at your restaurant.
Hey Gibbs, I was thinking about Kevin when I saw this article. A few years ago the guys at TEP made a tribute page to him (personal stories and stuff), but last time I looked it was down. I emailed them but got no reply. I don't think I have the URL any longer. Do you know if the page is still up and what the URL is? Could you drop me an email? I don't have contact with any of those guys since I live in Baltimore (where we grew up).
Thanks.
This kind of editorializing is terrible. But it is even worse to know that the claims are actually refuted by something posted to this very site!
There's more to the equation of serving data that the number of pageviews. You make it sound like serving 1 billion records is the same as serving 10 records. The time of a search scales according to the number of records. That means more database records, CPU, storage, memory, and cache. Those things aren't free.
You are making the logical fallacy of assuming that because the increase in marginal cost of one article is insignificant, that the increase of any number of articles is also insignificant. The Wikimedia foundation is constantly trying to raise money, and one of my biggest fears is that Wikipedia will vanish forever due to overload. They have had multipel instances in the past of server problems, and they've redesigned the search and front page several times to minimize bandwidth. So yes, additional articles do cost a significant amount of money.
Anybody here work for Wikimedia who wants to add specific numbers?
Parent is correct about condensation.
Furthermore, nobody carries a zip-loc bag of toothpaste: they carry a zip-loc bag with a tube of toothpaste. So it wouldn't condense on the plastic bag if it was nested inside yet another plastic container.
You know, I don't want things to become like the old west either, but this absurd over-pacifism is ridiculous. If someone comes on to my property to sell drugs, or some other illegal activity, and I yell at them - that's not illegal. If I shoot them with a water gun that isn't assault. It's that person being an ass, and me being an ass back. The difference is that their ass is on my property conducting an illegal activity, and they know it. So they leave because my charge of trespassing and drug sales is bigger than their charge of assault by a water pistol.
There's nothing wrong with citizens taking these types of minor things into their own hands. I don't want a world where every time I step on someone's grass they call the police. The reason we are moving in that direction, as a society, is because a small small small number of people are so trigger happy (with real live guns) that even the minor everyday cases of someone protecting themselves runs the risk of becoming a life or death situation. So we all live in fear.
The reality is that the police cannot be everywhere at once, and if someone has a safe way to protect themselves like this, then they should be allowed to do it. Yes, it is probably assault according to the letter of the law, but not according to the spirit of it.
I am not familiar with this particular case, but the big issue here is that Akamai might be trying to patent the general concept of distributing cache servers around the world. This is the kind of thing that the patent office should not allow. If I have a better way to do this, or even the same way, I should be allowed to do it. Akamai is the leader in this industry and they are well set and nobody is going to knock them off the map suddenly one day by copying them. They don't need patent protection. Furthermore, this is the kind of thing any group of competent developers can create, and 10 different groups would have 10 different ways of doing it. Even if a patent is appropriate here, it should not be used to squash similar competing services.
Has anybody actually tried the link? It's awful. They made a single web page with hundreds of JPEGs, one for each page of the text. The images aren't sharp or fully black, so they are hard to read. And it takes forever to load. They added a nice AJAX "loading..." message over the top while you scroll, but sheesh - I'd far rather just go to the library or buy the book.
My only other option is Comcast. :(
I was at the IGF awards ceremony last year when Alexey was given the The Pioneer Award. He was surrounded by a the best of both indie and professional game developers. This year, one of the IGF winners thanked open-source software for making his game possible. He thanked GIMP, STL, and lots of other things I can't recall. It's twisted that Alexey stood in front of a group of people who were thanking him for his contribution, and that the next year he puts down the very tools that made it possible for him to be there, and the tools that made it possible for the game industry to even present him with the award.
I had my service turned-off by them, and when I called, they told me it was because I downloaded a TV show over P2P. They accurately told me the file name that I downloaded and the date that I did it. F'n scary. It's especially frustrating because I am Mr. Anti-Piracy -- but I was watching a series and missed an episode and I didn't want to fall behind...
I use Cavalier Telephone DSL and they've been doing this for years. I called them about it and they suggested that I use alternate DNS servers. Nobody has complained, nobody even cares. IMHO, this is another network neutrality-type issue. Followed the protocols, provide access - don't reroute/intercept/redirect me. (FYI to anyone else using them - they monitor your BitTorrent downloads too.)
IMHO, the choice would be dangerous because it allows the rich to perform a subtle mind-control on the poor. Let me explain:
Part of the problem with network neutrality isn't just that it is not fair. It is that the people who are on the non-neutral internet get a biased view of the world around them. Suppose for a moment that the only news you could see is Fox News. Or if the only online music store you could access was iTunes. That would be a very scary world because people's political and social views would be tainted by the limited world they had access too.
Now I know that we aren't saying that people would not have access to other news sites -- but by charging more, or slowing down other sites - that is effectively what we would do. If people must encounter inconvenience or pay a premium to see the larger world, they mostly will choose not to out of convenience. Or because they don't understand. This would make the "digital divide" that the pundits talk about into an economic reality. The media companies and ISPs could say that people have the choice to visit other news sites - but they don't choose to do so, so obviously it is their own fault. But the reality is that people do what is easiest and most convenient. That is human nature.
So I conclude that it is socially and economically dangerous to offer people the option of being cut-off. Especially for those people who can't afford otherwise.
I don't know what "traffic interference" means so I don't think I can answer that.
On the note of "I wouldn't call it cable any longer" - ehh... isn't it called "fiber optic cable?" Although I suppose, by that definition, "cable" could apply to the telecom companies. I think today "cable company" means "that company that runs cables to the home but isn't a telephone company, and used to provide wired television service." I guess the lines will blur with time, but for now, they are regulated differently.
Death can be funny. This is demonstrated in movies and games all the time. Unfortunately, it is permanent IRL. Some games even capitalize on this by making death the main part of the game. Worms Armageddon, for example. Death was constant and funny.
I used to play the original Quake, and I was so bad it was ridiculous. Custom levels with pits became a constant source of problem. The funniest events where when you got 200 health + 200 armor + regeneration, and you are buffeted about by multiple rockets only to fall to your death in the lava. Those moments had me ROLFMAO because it was just so absurd and unlikely.