The "slurry on the wall" idea is intriguing. If the l'il buggers can be trained, be self-organizing, sorta like some of the neural network simulations...
Not sure how one does the backfeed for a complex idea like "Hey, stupid, I said 'Feed the fish,' not 'Fry the fish!'"
IIRC, SI had done a series of articles on this device and found that it simply did not work.
Test involved wooden crates randomly containing people. Inventor was to identify which crates contained people. Failed to do better than random chance would have indicated.
IIRC, that is. Perhaps this message will trigger someone with a memory far better than mine.
Re:The uses of NT - and, dealing with a semi-PHB
on
CrackThisBox Updates
·
· Score: 1
So much for what was shaping up to be a decent conspiracy theory. Next step was to create a web page that suggested little tinfoil hats for one's mouse as a preventative.
Just over 188 thousand people are involving their machines in the DES cracking effort. Nearly 900 thousand are participating in SETI@home.
What if SETI@home were just a ruse by the NSA to bust open encrypted messages? Package it as something exciting, get all those none-techie-geek people involved...
Ooh! Spooky! Hey... what's that sound? Is someone ther...
My understanding is that there are people who swear *by* (not at) their Lada Samara's.
Because it's one of the few cars out there that can be repaired in the field, with simple hand tools. No fancy electronic stuff, not sophisticated feedback systems, no obscure bits and pieces.
Which, when you're in the middle of the Australian desert, can make the difference between living and dying. A bit of duct tape, a wrench and a whack with a hammer, and you're off and running again.
Wouldn't want one, myself. Got garages and taxis and stuff 'round here.:-)
Re:I dont think we should haveta pay for ip's
on
IANA Deploying IPv6
·
· Score: 1
'Incidentally, this is why "phone number portability" is so stupid. The phone number should remain something that the switches can route by, just like an IP address. What we need is something like DNS for the phone system'
The phone number can be the DNS entry, and the telco can assign an IP address to it. You could then call me using the DNS entry of att://250.555.1212/FFFish (as opposed to my wife, @ att://250.555.1212/Crayola). Or you could use my current IPv6 address, of 209.153.188.248.35.88.96/FFFish. When I bugger off to another city, the DNS address (250.555.1212) would stay the same; but it'd be routed to another IP address.
Just because a name is numeric doesn't make it an IP address instead of a DNS entry. (Or, rather, it's just convention that the DNS entry is alphabetic, not alphanumeric...)
Seems to me that a significant part of the increase in business over the Internet will be in business-to-business inventory management. Beef up the company intranet, so that current inventory is tracked up-to-the-minute. Arrange sole-source supplier contracts. Ensure that they have a quality processes system in-place. Connect your intranet to theirs using the Internet.
Lower inventory levels, lower carrying costs, lower prices, high quality, etc.
Windows is a *TERRIBLE* UI. Go visit MacKiDo (admittedly partisan) for the beginnings of an introduction to the collosal cockups in Windows. And then go do some web-crawling for actual expert insights.
I'm continually amazed at the naivety demonstrated by AMD.
Not getting 3DNow! support into everyone's compilers, for instance. Not getting K7/Athlon support into those compilers loooong before the CPU is released.
Little wonder Intel dominates. It knows how to manage outside the organization as well as it knows how to manage inside...
Why not fight FUD with Anticipation, Certainty and Knowledge?
How about tossing up some research-oriented web pages... oriented, that is, toward the middle management sort of people that are making OS implementation decisions.
Keep the site news-oriented, but keep the news oriented toward the latest developments in OSes and core support software.
Run a sidebar tracking some handy things... like the number of bugs found. Estimated cost of ownership (factoring in things like downtime and lost files). Risk factor. Etcetera.
Start running this as an alternative media site. The damned magazines aren't nearly aggressive enough in emphasizing the collosal and rather sickening security holes in IIs, and the safety/stability of Apache, for instance.
Call it ZedNet...
Anyway, point is this: once the actual cost in owning Microsoft software becomes apparent -- and not just the idiocy that they call IIs, but also the file effups of Word, the trashed files of Windows and the virus-luvin' Outlook -- then the corporate world will start to gain a clue.
I think it is *extremely* possible to make Linux into one righteous gaming platform.
First key is to realize that most modern BIOSes allow one to boot from CDROM. No need to have a seperate boot partition any more, let alone install Linux.
Second is to work on making the kernel use hot-loadable device drivers -- mix-n-match the components as needed for a given machine. Only load the drivers needed for a particular hardware config, etc.
Third is to have Linux able to safely read and write to other OSes partitions. Save game data and config setup can be stored on the hard drive without needing to partition it.
I'm going to quit trying to count, because I'm so freaking tired. I'll just babble on... if Linux can be designed to have a bloody fast kernel and device drivers with an excellent gaming-centric API, as well as excellent memory management functions, I'm sure game designers would find the platform extremely pleasing. As always, identifying what the customer (ie. game author) *needs* and *values* would be the trick here.
Plop in a CD, reboot the computer and, shazam, up comes the game. Quick, stable, awesome. Requires less computer hardware "power" because the OS isn't dragging things down... it'd be cool.
Time to give up on calling yourself a "Hacker," and then being upset when the media misuses the term.
Time to choose a brand new name.
I suggest 'Effer... 'cause who hasn't completely effed a system by hacking, eh? As a bonus, it's doubtful that the papers would be all that eager to rip off the name.:-)
(My second vote goes for "Kimberley." Just 'cause it's a nice sounding name.)
Once again, I say that it's essential for the Linux community to make up their own rules for the game.
One such rule is to *not* defend one's product as the be-all and end-all. That's a business game, not an open community game.
Promote *ALL* other alternative OSes. Promote the BSDs. Promote BeOS. Promote MacOS and QNX and PalmOS(?) and every other OS.
They all have their place. QNX is a major force in the embedded market. Kicks ass on WindowsCE in every way. The BSDs are incredibly well done and kick NT ass. BeOS kicks everyone's ass in the multimedia department. MacOS is experiencing a resurgence, and is a delight to use.
Don't let Microsoft focus on one thing! Force them to deal with *ALL* things, *ALL* the time.
They can't spread FUD on all the competition...
...change the rules! Keep them hopping --- and learn to use the mass media!
Point remains, though: beat Microsoft by stepping out of the box. Make your own rules. Do the unconventional.
And unconventional would, in this case, be to offer *another* OS and server software as being preferable to both Linux/Apache and NT/IIs.
*At this point in time* Linux/Apache doesn't kick ass in the speed ratings. And speed is the *only* issue in the media eye.
So give what they want. Make 'em realize that there are better OSes for what they want. They want speed -- they ain't gonna find it in NT. They want scalability -- they ain't gonna find it in NT. They want stability -- they ain't gonna find it in NT.
Start making it known that NT is *ALWAYS* outperformed by another OS, and pretty soon NT *ALWAYS* looks like a bad choice.
It appears that most Linuxheads have finally come around to admit that Linux doesn't perform well as a server. Yet.
But it's pretty well acknowledged that NetBSD kicks ass in that department.
Time for Linux groupies to take the blinders off. Quit getting your shorts in a knot about the unfair Mindcruft tests, quit trying to pit Linux against NT in server applications...
...and start *heavily* promoting NetBSD as the ultimate server solution. Mob the media with it.
As long as you play by Microsoft rules, you lose by Microsoft rules. And fiercely protecting one's "turf" is a Microsoft rule.
Step out of that box. Quit promoing Linux as the be-all and end-all. Promo NetBSD as *the most appropriate solution* to server needs. Promo BeOS as *the most appropriate solution* to multimedia needs. And so on.
This tactic will emphasize to the media that people should make active choices re: their OS needs; emphasize that Windows is not the most appropriate OS for most cases; and emphasize that the Linux community plays big and puts the user first and foremost.
It's a no-lose situation. Choice is the ultimate goal.
We're all mostly agreed that Linux will have long-term success, while Windows is doomed, right?
And the entire nation of Mexico is using Linux in its schools, right?
I wonder what nation will grow the next generation of quality programmers, eh? What nation will have an incredible number of highly skilled Linux hackers, eh? What nation will lead software production...
Someone--perhaps Slashdot--needs to sponsor a "Thank You" page, from which Linux users can easily send short, positive feedback to those companies who support Linux by releasing specs, developing drivers, open sourcing their old code, and so on.
If this feedback were publicly viewable for a period of time AND an invitation to view the response were sent to other companies, the effect would be multiplied.
Slashdot 'em with love, basically.
Imagine: Logitech releases drivers for their gaming hardware. Cool. A pile of "Thank You" notes collects at their door. The video guys at Logitech are asked to check out the success of their co-workers; and so are the guys at Matrox; and at Toshiba; and at [name a closed-source company here]; and so on.
A couple weeks later, someone other company does something for us. We thank them, and let all their competitors know it. And so on...
It would be a powerful way of getting companies on-side.
April Fools jokes are totally out of control.
on
Thought Recognition
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· Score: 1
(Okay, that was slightly unfair. But, geez, it's not like people are being *forced* to read the news links!)
April Fools jokes are totally out of control.
on
Thought Recognition
·
· Score: 1
Oh. My. God.
We've got a live one here, folks! Someone who *ACTUALLY BELIEVES* what he reads on the news sites. Apparently swallows it all verbatim.
Please, Lotek. It's the Internet. As the old saying goes -- "Believe half of what you see, a quarter of what you read and none of what you hear."
Consider the Internet to be between "hearing" and "reading."
So this evening, like a lot of evenings, I turn on my computer, fire up the web browser and/. comes up because I choose it from my link list.
Then I see this article, one of a dozen, and decide that it's not worth my time to view.
Simple as that, I decide not to look at it.
Problem solved. A dozen articles a day, view a third to a half of them, sometimes enjoy them and sometimes close 'em before I give up even thirty more seconds to them.
And should I ever decide that/. has declined to the point that I'm bellyaching about it for the better part of seven paragraphs, I'll grab the source code and set up my own.
"FFFishDot -- News for Five Fresh Fish. Stuff That Matters to Him."
And the flocks will gather, just as they have for Rob. Of course, eventually some hardcase will fall in love with it, and then fall out of love with it because, hey, it's not "HardDot -- News for HardCase. Stuff That Matters to Him."
Slashdot Mirror
The "slurry on the wall" idea is intriguing. If the l'il buggers can be trained, be self-organizing, sorta like some of the neural network simulations...
:)
Not sure how one does the backfeed for a complex idea like "Hey, stupid, I said 'Feed the fish,' not 'Fry the fish!'"
The early training would be hell.
IIRC, SI had done a series of articles on this device and found that it simply did not work.
Test involved wooden crates randomly containing people. Inventor was to identify which crates contained people. Failed to do better than random chance would have indicated.
IIRC, that is. Perhaps this message will trigger someone with a memory far better than mine.
Zope.
"pretty inefisent [sic]"
So, then, you'd be one of those uptight, humourless sorts that wouldn't recognize a joke if it leapt up and bit you on the arse, eh?
Bummer. I took the stats at face value.
So much for what was shaping up to be a decent conspiracy theory. Next step was to create a web page that suggested little tinfoil hats for one's mouse as a preventative.
Just over 188 thousand people are involving their machines in the DES cracking effort. Nearly 900 thousand are participating in SETI@home.
What if SETI@home were just a ruse by the NSA to bust open encrypted messages? Package it as something exciting, get all those none-techie-geek people involved...
Ooh! Spooky! Hey... what's that sound? Is someone ther...
My understanding is that there are people who swear *by* (not at) their Lada Samara's.
:-)
Because it's one of the few cars out there that can be repaired in the field, with simple hand tools. No fancy electronic stuff, not sophisticated feedback systems, no obscure bits and pieces.
Which, when you're in the middle of the Australian desert, can make the difference between living and dying. A bit of duct tape, a wrench and a whack with a hammer, and you're off and running again.
Wouldn't want one, myself. Got garages and taxis and stuff 'round here.
'Incidentally, this is why "phone number portability" is so stupid. The phone number should remain something that the switches can route by, just like an IP address. What we need is something like DNS for the phone system'
The phone number can be the DNS entry, and the telco can assign an IP address to it. You could then call me using the DNS entry of att://250.555.1212/FFFish (as opposed to my wife, @ att://250.555.1212/Crayola). Or you could use my current IPv6 address, of 209.153.188.248.35.88.96/FFFish. When I bugger off to another city, the DNS address (250.555.1212) would stay the same; but it'd be routed to another IP address.
Just because a name is numeric doesn't make it an IP address instead of a DNS entry. (Or, rather, it's just convention that the DNS entry is alphabetic, not alphanumeric...)
So use the text-only version of Hotbot. The solution is right in front of your face.
Windows is a *TERRIBLE* UI.
Seems to me that a significant part of the increase in business over the Internet will be in business-to-business inventory management. Beef up the company intranet, so that current inventory is tracked up-to-the-minute. Arrange sole-source supplier contracts. Ensure that they have a quality processes system in-place. Connect your intranet to theirs using the Internet.
Lower inventory levels, lower carrying costs, lower prices, high quality, etc.
Big business in that.
Windows is a dog, but the population is dyslexic.
I'm continually amazed at the naivety demonstrated by AMD.
Not getting 3DNow! support into everyone's compilers, for instance. Not getting K7/Athlon support into those compilers loooong before the CPU is released.
Little wonder Intel dominates. It knows how to manage outside the organization as well as it knows how to manage inside...
Why not fight FUD with Anticipation, Certainty and Knowledge?
How about tossing up some research-oriented web pages... oriented, that is, toward the middle management sort of people that are making OS implementation decisions.
Keep the site news-oriented, but keep the news oriented toward the latest developments in OSes and core support software.
Run a sidebar tracking some handy things... like the number of bugs found. Estimated cost of ownership (factoring in things like downtime and lost files). Risk factor. Etcetera.
Start running this as an alternative media site. The damned magazines aren't nearly aggressive enough in emphasizing the collosal and rather sickening security holes in IIs, and the safety/stability of Apache, for instance.
Call it ZedNet...
Anyway, point is this: once the actual cost in owning Microsoft software becomes apparent -- and not just the idiocy that they call IIs, but also the file effups of Word, the trashed files of Windows and the virus-luvin' Outlook -- then the corporate world will start to gain a clue.
I think it is *extremely* possible to make Linux into one righteous gaming platform.
First key is to realize that most modern BIOSes allow one to boot from CDROM. No need to have a seperate boot partition any more, let alone install Linux.
Second is to work on making the kernel use hot-loadable device drivers -- mix-n-match the components as needed for a given machine. Only load the drivers needed for a particular hardware config, etc.
Third is to have Linux able to safely read and write to other OSes partitions. Save game data and config setup can be stored on the hard drive without needing to partition it.
I'm going to quit trying to count, because I'm so freaking tired. I'll just babble on... if Linux can be designed to have a bloody fast kernel and device drivers with an excellent gaming-centric API, as well as excellent memory management functions, I'm sure game designers would find the platform extremely pleasing. As always, identifying what the customer (ie. game author) *needs* and *values* would be the trick here.
Plop in a CD, reboot the computer and, shazam, up comes the game. Quick, stable, awesome. Requires less computer hardware "power" because the OS isn't dragging things down... it'd be cool.
Gahd. Off for a nap, now...!
Time to choose a brand new name.
I suggest 'Effer ... 'cause who hasn't completely effed a system by hacking, eh? As a bonus, it's doubtful that the papers would be all that eager to rip off the name. :-)
(My second vote goes for "Kimberley." Just 'cause it's a nice sounding name.)
Once again, I say that it's essential for the Linux community to make up their own rules for the game.
One such rule is to *not* defend one's product as the be-all and end-all. That's a business game, not an open community game.
Promote *ALL* other alternative OSes. Promote the BSDs. Promote BeOS. Promote MacOS and QNX and PalmOS(?) and every other OS.
They all have their place. QNX is a major force in the embedded market. Kicks ass on WindowsCE in every way. The BSDs are incredibly well done and kick NT ass. BeOS kicks everyone's ass in the multimedia department. MacOS is experiencing a resurgence, and is a delight to use.
Don't let Microsoft focus on one thing! Force them to deal with *ALL* things, *ALL* the time.
They can't spread FUD on all the competition...
...change the rules! Keep them hopping --- and learn to use the mass media!
I used some really sloppy wording up there.
Point remains, though: beat Microsoft by stepping out of the box. Make your own rules. Do the unconventional.
And unconventional would, in this case, be to offer *another* OS and server software as being preferable to both Linux/Apache and NT/IIs.
*At this point in time* Linux/Apache doesn't kick ass in the speed ratings. And speed is the *only* issue in the media eye.
So give what they want. Make 'em realize that there are better OSes for what they want. They want speed -- they ain't gonna find it in NT. They want scalability -- they ain't gonna find it in NT. They want stability -- they ain't gonna find it in NT.
Start making it known that NT is *ALWAYS* outperformed by another OS, and pretty soon NT *ALWAYS* looks like a bad choice.
"...only one in Canda offering DSL..."
Um, here in pissant little Vernon, BC, population 30 000... www.cnx.com is offering DSL. Before Sympatico, even.
It appears that most Linuxheads have finally come around to admit that Linux doesn't perform well as a server. Yet.
But it's pretty well acknowledged that NetBSD kicks ass in that department.
Time for Linux groupies to take the blinders off. Quit getting your shorts in a knot about the unfair Mindcruft tests, quit trying to pit Linux against NT in server applications...
...and start *heavily* promoting NetBSD as the ultimate server solution. Mob the media with it.
As long as you play by Microsoft rules, you lose by Microsoft rules. And fiercely protecting one's "turf" is a Microsoft rule.
Step out of that box. Quit promoing Linux as the be-all and end-all. Promo NetBSD as *the most appropriate solution* to server needs. Promo BeOS as *the most appropriate solution* to multimedia needs. And so on.
This tactic will emphasize to the media that people should make active choices re: their OS needs; emphasize that Windows is not the most appropriate OS for most cases; and emphasize that the Linux community plays big and puts the user first and foremost.
It's a no-lose situation. Choice is the ultimate goal.
Ah, that got your attention.
We're all mostly agreed that Linux will have long-term success, while Windows is doomed, right?
And the entire nation of Mexico is using Linux in its schools, right?
I wonder what nation will grow the next generation of quality programmers, eh? What nation will have an incredible number of highly skilled Linux hackers, eh? What nation will lead software production...
Hmmm.
Someone--perhaps Slashdot--needs to sponsor a "Thank You" page, from which Linux users can easily send short, positive feedback to those companies who support Linux by releasing specs, developing drivers, open sourcing their old code, and so on.
If this feedback were publicly viewable for a period of time AND an invitation to view the response were sent to other companies, the effect would be multiplied.
Slashdot 'em with love, basically.
Imagine: Logitech releases drivers for their gaming hardware. Cool. A pile of "Thank You" notes collects at their door. The video guys at Logitech are asked to check out the success of their co-workers; and so are the guys at Matrox; and at Toshiba; and at [name a closed-source company here]; and so on.
A couple weeks later, someone other company does something for us. We thank them, and let all their competitors know it. And so on...
It would be a powerful way of getting companies on-side.
(Okay, that was slightly unfair. But, geez, it's not like people are being *forced* to read the news links!)
Oh. My. God.
We've got a live one here, folks! Someone who *ACTUALLY BELIEVES* what he reads on the news sites. Apparently swallows it all verbatim.
Please, Lotek. It's the Internet. As the old saying goes -- "Believe half of what you see, a quarter of what you read and none of what you hear."
Consider the Internet to be between "hearing" and "reading."
So this evening, like a lot of evenings, I turn on my computer, fire up the web browser and /. comes up because I choose it from my link list.
/. has declined to the point that I'm bellyaching about it for the better part of seven paragraphs, I'll grab the source code and set up my own.
Then I see this article, one of a dozen, and decide that it's not worth my time to view.
Simple as that, I decide not to look at it.
Problem solved. A dozen articles a day, view a third to a half of them, sometimes enjoy them and sometimes close 'em before I give up even thirty more seconds to them.
And should I ever decide that
"FFFishDot -- News for Five Fresh Fish. Stuff That Matters to Him."
And the flocks will gather, just as they have for Rob. Of course, eventually some hardcase will fall in love with it, and then fall out of love with it because, hey, it's not "HardDot -- News for HardCase. Stuff That Matters to Him."
Ce la vie.