would you rather find about about a bug and fix it:
A. before you release a version (Firefox);
or
B. years after you release a version (IE).
Well? Which is better? If you choose option B, you can deny there's a problem for 1-2 years, start working on a fix in 2-3 years, nay-say press rumors about the bug in 3-4 years, and fix it and release the bug fix in 4-5 years.
Just like Fusion is always 10-20 years in the future for commercial usage.
It depends on what your definition of "mainstream" is, of course. Right now, more people are using Linux than ever used Microsoft's DOS. Or Windows 3.1 for that matter.
Define your own reality - don't let others define it for you, with metrics based on the sales price of the OS, or the net revenue from OS sales. Linux strength is it's low cost, so it will never win at that game.
But right now, many people worldwide use Linux, or even BSD, even if it's what runs on their cell phone or inside their networked self-repairing robot-dog-feeding fridge.
And, to paraphrase Martha Stewart, that's a good thing.
Re:Distributed.net
on
Brute Force
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
For those interested in this sort of thing, http://www.distributed.net/ runs like SETI@Home - lots of small individual clients working together to brute force encryption keys.
Yeah, but SETI@Home is searching for intelligent life.
Distributed is searching for things that probably never should have been encrypted in the first place.
When I was in the military, about 90 percent of the SECRET level documents should have been declassified to RESTRICTED or CONFIDENTIAL, and as one of the few subject matter experts, I spent a lot of time doing that because noone else could read the things that got overclassified.
I mean, you can encrypt your golf scores. And some people do. Security is usually spent on the wrong areas, and not often enough on the areas that should be protected or encrypted. Just ask New Orleans what they think about mismanagement of resources...
I for one welcome our new Laten Overlordz
on
Brute Force
·
· Score: 2, Funny
a 56-bit DES key was discovered, and its encrypted message decoded, by an ad-hok distributed network of computers, cooperating over the Internet
At least it wasn't an ad-hocked or ad-wocked network, that might have taken longer.
Cogito ergo Zorro. Sprechen sie das Donuts? Je parle Franglish. Que pasa, dude?
Are people working on alternative forms of communication, electrical, and other systems that are immune to these kind of effects?
Where I work we're heavily shielded, and at home we can barely get cell phone reception for the same reason. But it is impacting my wireless laptop a bit - good thing I have cables to my DSL and Cable modem.
But since I gave up cell phones, it's only the wireless reception I'd miss. Something good about not having people bug you when you're out and about.
I imagine we'd adapt the way we adapted our lives to live with tech.
In an announcement next Wednesday, FEMA director Ima Doofus announced that FEMA was ready to deal with the massive disruption a week later than the event. "We had a really important golf game. Watch this drive."
In related news, the country of Belgium recently overtook the US in the size of their economy...
What's wrong with releasing these patents into the public domain? We have a "fourth state", beyond the mysteriously dual states of "offensive" and "defensive" patents, and the vacuum of "no patent (yet)". Why do we need "an industrywide patent commons"? Why don't IBM and CA just release these patents into the public domain? They lose no more, and the "holding company" can't later be abused to control "submarine patents" that surface to catch entrapped users.
A very good point. Originally, it used to be that most research at colleges, universities, and any federal or state authorities was - by default - created as a public domain patent. But sadly this is now regarded as IP (Intellectual Property), and zealously guarded by those same institutions that used to have it be free.
Sure, open source could use the revenue - and there will be revenue - from such private patents, but if they were released into the public domain it would free up innovation.
And freeing up innovation and creation is the whole point behind having a patent process in the first place. At least in the USA when they were created as part of the Constitution.
When I was in high school the competitions were conducted in ugh Pascal. It shifted to C after I graduated. If you can pick a language why not use perl with all of cpan at your disposal you should be able to crush the competition.
Ah, but in college when I went in 1980, it was in Algol, as only math dweebs used Pascal, and then it became C.
I agree about perl - both elegant and powerful, and it's a true test of programming. But I still hate the fact it treats zero (0) values as nulls - have to alter database queries to return zero (0) values as negative one (-1) instead or it ignores them.
I hope they find some really big frickin' diamonds on Mars, because otherwise all they're likely to find is dirt, and the trucking costs getting it back here are gonna kill 'em.
It's likely they'll find water, so if they mix it with the dirt, they can make mud pies and perhaps export Authentic Martian Pottery to wealthy collectors.
my guess is they figure a joint Canada-EU trip will get there first, or possibly a joint Canada-China trip - if the latter, the first colony will most likely be named Mars Base Bethune...
I for one welcome our new Canadian space overlords and hope they have a fun trip to Mars.
As somone else may have pointed out, the problem in the game industry is internal. Game quality has fallen, and in the MMO frenzy things like AI have been pushed to the side.
The other trend is to money-losing FPS MMO games. I'm not saying it's not a great recruiting tool for the Army (and I spent seven years doing it for real), but the falling game quality is highly correlated with that.
We need better stories and more balanced and progressive gameplay, not extra tech chrome.
Heck, it was even in the comic strip Foxtrot this morning.
Me, I'm busy playing Sims 2: University. Yeah, I work at a university and I play a game about being at a university.
Now that is strange.
One would be better off asking why the success of Nintendogs, WoW, and Sims and so on isn't causing the industry to question why it keeps cranking out money-losing FPS games.... those are getting really out of tune, IMHO.
thanks...I was in law school 2nd year...but at the moment just looking for immediate work, location does not matter, although in law school highly proficient in computer system management with linux and winblows as well.
They specifically mentioned law school for both the UW and SU locally. Assume the same goes for many other fine law schools.
I agree, and if there are those who were confused by my original wording then I'm glad you clarified that point.
Instead of spending our tax dollars to help the people of america, Bush's policy of War/Oil over the last 5 years has smeared our countries reputation around the world, suffocated our economy, tripled gas prices, and left millions of americans helpless. Bush, Cheney, Rove etc. have justified all of this in order to make more money for the defense industry and the oil industry(businesses that 90% of Bush's people hail from). It's grotesque. This is not the country I grew up believing in.
The low-built Pentagon was hit just like the WTC buildings on 9/11 and it didn't collapse to the ground. So if we're going to say New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt under water, why are we building gravity-defying skyscrapers?
Because rich people want them. And, after all, isn't that more important than people living in a city that has been in France, Spain, and the USA, and many inhabitants have lived there for tens of generations...
Until you commit to proper management of the New Orleans area. The land under the whole area will continue to subside until this is addressed.
Now this is an interesting viewpoint. In fact, one of the major reasons, other than the destruction of the protective barrier wetlands - excuse me, the development of them, is that we no longer permit NOLA to be flooded annually and covered in silt which then builds up. Originally, most of NOLA was built with living rooms and such on the second floor and above, to permit this.
Then, periodically, people would raise the level of the house and build a new foundation - if they much of one, since most had raised porches at the very least.
This is more likely useful in a river delta, and permits gradual change. It does require tech things like power, cable, DSL, phone, etc to be elevated (on telephone/utility poles) usually, or at least kept in conduits.
Wetlands and delta conservation has long been a favorite target of dittoheads and other conservative groups, who have viewed it as a liberal waste of money and barrier to economic development. I wonder if they'll start to change their tune after this.
I'm going to bet the answer is no, they won't learn.
Slashdot Mirror
would you rather find about about a bug and fix it:
A. before you release a version (Firefox);
or
B. years after you release a version (IE).
Well? Which is better? If you choose option B, you can deny there's a problem for 1-2 years, start working on a fix in 2-3 years, nay-say press rumors about the bug in 3-4 years, and fix it and release the bug fix in 4-5 years.
I choose option A.
Ok, I'll pencil Linux in right between Fusion energy and my flying car.
...
Fusion is always 10-20 years in the future. Linux is before that, but after jet packs
Just like Fusion is always 10-20 years in the future for commercial usage.
It depends on what your definition of "mainstream" is, of course. Right now, more people are using Linux than ever used Microsoft's DOS. Or Windows 3.1 for that matter.
Define your own reality - don't let others define it for you, with metrics based on the sales price of the OS, or the net revenue from OS sales. Linux strength is it's low cost, so it will never win at that game.
But right now, many people worldwide use Linux, or even BSD, even if it's what runs on their cell phone or inside their networked self-repairing robot-dog-feeding fridge.
And, to paraphrase Martha Stewart, that's a good thing.
For those interested in this sort of thing, http://www.distributed.net/ runs like SETI@Home - lots of small individual clients working together to brute force encryption keys.
...
Yeah, but SETI@Home is searching for intelligent life.
Distributed is searching for things that probably never should have been encrypted in the first place.
When I was in the military, about 90 percent of the SECRET level documents should have been declassified to RESTRICTED or CONFIDENTIAL, and as one of the few subject matter experts, I spent a lot of time doing that because noone else could read the things that got overclassified.
I mean, you can encrypt your golf scores. And some people do. Security is usually spent on the wrong areas, and not often enough on the areas that should be protected or encrypted. Just ask New Orleans what they think about mismanagement of resources
a 56-bit DES key was discovered, and its encrypted message decoded, by an ad-hok distributed network of computers, cooperating over the Internet
At least it wasn't an ad-hocked or ad-wocked network, that might have taken longer.
Cogito ergo Zorro. Sprechen sie das Donuts? Je parle Franglish. Que pasa, dude?
First Katrina, then the lump in Oregon. Now solar flares?!
Sounds more like the clap, actually. Or some other STD.
Are people working on alternative forms of communication, electrical, and other systems that are immune to these kind of effects?
Where I work we're heavily shielded, and at home we can barely get cell phone reception for the same reason. But it is impacting my wireless laptop a bit - good thing I have cables to my DSL and Cable modem.
But since I gave up cell phones, it's only the wireless reception I'd miss. Something good about not having people bug you when you're out and about.
I imagine we'd adapt the way we adapted our lives to live with tech.
[NO CARRIER]
In an announcement next Wednesday, FEMA director Ima Doofus announced that FEMA was ready to deal with the massive disruption a week later than the event. "We had a really important golf game. Watch this drive."
...
In related news, the country of Belgium recently overtook the US in the size of their economy
. laugh, it's a joke .
Need more than 2 TB in a single logical drive? If you have the money, industry has a solution.
Well, of course you can. Besides, a RAID level of 2 or more is a good thing.
just like noone will ever need more than 512K (no, not MB, K) of RAM.
Some of the proteomics and genomics databases we are involved with need even more storage than this.
My prediction is that soon we'll be walking around with 1 Terabyte flash cards which we'll wear around our necks, kind of like peace medallions.
What's wrong with releasing these patents into the public domain? We have a "fourth state", beyond the mysteriously dual states of "offensive" and "defensive" patents, and the vacuum of "no patent (yet)". Why do we need "an industrywide patent commons"? Why don't IBM and CA just release these patents into the public domain? They lose no more, and the "holding company" can't later be abused to control "submarine patents" that surface to catch entrapped users.
A very good point. Originally, it used to be that most research at colleges, universities, and any federal or state authorities was - by default - created as a public domain patent. But sadly this is now regarded as IP (Intellectual Property), and zealously guarded by those same institutions that used to have it be free.
Sure, open source could use the revenue - and there will be revenue - from such private patents, but if they were released into the public domain it would free up innovation.
And freeing up innovation and creation is the whole point behind having a patent process in the first place. At least in the USA when they were created as part of the Constitution.
When I was in high school the competitions were conducted in ugh Pascal. It shifted to C after I graduated. If you can pick a language why not use perl with all of cpan at your disposal you should be able to crush the competition.
Ah, but in college when I went in 1980, it was in Algol, as only math dweebs used Pascal, and then it became C.
I agree about perl - both elegant and powerful, and it's a true test of programming. But I still hate the fact it treats zero (0) values as nulls - have to alter database queries to return zero (0) values as negative one (-1) instead or it ignores them.
There's real cute girls, instead of fake ones, then.
... that or taking karate lessons ...
There's lots of inexpensive alcohol.
You can pretend it's luck instead of electrons.
There's lots of art on the walls and bands from way back when - or stage shows.
And besides, my Konami stock depends on people gambling in person
I hope they find some really big frickin' diamonds on Mars, because otherwise all they're likely to find is dirt, and the trucking costs getting it back here are gonna kill 'em.
It's likely they'll find water, so if they mix it with the dirt, they can make mud pies and perhaps export Authentic Martian Pottery to wealthy collectors.
Then you too can own some Martian Pot.
my guess is they figure a joint Canada-EU trip will get there first, or possibly a joint Canada-China trip - if the latter, the first colony will most likely be named Mars Base Bethune. ..
I for one welcome our new Canadian space overlords and hope they have a fun trip to Mars.
An easier link is thru the International Herald Tribune article of the same story (registration not required for this one).
As somone else may have pointed out, the problem in the game industry is internal. Game quality has fallen, and in the MMO frenzy things like AI have been pushed to the side.
The other trend is to money-losing FPS MMO games. I'm not saying it's not a great recruiting tool for the Army (and I spent seven years doing it for real), but the falling game quality is highly correlated with that.
We need better stories and more balanced and progressive gameplay, not extra tech chrome.
Heck, it was even in the comic strip Foxtrot this morning.
.... those are getting really out of tune, IMHO.
Me, I'm busy playing Sims 2: University. Yeah, I work at a university and I play a game about being at a university.
Now that is strange.
One would be better off asking why the success of Nintendogs, WoW, and Sims and so on isn't causing the industry to question why it keeps cranking out money-losing FPS games
Don't forget the chicks man, never forget the chicks.
You mean like the ones in Fable? That kind?
thanks ...I was in law school 2nd year...but at the moment just looking for immediate work, location does not matter, although in law school highly proficient in computer system management with linux and winblows as well.
They specifically mentioned law school for both the UW and SU locally. Assume the same goes for many other fine law schools.
I agree, and if there are those who were confused by my original wording then I'm glad you clarified that point.
Instead of spending our tax dollars to help the people of america, Bush's policy of War/Oil over the last 5 years has smeared our countries reputation around the world, suffocated our economy, tripled gas prices, and left millions of americans helpless. Bush, Cheney, Rove etc. have justified all of this in order to make more money for the defense industry and the oil industry(businesses that 90% of Bush's people hail from). It's grotesque. This is not the country I grew up believing in.
Oh, you're from Canada too?
The low-built Pentagon was hit just like the WTC buildings on 9/11 and it didn't collapse to the ground. So if we're going to say New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt under water, why are we building gravity-defying skyscrapers?
...
Because rich people want them. And, after all, isn't that more important than people living in a city that has been in France, Spain, and the USA, and many inhabitants have lived there for tens of generations
Until you commit to proper management of the New Orleans area. The land under the whole area will continue to subside until this is addressed.
Now this is an interesting viewpoint. In fact, one of the major reasons, other than the destruction of the protective barrier wetlands - excuse me, the development of them, is that we no longer permit NOLA to be flooded annually and covered in silt which then builds up. Originally, most of NOLA was built with living rooms and such on the second floor and above, to permit this.
Then, periodically, people would raise the level of the house and build a new foundation - if they much of one, since most had raised porches at the very least.
This is more likely useful in a river delta, and permits gradual change. It does require tech things like power, cable, DSL, phone, etc to be elevated (on telephone/utility poles) usually, or at least kept in conduits.
Wetlands and delta conservation has long been a favorite target of dittoheads and other conservative groups, who have viewed it as a liberal waste of money and barrier to economic development. I wonder if they'll start to change their tune after this.
I'm going to bet the answer is no, they won't learn.
Sigh.