He is emphatic that RSS 2.0/Atom are the next big thing and represent the new data model for the web.
Here's the thing: RSS 2.0 and Atom really don't have a revolutionary data model. They are just file formats that list short descriptions, in a sequential order, with a bit of meta data, that get polled on a regular interval. That's all.
They are only popular because the use pattern is different to normal web pages. The tech itself is pretty mundane. Internet Explorer 4.0 has something similar with "channels", way back in the 90s.
You could have done the same thing with a subset of HTML 2.0 in the 90s. The main reasons people didn't is because they didn't think of it and the need wasn't as great.
The Semantic Web, on the other hand, is doing new stuff. Some of it we don't know how to do yet. Some of it is immediately practical, some of it isn't. The Semantic Web is more of an idea than a tangible product.
By saying that RSS and Atom somehow "beat" the Semantic Web, he's comparing apples to oranges. It just doesn't make sense.
The reason the web took off so well was because it was built from a few simple principles that could be generalised. Resources that could be addressed. Simple, text-based markup. Simple, text-based protocol.
The Semantic Web will probably take off in the same way, with various bits already being used to varying degrees of success (e.g. Mozilla already uses RDF). But it's a much bigger problem, so expecting it to take off just as quickly is naive.
I think you've misread my argument that copyright is incompatible with a free market as an argument to abolish copyright. All I'm saying is that copyright is incompatible with a free market.
The ramifications of that might be that copyright is not a good idea, but it's impossible to tell without more experience handling digital media entering the public domain (i.e. society can't make an informed decision one way or the other until copyright duration comes down significantly).
The only way I can think of is by funding development with donations. How many people (besides me) would contribute $20 towards the developement of a game when they may not even be able to try a demo?
The Street Performer Protocol partially solves this. However, it's reputation based, and doesn't address the problem of gaining a reputation in the first place.
So who has the cahones to develop a standards-compliant web browser for this gui?
Who has the cojones to develop a standards-compliant web browser full stop? Gecko ain't compliant and never will be. Same goes for every other browser.
I've been poking around for a viable web-surfing configuration for an 8mb pentium-1 system, and there really is nothing out there.
Last time I checked, I can't copy a physical product outright and sell it either.
Check again. Unless there's government coercion (e.g. patents), yes, you can copy a physical product and sell it.
The Original Post is still perfectly wrong about games being a monopoly.
The *whole point* of copyright is that it creates an artificial monopoly. If it didn't do that, it wouldn't work.
Digital media like video games have no cost to reproduce. The supply is essentially infinite. When the government grants copyright, it interferes with the law of supply and demand that is present in a free market by artificially reducing the supply to whatever the copyright holder deems appropriate.
A free market is a market without coercion. Copyright is a coercive monopoly, and therefore incompatible with a free market.
Apple had been promising faster computers for some time and had not been able to deliver them. In addition, they were frustrated at IBM's inability to produce a fast low-powered chip for laptops.
Do we have to have this explained to us in almost exactly the same words in every single fucking article that mentions Apple's switch?
Sure, he's admitting it was deeply flawed now, with a sequel on the way, but back then, he was telling everybody that it was the dog's danglies. Now he's telling everybody that the sequel is great. What's the betting he's going to be admitting that B&W2 is deeply flawed when he's selling B&W3?
They were fined $10 million and have agreed to obstain from the practice in the future. Is this the first step toward getting our airwaves back or is this just a slap on the wrist?"
With music industry profits of billions each year, I'm sure they made much more than $10m from doing so. They'll carry on with the payola until it stops being profitable for them to do it.
Don't forget it's not just direct profits that payola causes. Payola is a large factor in preventing independent musicians from getting adequate airplay, so it actually supresses the competition and reinforces the RIAA cartel's position. That alone has to be worth way more than $10m.
Speaking as a UK citizen, the political setup is a rickety pile of hacked fixes, kneejerks, self-interest and outmoded traditions.
Are there any governments where this is not the case?
The current government is incapable of coherent thought: on the one hand, giving the police more powers to deal with the growing binge-drinking culture, while also loosening licensing laws so pubs and bars can stay open all day.
That seems perfectly sensible to me. Why let a few drunken louts spoil things for the rest of us? It's like banning football because a few hooligans start fights.
Not to mention the idiotic political correctness that sees Metropolitan Police officers take off their shoes before raiding a London mosque they have reason to suspect is harbouring criminals.
Again, seems perfectly reasonable. Taking off shoes doesn't impede their raid in any way, yet it respects their religion instead of giving them more reason to resent the authorities. Trampling all over their religion is something the yanks would do; let's not follow in their misguided footsteps and become as hated as they are.
Retribution? Do you know something that the authorities don't?
has fuck all to do with Karma
Karma: According to the Vedas, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil.
If you add up all the hours people spend deleting spam, filtering spam, missing important emails because of spam filters etc, then that's a hell of a lot of time this spammer has taken away from people. You take away somebody's time, you are taking away part of their life. I'd say that's sowing evil, wouldn't you?
This is one less person that can have his day in court
I'm sure there will be plenty of people thinking that somebody got a little too pissed off with spam, but try and remember that these types of spammers associate with organised crime (e.g. by hiring virus writers to get them bot nets).
Now, the pressure inside your arm is one atmosphere, and the pressure outside is zero, so gases would begin to want to exit your arm, liquids will slowly turn to gases, tissues would expand, yes, but NOT EXPLOSIVELY.
Isn't this the exact situation that divers face with decompression sickness? Okay, so your arm wouldn't explode, but getting the bends isn't much fun either. Wouldn't the nitrogen in your bloodstream start bubbling?
WebDAV is HTTP with so much extra junk that it's hardly recognizable. They added like 15 different methods
HTTP defines the HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and OPTIONS methods. WebDAV includes seven additional methods that handle copying, moving, properties and locking. It's nowhere near 15 additional methods.
and made it into a super revision control protocol that's going to save the world or something.
Straw man hyperbole. It's got basic locking functions. Nobody's saying it's a "super revision control protocol that's going to save the world". You are making WebDAV out to be much more than it actually is. HTTP missed out some pretty basic stuff, WebDAV merely adds them back in.
Very few people actually need all that junk
Yeah, COPY and MOVE are such esoteric notions. Whoever copies and moves stuff?
Does Windows/Linux include what's on the CD, or just the kernel and drivers included directly in the kernel?
You are conflating two different issues - the responsibility of the distribution maker, and the distinction between the kernel and userspace.
Issue one: responsibility. If you get a distribution, and it has a bug in it, then it is a bug in that particular distribution. Even if the Linux kernel had an obvious, stupid bug, if that bug is present in the distribution you obtained, then it's the distribution's fault, because it's their job to catch upstream bugs.
Issue two: kernel vs userspace. If it's not a bug in the kernel, it's not a bug in Linux. Linux is just the kernel.
Now, if you are obtaining vanilla kernel sources and compiling them yourself, then it makes sense to talk about bugs in Linux. If a bug is found in the vanilla kernel sources that the majority of mainstream distributions didn't catch, then it makes sense to talk about a bug in Linux. Otherwise, it makes no sense to talk about bugs in Linux.
Does Windows/Linux include what's on the CD, or just the kernel and drivers included directly in the kernel?
You are comparing apples to oranges. Windows includes what's on the CD, because it's the whole product. Linux doesn't include what's on the CD, because it's just the kernel. It's the distribution that includes what's on the CD.
I have a feeling that if there were a driver bug that was in a driver NOT included in the main kernel download, but was still shipped on distro CDs,/. readers would rally to say that this is not a Linux problem, but a driver problem.
No, it would be a distribution problem. It was the distribution that shipped the buggy driver, whether or not they wrote the driver, they are ultimately responsibile for it. It wouldn't be a Linux problem, because Linux is the kernel, not whatever drivers distributions add in after they get the vanilla sources.
The same logic applies to Windows. It doesn't matter if Microsoft didn't write the driver, they are ultimately responsible for it.
Can't have it both ways...
You only see a double standard because you think Windows and Linux are comparable entities. They are not. Windows and a distribution are comparable entities.
If it's a buffer overflow, then it's a software bug, not a problem with USB per se.
If it's a vulnerability in a driver, then it doesn't matter if Microsoft didn't write the driver, if they ship it with Windows, they are responsible for it. There's no useful distinction between "Windows" and the drivers that ship as part of Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
He is emphatic that RSS 2.0/Atom are the next big thing and represent the new data model for the web.
Here's the thing: RSS 2.0 and Atom really don't have a revolutionary data model. They are just file formats that list short descriptions, in a sequential order, with a bit of meta data, that get polled on a regular interval. That's all.
They are only popular because the use pattern is different to normal web pages. The tech itself is pretty mundane. Internet Explorer 4.0 has something similar with "channels", way back in the 90s.
You could have done the same thing with a subset of HTML 2.0 in the 90s. The main reasons people didn't is because they didn't think of it and the need wasn't as great.
The Semantic Web, on the other hand, is doing new stuff. Some of it we don't know how to do yet. Some of it is immediately practical, some of it isn't. The Semantic Web is more of an idea than a tangible product.
By saying that RSS and Atom somehow "beat" the Semantic Web, he's comparing apples to oranges. It just doesn't make sense.
The reason the web took off so well was because it was built from a few simple principles that could be generalised. Resources that could be addressed. Simple, text-based markup. Simple, text-based protocol.
The Semantic Web will probably take off in the same way, with various bits already being used to varying degrees of success (e.g. Mozilla already uses RDF). But it's a much bigger problem, so expecting it to take off just as quickly is naive.
The problem is that the devs need to get paid.
I think you've misread my argument that copyright is incompatible with a free market as an argument to abolish copyright. All I'm saying is that copyright is incompatible with a free market.
The ramifications of that might be that copyright is not a good idea, but it's impossible to tell without more experience handling digital media entering the public domain (i.e. society can't make an informed decision one way or the other until copyright duration comes down significantly).
The only way I can think of is by funding development with donations. How many people (besides me) would contribute $20 towards the developement of a game when they may not even be able to try a demo?
The Street Performer Protocol partially solves this. However, it's reputation based, and doesn't address the problem of gaining a reputation in the first place.
I showed it to my girlfriend (who is an art student) and she likes it a lot.
I hear the Easter Bunny and Father Christmas are fans too :)
So who has the cahones to develop a standards-compliant web browser for this gui?
Who has the cojones to develop a standards-compliant web browser full stop? Gecko ain't compliant and never will be. Same goes for every other browser.
I've been poking around for a viable web-surfing configuration for an 8mb pentium-1 system, and there really is nothing out there.
Try an older Slackware.
Last time I checked, I can't copy a physical product outright and sell it either.
Check again. Unless there's government coercion (e.g. patents), yes, you can copy a physical product and sell it.
The Original Post is still perfectly wrong about games being a monopoly.
The *whole point* of copyright is that it creates an artificial monopoly. If it didn't do that, it wouldn't work.
Digital media like video games have no cost to reproduce. The supply is essentially infinite. When the government grants copyright, it interferes with the law of supply and demand that is present in a free market by artificially reducing the supply to whatever the copyright holder deems appropriate.
A free market is a market without coercion. Copyright is a coercive monopoly, and therefore incompatible with a free market.
72 percent of those folks pirate games because they can't wait for the UK releases.
If this was a tangible product, then it would be expressed as "they get it on the black market because it isn't commercially available".
There's really no good reason for a game to be released in the USA, and then wait months before releasing it in the UK. It's marketing gone wrong.
They feel videogames are too expensive and resent the long wait for many games released in the US or in Asia before the UK.
Imagine that - something is overpriced, so they get it from illegitimate channels instead. Is there any market where this isn't true?
The main difference between video games and physical products is that copyright gives the publishers a monopoly. It's not a free market.
Apple had been promising faster computers for some time and had not been able to deliver them. In addition, they were frustrated at IBM's inability to produce a fast low-powered chip for laptops.
Do we have to have this explained to us in almost exactly the same words in every single fucking article that mentions Apple's switch?
Sure, he's admitting it was deeply flawed now, with a sequel on the way, but back then, he was telling everybody that it was the dog's danglies. Now he's telling everybody that the sequel is great. What's the betting he's going to be admitting that B&W2 is deeply flawed when he's selling B&W3?
I'm from America, I was born here and have lived here my entire life.
Whatever you say, "koreaman" :)
They were fined $10 million and have agreed to obstain from the practice in the future. Is this the first step toward getting our airwaves back or is this just a slap on the wrist?"
With music industry profits of billions each year, I'm sure they made much more than $10m from doing so. They'll carry on with the payola until it stops being profitable for them to do it.
Don't forget it's not just direct profits that payola causes. Payola is a large factor in preventing independent musicians from getting adequate airplay, so it actually supresses the competition and reinforces the RIAA cartel's position. That alone has to be worth way more than $10m.
Speaking as a UK citizen, the political setup is a rickety pile of hacked fixes, kneejerks, self-interest and outmoded traditions.
Are there any governments where this is not the case?
The current government is incapable of coherent thought: on the one hand, giving the police more powers to deal with the growing binge-drinking culture, while also loosening licensing laws so pubs and bars can stay open all day.
That seems perfectly sensible to me. Why let a few drunken louts spoil things for the rest of us? It's like banning football because a few hooligans start fights.
Not to mention the idiotic political correctness that sees Metropolitan Police officers take off their shoes before raiding a London mosque they have reason to suspect is harbouring criminals.
Again, seems perfectly reasonable. Taking off shoes doesn't impede their raid in any way, yet it respects their religion instead of giving them more reason to resent the authorities. Trampling all over their religion is something the yanks would do; let's not follow in their misguided footsteps and become as hated as they are.
The computer inferface to the Stargate at the SGC could run Linux.
Whatever it is, it's capable of running Netscape 4.
Realistically, how big is the market for this? How many people want to play the world's smallest MP3? Does it play normal size MP3s?
Maybe they can start having Spam Olympics or something.
Something tells me the athletes would have to wear protective headgear like the boxers.
This is retribution and murder
Retribution? Do you know something that the authorities don't?
has fuck all to do with Karma
Karma: According to the Vedas, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil.
If you add up all the hours people spend deleting spam, filtering spam, missing important emails because of spam filters etc, then that's a hell of a lot of time this spammer has taken away from people. You take away somebody's time, you are taking away part of their life. I'd say that's sowing evil, wouldn't you?
This is one less person that can have his day in court
Spamming is legal in Russia.
He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.
Sounds like he finally got the bounces that were coming to him.
Karma's a bitch.
I'm sure there will be plenty of people thinking that somebody got a little too pissed off with spam, but try and remember that these types of spammers associate with organised crime (e.g. by hiring virus writers to get them bot nets).
UFO - 500 zarbos
Tractor beam - 100 zarbos
Antimatter fuel - 30 zarbos
Confusing the puny humans for decades - priceless
There's no way he was being sarcastic!
Now, the pressure inside your arm is one atmosphere, and the pressure outside is zero, so gases would begin to want to exit your arm, liquids will slowly turn to gases, tissues would expand, yes, but NOT EXPLOSIVELY.
Isn't this the exact situation that divers face with decompression sickness? Okay, so your arm wouldn't explode, but getting the bends isn't much fun either. Wouldn't the nitrogen in your bloodstream start bubbling?
I love the power glove. It's so bad.
Do you think NASA will accept 80s-style designs for fingerless gloves?
WebDAV is HTTP with so much extra junk that it's hardly recognizable. They added like 15 different methods
HTTP defines the HEAD, GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and OPTIONS methods. WebDAV includes seven additional methods that handle copying, moving, properties and locking. It's nowhere near 15 additional methods.
and made it into a super revision control protocol that's going to save the world or something.
Straw man hyperbole. It's got basic locking functions. Nobody's saying it's a "super revision control protocol that's going to save the world". You are making WebDAV out to be much more than it actually is. HTTP missed out some pretty basic stuff, WebDAV merely adds them back in.
Very few people actually need all that junk
Yeah, COPY and MOVE are such esoteric notions. Whoever copies and moves stuff?
Oh my god! Did you submit the story to Slashdot?
Does Windows/Linux include what's on the CD, or just the kernel and drivers included directly in the kernel?
You are conflating two different issues - the responsibility of the distribution maker, and the distinction between the kernel and userspace.
Issue one: responsibility. If you get a distribution, and it has a bug in it, then it is a bug in that particular distribution. Even if the Linux kernel had an obvious, stupid bug, if that bug is present in the distribution you obtained, then it's the distribution's fault, because it's their job to catch upstream bugs.
Issue two: kernel vs userspace. If it's not a bug in the kernel, it's not a bug in Linux. Linux is just the kernel.
Now, if you are obtaining vanilla kernel sources and compiling them yourself, then it makes sense to talk about bugs in Linux. If a bug is found in the vanilla kernel sources that the majority of mainstream distributions didn't catch, then it makes sense to talk about a bug in Linux. Otherwise, it makes no sense to talk about bugs in Linux.
Does Windows/Linux include what's on the CD, or just the kernel and drivers included directly in the kernel?
You are comparing apples to oranges. Windows includes what's on the CD, because it's the whole product. Linux doesn't include what's on the CD, because it's just the kernel. It's the distribution that includes what's on the CD.
I have a feeling that if there were a driver bug that was in a driver NOT included in the main kernel download, but was still shipped on distro CDs, /. readers would rally to say that this is not a Linux problem, but a driver problem.
No, it would be a distribution problem. It was the distribution that shipped the buggy driver, whether or not they wrote the driver, they are ultimately responsibile for it. It wouldn't be a Linux problem, because Linux is the kernel, not whatever drivers distributions add in after they get the vanilla sources.
The same logic applies to Windows. It doesn't matter if Microsoft didn't write the driver, they are ultimately responsible for it.
Can't have it both ways...
You only see a double standard because you think Windows and Linux are comparable entities. They are not. Windows and a distribution are comparable entities.
If it's a buffer overflow, then it's a software bug, not a problem with USB per se.
If it's a vulnerability in a driver, then it doesn't matter if Microsoft didn't write the driver, if they ship it with Windows, they are responsible for it. There's no useful distinction between "Windows" and the drivers that ship as part of Windows.