The opportunity for clever hacks like these through the combination of devices is why things should be left open by their designers during conception, when it's all possible. If this kind of mindset was more widespread, there'd be all kinds of possibilities from discovering what the pure functionality of a device can do. The increasing trend to lock devices down and restrict consumer flexibility with products they choose to purchase (see Xbox boot rom checks etc) is something that's dissapointing, and closing doors on innovative and new uses for everyday devices.
With the impending move to x86 architecture, this could be Apple posturing to encourage developers to work on the SMP capabilities of their programs. Intel's chips obviously feature things like HyperThreading and dual cores, making extracting the best possible performance require good SMP code. Obviously by phasing out the idea of a non-SMP 'Power' mac, Apple can encourage developers of scientific, processing and even mainstream applications (to an extent) to take better notice and make better use of SMP capable systems.
This isn't exactly an entirely new concept. Intel have been selling their ethernet chips with built in SSL accelerators for quite some time, and the advantage of offloading duties from the software to the hardware (see Intel etherexpress vs RealTek style cards) is obvious. Whether these cards offload enough of the normal duties of a typical cluster node to be worthwhile should be interesting to see, as there are a wide variety of cluster load types and obviously these cards will have a niche to fit into alongside their competitors in the diverse set of demands around cluster networks. As for the price tag, I seem to remember gigabit cards being extremely expensive a few years back, and its probably pretty competitive with where they're aiming this product, alongside myrinet and infiniband.
I'd say to give your children a rounded selection of activities, as much as it may be at odds with (perhaps) your own experiences, it may give them a chance to discover what things suit them and make them happy outside of the technology circle whilst still benefiting from any knowledge they happen to pick up from watching what you do (the ability of children to copy behaviours will allow them to pick up extra things from your own specialisms). Overall i think its about giving them a choice to develop any way they might want, and supporting that..
In using wiki to maintain editorials, the paper is effectively telling the users to alter the content to match their own opinions and beliefs (since that's what most people would tend to do). Digestion of news is usually best done through reading many different opinions, each with an accredited source, to be able to form your own from the information. One 'unified' article in the wiki style doesn't seem to fit with this model, and I'm concious that a lot of people are trying to force wiki's to become the new 'blog' style phenomenon of internet publishing.
To me, a traditional comments thread would be far more appropriate for news reporting. A clear example of the suitability of these two methods can be seen here on slashdot as using wiki for a substitute to comments.. clearly something that would be cumberous at best, and most likely completely hopeless at effectively digesting stories.
This text certainly seems to be comprehensive, covering a good volume of material, and the need for such a text shows the change that Apple have instituted in the individual components that make up OS X. A book covering the specific versions and kinks of open-source software supplied by default with the OS (Samba, JBoss, Apache etc..) may prove invaluable when faced with using more generic texts written towards more standard Linux versions, filesystem layouts and behaviours.
A portion of the manufacturers who usually come under fire for this kind of behaviour are those who make wireless LAN cards. In their case, at least, it seems to be insufficient control built into the hardware to prevent use of the radio device in ways that would make the product violate FCC codes (or other 'bad' effects). Because they costcut by moving functionality into the software winmodem style, making the hardware more straightforward for design and manufacture, the secrecy of the specification and interface is neccessary.
I would have thought this was pretty obvious by looking at the approaches of the two camps. Linux goes out of its way to support as much hardware as possible, even obscure and lesser-used devices. Apple support their own specifically designed & built platforms. There's a total polarity on the two approaches to the underlying platform, and of course the two can co-exist well, as there are needs/uses for both these approaches in today's computing environment.
It's funny how the UK government changed the main incentive for the cards when the original reason, "to stop terrorism" (when the only people who wouldn't have cards would be terrorists) did not gain support.
They are now apparently to stop identity fraud, and terrorism is just a plus to that. I'm not liking it one bit, I'll have my civil rights back, please.
Ruby on Rails as a threat to PHP?
on
Ajax On Rails
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Every time I see material surrounding Ruby on Rails, I'm further convinced that it could be the web application programming foundation that starts to displace PHP as developers start to look at the transition from PHP 4 to PHP 5. Getting an increased install base for ruby on rails, as is the case with php (a fairly difficult task, admittedly) would definitely help no end in increasing the framework's popularity, at least amongst those programming smaller web applications.
The article seems to suggest placing a large number of real servers behind a single virtual server. Surely this is putting a point of weakness in front of a potentially redundant cluster. Load balancing has been done better by specific hardware made by Foundry and the like. I'm not seeing the benefit over 'traditional' clustering with this solution.
The MSN search bar tabs seem interesting, but I wonder if it will establish precedents that might carry into final builds of IE7. The possibility of bugs or issues with this implementation may also help the adoption of firefox, as people who like the concept of tabbed browsing but find this implementation lacking may seek out other browsers, or ask those 'in the know' around them for recommendations.
It seems that large engineering projects, of any kind (not just restricted to IT), are particularly prone to failure when combined with public government money. I can't count the number of times news reports have uncovered vast government sums (at least here in the UK) being poured into ever-delayed and failing projects.
One of the more recent cases I can recall is the replacement of national air traffic control systems, which was delayed by years, and even after deployment suffered major issues. Public money just seems to be wasted away on these things, and its accepted as a fact of life.
Are Microsoft admitting a mainstream demand for coexistance between non-microsoft operating systems on the same pc, and even demand for alternative operating systems by including these features, or are they hedging their bets to become a good 'host' OS, so as to ensure users stay primarily on Windows but virtualize other OS's to access their strengths.
It doesnt immediately seem clear from the article how other operating systems will be permitted, and it could be the case that the software approves what operating systems will boot within it. I wonder how this development will affect VMware, as it is one of the few end-user virtualization software companies left given Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix and Virtual PC
They will be able to stem the problem by controlling the emigration of the skilled workers for a while, or offering higher wages for them back at home. Although it may not completely solve it, as the jobs come with the benefit of seeing the rest of the world, and living in a possibly better country than the people feel they are at the moment.
This coming on the day General Motors are cutting 125k jobs and moving more of them overseas, it's all a bit worrying
I still want to know why in games, on roads, paper seems to be there. Everywhere you go, there always has to be newspaper on the road or blowing across the road somehow.
Maybe I'm out of touch with the world of wooden crates, harbours and newspapers
Judging from the way "h-games" sell in their home country, Japan, I guess they are the correct way to do it. Games not focusing on sex itself, but building up to it by actually forming relationships and the end of the game being sex.
This seems to me like a victory for common sense. Using the fact that someone offers you files named, checksummed or otherwise identified as a specific song/resource is and should be no proof that those files are either being transferred or distributed. There were cases of this kind of stupidity with the RIAA sending out threats to people with files named with artist's and track names, without even verifying the contents, and this is clearly overstepping the mark. Until they can prove and verify that what you're offering is the valid song, and that you have actually distributed copies of it, it would seem highly bizarre that they could claim you were performing those acts.
Effects of virtual trustee?
on
Trust in a Bottle
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Its interesting that when a computer was the trustee, there was no measured effect from the oxytocin. If this effect is replicated for all non-human interaction, then the use of this on a larger scale would seem to be limited. However, there are interesting repercussions for the use of this kind of thing in business negotiations, where there can be control over the environment and a degree of trust could have a vital swing in decisions made
Being able to 'over-ride the fear of being betrayed', as it is put in the article could be a powerful factor in swaying decisions, and I would hope that by the time of any mass-market availability or application that ways and means of testing would be available for those environments that require 100% impartiality.
As much as people may complain about the age of packages that make up Debian stable releases, they serve a niche well and the project sticking to its goals on supporting many platforms and keeping the stable distribution static has provided a good alternative for those not willing to climb the upgrade ladder with distributions like fedora or ubuntu, or deal with any issues that arise by running unstable or newer debian branches. To each their own, and every release is a positive move for the stable users out there who value its characteristics.
Obviously these words haven't been included in the mainline dictionary, but its an increasing trend for modern slang and shortened terms to enter the dictionary. Whether such words should be included in dictionaries, which are important reference works is subjective, but I feel there is a danger that as more words that are subject to current conditions are added, dictionaries will have to become more dynamic and possibly lead to faster evolution of the language.
I'd be interested to see more devices embedding 6to4 routing, so that IPv6 can be transparently added while not interfering with the user's normal use, while adding access to the IPv6 space without requring tunnels or seperate addressing to those already assigned. This kind of transparent, background rollout would begin to address the issues that djb identified with the move to IPv6. If i could benefit from IPv6 without disrupting my IPv4 communications and not having to set up routing and tunneling manually, I would find myself taking advantage of that ability wherever possible.
It would be extremely interesting to see the votes mapped onto a social relationships chart, if only to confirm the groupings and the weak bonds between certain members of groups to tie them to the others.
Doing some kind of statistical analysis based on previous year's set voting patterns and then removing their significance from the current result might actually give an idea of who was the best artist, contrary to the winner of the popular vote.
If this technology works as advertised (and obviously that has yet to be seen) it will only really work by the kind of mass adoption created by inclusion in the standard bittorrent clients. This is how the Azureus distributed database has worked out so well, because of the existing userbase being rolled over seamlessly to its inclusion by default.
If Azureus or other clients decided to include functionality like this, it would effectively leave programs like eXeem dead in the water and provide BitTorrent users with a closed 'single-stop' solution for finding and downloading files.
If this IP block is known to be safe from identification, its certainly possible that crackers could choose to scan the area more heavily for exploits and rootable machines, making the block a source for malicious traffic.
On the other hand, it should make quite a selling point for tech-savvy customers in the area when in comparison with other ISP's. This may be effective protection against copyright lawsuits, providing enough obscurity that the regional enforcement agency choose not to pursue cases.
It should be interesting to see if this trend continues to other ISP's, and what effects occur as a result of this change
Slashdot Mirror
The opportunity for clever hacks like these through the combination of devices is why things should be left open by their designers during conception, when it's all possible. If this kind of mindset was more widespread, there'd be all kinds of possibilities from discovering what the pure functionality of a device can do. The increasing trend to lock devices down and restrict consumer flexibility with products they choose to purchase (see Xbox boot rom checks etc) is something that's dissapointing, and closing doors on innovative and new uses for everyday devices.
With the impending move to x86 architecture, this could be Apple posturing to encourage developers to work on the SMP capabilities of their programs. Intel's chips obviously feature things like HyperThreading and dual cores, making extracting the best possible performance require good SMP code. Obviously by phasing out the idea of a non-SMP 'Power' mac, Apple can encourage developers of scientific, processing and even mainstream applications (to an extent) to take better notice and make better use of SMP capable systems.
This isn't exactly an entirely new concept. Intel have been selling their ethernet chips with built in SSL accelerators for quite some time, and the advantage of offloading duties from the software to the hardware (see Intel etherexpress vs RealTek style cards) is obvious. Whether these cards offload enough of the normal duties of a typical cluster node to be worthwhile should be interesting to see, as there are a wide variety of cluster load types and obviously these cards will have a niche to fit into alongside their competitors in the diverse set of demands around cluster networks. As for the price tag, I seem to remember gigabit cards being extremely expensive a few years back, and its probably pretty competitive with where they're aiming this product, alongside myrinet and infiniband.
I'd say to give your children a rounded selection of activities, as much as it may be at odds with (perhaps) your own experiences, it may give them a chance to discover what things suit them and make them happy outside of the technology circle whilst still benefiting from any knowledge they happen to pick up from watching what you do (the ability of children to copy behaviours will allow them to pick up extra things from your own specialisms). Overall i think its about giving them a choice to develop any way they might want, and supporting that..
In using wiki to maintain editorials, the paper is effectively telling the users to alter the content to match their own opinions and beliefs (since that's what most people would tend to do). Digestion of news is usually best done through reading many different opinions, each with an accredited source, to be able to form your own from the information. One 'unified' article in the wiki style doesn't seem to fit with this model, and I'm concious that a lot of people are trying to force wiki's to become the new 'blog' style phenomenon of internet publishing.
To me, a traditional comments thread would be far more appropriate for news reporting. A clear example of the suitability of these two methods can be seen here on slashdot as using wiki for a substitute to comments.. clearly something that would be cumberous at best, and most likely completely hopeless at effectively digesting stories.
This text certainly seems to be comprehensive, covering a good volume of material, and the need for such a text shows the change that Apple have instituted in the individual components that make up OS X. A book covering the specific versions and kinks of open-source software supplied by default with the OS (Samba, JBoss, Apache etc..) may prove invaluable when faced with using more generic texts written towards more standard Linux versions, filesystem layouts and behaviours.
A portion of the manufacturers who usually come under fire for this kind of behaviour are those who make wireless LAN cards. In their case, at least, it seems to be insufficient control built into the hardware to prevent use of the radio device in ways that would make the product violate FCC codes (or other 'bad' effects). Because they costcut by moving functionality into the software winmodem style, making the hardware more straightforward for design and manufacture, the secrecy of the specification and interface is neccessary.
I would have thought this was pretty obvious by looking at the approaches of the two camps. Linux goes out of its way to support as much hardware as possible, even obscure and lesser-used devices. Apple support their own specifically designed & built platforms. There's a total polarity on the two approaches to the underlying platform, and of course the two can co-exist well, as there are needs/uses for both these approaches in today's computing environment.
It's funny how the UK government changed the main incentive for the cards when the original reason, "to stop terrorism" (when the only people who wouldn't have cards would be terrorists) did not gain support.
They are now apparently to stop identity fraud, and terrorism is just a plus to that. I'm not liking it one bit, I'll have my civil rights back, please.
Every time I see material surrounding Ruby on Rails, I'm further convinced that it could be the web application programming foundation that starts to displace PHP as developers start to look at the transition from PHP 4 to PHP 5. Getting an increased install base for ruby on rails, as is the case with php (a fairly difficult task, admittedly) would definitely help no end in increasing the framework's popularity, at least amongst those programming smaller web applications.
The article seems to suggest placing a large number of real servers behind a single virtual server. Surely this is putting a point of weakness in front of a potentially redundant cluster. Load balancing has been done better by specific hardware made by Foundry and the like. I'm not seeing the benefit over 'traditional' clustering with this solution.
The MSN search bar tabs seem interesting, but I wonder if it will establish precedents that might carry into final builds of IE7. The possibility of bugs or issues with this implementation may also help the adoption of firefox, as people who like the concept of tabbed browsing but find this implementation lacking may seek out other browsers, or ask those 'in the know' around them for recommendations.
It seems that large engineering projects, of any kind (not just restricted to IT), are particularly prone to failure when combined with public government money. I can't count the number of times news reports have uncovered vast government sums (at least here in the UK) being poured into ever-delayed and failing projects.
One of the more recent cases I can recall is the replacement of national air traffic control systems, which was delayed by years, and even after deployment suffered major issues. Public money just seems to be wasted away on these things, and its accepted as a fact of life.
Are Microsoft admitting a mainstream demand for coexistance between non-microsoft operating systems on the same pc, and even demand for alternative operating systems by including these features, or are they hedging their bets to become a good 'host' OS, so as to ensure users stay primarily on Windows but virtualize other OS's to access their strengths.
It doesnt immediately seem clear from the article how other operating systems will be permitted, and it could be the case that the software approves what operating systems will boot within it. I wonder how this development will affect VMware, as it is one of the few end-user virtualization software companies left given Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix and Virtual PC
They will be able to stem the problem by controlling the emigration of the skilled workers for a while, or offering higher wages for them back at home. Although it may not completely solve it, as the jobs come with the benefit of seeing the rest of the world, and living in a possibly better country than the people feel they are at the moment.
This coming on the day General Motors are cutting 125k jobs and moving more of them overseas, it's all a bit worrying
I still want to know why in games, on roads, paper seems to be there. Everywhere you go, there always has to be newspaper on the road or blowing across the road somehow.
Maybe I'm out of touch with the world of wooden crates, harbours and newspapers
Judging from the way "h-games" sell in their home country, Japan, I guess they are the correct way to do it. Games not focusing on sex itself, but building up to it by actually forming relationships and the end of the game being sex.
This seems to me like a victory for common sense. Using the fact that someone offers you files named, checksummed or otherwise identified as a specific song/resource is and should be no proof that those files are either being transferred or distributed. There were cases of this kind of stupidity with the RIAA sending out threats to people with files named with artist's and track names, without even verifying the contents, and this is clearly overstepping the mark. Until they can prove and verify that what you're offering is the valid song, and that you have actually distributed copies of it, it would seem highly bizarre that they could claim you were performing those acts.
Its interesting that when a computer was the trustee, there was no measured effect from the oxytocin. If this effect is replicated for all non-human interaction, then the use of this on a larger scale would seem to be limited. However, there are interesting repercussions for the use of this kind of thing in business negotiations, where there can be control over the environment and a degree of trust could have a vital swing in decisions made
Being able to 'over-ride the fear of being betrayed', as it is put in the article could be a powerful factor in swaying decisions, and I would hope that by the time of any mass-market availability or application that ways and means of testing would be available for those environments that require 100% impartiality.
As much as people may complain about the age of packages that make up Debian stable releases, they serve a niche well and the project sticking to its goals on supporting many platforms and keeping the stable distribution static has provided a good alternative for those not willing to climb the upgrade ladder with distributions like fedora or ubuntu, or deal with any issues that arise by running unstable or newer debian branches. To each their own, and every release is a positive move for the stable users out there who value its characteristics.
Obviously these words haven't been included in the mainline dictionary, but its an increasing trend for modern slang and shortened terms to enter the dictionary. Whether such words should be included in dictionaries, which are important reference works is subjective, but I feel there is a danger that as more words that are subject to current conditions are added, dictionaries will have to become more dynamic and possibly lead to faster evolution of the language.
I'd be interested to see more devices embedding 6to4 routing, so that IPv6 can be transparently added while not interfering with the user's normal use, while adding access to the IPv6 space without requring tunnels or seperate addressing to those already assigned. This kind of transparent, background rollout would begin to address the issues that djb identified with the move to IPv6. If i could benefit from IPv6 without disrupting my IPv4 communications and not having to set up routing and tunneling manually, I would find myself taking advantage of that ability wherever possible.
It would be extremely interesting to see the votes mapped onto a social relationships chart, if only to confirm the groupings and the weak bonds between certain members of groups to tie them to the others.
Doing some kind of statistical analysis based on previous year's set voting patterns and then removing their significance from the current result might actually give an idea of who was the best artist, contrary to the winner of the popular vote.
If this technology works as advertised (and obviously that has yet to be seen) it will only really work by the kind of mass adoption created by inclusion in the standard bittorrent clients. This is how the Azureus distributed database has worked out so well, because of the existing userbase being rolled over seamlessly to its inclusion by default.
If Azureus or other clients decided to include functionality like this, it would effectively leave programs like eXeem dead in the water and provide BitTorrent users with a closed 'single-stop' solution for finding and downloading files.
If this IP block is known to be safe from identification, its certainly possible that crackers could choose to scan the area more heavily for exploits and rootable machines, making the block a source for malicious traffic.
On the other hand, it should make quite a selling point for tech-savvy customers in the area when in comparison with other ISP's. This may be effective protection against copyright lawsuits, providing enough obscurity that the regional enforcement agency choose not to pursue cases.
It should be interesting to see if this trend continues to other ISP's, and what effects occur as a result of this change