first off the point if the internet is interconnectivity
You can't connect to an address like:
company.co.uk
or
company.co.it?
Sure seems like those addresses work fine for interconnectivity.
.com names are useful for marketing. They add prestige to your company (well, except for pets.com). They are nice to print on your business cards. They generally signal that your company has been around for a long time (and was savvy enough to grab the domain early).
But none of that has to do with interconnectivity or "borderless ungoverned freedom". The United States snagged control of.com. Sorry your country didn't get it (did your country happen to be involved in inventing the internet?), but your country DOES have complete and total control over it's own two letter TLD (one less letter to type than.com!). Use that.
So the United States controls.com,.org,.mil, and.gov. Tough shit, we created the naming system way back when. You don't HAVE to use domain names to use the Internet (IPs work fine), and you also don't have to use NetSol's root name server (there are planty of alternate DNS networks out there). If you aren't happy with how the US is controling.com names, don't use them! Or for that matter, create your OWN Internet!
(this isn't entirely a flamebait post -- i'm at least semi-serious...)
a store's prices are based largely (but not solely) on their own costs. if a stereo costs them $200, and they can sell it for $400 they make a nice $200 profit. but what if that stereo now effectively costs them $300 because for every 3 stereos they sell, one of them is credit fraud and they have to eat the cost? they would have to raise the price to $500 to make the same $200 profit.
the reason they can't raise the price to, say, $900 and make a $600 profit, is that the guy down the street is selling them for $500 too, and everyone would just buy them there. or, if everyone was charging $900, people would just say "fuck it, i don't need that stereo that much" and not buy one.
</basic economics>
isn't that one of the cool things about linux, that you don't NEED an expensive machine to run it? sure, for deploying something that demands a lot of power, one of these expensive servers would be great, but why put 1000 developers on it? i'm sure anyone with the skills to develop a linux application has access to some old pc to run it on (and you need SOME box in front of you in order to ssh to ibm's server anyway).
this just sounds like marketing hype, and not nearly as cool hype as the spraypainting thing...
I don't think Linux was just hype, since the userbase is still increasing at a high pace.
No, linux itself is not hype (well, not only hype at least) but the idea that you could build a large business around selling it is mostly hype. People just don't need that many CDs, and tech support is a commodity (and you can generally get better support in online discussion forums anyway). The IPO craze allowed a number of companies to get funded, but now all that's pretty much over, and companies need to find a way to make real money. Trying to sell something that others are giving away for free isn't exactly high on that list of biz plans.
Linux will thrive as long as people want it to. It's people's hobby. It doesn't have to make money. But I fully expect RedHat to be the only commercial linux available in a year or two (Debian and other "labor of love" distros will still be around of course), but I don't think that even RH will be very profitable.
I don't think we lose pens just because they are small but more because they are cheap to the point of being disposable. If my pen cost $500 I'd pay a lot more attention to where I put it (or who I lent it to).
Man, the BMF (Batman Factor) would be off that charts for that setup. Just don't forget the shark repellent.
Re:Tito in space (space...space...)
on
Tito In Space
·
· Score: 2
Err.. Except that the Navy DOES plan to continue allowing civilans aboard it's nuclear subs, even after a fatal accident occured (9 people killed). Of course the accident may have occured even if those civilians hadn't been there.
With the training he has gone through, concerns about safety aren't much of a reason for NASA not wanting to let Tito into space.
Presumably, if the IMC people are knowledgeable enough to do a nslookup on this IP, then they should also be capable of noticing how similar it is to their own server's, right?
Yeah, but thats where the idea of "getting off on a technicality" comes from. It's up to the government to sweat the details, and it's certainly not IMC's responsibility to fix a typo in the court order they were given.
Or they could have just given them an empty text file:
"here ya go! a list of all the connections to and from 216.213.32.98. anything else i can help you with, officer?"
Re:Cheap Space Flight For All? I Won't Hold My Bre
on
Tito In Space
·
· Score: 2
If corps start using "intelligent" software to battle crackers in real time, the crackers and script kiddies are just gonna one up them with more advanced cracking tools. The crackers don't have to worry about waiting until something is well tested and proven, so they will always be on the cutting edge. They can also blatently steal the code or patented ideas from the corp software tools, while the corps have to do everything legally.
As always, the advantage goes to the offensive tools over the defensive ones.
Re:Plenty of targets already available
on
First Arcology?
·
· Score: 2
The point of terrorism isn't how many people you kill, but how big of a media splash you make. Taking that tower down would be on EVERY channel and newspaper for months, and people would want to know why it was done (which gets the terrorist's messsage out).
I imagine some anti-tech luddite group would have a good reason to destroy something that is so artificial, which would make people scared to live in one in the future and discourage more from being built.
Ballistic missiles move in a completely predictable path.
Maybe they do now, but I can't imagine it would take much to design them to make lots of random deviations from their flight path while still reaching the intended target. Fins and gps would allow the warheads to steer even after they are seperated from the missile. If gps fails, just have them flail around -- they may not hit their intended target, but they also won't be shot down and neutralized.
The problem with missile defense is that the offense always has the advantage. They develope new attack techniques, and then there is a vulnerable gap while the defense comes up with a way to block it. And if the offense manages to keep it's new technique a secret, the the defense is totally screwed.
Find a good article, put a link, and put your comments in the submission
Well, this is a little different since this new york times article is about him (Dave Winer submitted the link). That makes his comments on the article pretty on topic...
But, there are things like PHP whose rise has been nothing but astounding...
But that is a server side technology, so you can change your site over to php and nobody will even know (except that is has some cool new features). To adopt a new client side standard (like Curl) you need support from a lot of people: the major browser makers (to add support in their browsers), and most users (to upgrade to that new browser).
Most companies will still want to support older browsers anyway, so doing Curl will just add another level of complexity to the mess.
I'm much more interested in server side tech like XML/XSL that lets me use logical formatting for the data, but to then render it out in standard html (or SWF, or WAP, or PDF). If I want to change the data, I change only the data. If I want to change the formatting, I change only the template. I've been doing this for a long time with my own perl/database kludges, but it would be nice to have a standard format for it.
but http://i.want.chocolate too! so whose server does it point to? or if you are suggesting that a list of sites come up when you type that in, whose name is at the top of that list? how do i tell someone how to find my site? "search for http://i.want.chocolate and then click to the second page of results. i'm usually about 4 or 5 names down the list". excellent system!
the problem with all the domain name replacement ideas i've seen (RealNames being the most popular one) is that they have most of the same faults as the old one. it's a tough problem, since the name NEEDS to be unique, but many people will want the same name (and the names need to be relatively short and easy to remember -- otherwise we could just use IP addresses).
Yeah, but wouldn't it be nice to have all of that in ONE os? Unfortunately people didn't seem to think so...
Maybe Apple should buy BeOS now. Just ask for all those OS X cd's they sold last week back, and say "Oh no, that was just a test thingie. We REALLY meant to release THIS." and send everyone BeOS.
Moravec's approach is a classic example of the SMPA (sense-model-plan-act) approach to mobile robotics.
No it isn't. It's just a vision processing system that creates an internal model of the 3d environment around it. Once you build that model, you can do whatever type of reactive behavior or goal-oriented planning you wish.
So basically what you're saying is that to make Windows productive you've installed a bunch of Unix tools? You've pretty much proved the other guy's point.
Except that the Windows box was relatively easy to learn at first, and as the user grew in sophistication, he was able to add new tools to make the system easy to use. That sounds like an ideal situation (easy things are easy, hard things are possible) and it the core of what MacOS X is about as well. MacOS X may beat Windows at this game because the easy things are really easy, and the hardcore stuff is based on a real, standard unix.
Ironically the biggest problem for MacOS X is that this jump from easy to hard is really huge. Hopefully they will work on that, and I have seen some progress with the networking control panels. They give you access to most of the standard unix tools, but with a graphical frontend (that shows you what all your options are). Training wheels.
If gas stations were exclusive to the car companies (like games are to consoles), this would be true. If 98% of the gas stations across the country only served owners of Hondas, Toyotas, or Fords, you would probably buy one of those three brands.
Slashdot Mirror
first off the point if the internet is interconnectivity
.com. Sorry your country didn't get it (did your country happen to be involved in inventing the internet?), but your country DOES have complete and total control over it's own two letter TLD (one less letter to type than .com!). Use that.
You can't connect to an address like:
company.co.uk
or
company.co.it?
Sure seems like those addresses work fine for interconnectivity.
.com names are useful for marketing. They add prestige to your company (well, except for pets.com). They are nice to print on your business cards. They generally signal that your company has been around for a long time (and was savvy enough to grab the domain early).
But none of that has to do with interconnectivity or "borderless ungoverned freedom". The United States snagged control of
So the United States controls .com, .org, .mil, and .gov. Tough shit, we created the naming system way back when. You don't HAVE to use domain names to use the Internet (IPs work fine), and you also don't have to use NetSol's root name server (there are planty of alternate DNS networks out there). If you aren't happy with how the US is controling .com names, don't use them! Or for that matter, create your OWN Internet!
(this isn't entirely a flamebait post -- i'm at least semi-serious...)
a store's prices are based largely (but not solely) on their own costs. if a stereo costs them $200, and they can sell it for $400 they make a nice $200 profit. but what if that stereo now effectively costs them $300 because for every 3 stereos they sell, one of them is credit fraud and they have to eat the cost? they would have to raise the price to $500 to make the same $200 profit.
the reason they can't raise the price to, say, $900 and make a $600 profit, is that the guy down the street is selling them for $500 too, and everyone would just buy them there. or, if everyone was charging $900, people would just say "fuck it, i don't need that stereo that much" and not buy one.
</basic economics>
isn't that one of the cool things about linux, that you don't NEED an expensive machine to run it? sure, for deploying something that demands a lot of power, one of these expensive servers would be great, but why put 1000 developers on it? i'm sure anyone with the skills to develop a linux application has access to some old pc to run it on (and you need SOME box in front of you in order to ssh to ibm's server anyway).
this just sounds like marketing hype, and not nearly as cool hype as the spraypainting thing...
I don't think Linux was just hype, since the userbase is still increasing at a high pace.
No, linux itself is not hype (well, not only hype at least) but the idea that you could build a large business around selling it is mostly hype. People just don't need that many CDs, and tech support is a commodity (and you can generally get better support in online discussion forums anyway). The IPO craze allowed a number of companies to get funded, but now all that's pretty much over, and companies need to find a way to make real money. Trying to sell something that others are giving away for free isn't exactly high on that list of biz plans.
Linux will thrive as long as people want it to. It's people's hobby. It doesn't have to make money. But I fully expect RedHat to be the only commercial linux available in a year or two (Debian and other "labor of love" distros will still be around of course), but I don't think that even RH will be very profitable.
I don't think we lose pens just because they are small but more because they are cheap to the point of being disposable. If my pen cost $500 I'd pay a lot more attention to where I put it (or who I lent it to).
Man, the BMF (Batman Factor) would be off that charts for that setup. Just don't forget the shark repellent.
Err.. Except that the Navy DOES plan to continue allowing civilans aboard it's nuclear subs, even after a fatal accident occured (9 people killed). Of course the accident may have occured even if those civilians hadn't been there.
With the training he has gone through, concerns about safety aren't much of a reason for NASA not wanting to let Tito into space.
Presumably, if the IMC people are knowledgeable enough to do a nslookup on this IP, then they should also be capable of noticing how similar it is to their own server's, right?
Yeah, but thats where the idea of "getting off on a technicality" comes from. It's up to the government to sweat the details, and it's certainly not IMC's responsibility to fix a typo in the court order they were given.
Or they could have just given them an empty text file:
"here ya go! a list of all the connections to and from 216.213.32.98. anything else i can help you with, officer?"
for 3 days
Um, check that article again. It's 3 hours.
If corps start using "intelligent" software to battle crackers in real time, the crackers and script kiddies are just gonna one up them with more advanced cracking tools. The crackers don't have to worry about waiting until something is well tested and proven, so they will always be on the cutting edge. They can also blatently steal the code or patented ideas from the corp software tools, while the corps have to do everything legally.
As always, the advantage goes to the offensive tools over the defensive ones.
he is talking about this:
http://www.todd.demon.co.uk/encyc/million.htm
british billion != american billion
so that tower is REALLY expensive!
The point of terrorism isn't how many people you kill, but how big of a media splash you make. Taking that tower down would be on EVERY channel and newspaper for months, and people would want to know why it was done (which gets the terrorist's messsage out).
I imagine some anti-tech luddite group would have a good reason to destroy something that is so artificial, which would make people scared to live in one in the future and discourage more from being built.
Of course they will have Futurama-style air tubes that suck you to the top. Woosh!
don't you mean:
I feel a great disturbance in the Work Force...
Check out the page with the test graphics on it:
http://virtouch.com/tests.htm
The last one is obviously a naked chick and something from alt.sex.furries (if you don't know, you probobly don't want to).
Ballistic missiles move in a completely predictable path.
Maybe they do now, but I can't imagine it would take much to design them to make lots of random deviations from their flight path while still reaching the intended target. Fins and gps would allow the warheads to steer even after they are seperated from the missile. If gps fails, just have them flail around -- they may not hit their intended target, but they also won't be shot down and neutralized.
The problem with missile defense is that the offense always has the advantage. They develope new attack techniques, and then there is a vulnerable gap while the defense comes up with a way to block it. And if the offense manages to keep it's new technique a secret, the the defense is totally screwed.
Find a good article, put a link, and put your comments in the submission
Well, this is a little different since this new york times article is about him (Dave Winer submitted the link). That makes his comments on the article pretty on topic...
But, there are things like PHP whose rise has been nothing but astounding...
But that is a server side technology, so you can change your site over to php and nobody will even know (except that is has some cool new features). To adopt a new client side standard (like Curl) you need support from a lot of people: the major browser makers (to add support in their browsers), and most users (to upgrade to that new browser).
Most companies will still want to support older browsers anyway, so doing Curl will just add another level of complexity to the mess.
I'm much more interested in server side tech like XML/XSL that lets me use logical formatting for the data, but to then render it out in standard html (or SWF, or WAP, or PDF). If I want to change the data, I change only the data. If I want to change the formatting, I change only the template. I've been doing this for a long time with my own perl/database kludges, but it would be nice to have a standard format for it.
but http://i.want.chocolate too! so whose server does it point to? or if you are suggesting that a list of sites come up when you type that in, whose name is at the top of that list? how do i tell someone how to find my site? "search for http://i.want.chocolate and then click to the second page of results. i'm usually about 4 or 5 names down the list". excellent system!
the problem with all the domain name replacement ideas i've seen (RealNames being the most popular one) is that they have most of the same faults as the old one. it's a tough problem, since the name NEEDS to be unique, but many people will want the same name (and the names need to be relatively short and easy to remember -- otherwise we could just use IP addresses).
Yeah, but wouldn't it be nice to have all of that in ONE os? Unfortunately people didn't seem to think so...
Maybe Apple should buy BeOS now. Just ask for all those OS X cd's they sold last week back, and say "Oh no, that was just a test thingie. We REALLY meant to release THIS." and send everyone BeOS.
or doing what Kevin Mitnick did
considering how things worked out for him, i don't know if i would reccomend following in mitnick's footsteps...
Moravec's approach is a classic example of the SMPA (sense-model-plan-act) approach to mobile robotics.
No it isn't. It's just a vision processing system that creates an internal model of the 3d environment around it. Once you build that model, you can do whatever type of reactive behavior or goal-oriented planning you wish.
So basically what you're saying is that to make Windows productive you've installed a bunch of Unix tools? You've pretty much proved the other guy's point.
Except that the Windows box was relatively easy to learn at first, and as the user grew in sophistication, he was able to add new tools to make the system easy to use. That sounds like an ideal situation (easy things are easy, hard things are possible) and it the core of what MacOS X is about as well. MacOS X may beat Windows at this game because the easy things are really easy, and the hardcore stuff is based on a real, standard unix.
Ironically the biggest problem for MacOS X is that this jump from easy to hard is really huge. Hopefully they will work on that, and I have seen some progress with the networking control panels. They give you access to most of the standard unix tools, but with a graphical frontend (that shows you what all your options are). Training wheels.
If gas stations were exclusive to the car companies (like games are to consoles), this would be true. If 98% of the gas stations across the country only served owners of Hondas, Toyotas, or Fords, you would probably buy one of those three brands.