I run a website called Omphalos - its pretty small, its taken a lot of work to develop, and I don't make a dime off of it, so I am not upset at lost revenue or anything, but I have had my site content ripped off completely by some other individual in the past, and despite repeated attempts to get the situation resolved (which I handled badly at the start I admit) and despite chasing the guy across multiple webhosts I have still failed to get my stolen content removed from his site. I even contacted the EFF on this, but they do not deal with issues of copyright.
My website has completely changed since this event, so to illustrate the point I have to point to an older copy of the site that can be compared to the stolen version (which has undergone some changes too for that matter). Keep in mind we are talking content here not appearance. What was specifically taken from my site are the website descriptions and categories that were present in my directory. Here are some example pages:
There are many more pages to compare, but I leave that to the reader. My old main page is at:
here and the main directory page of the offending website is here
Now, my site has grown considerably since then, and undergone many changes. In one sense I don't care that this individual has ripped off my pages because my site is progressing and is probably far better known, its also a more useful resource (and I think I can do webpages better than the other guy too). OTOH, I am really pissed off at the offense of having my site content stolen and being unable to do anything about it other than complain. I don't have the cash to take someone to court so that is not a feasible option, and I am tired of chasing this guy from one ISP to another (I have had his site removed from 3 servers so far and it just keeps reappearing elsewhere).
I found out about this because someone who had submitted their site to my website informed me that the same description had appeared on this other website, even though they did not submit their site description to that other site. Also, one of my websites ("Atho's Pagan Files Collection", now a part of Omphalos itself) is actually listed in the Bookstore's directory and *I* sure as hell didn't submit it there.
When I first discovered this I posted a complaint on my website accusing the other site of ripping me off, then contacted the webmaster. I should have done it the other way around, cause I got his back up and it became impossible to reason with him on this issue. My mistake freely admitted here. When I asked him about the similiarities between our site content, he had two comments:
Its just a coincidence that they are so similar.
I don't own a copyright on the contents of my site because it is not possible to have a copyright on webcontent.
So he refuses to listen to me, and the only recourse I have is to keep chasing him from server to server or sue him in court. I don't have the time or cash for either.
BTW if the subject matter of my site is of interest to you, please use the current version: http://www.omphalos.net
All right, so it was badly worded. (I'd say so sue me, but who knows someone might...) I should have said something like "previously this required a much less cost effective solution involving pressurized gases to inflate the balloon, now apparently it can be done with a much more easily transported unpressurized liquid which changes to a gas under the conditions in the Martian atmosphere". You get that into a 5 word sentance if you can.
Singing the DeCSS is one thing (and an interesting excercise in protesting as well) but to meet the real challenge, and show the incredible stupidity of the MPAA and cabal, can you get a major artist to record the song and include it on one of their CDs? Or better yet get it included as music on the soundtrack of a movie that will come out on DVD?
Yep, just adding comments, as you suggest, to the code would change the text - immaterial to a human being, but making it a different piece of code in the eyes of the legal system. Actually using completely different variable names and slightly different structure to accomplisht the same thing would take it a step further...
Looks like they plan on actually trying to remove something from the web. Looks like a good test of the often-sigged adage that the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it. Why not post the DeCSS code (can I even say it without being sued?) under a different name? It's going to be awfully hard to track down if it starts appearing under many different names.
Oh, and wouldn't that cause another problem, in that all the court documents are probably identifying the code by that specific name, if its a different name then they need to go back into court and spend MORE money on this. If we keep it up we could bleed em dry over time - or they will eventually realize the stupidity of their stance and give up.
In any case, this sets a dangerous precedent for the internet.
When I first started my Omphalos website, I planned on using a Canadian domain - it was free, and I thought it should be easy to register.
When I applied, I came across two problems: first, I could only get "omphalos.vancouver.bc.ca" if I wanted to, because I was not represented by official organizations in more than one province, and second because Omphalos is not a legal entity I was told I could not apply in any case. In other words to even get an address at all I had to have some sort of legal status as an organization or something. This was complete bullshit.
Luckily omphalos.net was easily obtained.
Why would anyone go for a ultralong multidotted and impossible-to-remember national TLD which is hard to obtain, when they can get one of the top 3 so easily? (provided your choice of name is not already taken, granted).
Before national domains become popular for Joe and Jane Average, they need to be administered in such a fashion that they can easily be obtained without having to jump through multiple hoops and meet silly requirements...
I think I should have been able to register omphalos.ca just as easily as omphalos.net.
I am one of the folks running the pre-release version of this puppy, and I have to agree with the article completely. I had no problems installing it, and have had no problems running it. It detected my hardware perfectly and installed like a breeze (probably the easiest installation of any software I have ever installed). This is going to be a platform to watch.
To make the obvious computer OS metaphor, English is more like Linux, rather than Windows.
English is based on Germanic languages, plus Latin and French primarily, but it borrows from other languages freely - if a word is useful it gets Anglicized and becomes part of the language. If a program or tool in another OS is useful, a Linux version is quickly developed.
It doesn't have a consistent interface. The flavours of English vary considerably, and it has many idiomatic usages, and a confusing orthography, while remaining an extremely useful tool overall. Linux shares with Unix its cryptic command line syntax which varies from command to command.
It is gaining in popularity over time. English has become a dominant linguistic medium because of its flexibility.
Windows is more like Latin than English. If a new concept was encountered, a Latin-based version was created, rather than adopting a foreign word (this is a broad generalization of course, and perhaps French would be a better example). Besides, like Latin, Windows is a dead language....:)
Why aren't there translators built right in to modern programming languages, so that I can write it in English, but if you are a Mandarin speaker and want to read my code you simply have to hit a button (or whatever) and it translates the results into the Mandarin version. We are not talking a lot of actual words here. Most computer programming languages probably have no more than a couple of thousand "words" in use. A lot of flags etc could be kept the same.
This ought to be just as true of Operating Systems. I imagine the Chinese government is busily redefining the text in "Red Flag" Linux for instance.
I made a typo: I mean to say that this list does not contain backlinks to http://slashdot.org (without the "www"), but my fingers have a mind of their own when I have not had enough coffee in the morning.
As a webmaster for several websites, I have always found the backlinks checking option on Google to be one of the neatest features of the site.
For those not familiar with how Google works: in part it measures the relevancy of a site based on how many other sites contain links to it. So it tracks these links, called Backlinks, and you can check them using Google search.
For instance, to see a list of webpages which contain links to Slashdot (and which are also indexed by Google of course, so its a subset of the web as a whole), we enter the following search in Google:
The results displayed are the pages that contain links back to Slashdot.org. Note that this is by individual URL, so this list does not contain links to http://www.slashdot.org for instance.
Omphalos - The Directory and Search Engine for Paganism & Witchcraft!
I did a quick search on Google (only because it is my favourite search engine) and found links to webpages that (no surprise) contained links to the DeCSS code. I managed to download that code, then deleted it (because I have no particular use for it). I am sure that the same search on any of the other search engines on the web would produce similar results, so I am not singling Google out here.
Does this mean that Google now has to remove keywords or links selectively because the information they are focuses on might violate some ignorant US legal ruling?
If so then this ruling cannot stand or the entire web will come crashing down around Kaplan's ears.
Looks like Roy Rogers was right when he said "This country has the best politicians money can buy". It also ooks like the only reason that Justice is blind is because it has its head up its ass.
I mean, if I install MS Excel I have to click on a licensing agreement that puts certain restrictions on my use of the software, etc etc. Amongst other things doesn't such a user agreement usually state that only one person can use the software at a time, or that it can only be installed on 1 machine?
I went to their Tarantella demo page and made a useless little excel spreadsheet that adds two numbers together. I saved it on their system using their software. Therefore I have just used a copy of Excel which I (AFAIK) do not have the legal right to use - unless they have some special deal in the works with MS.
The software ran rather slowly, but then I am on a cable modem - if I was directly on a highpowered internal corporate network connection it would probably work just fine.
Note: While this is bound to result in some highly critical comments, it is not intended to be flamebait but a serious question
If this is true - something lots of folks joked about but never really thought would happen, then what is to prevent another event happening that no one has ever thought Microsoft would do - creating their own distribution of Linux. There are tons of reasons why they might not want to to this, but just to hedge their bets against the court rulings, what would prevent the Applications division from say, making a version of their apps compatible with Linux and the OS division making an MS Linux distro. True, the source code for the linux distro would be mostly open source, but the Office elements and any proprietary additions they made would not have to be opensource. With their marketing muscle (ie cashflow) if MS waded into the Linux market they would probably dominate it in very short order...
I read much of the website of Karl Auerbach, and I have to say that if I had a vote I would vote for him in all likelyhood.
That said, on his site he proposes the creation of an unlimited number of TLDs, starting at a rate of 1000 per year and working up to 10,000 per year, assigned by lottery to those applying, on a first-come, first-choice basis.
Possibly not a bad idea, I have long thought the dominance of.com was a bit silly myself, certainly opening up the creation of new TLDs might eliminate some problems we currently face, notably the problem of the ever-decreasing availibility of useful domain names, and probably cause other problems of course. I think we need to resolve the whole "corporate/trademark/commercial interest is more important than public rights" issue first, or every corporation out there will be lobbying against this will all their might (ie cash) because they will end up having to purchase their company domain in every new TLD to prevent competitors from doing so.
However (finally he gets to the point) I have take exception to Mr Auerbach's math. On his website he figures the maximum cap on number of TLDs to be somewhere around a couple of million. Currently a TLD consists of 3 letters (I am ignoring the 2 letter country codes completely for the sake of this arguement, since adding any more 2 letter codes would simply increase the confusion.), using an english-language standard keyboard there are 26 letters total. If we do the simple math (26*26*26) there are only 17,576 possible combinations. Once we rule out the undesirable ones (who wants the TLD of.qbb,.zzj, or.ggg?), the practical list is considerably smaller. Even if you add in the digits from 0-9 we only get a few thousand more possibilities (46656).
Thus the only possible assumption is there is to be no 3 letter cap on TLD length. If we go to a maximum of 4 letters, we get a total possible combination of 456,976 which is closer to his suggested range, but again, 95% of these are going to be undesirable (although it does let us use more realistic, and more descriptive choices for TLDs. I am sure.slut,.free, and.porn would go pretty quickly).
My question is, has anyone come up with a better notion for domain addressing that is not so inherently limiting? Something that could practically be created to replace the relatively silly system we have now?
Don't kid yourself, people will still buy copies of MS Office for Linux if it comes out. Corporations that have some employees who use Linux and some who use MS Windows will buy licenses if only to ensure that 1 document format is in use throughout the business.
Besides, as someone pointed out elsewhere, this is probably being done as a hedge against the possibility that the DOJ will succeed in their case against MS and the company WILL be broken up into two competing companies. If that happens, then the applications half of MS will no longer have complete access to the source for the various flavours of Windows. If they do it now, then if they get broken up the applications division is ready to take on the Linux desktop as a market as well. Its an awfully small market now, but if things keep going the way they are at the moment with Linux, it will become a large enough market for MS to want to play in and dominate.
I know folks here on Slashdot will no doubt mailbomb me for saying so, but I have installed Corel Linux on a couple of machines and I have to say I was very pleased with both the install proceedure and the results. It installed flawlessly on my wife's Toshiba laptop as well. I have used various other distros from (RH, Mandrake (which is almost the same thing as RH in any case), Storm, Turbolinux, etc) and overall preferred either RH or Mandrake, but Corel was certainly a good distro to let someone who is new to Linux loose with.
Of course, now I am playing with FreeBSD and loving the experience. I guess I am an OS junkie...(BeOS was fun too)
If you think about it, the brain is acting like an interpreter when you listen to someone else's speech. Of course, if they are speaking Japanese and you only understand English - you need to get a patch.:)
Thats an easy question - fdisk. Its fairly well written, fast, and I have never had it fail on me so far. Of course, once you run it, the other MS products don't seem to be available, but then Linux & the BSDs offer a friendly and much more functional alternative. Still, I think we should be magnanimous enough to offer Microsoft a compliment on the effectiveness and general quality of fdisk - I recommend it to all of my friends.
It's thoroughly off topic, but this occured to me last night and I thought I would post it (now that I have found the key to the Bomb-shelter)
WE'LL RANT AND WE'LL ROAR: (To the tune of "Spanish Ladies" (many versions) or "Rant And Roar" (Great Blue Sea for example)) By Phrogman (http://www.omphalos.net)
My nickname is "Troll-bait" or "Anonymous Coward",
My comments are leading so you'll have a go,
If you like Linux, I'll be MS-man,
You'll look hard to find me, cause my Karma's so low...
Chorus:
We'll rant and we'll roar like true Slashdot addicts,
We'll foam as we read with our threshold set low,
If its about Linux, we treat it like gospel,
'Cause if Slashdot will post it, we know that its so.
I like to pour hot grits down the front of my blue-jeans,
I'd love to see Natalie frozen like stone,
I don't have the brains to come up with a comment,
I would rather waste bandwidth like a meaningless drone.
(Chorus)
I am a true Slashgeek, my system runs linux,
My software is all GNU, and well-used,
My dreams are in hexcode, C, or assembler,
And I cannot sit still and see Penguin's abused.
(Chorus)
My claim is "First Poster", I don't have a purpose,
Never mind that there's three of us all in a row,
I refresh my browser every 2 seconds,
Just so I get the chance to let you all know.
(Chorus)
Redhat's not Linux, its only a distro,
We'll scream it out loud, till we're blue in the face,
There's Debian, Mandrake, Slackware and Suse,
And many a new one to take their place...
(Chorus)
I am a 5krip7 k1dd14, I am real 1337 now,
I can't do too much hacking 'cause my system is slow
But don't you upset me, or I'll have to show you,
That I can read Bugtraq and then have a go.
(Chorus)
I hate RIAA, I love to use Napster,
It still is the best source for Metallica's songs,
I'd love to buy CDs but I'm a poor student,
So if you ask me, song trading's not wrong.
(Chorus)
Silicon's divine, Transmeta's my Mecca,
Can't wait for my startup to go IPO,
I'm counting the days until we go public,
Now, if we had a product 'twould be an easier go.
(Chorus)
"Meta-moderating" is just fine by me now,
I love to downgrade the things I oppose,
If I think your comments are stupid, say goodbye to your Karma,
I just hope that my actions are never exposed.
(Chorus)
I am an MS-man, my software's not open,
But that doesn't mean my mind's totally closed,
Even though I must reboot every few hours,
I still have the right to think Linux is hosed.
(Chorus)
If an item is high-tech, bizarre or expensive,
I'll let you know that I think in this case,
A Beowulf cluster is surely in order,
Never mind that the cost'd be in outer space.
(Chorus)
My name is Jon Katz, you all love to hate me,
My stories all take a similar line,
I hated my teenage years, so now I'll explain 'em
Cause to me the whole world is post-Columbine.
(Chorus)
My name is Rob Malda, my shorts are asbestos,
My Geek-hobby website has certainly grown,
We got bought by Andover, and now we're employees,
Our impartial viewpoint is probably blown...
(Chorus)
My name is Slashdot, comprising 5 servers,
My Alteon load-balancer's not just for show,
If we post a link to your website, beware now,
When the Slashordes all visit - down it will go.
Mr Cowing noted in the article that they discovered a large dust cloud orbiting Epsilon Eridani back in 1998, and noticed a large bright spot they thought might indicate a large planet. I sincerely hope they have managed to capture an actual image of the planet itself. There will be more information forthcoming on this issue very shortly I am sure.
Slashdot Mirror
I run a website called Omphalos - its pretty small, its taken a lot of work to develop, and I don't make a dime off of it, so I am not upset at lost revenue or anything, but I have had my site content ripped off completely by some other individual in the past, and despite repeated attempts to get the situation resolved (which I handled badly at the start I admit) and despite chasing the guy across multiple webhosts I have still failed to get my stolen content removed from his site. I even contacted the EFF on this, but they do not deal with issues of copyright.
My website has completely changed since this event, so to illustrate the point I have to point to an older copy of the site that can be compared to the stolen version (which has undergone some changes too for that matter). Keep in mind we are talking content here not appearance. What was specifically taken from my site are the website descriptions and categories that were present in my directory. Here are some example pages:
Now, my site has grown considerably since then, and undergone many changes. In one sense I don't care that this individual has ripped off my pages because my site is progressing and is probably far better known, its also a more useful resource (and I think I can do webpages better than the other guy too). OTOH, I am really pissed off at the offense of having my site content stolen and being unable to do anything about it other than complain. I don't have the cash to take someone to court so that is not a feasible option, and I am tired of chasing this guy from one ISP to another (I have had his site removed from 3 servers so far and it just keeps reappearing elsewhere).
I found out about this because someone who had submitted their site to my website informed me that the same description had appeared on this other website, even though they did not submit their site description to that other site. Also, one of my websites ("Atho's Pagan Files Collection", now a part of Omphalos itself) is actually listed in the Bookstore's directory and *I* sure as hell didn't submit it there.
When I first discovered this I posted a complaint on my website accusing the other site of ripping me off, then contacted the webmaster. I should have done it the other way around, cause I got his back up and it became impossible to reason with him on this issue. My mistake freely admitted here. When I asked him about the similiarities between our site content, he had two comments:
So he refuses to listen to me, and the only recourse I have is to keep chasing him from server to server or sue him in court. I don't have the time or cash for either.
BTW if the subject matter of my site is of interest to you, please use the current version: http://www.omphalos.net
Any suggestions?
All right, so it was badly worded. (I'd say so sue me, but who knows someone might...) I should have said something like "previously this required a much less cost effective solution involving pressurized gases to inflate the balloon, now apparently it can be done with a much more easily transported unpressurized liquid which changes to a gas under the conditions in the Martian atmosphere". You get that into a 5 word sentance if you can.
Singing the DeCSS is one thing (and an interesting excercise in protesting as well) but to meet the real challenge, and show the incredible stupidity of the MPAA and cabal, can you get a major artist to record the song and include it on one of their CDs? Or better yet get it included as music on the soundtrack of a movie that will come out on DVD?
Yep, just adding comments, as you suggest, to the code would change the text - immaterial to a human being, but making it a different piece of code in the eyes of the legal system. Actually using completely different variable names and slightly different structure to accomplisht the same thing would take it a step further...
Looks like they plan on actually trying to remove something from the web. Looks like a good test of the often-sigged adage that the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it. Why not post the DeCSS code (can I even say it without being sued?) under a different name? It's going to be awfully hard to track down if it starts appearing under many different names.
Oh, and wouldn't that cause another problem, in that all the court documents are probably identifying the code by that specific name, if its a different name then they need to go back into court and spend MORE money on this. If we keep it up we could bleed em dry over time - or they will eventually realize the stupidity of their stance and give up.
In any case, this sets a dangerous precedent for the internet.
When I first started my Omphalos website, I planned on using a Canadian domain - it was free, and I thought it should be easy to register.
When I applied, I came across two problems: first, I could only get "omphalos.vancouver.bc.ca" if I wanted to, because I was not represented by official organizations in more than one province, and second because Omphalos is not a legal entity I was told I could not apply in any case. In other words to even get an address at all I had to have some sort of legal status as an organization or something. This was complete bullshit.
Luckily omphalos.net was easily obtained.
Why would anyone go for a ultralong multidotted and impossible-to-remember national TLD which is hard to obtain, when they can get one of the top 3 so easily? (provided your choice of name is not already taken, granted).
Before national domains become popular for Joe and Jane Average, they need to be administered in such a fashion that they can easily be obtained without having to jump through multiple hoops and meet silly requirements...
I think I should have been able to register omphalos.ca just as easily as omphalos.net.
I am one of the folks running the pre-release version of this puppy, and I have to agree with the article completely. I had no problems installing it, and have had no problems running it. It detected my hardware perfectly and installed like a breeze (probably the easiest installation of any software I have ever installed). This is going to be a platform to watch.
To make the obvious computer OS metaphor, English is more like Linux, rather than Windows.
Windows is more like Latin than English. If a new concept was encountered, a Latin-based version was created, rather than adopting a foreign word (this is a broad generalization of course, and perhaps French would be a better example). Besides, like Latin, Windows is a dead language.... :)
Why aren't there translators built right in to modern programming languages, so that I can write it in English, but if you are a Mandarin speaker and want to read my code you simply have to hit a button (or whatever) and it translates the results into the Mandarin version. We are not talking a lot of actual words here. Most computer programming languages probably have no more than a couple of thousand "words" in use. A lot of flags etc could be kept the same.
This ought to be just as true of Operating Systems. I imagine the Chinese government is busily redefining the text in "Red Flag" Linux for instance.
One of the easiest explanations I have seen for English speakers on how to pronounce "Ü" is as follows:
Put your mouth in the postion to say the "oo" in say "moon" - now without moving your mouth say "ee" as in "lean".
Hope that helps...
I made a typo: I mean to say that this list does not contain backlinks to http://slashdot.org (without the "www"), but my fingers have a mind of their own when I have not had enough coffee in the morning.
As a webmaster for several websites, I have always found the backlinks checking option on Google to be one of the neatest features of the site.
For those not familiar with how Google works: in part it measures the relevancy of a site based on how many other sites contain links to it. So it tracks these links, called Backlinks, and you can check them using Google search.
For instance, to see a list of webpages which contain links to Slashdot (and which are also indexed by Google of course, so its a subset of the web as a whole), we enter the following search in Google:
links: http://www.slashdot.org
The results displayed are the pages that contain links back to Slashdot.org. Note that this is by individual URL, so this list does not contain links to http://www.slashdot.org for instance.
Omphalos - The Directory and Search Engine for Paganism & Witchcraft!
I did a quick search on Google (only because it is my favourite search engine) and found links to webpages that (no surprise) contained links to the DeCSS code. I managed to download that code, then deleted it (because I have no particular use for it). I am sure that the same search on any of the other search engines on the web would produce similar results, so I am not singling Google out here.
Does this mean that Google now has to remove keywords or links selectively because the information they are focuses on might violate some ignorant US legal ruling?
If so then this ruling cannot stand or the entire web will come crashing down around Kaplan's ears.
Looks like Roy Rogers was right when he said "This country has the best politicians money can buy". It also ooks like the only reason that Justice is blind is because it has its head up its ass.
I mean, if I install MS Excel I have to click on a licensing agreement that puts certain restrictions on my use of the software, etc etc. Amongst other things doesn't such a user agreement usually state that only one person can use the software at a time, or that it can only be installed on 1 machine?
I went to their Tarantella demo page and made a useless little excel spreadsheet that adds two numbers together. I saved it on their system using their software. Therefore I have just used a copy of Excel which I (AFAIK) do not have the legal right to use - unless they have some special deal in the works with MS.
The software ran rather slowly, but then I am on a cable modem - if I was directly on a highpowered internal corporate network connection it would probably work just fine.
Note: While this is bound to result in some highly critical comments, it is not intended to be flamebait but a serious question
If this is true - something lots of folks joked about but never really thought would happen, then what is to prevent another event happening that no one has ever thought Microsoft would do - creating their own distribution of Linux. There are tons of reasons why they might not want to to this, but just to hedge their bets against the court rulings, what would prevent the Applications division from say, making a version of their apps compatible with Linux and the OS division making an MS Linux distro. True, the source code for the linux distro would be mostly open source, but the Office elements and any proprietary additions they made would not have to be opensource. With their marketing muscle (ie cashflow) if MS waded into the Linux market they would probably dominate it in very short order...
I read much of the website of Karl Auerbach, and I have to say that if I had a vote I would vote for him in all likelyhood.
That said, on his site he proposes the creation of an unlimited number of TLDs, starting at a rate of 1000 per year and working up to 10,000 per year, assigned by lottery to those applying, on a first-come, first-choice basis.
Possibly not a bad idea, I have long thought the dominance of .com was a bit silly myself, certainly opening up the creation of new TLDs might eliminate some problems we currently face, notably the problem of the ever-decreasing availibility of useful domain names, and probably cause other problems of course. I think we need to resolve the whole "corporate/trademark/commercial interest is more important than public rights" issue first, or every corporation out there will be lobbying against this will all their might (ie cash) because they will end up having to purchase their company domain in every new TLD to prevent competitors from doing so.
However (finally he gets to the point) I have take exception to Mr Auerbach's math. On his website he figures the maximum cap on number of TLDs to be somewhere around a couple of million. Currently a TLD consists of 3 letters (I am ignoring the 2 letter country codes completely for the sake of this arguement, since adding any more 2 letter codes would simply increase the confusion.), using an english-language standard keyboard there are 26 letters total. If we do the simple math (26*26*26) there are only 17,576 possible combinations. Once we rule out the undesirable ones (who wants the TLD of .qbb, .zzj, or .ggg?), the practical list is considerably smaller. Even if you add in the digits from 0-9 we only get a few thousand more possibilities (46656).
Thus the only possible assumption is there is to be no 3 letter cap on TLD length. If we go to a maximum of 4 letters, we get a total possible combination of 456,976 which is closer to his suggested range, but again, 95% of these are going to be undesirable (although it does let us use more realistic, and more descriptive choices for TLDs. I am sure .slut, .free, and .porn would go pretty quickly).
My question is, has anyone come up with a better notion for domain addressing that is not so inherently limiting? Something that could practically be created to replace the relatively silly system we have now?
Don't kid yourself, people will still buy copies of MS Office for Linux if it comes out. Corporations that have some employees who use Linux and some who use MS Windows will buy licenses if only to ensure that 1 document format is in use throughout the business.
Besides, as someone pointed out elsewhere, this is probably being done as a hedge against the possibility that the DOJ will succeed in their case against MS and the company WILL be broken up into two competing companies. If that happens, then the applications half of MS will no longer have complete access to the source for the various flavours of Windows. If they do it now, then if they get broken up the applications division is ready to take on the Linux desktop as a market as well. Its an awfully small market now, but if things keep going the way they are at the moment with Linux, it will become a large enough market for MS to want to play in and dominate.
As someone else noted: read this.
I know folks here on Slashdot will no doubt mailbomb me for saying so, but I have installed Corel Linux on a couple of machines and I have to say I was very pleased with both the install proceedure and the results. It installed flawlessly on my wife's Toshiba laptop as well. I have used various other distros from (RH, Mandrake (which is almost the same thing as RH in any case), Storm, Turbolinux, etc) and overall preferred either RH or Mandrake, but Corel was certainly a good distro to let someone who is new to Linux loose with.
Of course, now I am playing with FreeBSD and loving the experience. I guess I am an OS junkie...(BeOS was fun too)
If you think about it, the brain is acting like an interpreter when you listen to someone else's speech. Of course, if they are speaking Japanese and you only understand English - you need to get a patch. :)
There was a comment on the article at the bottom that gives a link to the original story, which has some pictures, you can find it Here
Thats an easy question - fdisk. Its fairly well written, fast, and I have never had it fail on me so far. Of course, once you run it, the other MS products don't seem to be available, but then Linux & the BSDs offer a friendly and much more functional alternative. Still, I think we should be magnanimous enough to offer Microsoft a compliment on the effectiveness and general quality of fdisk - I recommend it to all of my friends.
Insufficient Coffee in Operator - System halted.
Sorry, got the band name wrong. That should read "Great Big Sea" (I always get it wrong), and the song is on their album "Up".
It's thoroughly off topic, but this occured to me last night and I thought I would post it (now that I have found the key to the Bomb-shelter)
WE'LL RANT AND WE'LL ROAR:
(To the tune of "Spanish Ladies" (many versions) or "Rant And Roar" (Great Blue Sea for example))
By Phrogman (http://www.omphalos.net)
My nickname is "Troll-bait" or "Anonymous Coward",
My comments are leading so you'll have a go,
If you like Linux, I'll be MS-man,
You'll look hard to find me, cause my Karma's so low...
Chorus:
We'll rant and we'll roar like true Slashdot addicts,
We'll foam as we read with our threshold set low,
If its about Linux, we treat it like gospel,
'Cause if Slashdot will post it, we know that its so.
I like to pour hot grits down the front of my blue-jeans,
I'd love to see Natalie frozen like stone,
I don't have the brains to come up with a comment,
I would rather waste bandwidth like a meaningless drone.
(Chorus)
I am a true Slashgeek, my system runs linux,
My software is all GNU, and well-used,
My dreams are in hexcode, C, or assembler,
And I cannot sit still and see Penguin's abused.
(Chorus)
My claim is "First Poster", I don't have a purpose,
Never mind that there's three of us all in a row,
I refresh my browser every 2 seconds,
Just so I get the chance to let you all know.
(Chorus)
Redhat's not Linux, its only a distro,
We'll scream it out loud, till we're blue in the face,
There's Debian, Mandrake, Slackware and Suse,
And many a new one to take their place...
(Chorus)
I am a 5krip7 k1dd14, I am real 1337 now,
I can't do too much hacking 'cause my system is slow
But don't you upset me, or I'll have to show you,
That I can read Bugtraq and then have a go.
(Chorus)
I hate RIAA, I love to use Napster,
It still is the best source for Metallica's songs,
I'd love to buy CDs but I'm a poor student,
So if you ask me, song trading's not wrong.
(Chorus)
Silicon's divine, Transmeta's my Mecca,
Can't wait for my startup to go IPO,
I'm counting the days until we go public,
Now, if we had a product 'twould be an easier go.
(Chorus)
"Meta-moderating" is just fine by me now,
I love to downgrade the things I oppose,
If I think your comments are stupid, say goodbye to your Karma,
I just hope that my actions are never exposed.
(Chorus)
I am an MS-man, my software's not open,
But that doesn't mean my mind's totally closed,
Even though I must reboot every few hours,
I still have the right to think Linux is hosed.
(Chorus)
If an item is high-tech, bizarre or expensive,
I'll let you know that I think in this case,
A Beowulf cluster is surely in order,
Never mind that the cost'd be in outer space.
(Chorus)
My name is Jon Katz, you all love to hate me,
My stories all take a similar line,
I hated my teenage years, so now I'll explain 'em
Cause to me the whole world is post-Columbine.
(Chorus)
My name is Rob Malda, my shorts are asbestos,
My Geek-hobby website has certainly grown,
We got bought by Andover, and now we're employees,
Our impartial viewpoint is probably blown...
(Chorus)
My name is Slashdot, comprising 5 servers,
My Alteon load-balancer's not just for show,
If we post a link to your website, beware now,
When the Slashordes all visit - down it will go.
(Chorus)
Mr Cowing noted in the article that they discovered a large dust cloud orbiting Epsilon Eridani back in 1998, and noticed a large bright spot they thought might indicate a large planet. I sincerely hope they have managed to capture an actual image of the planet itself. There will be more information forthcoming on this issue very shortly I am sure.