I've gotta say that most of what I've heard about the "wireless web" is deep into gee-whiz just-because-we-can territory and real short on actual usefulness. Grotesquely truncated web pages on the tiny screen on my cell phone? Pass. Net access while I'm driving? Stupid. Check the latest stock quotes if I bring my PDA out on a date? Whatever. Maybe some people dig that stuff, but I suspect that's a permanent niche market.
Wireless access is not a bad idea inside buildings. It's probably of dubious value for desktop machines in a 600-desk cube farm, but it'd be nice to be able to use my laptop for net access down in the cafeteria or in conference rooms without trifling with cables. Having spent the weekend stringing Cat-5 in my WWII-era not-even-electrically-grounded house, I'd much rather plug in a wireless hub and be done with it. Maybe then I could browse the web while I'm on the can, or whatever it is they expect people to do with webpads.
To keep it short, I thought the sets and costumes were not as good as the David Lynch film, although the worm was, while still the wrong color, really impressively BIG. One thing that I think can be said about Lynch's production was that the cast was stellar even if they were hobbled by the script; the cast in this TV production isn't nearly as good, and the overall atmosphere is much more like the light-weight SF of Babylon 5 than how I imagined Dune.
That being said, it's been a lot more faithful to the book so far, though there have been some irritating deviations and omissions. It is definitely nice to see the Baron being played closer to the book than the moronic pustule Lynch gave us. It's also nice to see the role of the Bene Gesserit being given its proper weight instead of being totally glossed over the way it was in the Lynch film. And I have to agree that Paul-as-Luke-Skywalker is really irritating, but it is worth noting that he does begin the book as a rather spoiled teenage boy, however disciplined he might have been.
Despite being mildly disappointed, I'd keep watching just 'cause Irulan is a babe.
It would make for really tedious reading for me to enumerate all the reasons I dislike Java, just in and of itself, and getting into the debate over why Java is or is not a poorly designed language would generate more heat than light. So here's the short version, in order of importance:
Both the language and most of the development and runtime tools are a huge pain in the ass compared to Perl, PHP, C, and C++.
It's still proprietary, and Java developers are very much at the mercy of Sun.
The one useful thing it promises to do -- being a cross-platform development tool -- it fails miserably at. It is easier to write apps for Win/Unix/Mac using Tcl/Tk and ANSI C than with Java. Sure, I have to compile the C parts separately for different platforms, but so what? Typing "make <platform>" three or four times still uses fewer keystrokes than the average Java method call.
Mind you, I take a dim view of narrowminded language advocacy in general, so if Java works for you, then by all means use it. It just doesn't do anything for me.
The Standard article makes it sound like the copyright office is granting the RIAA quasi-governmental status as the sole gateway for digital distribution of music. Am I getting that right? That certainly sounds bizarre, even for a corporate lapdog like the US government.
TeX and LaTeX are fnarking dogs. They were the best thing going when they came out, but Lout is so much better than both that I gladly abandoned them years ago.
Mind you, LaTeX is okay if you don't mind using one of its canned document types, but if you want to create your own, especially for an audience that would rather see something that doesn't look like an academic journal article, Lout is a dream to use. Everything coded in raw TeX feels like a kludge; Lout has an elegant and flexible document model that makes it possible to write clean code.
I've worked with MrSID, too, and I have to agree that for the intended applications it's much nicer than PNG. The ability to rapidly and progressively zoom into an image is very nice and implemented in such a way that selective zooms can be delivered on the fly over the web without downloading the entire image at once. The demo pieces I looked at were mostly historical maps -- the Library of Congress uses MrSID extensively -- and it was a great way to examine a document that was originally 4 feet across within the confines of a monitor. DjVu was also interesting, and definitely outshines PDF for scanned documents, but MrSID is LizardTech's real marvel.
I wish people would get off the "if it's not OSS it must suck" bullshit attitude. LizardTech has some really well-designed software, and if it bothers you that they're proprietary (and IMHO, grossly overpriced), then bigod go out and clone it. Having an OSS equivalent of MrSID and DjVu, especially in a form that would be usable to the point-and-drool crowd, would be a very strong selling point for getting Linux into the MS/Adobe-dominated document archiving market.
If you were living in, oh, the former USSR, I'd wager you wouldn't be wishing for freedom to purchase Nazi Memorablila. You'd be wishing for freedom of speech, vote, and privacy...
The freedom to conduct trade in a free market without being subject to ideological content restrictions touches on both privacy rights and free speech.
Personally, I think banning ideas is just as ugly as Nazism because it invariably leads to the same thing -- banning entire classes of people. Moreover, banning ideas creates the impression of weakness, and rightly so, for it betrays a lack of confidence in the power of democracy and the free exchange of ideas.
I wish I could wrap up with a snide remark about French judges, but we've got some of our own who are just as stupid. To their credit, at least the French legal system isn't terrified that civilization could be toppled by exposed nipples like the American courts are.
Greenspun's right on except for the hours. Maybe he's right that good programmers are more productive pulling exceedingly long hours, but it's an awful way to treat workers. Sure, we get paid buttloads more than 19th century factory workers, but the social consensus that developed while union members were getting their skulls bashed in by private corporate armies and federal thugs in the first part of the 20th century was that some conditions are unreasonable no matter what the pay. If you have a spouse and children, to work 70+ hour weeks is to be neglectful, period. Unless we are collectively planning to continue the popular practice of riding young programmers like cheap whores and discarding them as soon as they turn 35, this sort of thinking must be met with the derision it deserves.
Past a certain point, productivity has to give way to the well-being of the worker. Antebellum slaves were more productive working from before dawn until after nightfall, but their life expectancy wasn't very high. The Japanese, who pioneered this sort of thing in the white-collar world, are finding that the heart-attack rate for men in their 40's and 50's is alarmingly high. There is nothing anyone is doing in the business world, <sneer>"dotcom"</sneer> or not, that is worth grinding people into the ground like that.
Just my two cents. I'm going to start my 70+ hour work week now.
Of the four languages reviewed, I have to say that PHP sucks least, but it still sucks. The developers plainly couldn't spell orthogonality much less define it, the documentation is simply awful, the interpreter's ability to detect, localize, and identify errors is on a par with stuff I used back in the punchcard era, and mixing PHP code with HTML and SQL produces results that are grotesque. I wish to hell someone would crank out an Apache modules that would make it easier to plug calls to compiled C or C++ code into web pages.
Considering that most MS code is written in C++, I think it's safe to say that OSS projects written in C and especially other, less common languages probably have less to worry about than OSS projects based primarily on C++. Granted, some MS code is written in C, but not very much these days, and certainly none is written in Perl, Python, Scheme, PHP, Eiffel, ML, Haskell, etc.
In view of the possibility of OSS being contaminated with closed-source code, the use of a diversity of languages being used in OSS development is not just a good policy, it may end up affording some legal protection. Not being subject to the same forces of mindless conformity that prevail along the corporate C++/Java/VB axis, we ought to take advantage of it.
So they're going to implement some sort of VM. Woo. It's not a bad idea, all things considered, but it's hardly anything to get excited about. (The same could be said of Capcom's games, but that's just pure opinion.)
This will be ignored, but I've gotta say it 'cause it's finally annoyed me enough:
Making copies of CDs and sending them to totally fnarking strangers is illegal. Period. There is absolutely no ambiguity here.
The people who think otherwise are either letting their passions cripple their understanding of law and reality, or else they are hopelessly ignorant or somehow mentally impaired.
That being said, it certainly looks like MP3 in general and Napster in particular are actually boosting CD sales, which is hardly surprising since MP3s are only substitutes for CDs for people with either shitty speakers or even shittier hearing, and because fnarking radio has been doing the same damn thing for years with the same effect.
Ergo, the RIAA should just roll over and be happy for the increased sales instead of getting greedy and killing the goose that laid the golden egg. This would have the added benefit of leaving all the "copyright law doesn't apply to me" crowd with nothing to spew bullshit about.
Please note that I'm in favor of reducing copyright to its original duration, and I think both the RIAA and most IP laws are monumentally stupid. But it irritates the bejesus out of me seeing people lose the ability to understand blitheringly simple laws because they're having a gimme-fit. "Wanting it real bad" isn't a legal argument.
Before the Internet was generally accessible, there was the BBS. There was flaming on BBSes -- some more than others -- but generally less than is seen on the net today. BBSes had regulars, and the normal pressures of having to coexist with the same people on a regular basis served to temper excesses. This was less the case on Fidonet, still less the case on Usenet, and it applies not at all to web-based forums like this.
The primary culprit here is HTTP. With a BBS, you had to establish a connection and log into a system on which you had established an account. This may not seem like much, but it was part of the "sense of place" that BBS veterans often lament missing on today's net. With/. or any of a hundred other web forums, you can just click your way in and just as easily click your way out. The BBS was an investment; the web is just screwing around, not much more interactive or engaging than channel surfing.
Flaming on BBSes took some real energy because it generally went on at some length and in any given local calling area there were only so many places you could make an ass of yourself before you ran out of welcomes. Flaming on the web is more like a drive-by shooting. Any AC can fire off a shot not even notice the response. Unfortunately, since Microsoft killed browser development and since HTTP appears to be the VT100 of the next decade, this isn't likely to change.
Somewhere, there's a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Insects getting all riled up.
Well, I think a lot of the stances taken by PETA are silly, but this does seem a little mean in the sense of kid-pulling-wings-off-fly mean. If there's a legitimate scientific goal ---
And... if you're wondering why... M.E.L. was built for the fun of it.
--- but in this case, there's not. Maiming animals for fun, even a lowly insect, is the kind of uncool behavior that makes it difficult for real scientists with legitimate and worthy goals to perform research. It's getting hard enough to perform experiments for things like life-saving medical research without thoughtless boobs like these autogenerating propaganda for the more reactionary elements within the animal rights movements.
That's all well and good, but I think it'd be interesting to see how the out-of-the-box setups compare, especially because Microsoft likes to point out how easy their systems are to administer for non-experts versus Linux (while simultaneously raking in the bucks for MCSE training and certification).
My experiences with VRML led me to these complaints:
It was high on gee-whiz value, but there weren't a whole lot of practical applications (speaking only for myself) besides games, which it wasn't especially well-suited to.
It is possible to come up with a 3D object specification language that's easy to use. VRML wasn't it.
There were no good free modelers, IMHO.
Every VRML viewer I tried had incredibly awkward navigation. If Doom had been that painful to use, we'd all still be playing side-scrollers.
The biggest of the foregoing problems, IMHO, was #2. HTML took off because anyone with a browser and a text editor could easily build web pages. I understand the need for complexity in some applications, but there should have been a simplified basic syntax that would have made it easy to build VRML spaces for beginners. When the existing syntax is harder to use than POV-Ray -- which is pretty simple for the capabilities it provides -- forget it.
The net certainly provides communities as "real" as those existing in the real world. Of course, in the real world, people can live densely packed in aparment complexes and tract housing and not know the names of their nearest neighbors.
There are technological boundaries to be sure -- despite the great strides we've taken, the web is by its connectionless nature an awful way to build responsive, interactive tools -- but communities as such have largely ceased to exist in the wealthy, technologically-advanced, highly-mobile cities of the western world.
The question I don't think anyone is asking is whether the majority of people even want a community. Atavistic throwbacks like Jon Katz (and myself, for that matter) dig the idea of place and history and community, but I don't think most people do, or they wouldn't live the way they do. Those who do want community have their work cut out for them resisting the centrifugal forces of the modern world. Whether it's possible on the net misses the bigger issue of whether it's possible in the world anymore.
That said, I would STILL rather a system be devised to pay the artists directly.
What you're looking for is MP3.com, then. Forget ever being able to pay RIAA artists directly. Barring divine intervention, their souls were sold so long ago that they're no longer eligible for depreciation tax deductions on the RIAA's annual returns.
I can live with $4.95 a month, but it would be better if any fee you paid for downloading an MP3 could be credited to the purchase of the corresponding CD. I object to having to pay for the shitty sound quality of MP3s.
But hell, maybe that could be the RIAA's way to make everyone happy. People pay a small fee for access to MP3's with a stronger incentive to buy the CD, and all of us sharing files get paid a small commission by RIAA member companies when they make a sale.
Of course, the RIAA is too greedy and too stupid to go for a system like that.
This is a shameless plug, but you can get my free-beer introductory interactive fiction package, Adventure Blaster, at download.com. It's Windows only -- a habit I swore off years ago -- but it's a nice intro with a spiffy Delphi-based frontend, loads of help files, hints, and tutorials, and it handles the rather messy business of installing the appropriate interpreters. It includes ten games ranked by difficulty, many of which are quite good. (My favorite is Ian Finley's Babel, a sci-fi psychological thriller set in the chilly arctic wastes.) This link should pull it up; otherwise just search for "adventure blaster".
When Inprise is done porting Delphi to Linux, I'll have to port it over. Until then, just boot over to Windows if you have it, or recommend it to your OS-impaired friends.
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Join the Free Hardware Foundation now!
on
3D Printers
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· Score: 2
Seriously, the availability of 3D printers, either as home models for cheap plastic crap or expensive numbers in service bureaus for metal, could create a whole counterculture of hardware. Obviously, you won't be making computer hardware with these, except maybe cool component cases, but think of the possibilities:
Toys are, of course, obvious. I guarantee you that there are plenty of/.'ers who could come up with much cooler action figures, dolls, and other toys than Mattel and Hasbro. And I imagine that not a few of them would make the source available for free, and the rest might sell the source cheaply. What does that do to giant toy companies? Well, it screws them into the ground. It's not that Mattel and Hasbro are that damn creative -- they just happen to be able to afford manufacturing equipment. Think how many plastic printers you could sell to the miniatures-and-modelling set.
Fashion. Same deal. Glasses, costume jewelry, various and sundry accessories. Include in this category things like the aforementioned component cases. You think the iMac looks cool? I can think of about a dozen people I know personally who could do better.
Art and Decor. This should be self-explanatory. Ever buy replicas of antique moulding or architectural details? Then you know what I mean.
Classic automobiles. As a proud owner of a slowly recrudescing 1977 Volkswagen bus, I have a hell of a time finding some parts, especially since '77 buses aren't as collectible as the '69-and-before set. I'm sure other vintage-auto enthusiasts are in the same boat, and ditto for people who like to restore other vintage mechanical equipment, like cameras, classic computing devices (I'm thinking adding machines here), guns, and so on. This will never compete with parts that are available via traditional manufacturing, but if the only way you can get a part is through laser sintering, well...
Pollution. Manufacturers, who are few and far between, have managed to fill every landfill on the planet with plastic crap. When every dip-doodle who can afford a copy of Print Shop Pro Turbo 3D Gold can churn out hideous kitsch, things will only get worse. Think of the horror of garage sales in thirty years! Ai!
Your points are quite valid. I didn't mean to suggest that it was impossible to pass messages under the nose of the NSA using steganography and encryption, just that most naive techniques for mucking up the works of NSA automatic monitoring tools are probably fairly easy to filter out, especially with the kind of brainpower the NSA has working for it.
Hard work and careful thought no doubt could muck up the works. The benefit of success is that you begin to receive tell-tale signs that you've pissed someone off: your ISP mysteriously loses your account -- six times in as many days; your computer seems to be suffering from some kind of high-intensity, highly-focused EMF interference; bland-looking guys in black suits move into the next apartment over, etc.;-)
I've been using Mandrake since 7.0. Overall, I've found it to be a lot better integrated than RH, and a lot more things -- like sound, for example -- worked more or less out of the box, which isn't something I've been able to say for RedHat. Their Advanced Extranet Server project, which has since been folded back into the main distribution, is really nice -- Apache RPMs with all the difficult-to-configure stuff already compiled in.
I don't really have anything bad to say about RH, but I can't really say much good about it, either. It's basically solid, but Mandrake seems to put more effort into making sure everything works together smoothly out of the box. For me, the difference was that Mandrake substantially reduced my dependence on Windows to the point that I probably spend less than a couple of hours a week running MS crap now.
And while ease-of-installation is really a side issue to me, it does make me more likely to recommend Mandrake to a newbie.
I dunno. Would it just be a "rule of the game" if athletes were told that their participation depended on their not marrying members of other races or belonging to a particular political party? The regulations regarding steroids are designed to ensure fair competition; regulations prohibiting free expression are designed only to maximize IOC profits at the expense of basic human rights. It's not like anything that could reasonably be construed as a trade secret is at risk.
Sure, it's legal. But it's unethical and antithetical to the spirit of the games, which is one of the things the IOC is supposed to be concerned about. Unfortunately, they seem to be mainly concerned with grasping incompetently and short-sightedly after money.
I have thought about it. Most keyword bait.sig files consist of a long list of words devoid of any semblance of grammatical structure, and probably 90% of them are copies of someone else's.sig. The vast majority of them could be mechanically discarded by anyone with a basic background in natural language parsing -- and I rather suspect the NSA has plenty of those.
The point is that in a battle between automated systems, the better programmers generally win. Outsmarting automated systems requires intelligent, creative thought. Lazy, automatic work, even if done by a human, is vulnerable to automated attack.
-- the clueless American pigdogs with their sig parser will never see this
message. Attack at dawn.
This would get through once, be flagged by a human reviewer as harmless nonsense, and not show up on their monitors again. Come up with an automated.sig generator, and you will be repeatedly flagged until you cross a critical threshold, at which point automated systems will just ignore you until you exhibit some novel behavior, like encrypted.sigs or unusually long contents. Even then, a flexible and adaptable monitoring system will be able to filter you out.
I rather doubt the NSA does very much keyword filtering for the same reason that keyword-based search engines are increasingly useless on the web. It is more likely that they use some fairly sophisticated natural language parsing engines and n-gram analysis, or something on that order.
Slashdot Mirror
I've gotta say that most of what I've heard about the "wireless web" is deep into gee-whiz just-because-we-can territory and real short on actual usefulness. Grotesquely truncated web pages on the tiny screen on my cell phone? Pass. Net access while I'm driving? Stupid. Check the latest stock quotes if I bring my PDA out on a date? Whatever. Maybe some people dig that stuff, but I suspect that's a permanent niche market.
Wireless access is not a bad idea inside buildings. It's probably of dubious value for desktop machines in a 600-desk cube farm, but it'd be nice to be able to use my laptop for net access down in the cafeteria or in conference rooms without trifling with cables. Having spent the weekend stringing Cat-5 in my WWII-era not-even-electrically-grounded house, I'd much rather plug in a wireless hub and be done with it. Maybe then I could browse the web while I'm on the can, or whatever it is they expect people to do with webpads.
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That being said, it's been a lot more faithful to the book so far, though there have been some irritating deviations and omissions. It is definitely nice to see the Baron being played closer to the book than the moronic pustule Lynch gave us. It's also nice to see the role of the Bene Gesserit being given its proper weight instead of being totally glossed over the way it was in the Lynch film. And I have to agree that Paul-as-Luke-Skywalker is really irritating, but it is worth noting that he does begin the book as a rather spoiled teenage boy, however disciplined he might have been.
Despite being mildly disappointed, I'd keep watching just 'cause Irulan is a babe.
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- Both the language and most of the development and runtime tools are a huge pain in the ass compared to Perl, PHP, C, and C++.
- It's still proprietary, and Java developers are very much at the mercy of Sun.
- The one useful thing it promises to do -- being a cross-platform development tool -- it fails miserably at. It is easier to write apps for Win/Unix/Mac using Tcl/Tk and ANSI C than with Java. Sure, I have to compile the C parts separately for different platforms, but so what? Typing "make <platform>" three or four times still uses fewer keystrokes than the average Java method call.
Mind you, I take a dim view of narrowminded language advocacy in general, so if Java works for you, then by all means use it. It just doesn't do anything for me.--
The Standard article makes it sound like the copyright office is granting the RIAA quasi-governmental status as the sole gateway for digital distribution of music. Am I getting that right? That certainly sounds bizarre, even for a corporate lapdog like the US government.
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Mind you, LaTeX is okay if you don't mind using one of its canned document types, but if you want to create your own, especially for an audience that would rather see something that doesn't look like an academic journal article, Lout is a dream to use. Everything coded in raw TeX feels like a kludge; Lout has an elegant and flexible document model that makes it possible to write clean code.
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I wish people would get off the "if it's not OSS it must suck" bullshit attitude. LizardTech has some really well-designed software, and if it bothers you that they're proprietary (and IMHO, grossly overpriced), then bigod go out and clone it. Having an OSS equivalent of MrSID and DjVu, especially in a form that would be usable to the point-and-drool crowd, would be a very strong selling point for getting Linux into the MS/Adobe-dominated document archiving market.
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The freedom to conduct trade in a free market without being subject to ideological content restrictions touches on both privacy rights and free speech.
Personally, I think banning ideas is just as ugly as Nazism because it invariably leads to the same thing -- banning entire classes of people. Moreover, banning ideas creates the impression of weakness, and rightly so, for it betrays a lack of confidence in the power of democracy and the free exchange of ideas.
I wish I could wrap up with a snide remark about French judges, but we've got some of our own who are just as stupid. To their credit, at least the French legal system isn't terrified that civilization could be toppled by exposed nipples like the American courts are.
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Past a certain point, productivity has to give way to the well-being of the worker. Antebellum slaves were more productive working from before dawn until after nightfall, but their life expectancy wasn't very high. The Japanese, who pioneered this sort of thing in the white-collar world, are finding that the heart-attack rate for men in their 40's and 50's is alarmingly high. There is nothing anyone is doing in the business world, <sneer>"dotcom"</sneer> or not, that is worth grinding people into the ground like that.
Just my two cents. I'm going to start my 70+ hour work week now.
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Of the four languages reviewed, I have to say that PHP sucks least, but it still sucks. The developers plainly couldn't spell orthogonality much less define it, the documentation is simply awful, the interpreter's ability to detect, localize, and identify errors is on a par with stuff I used back in the punchcard era, and mixing PHP code with HTML and SQL produces results that are grotesque. I wish to hell someone would crank out an Apache modules that would make it easier to plug calls to compiled C or C++ code into web pages.
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In view of the possibility of OSS being contaminated with closed-source code, the use of a diversity of languages being used in OSS development is not just a good policy, it may end up affording some legal protection. Not being subject to the same forces of mindless conformity that prevail along the corporate C++/Java/VB axis, we ought to take advantage of it.
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So they're going to implement some sort of VM. Woo. It's not a bad idea, all things considered, but it's hardly anything to get excited about. (The same could be said of Capcom's games, but that's just pure opinion.)
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- Making copies of CDs and sending them to totally fnarking strangers is illegal. Period. There is absolutely no ambiguity here.
- The people who think otherwise are either letting their passions cripple their understanding of law and reality, or else they are hopelessly ignorant or somehow mentally impaired.
- That being said, it certainly looks like MP3 in general and Napster in particular are actually boosting CD sales, which is hardly surprising since MP3s are only substitutes for CDs for people with either shitty speakers or even shittier hearing, and because fnarking radio has been doing the same damn thing for years with the same effect.
- Ergo, the RIAA should just roll over and be happy for the increased sales instead of getting greedy and killing the goose that laid the golden egg. This would have the added benefit of leaving all the "copyright law doesn't apply to me" crowd with nothing to spew bullshit about.
Please note that I'm in favor of reducing copyright to its original duration, and I think both the RIAA and most IP laws are monumentally stupid. But it irritates the bejesus out of me seeing people lose the ability to understand blitheringly simple laws because they're having a gimme-fit. "Wanting it real bad" isn't a legal argument.--
The primary culprit here is HTTP. With a BBS, you had to establish a connection and log into a system on which you had established an account. This may not seem like much, but it was part of the "sense of place" that BBS veterans often lament missing on today's net. With /. or any of a hundred other web forums, you can just click your way in and just as easily click your way out. The BBS was an investment; the web is just screwing around, not much more interactive or engaging than channel surfing.
Flaming on BBSes took some real energy because it generally went on at some length and in any given local calling area there were only so many places you could make an ass of yourself before you ran out of welcomes. Flaming on the web is more like a drive-by shooting. Any AC can fire off a shot not even notice the response. Unfortunately, since Microsoft killed browser development and since HTTP appears to be the VT100 of the next decade, this isn't likely to change.
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Well, I think a lot of the stances taken by PETA are silly, but this does seem a little mean in the sense of kid-pulling-wings-off-fly mean. If there's a legitimate scientific goal ---
And... if you're wondering why... M.E.L. was built for the fun of it.
--- but in this case, there's not. Maiming animals for fun, even a lowly insect, is the kind of uncool behavior that makes it difficult for real scientists with legitimate and worthy goals to perform research. It's getting hard enough to perform experiments for things like life-saving medical research without thoughtless boobs like these autogenerating propaganda for the more reactionary elements within the animal rights movements.
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That's all well and good, but I think it'd be interesting to see how the out-of-the-box setups compare, especially because Microsoft likes to point out how easy their systems are to administer for non-experts versus Linux (while simultaneously raking in the bucks for MCSE training and certification).
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Sure. But it would be an even bigger deal if the Chinese got their act together on Earth first so they could be the first to put a free man on Mars.
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- It was high on gee-whiz value, but there weren't a whole lot of practical applications (speaking only for myself) besides games, which it wasn't especially well-suited to.
- It is possible to come up with a 3D object specification language that's easy to use. VRML wasn't it.
- There were no good free modelers, IMHO.
- Every VRML viewer I tried had incredibly awkward navigation. If Doom had been that painful to use, we'd all still be playing side-scrollers.
The biggest of the foregoing problems, IMHO, was #2. HTML took off because anyone with a browser and a text editor could easily build web pages. I understand the need for complexity in some applications, but there should have been a simplified basic syntax that would have made it easy to build VRML spaces for beginners. When the existing syntax is harder to use than POV-Ray -- which is pretty simple for the capabilities it provides -- forget it.--
There are technological boundaries to be sure -- despite the great strides we've taken, the web is by its connectionless nature an awful way to build responsive, interactive tools -- but communities as such have largely ceased to exist in the wealthy, technologically-advanced, highly-mobile cities of the western world.
The question I don't think anyone is asking is whether the majority of people even want a community. Atavistic throwbacks like Jon Katz (and myself, for that matter) dig the idea of place and history and community, but I don't think most people do, or they wouldn't live the way they do. Those who do want community have their work cut out for them resisting the centrifugal forces of the modern world. Whether it's possible on the net misses the bigger issue of whether it's possible in the world anymore.
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What you're looking for is MP3.com, then. Forget ever being able to pay RIAA artists directly. Barring divine intervention, their souls were sold so long ago that they're no longer eligible for depreciation tax deductions on the RIAA's annual returns.
I can live with $4.95 a month, but it would be better if any fee you paid for downloading an MP3 could be credited to the purchase of the corresponding CD. I object to having to pay for the shitty sound quality of MP3s.
But hell, maybe that could be the RIAA's way to make everyone happy. People pay a small fee for access to MP3's with a stronger incentive to buy the CD, and all of us sharing files get paid a small commission by RIAA member companies when they make a sale.
Of course, the RIAA is too greedy and too stupid to go for a system like that.
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When Inprise is done porting Delphi to Linux, I'll have to port it over. Until then, just boot over to Windows if you have it, or recommend it to your OS-impaired friends.
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Hard work and careful thought no doubt could muck up the works. The benefit of success is that you begin to receive tell-tale signs that you've pissed someone off: your ISP mysteriously loses your account -- six times in as many days; your computer seems to be suffering from some kind of high-intensity, highly-focused EMF interference; bland-looking guys in black suits move into the next apartment over, etc. ;-)
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I don't really have anything bad to say about RH, but I can't really say much good about it, either. It's basically solid, but Mandrake seems to put more effort into making sure everything works together smoothly out of the box. For me, the difference was that Mandrake substantially reduced my dependence on Windows to the point that I probably spend less than a couple of hours a week running MS crap now.
And while ease-of-installation is really a side issue to me, it does make me more likely to recommend Mandrake to a newbie.
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Sure, it's legal. But it's unethical and antithetical to the spirit of the games, which is one of the things the IOC is supposed to be concerned about. Unfortunately, they seem to be mainly concerned with grasping incompetently and short-sightedly after money.
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The point is that in a battle between automated systems, the better programmers generally win. Outsmarting automated systems requires intelligent, creative thought. Lazy, automatic work, even if done by a human, is vulnerable to automated attack.
-- the clueless American pigdogs with their sig parser will never see this message. Attack at dawn.
This would get through once, be flagged by a human reviewer as harmless nonsense, and not show up on their monitors again. Come up with an automated .sig generator, and you will be repeatedly flagged until you cross a critical threshold, at which point automated systems will just ignore you until you exhibit some novel behavior, like encrypted .sigs or unusually long contents. Even then, a flexible and adaptable monitoring system will be able to filter you out.
I rather doubt the NSA does very much keyword filtering for the same reason that keyword-based search engines are increasingly useless on the web. It is more likely that they use some fairly sophisticated natural language parsing engines and n-gram analysis, or something on that order.
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