At that event, Sun also is expected to announce it will open up access to Solaris 8 source code.
That means, they're finally unveiling Solaris 8 and offering it for free. It is SPECULATED that they may make it open source. There's nothing definitive in the article saying they WILL release it.
DULLES, VA. - In a shocking move parallel to the release of the America Online 5.0 Software, AOL CEO Steve Case announced a "Major Hardware Upgrade" to AOL's existing network. According to insiders at AOL, the upgrade is an external US Robotics Sportster 14,400 BPS Modem.
"We see this advancement in AOL's networks as a breakthrough..." said Case in a press announcement earlier today. "This is exactly the kind of upgrade our customers expect from AOL, and I won't disappoint them." Later, Case was quoted as saying "With just this modem added to our networks, we're capable of handling approximately 500 more users. They'll get to share this modem, as well as the 4 others we have here at AOL's network center."
When asked what prompted this hardware upgrade, Case stated that the release of AOL 5.0 was "pivotal" in the decision. "People expect us to keep pace with the changes in technology. The new AOL 5.0 software does that, while making our customers' lives easier." We gave the experts in our test labs a copy, and had them run a test of AOL 5.0. When the software was installed, Microsoft Windows took on a different appearence. The Windows logo on the Start Button was replaced with the AOL logo, and only 2 options were available on the menu: 1) Connect to AOL and 2) Crash System. Both menu options had the same effect, and a connection to AOL was never established.
With the recent AOL+Time Warner merger, predictions are abound with AOL's next upgrade, but nothing is cerain. Eyeing the future, Case closed his announcement. "We're looking to the next phase in AOL's development. Our new strategy: "AOL Anytime, Anywhere" is going to be hugely successful. With the addition of our next modem, scheduled for 3rd Quarter 2002, we hope to be the Internet provider for today as well as tomorrow."
I wrote a letter to several local TV news stations, as well as newspapers. This letter, as well as the DeCSS source code will be mirrored at the following URL this evening. (Not sure of the time, but the page is done. Just a matter of getting the directory.)
Re:What are you doing online? Get OUTSIDE!
on
Total Lunar Eclipse
·
· Score: 2
I think it would be truly a bonus if he were to take his clothes off, THEN go outside. He doesn't need to wear his pants to pour the hot grits down them.
Hot grits in the pants, naked, and petrified. What more could one ask for?
Okay. The Crusoe is fully x86 compatible. Great. But how about developing applications for this processor that skip the translation step, and are already written in the processor's native language? Think about a Distributed.net client written SPECIFICALLY for this processor, with no x86 instructions.....
I'm betting that would speed up apps tremendously. Even Linux....ported directly to Crusoe's native instruction set. The problem I see is, the processor is designed to run x86 out of the box. Code would have to be written to change the Flash ROMs on the processor to bypass translation and hit the core directly, or at least do a straight-through delivery. (Why translate VLIW to VLIW?)
(IF YOU DO THIS AND FRY YOUR CRUSOE, I'M NOT LIABLE.)
I'm no geneticist, but I think this would definitely be instrumental in preventing genetic disorders.
Seriously. If this 'switch' is patched onto genes of a fetus before development, it could switch off any known genetic errors resulting in birth defects, deformities, etc. This could make genetic disorders rare. (save those disorders caused by UNknown errors.)
Plus, what about HIV? Sure, it's a virus...but if we can get bacteria to eat oil spills, why not shoot a boost to the immune system? Or hell, attach to the genes to release a known HIV inhibiter like AZT, and bam -- instant HIV progress slower.
(I'm not a doctor, and I make no claims as to the scientific validity of my comments. I just think they make sense.)
Adobe's going to start losing market share to Corel since CorelDraw is nearly identical to Photoshop in every aspect.
Huh? Nearly Identical?
About the only thing Photoshop and CorelDraw have in common is working with Graphics. Other than that, they're nothing alike. CorelDraw is closer to Illustrator in functionality than Photoshop.
Well, I filled out Corel's application in it's entirety, but I'm curious.....What importance do some of these questions hold?
Things like:
CD-ROM Drive & Speed Monitor Make & Model Pointing Device Sound Card Network
Some of the questions sound suspiciously like Marketing information, but that's just my opinion. I remember they had the same questions on the WordPerfect Beta application.
You're assuming that AOL's weaknesses will synergize with Time Warner's weaknesses to produce a colossal trainwreck, but I think AOL's history with Time shows that they are well aware of their weaknesses, and are instead going to synergize their strengths....
I disagree. If AOL was interested in strengthening themselves, they would have corrected their hardware issues a long time ago. Instead, they managed to piss off their users, and since they feed off the clueless, the users STAY with AOL, becuase they're not aware of any alternatives.
The world's largest provider of online services, which is weak on content, acquires the world's largest provider of content, *AND* a huge new customer base, *AND* a huge backbone that's already in the process of being turned into a massive TCP/IP network.
You bring up an interesting point here. However, how well do you think AOL will handle the responsibility of continuing to provide content on par with what Time, Inc. has done in the past? The customer base that has been acquired by AOL expects, even DEMANDS quality content....which is something AOL knows nothing about. Yes, those 67,500 employees know how to do it, but it's the executives that make the decisions. In this case, it's Steve. (No pun intended.)
Personally, I'm hoping for the trainwreck, but not in the traditional sense. I don't want those 67 thousand people to be out of work, but I'd like to see one of two things. 1) AOL dies off, leaving Time with what it was: A respectable content provider. OR (the less likely result) 2) AOL actually DOES learn to give the customer what they want, and deliver it very well. That would make everyone happy.
But making customers happy was never what AOL was about. Which is why they're destined to fail.
"I like AOL because it's the only service I've ever used and I think it's easy to navigate," says Nikki, a young woman whose posting history shows she has contributed nearly 500 messages to a newsgroup for fans of the Tulsa-based band Admiral Twin. "I like all the little icons, and the buddy list and member directory."
Nikki is probably about eleven or twelve, judging by her quote. Notice how the article cunningly dodges giving her age.
I agree wholeheartedly. I've been using Slack for about 4 years, and I love it. Just tell it where to install, what packages to install, hit FULL, and in about 10 minutes you have a functioning Linux system. I've never had a problem with Slackware that couldn't be fixed very easily.
The weird thing is that AOL never really has been about the World Wide Web, which is what most people now mean when they refer to the Internet. AOL always has been a sort of parallel private Web, one that began before the real thing and then tried to keep its members away from it. AOL only grudgingly provided its subscribers with Web access, fearful they would desert.
That's their market strategy. They provide crap to their users, and cover their customers' eyes as to the better alternatives. Hell, if YOU were on AOL and suddenly discovered the internet, wouldn't YOU desert AOL? I would.
The growth of the Web was supposed to kill proprietary online services.
We could only hope...
AOL always has seemed like a sucker bet. First its bad technology, which constantly crashed the system, was supposed to kill the company.
Which, that reputation still lingers because AOL refuses to upgrade their systems until they're more than quadruple-overloaded.
Then larger, better-funded competitors, such as Prodigy Services Co. and CompuServe Inc., would crush it.
But no....Prodigy went under, and AOL bought CompuServe.
Next, the executioner was AOL's forced move to flat-rate pricing, which meant some infuriated subscribers couldn't get online because everybody else already was there.
Which rounds back to the upgrade issue. Busy signals galore, because the ratio was about 700 users to one modem.
Some experts persuasively argue that a deal with Time Warner would really, finally, without question kill AOL.
We can only hope...
Go back seven years. In Internet time, 1993 might as well have been 1 million B.C. Amazon.com hadn't sold a book yet and eBay hadn't auctioned its first Pez dispenser. To go online meant subscribing to a service such as AOL, Prodigy or GEnie, which you could use to send what then was called electronic mail as well as post messages on bulletin boards. Cyberspace was text, not graphics; it was about communication, not shopping.
Can anyone argue that those were the Good 'ol days?;)
"Time Warner has one of the biggest and best marketing organizations in the world. So they're essentially getting a list of 22 million names - all those AOL subscribers - for whatever they want to sell. It's an incredible asset. Instead of "You've got mail," they'll have to change the AOL slogan to "You've got junk mail."
So now, innocent Time Warner service subscribers are going to get bombarded with advertising that A) They didn't have before, and B) Would probably be happier without. AOL is a spam magnet, and this merger just makes the magnetisim stronger. That's not a good thing. Obviously, this could lead to targeted advertising, suited to each viewer/surfer's tastes.
At Monday's press conference, however, they reversed themselves. Levin didn't wear a tie while Case did. The old media guy went funky just as the new media guy got formal.
At worst, this means these guys are not yet on the same wavelength. Time Warner's 67,500 employees might be about to have some near-death experiences of their own.
This could be a forshadowing. Yeah, it's a small point, but a point nonetheless. Time Warner has limited experience with Internet access (RoadRunner), and AOL has absolutely NO wide consumer media experience, except for (you guessed it) ADVERTISING! So when you take a media Giant like Time Warner, and put it underneath an Advertising Monolith, you get so much diverse, wide range CRAP that you didn't have before. And not only on the internet end, but now it's expanding into Print media and Television.
Houston, we have a problem. (Although Duct Tape won't fix this one.)
Custom programmed by a thiny central computerunit they fight diseases and keep your body in optima forma. This unit could be upgraded once in a while to gain the latest knowledge about virusses/bacteria and other threats to your earthly shell.
Hmm...
Norton AntiVirus (Organic Edition) Peter Norton's guide to Home Health.
As a RoadRunner subscriber, this merger scares me. I have convinced countless people to terminate their membership with AOL for many reasons. But now, AOL and Time Warner are creating this Monolithic media empire, and we're the ones who are going to suffer.
Chances are, AOL is going to "modify" the internet division of Time Warner (Road Runner). What I'M worried about is if they're going to turn RoadRunner into a fast AOL. Think about it....AOL has been plagued by their reputation of having really slow service. Now, if they take RoadRunner, they can truthfully advertise this as "The fastest AOL EVER!", then my interface turns to crap, and I get baby-faced content shoved down my throat.
Not only that, what happens if the rr.com domain is absorbed by AOL.com? That would mean my new E-mail address would end in aol.com opening up the floodgates for spam. This is not what I want.
I am perfectly happy with my current Time Warner RoadRunner service, and I will be very upset if this changes. It may even be enough to force me back to dialup access, as that's the only thing in this price range. And I hate dialup.
You know, Xerox gets credit for very little that they have done. When you mention "Xerox", most people think of photocopiers. (Forget that they pioneered that industry, and because of that, most any photocopier is referred to a Xerox machine, as a photocopy is called a Xerox copy.)
Few people realize that they DID make computers at one time, and actually tried to enter the consumer market. Pirates of Silicon Valley made it well known that Xerox Parc pressed the concept of the GUI, and Apple just simply lifted and expanded on the idea, but before that it was simply "Apple invented the GUI."
So now, Xerox develops their handwriting recognition technology (unistrokes), and Palm develops off of that, and yet again Xerox is left out in the cold. I can certainly understand why they're upset. How would YOU feel if you made some revolutionary developments, patented them, and had someone "borrow" your technology without giving you credit?
I think it's high time Xerox got some credit for the research they conduct. They certainly deserve it. Without their technology, we could have quite possibly ended up without such luxuries as a decent graphical interface, or even photocopies until much much farther down the road.
Some of the links were Slashdotted upon my attempt to check them out, but I did visit a couple.
The Mach1 Potato gun was impressive. I even went so far as to download some of the movies and check them out. The watermelons didn't last long.
I still have a copy of that Amazing Toilet picture on my drive. It's been there for months. I've been wanting to post it somewhere and submit it to Slashdot, but I never got around to it. Looks like someone else discovered it.
As for the dude who shot up his computer, Please let me shoot HIM. For anyone to decide one day "HEY! I think I'm going to take this computer out back and SHOOT IT!" is totally idiotic. There was almost a guaranteed use for that computer, and I don't mean as a target.
The Slashdot drinking game just seems like all Anonymous Coward complaints rolled into a text document. I was hoping to be a bit more impressed, but if you're looking for a quick way to get really really drunk....
Final thoughts was a bit creepy, but It's something I'd do anyway because, well, that's something that would be expected from me. My family knows I'm a bit of an off-normal person, so getting an E-Mail from me after I die wouldn't be totally unexpected. And you know, I'd make it goofy. "Hey! How is everyone? I'm fine, but this box i'm in is small, and hot. Can you bring me a Pepsi? OH, and bring me my Laptop. This Beyond-the-Grave E-mail shit sucks ass."
Slashdot Mirror
At that event, Sun also is expected to announce it will open up access to Solaris 8 source code.
That means, they're finally unveiling Solaris 8 and offering it for free. It is SPECULATED that they may make it open source. There's nothing definitive in the article saying they WILL release it.
But if they do, that would be fantastic.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
"We see this advancement in AOL's networks as a breakthrough..." said Case in a press announcement earlier today. "This is exactly the kind of upgrade our customers expect from AOL, and I won't disappoint them." Later, Case was quoted as saying "With just this modem added to our networks, we're capable of handling approximately 500 more users. They'll get to share this modem, as well as the 4 others we have here at AOL's network center."
When asked what prompted this hardware upgrade, Case stated that the release of AOL 5.0 was "pivotal" in the decision. "People expect us to keep pace with the changes in technology. The new AOL 5.0 software does that, while making our customers' lives easier." We gave the experts in our test labs a copy, and had them run a test of AOL 5.0. When the software was installed, Microsoft Windows took on a different appearence. The Windows logo on the Start Button was replaced with the AOL logo, and only 2 options were available on the menu: 1) Connect to AOL and 2) Crash System. Both menu options had the same effect, and a connection to AOL was never established.
With the recent AOL+Time Warner merger, predictions are abound with AOL's next upgrade, but nothing is cerain. Eyeing the future, Case closed his announcement. "We're looking to the next phase in AOL's development. Our new strategy: "AOL Anytime, Anywhere" is going to be hugely successful. With the addition of our next modem, scheduled for 3rd Quarter 2002, we hope to be the Internet provider for today as well as tomorrow."
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
http://www.hackphreak.org/decss (Note: You'll get a 404 immediately, but it'll be there tonight.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Hot grits in the pants, naked, and petrified. What more could one ask for?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Okay. The Crusoe is fully x86 compatible. Great. But how about developing applications for this processor that skip the translation step, and are already written in the processor's native language? Think about a Distributed.net client written SPECIFICALLY for this processor, with no x86 instructions.....
I'm betting that would speed up apps tremendously. Even Linux....ported directly to Crusoe's native instruction set. The problem I see is, the processor is designed to run x86 out of the box. Code would have to be written to change the Flash ROMs on the processor to bypass translation and hit the core directly, or at least do a straight-through delivery. (Why translate VLIW to VLIW?)
(IF YOU DO THIS AND FRY YOUR CRUSOE, I'M NOT LIABLE.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Seriously. If this 'switch' is patched onto genes of a fetus before development, it could switch off any known genetic errors resulting in birth defects, deformities, etc. This could make genetic disorders rare. (save those disorders caused by UNknown errors.)
Plus, what about HIV? Sure, it's a virus...but if we can get bacteria to eat oil spills, why not shoot a boost to the immune system? Or hell, attach to the genes to release a known HIV inhibiter like AZT, and bam -- instant HIV progress slower.
(I'm not a doctor, and I make no claims as to the scientific validity of my comments. I just think they make sense.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
http://www.corel.com/graphics/contests/jpg/0379
Excellent graphics work. That pic is amazing. It's been on Corel's boxes for a while now.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Is THAT who that is? I'll be damned, I never knew that! Thanks!
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Huh? Nearly Identical?
About the only thing Photoshop and CorelDraw have in common is working with Graphics. Other than that, they're nothing alike. CorelDraw is closer to Illustrator in functionality than Photoshop.
Have you ever even USED CorelDraw?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
CorelDRAW is vector based, while Gimp is raster based...
A better parallel would be drawn by saying "Why would anyone buy PHOTOPAINT when Gimp is already available for free?"
Corel has been pushing PhotoPaint as a PhotoShop competitor, and porting it to Linux makes Gimp a competitor too.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Things like:
CD-ROM Drive & Speed
Monitor Make & Model
Pointing Device
Sound Card
Network
Some of the questions sound suspiciously like Marketing information, but that's just my opinion. I remember they had the same questions on the WordPerfect Beta application.
Why does Corel care what Sound Card I'm using?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Did you honestly think this would get by WITHOUT being posted on Slashdot? Please....
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Frozen Potato?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
I disagree. If AOL was interested in strengthening themselves, they would have corrected their hardware issues a long time ago. Instead, they managed to piss off their users, and since they feed off the clueless, the users STAY with AOL, becuase they're not aware of any alternatives.
The world's largest provider of online services, which is weak on content, acquires the world's largest provider of content, *AND* a huge new customer base, *AND* a huge backbone that's already in the process of being turned into a massive TCP/IP network.
You bring up an interesting point here. However, how well do you think AOL will handle the responsibility of continuing to provide content on par with what Time, Inc. has done in the past? The customer base that has been acquired by AOL expects, even DEMANDS quality content....which is something AOL knows nothing about. Yes, those 67,500 employees know how to do it, but it's the executives that make the decisions. In this case, it's Steve. (No pun intended.)
Personally, I'm hoping for the trainwreck, but not in the traditional sense. I don't want those 67 thousand people to be out of work, but I'd like to see one of two things. 1) AOL dies off, leaving Time with what it was: A respectable content provider. OR (the less likely result) 2) AOL actually DOES learn to give the customer what they want, and deliver it very well. That would make everyone happy.
But making customers happy was never what AOL was about. Which is why they're destined to fail.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
"I like AOL because it's the only service I've ever used and I think it's easy to navigate," says Nikki, a young woman whose posting history shows she has contributed nearly 500 messages to a newsgroup for fans of the Tulsa-based band Admiral Twin. "I like all the little icons, and the buddy list and member directory."
Nikki is probably about eleven or twelve, judging by her quote. Notice how the article cunningly dodges giving her age.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
That's their market strategy. They provide crap to their users, and cover their customers' eyes as to the better alternatives. Hell, if YOU were on AOL and suddenly discovered the internet, wouldn't YOU desert AOL? I would.
The growth of the Web was supposed to kill proprietary online services.
We could only hope...
AOL always has seemed like a sucker bet. First its bad technology, which constantly crashed the system, was supposed to kill the company.
Which, that reputation still lingers because AOL refuses to upgrade their systems until they're more than quadruple-overloaded.
Then larger, better-funded competitors, such as Prodigy Services Co. and CompuServe Inc., would crush it.
But no....Prodigy went under, and AOL bought CompuServe.
Next, the executioner was AOL's forced move to flat-rate pricing, which meant some infuriated subscribers couldn't get online because everybody else already was there.
Which rounds back to the upgrade issue. Busy signals galore, because the ratio was about 700 users to one modem.
Some experts persuasively argue that a deal with Time Warner would really, finally, without question kill AOL.
We can only hope...
Go back seven years. In Internet time, 1993 might as well have been 1 million B.C. Amazon.com hadn't sold a book yet and eBay hadn't auctioned its first Pez dispenser. To go online meant subscribing to a service such as AOL, Prodigy or GEnie, which you could use to send what then was called electronic mail as well as post messages on bulletin boards. Cyberspace was text, not graphics; it was about communication, not shopping.
Can anyone argue that those were the Good 'ol days?
"Time Warner has one of the biggest and best marketing organizations in the world. So they're essentially getting a list of 22 million names - all those AOL subscribers - for whatever they want to sell. It's an incredible asset. Instead of "You've got mail," they'll have to change the AOL slogan to "You've got junk mail."
So now, innocent Time Warner service subscribers are going to get bombarded with advertising that A) They didn't have before, and B) Would probably be happier without. AOL is a spam magnet, and this merger just makes the magnetisim stronger. That's not a good thing. Obviously, this could lead to targeted advertising, suited to each viewer/surfer's tastes.
At Monday's press conference, however, they reversed themselves. Levin didn't wear a tie while Case did. The old media guy went funky just as the new media guy got formal.
At worst, this means these guys are not yet on the same wavelength. Time Warner's 67,500 employees might be about to have some near-death experiences of their own.
This could be a forshadowing. Yeah, it's a small point, but a point nonetheless. Time Warner has limited experience with Internet access (RoadRunner), and AOL has absolutely NO wide consumer media experience, except for (you guessed it) ADVERTISING! So when you take a media Giant like Time Warner, and put it underneath an Advertising Monolith, you get so much diverse, wide range CRAP that you didn't have before. And not only on the internet end, but now it's expanding into Print media and Television.
Houston, we have a problem. (Although Duct Tape won't fix this one.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Hmm...
Norton AntiVirus (Organic Edition)
Peter Norton's guide to Home Health.
# shiver # - No thanks.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Chances are, AOL is going to "modify" the internet division of Time Warner (Road Runner). What I'M worried about is if they're going to turn RoadRunner into a fast AOL. Think about it....AOL has been plagued by their reputation of having really slow service. Now, if they take RoadRunner, they can truthfully advertise this as "The fastest AOL EVER!", then my interface turns to crap, and I get baby-faced content shoved down my throat.
Not only that, what happens if the rr.com domain is absorbed by AOL.com? That would mean my new E-mail address would end in aol.com opening up the floodgates for spam. This is not what I want.
I am perfectly happy with my current Time Warner RoadRunner service, and I will be very upset if this changes. It may even be enough to force me back to dialup access, as that's the only thing in this price range. And I hate dialup.
Dial-Up is better than AOL, however.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Few people realize that they DID make computers at one time, and actually tried to enter the consumer market. Pirates of Silicon Valley made it well known that Xerox Parc pressed the concept of the GUI, and Apple just simply lifted and expanded on the idea, but before that it was simply "Apple invented the GUI."
So now, Xerox develops their handwriting recognition technology (unistrokes), and Palm develops off of that, and yet again Xerox is left out in the cold. I can certainly understand why they're upset. How would YOU feel if you made some revolutionary developments, patented them, and had someone "borrow" your technology without giving you credit?
I think it's high time Xerox got some credit for the research they conduct. They certainly deserve it. Without their technology, we could have quite possibly ended up without such luxuries as a decent graphical interface, or even photocopies until much much farther down the road.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
h4w!
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
It started off a bit slow, but it kicked up in pace, and got me laughing HARD. REAL good stuff!
Thanks for the link.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
The Mach1 Potato gun was impressive. I even went so far as to download some of the movies and check them out. The watermelons didn't last long.
I still have a copy of that Amazing Toilet picture on my drive. It's been there for months. I've been wanting to post it somewhere and submit it to Slashdot, but I never got around to it. Looks like someone else discovered it.
As for the dude who shot up his computer, Please let me shoot HIM. For anyone to decide one day "HEY! I think I'm going to take this computer out back and SHOOT IT!" is totally idiotic. There was almost a guaranteed use for that computer, and I don't mean as a target.
The Slashdot drinking game just seems like all Anonymous Coward complaints rolled into a text document. I was hoping to be a bit more impressed, but if you're looking for a quick way to get really really drunk....
Final thoughts was a bit creepy, but It's something I'd do anyway because, well, that's something that would be expected from me. My family knows I'm a bit of an off-normal person, so getting an E-Mail from me after I die wouldn't be totally unexpected. And you know, I'd make it goofy. "Hey! How is everyone? I'm fine, but this box i'm in is small, and hot. Can you bring me a Pepsi? OH, and bring me my Laptop. This Beyond-the-Grave E-mail shit sucks ass."
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?