Because their license (for their support product) states "If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed Server." (emphasis added) They are saying that if the Customer wants to install the Software on additional Systems, they will purchase additional Services (aka support) for each additional Installed Server. Just to clarify, an "Installed Server" is not the same as a System which also has Services, it is any System with the Software installed on it.
Don't forget SpamProbe
as well. I've been using it for a couple weeks, and it has been working very well for me. I've gotten around 1400 messages, and so far 1 false positive and 6 false negatives. I don't know how well the other filters work, but that seems pretty good to me. It's sure a hell of a lot better than the DNS blacklists I use. (I'm still using those. After all, they filter out the first 70% of my incoming mail and are probably faster anyway.)
Maybe we *do* want the other components, but don't want the browser. Currently there is no option to just download the Composer and Mail portions. Much as I love mozilla, (and I'm using it right now) some of my clients would be unwilling to replace their browser (undoubtedly IE) but would be happy to install Composer to get an easy to use HTML editor or Minotaur to get a better mail application than Outlook. That is why *I* would like to see this change. And who knows, maybe after they get comfortable with the composer or mail app, they'll be easier to convince to move to a browser with a "consistant" interface.
Yep, just like if they had said "California adopts free software" they would mean that all the inhabitants of California went out and got linux. They definitely wouldn't be referring to the government of the region. Nope. That couldn't be it at all.
He's talking about third world nations like Andalucia, California, and Washington DC. I also don't understand why slashdot keeps writing about these strange nations that nobody has ever heard of. </sarcasm>
What I want to know is how he had enough karma to post at +2.
Hey everyone who is debating about "demand for cars" and cost of this or that, did you read GMs explanation to EV1 drivers? They said that CARB has decided that any car that doesn't use a conductive charging (rather than inductive) won't qualify as zero emissions. Since Toyota and GM both use inductive charging, they'll be dropping the cars. They are basically really upset that California decided to screw them like this so that they'd have to complete redesign the chargers on the cars and refueling stations, (very very expensive) so GM is saying "screw you too."
I don't personally understand it. Does anyone know why inductive charging shouldn't qualify for zero emmissions?
Perhaps. Or perhaps I'll think I need to take better care of my children. Or that I should educate them better.
It is sorta like when that buffy musical episode came out (yeah yeah, what can I say, I think willow is hot) and all the rightwingers were upset because of the "sex" scene when willow sings to tara. They felt it should have been censored because they thought it suggested lesbian sex. All that time I'm thinking, why would you let your "little" kids watch a show about monsters killing people anyway? Are you concerned they aren't having enough nightmares or something?
Now I know people are going to say that it isn't the same, blah, blah, blah, and of course it isn't the exact same situation. The premise is the same though. If you aren't comfortable with the safety of something like this, then you shouldn't be letting your kids on it. I don't think little children need their own email account at all. I mean, if you child is young enough not to know what "banged by a 12 inch cock" means, why does she need her own email account? But if you believe they do you should take steps to make sure that it is being filtered properly or that your child understands what is coming at her.
Or maybe you need to educate her on where not to use her real email address. Personally, I have an email address that is listed on my web site, (which is listed on google so it isn't like it is impossible to find the site... I've even had friends search for things and find my page unintentionally) and yet I have gotten 4 spams in the last 4 years, all of which are just home-business spams, not porno spams.
I also have an email address I sometimes use for mail testing. It is a hotmail address, one which is not posted on any webpage anywhere, (and I specified that it should not be listed on hotmail's directory) and which I've only used to send a couple of mails to about 3-4 people. Yet it receives 5-10 porn spams a day. So now I know not to use hotmail for my email (as if there was ever a question).
Anyway, I'm getting side tracked. I want to know why you are letting your little children have unfettered access to the internet (which *you* perceive to be a dangerous place) without giving them any sort of education at all about what to avoid or how to protect themselves.
Consider it another way. Would you let your child walk around by herself in Central Park at night? No, probably not. That doesn't mean we should ban people from central park, or even that we should ban people from central park at night. It might even be perfectly safe to be there. I perceive that as being a dangerous situation, so I'd make certain that my children don't do it. Is that really so unreasonable?
Thats a pretty good idea. I would still think the/. effect would be better suppressed if slashdot would mirror stories, especially if its running off of somebody's mother's DSL connection.
What?! Now you want people to be responsible when they could use their own irresponsibility to generate money for them?? What is the would coming to... That's just downright unamerican.
Well, the moon is about 1.4 light seconds away, so even in the best case latency you'd have more than 1.4 second delay. It is pretty hard to do things when you have to wait 3 seconds for each move (1.4 to do it, and 1.4 to find out if it happened right). Delicate work would be impossible. And then, if you are thinking of something like to mars, you're dealing with a lag time of 5-22 minutes (depending on if it is close or far from us in its orbit), so that is basically out for anything useful. Plus if there is any packet loss, then you have to make the round trip several times before you know if it worked. Of course, they'd probably transmit each packet a few dozen times just to safe, but even then if you are doing things without waiting to see the results you can really mess things up.
Besides, if you are trying to think ahead, (and presumably scientists are) then you realize that going up and playing around at the space station and on the moon is really just something we have to do before we could even consider something as far away as Mars. If we can't make it to orbit and back safely (and I think we can, I don't consider two accidents out of so many years to really be unsafe) then we'd have no hope of going farther.
Hey, EA used to make good games too back in the day. I remember on my Atari 1200 there was this game called "Worms?" that was really great. You can read a short discription of it at
http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v9n7/260_Ou tpost_atari.php
but lets face it, that was a long time ago. They also produced really great games for the Commodore 64, like "M.U.L.E." and "Seven Cities of Gold" (which was actually decent on the first release, though the updated VGA version for PC totally sucked). In fact, if you check out HotU and show EA titles by year you'll see that their early stuff was actually pretty good. You'll also notice there are only 16 games listed (ie good games) for 1995-2002, compared to 11 listed for 1986 alone. Granted, its a site for old games, but I don't think they've left much out in this case.
* Standardized support for new hardware features such as vertex/pixel shaders, rather than kludgy vendor-specific extensions to expose the same functionality in OpenGL, and a graceful software fallback path to support vertex shaders in legacy hardware.
OpenGL has been version 1.x since 1992, while MS has a release cycle less than one year long. The first version of DirectX was released in 1995, and we're on version 9 already. Since OpenGL is only on version 1.4, you would hardly expect it to support the new WhizBangPixelMoppers(tm). And since OpenGL was designed for high end workstations (who want stability and compatibility), rather than gamers on their kewl peecee (who really do want WhizBangPixelMoppers), it makes a lot of sense. After all, if I've spent a few hours designing a new part for a car engine when my software outputs "WhizBang(-1) Exception" and then crashes, I'm probably going to be pretty darn mad, and the boss is too.
That being said, the GL2 working group has released a draft of the OpenGL Shading Language, which is intended to provide some of these features to OpenGL2. So you'll get your happy WhizBang soon.
I've noticed that as well. PhenomINET's just started blocking almost all of rackspace, using their own internal blacklist. The nice part about rackspace is that you can quickly check whois.arin.net to find most of the really annoying netblocks. They might even run their own whois server, which would be better, but I don't know about that.
Wow this comment is almost perfect for a generic "you shouldn't rewrite software xyz" post. Look at how easy it converts to a senseless Windows vs linux post:
Basically, everything depends on Windows, so you can't really replace Windows and maintain backwards compatibility. In order to have backwards compatibility, you would need to provide all the services provided by Windows, so you would, in effect, just be writing a new Windows.
If you really want to replace Windows with some other system, then you could probably get pretty far by just porting MS Office and Internet Explorer over to the new system. This should pick up quite a few apps. I have no idea how hard this would be.
But, by and large, it's silly to constantly rant and rave about Windows. It's just an abstraction for hardware that allows you to effortlessly run multiple programs. It is so low level, that it almost doesn't make sense to criticize it. And I think many of the critics don't really understand fully what Windows is.
For example, if you don't like the performance, then that is a complaint against the specific hardware or drivers you are running, not against Windows itself.
If you don't like the program crashing, then that is a complaint against the programs you are using (Office, IE, ICQ, etc.). This has nothing to do with Windows.
As far as features go, if you really want a feature and Windows does not provide it, then you have a legitimate complaint. But really, what more do you want from a video (and mouse and keyboard) driver than the ability to get information about GUI events and to paint the screen in any fashion you desire?
To sum up, I don't see that Windows is inherently problematic. I think that most complaints about it are misplaced, and should be directed elsewhere.
Furthermore, when people talk about replacing Windows, they seldom seem to appreciate the benefits of allowing multiple applications to run on screen at once. This is one of Windows's strongest points, yet most people seem to want to replace it with what amounts to software rolled up with a kernel.
Well, that's my $0.02.
... That second to last paragraph needs some work, but otherwise I think it went very smoothly.:)
The point isn't to sit a bunch of them around the house. If I'm reading the site correctly, the main convenience is convertability. For example:
You are at your office working on your desktop/workstation (with full size monitor, keyboard, etc) when you get a call from (datacenter/field/client/outside-location) and they want you to come out right away because of some problem. Traditionally, if you needed a computer there you would either work on a completely new machine, or you would grab a laptop, which probably has a completely different set of files on it.
With this product, you could slide the MCC out of the desktop holder and into your notebook shell, and now you have a notebook computer that is exactly identical to the desktop you were just working on. Or better yet, if the remote site also has desktop MCC holders, you just grab the MCC and slip it in at the remote location. It would be impractical to bring a real desktop with you, (to big and/or heavy) and though you can have removable hard drives they really aren't the same as actually having the same complete machine as your laptop and desktop etc. This way it really IS exactly the same.
Or as another example, maybe you have some work to take home from the office. Rather than transferring everything to a CD or to your laptop, you can just grab the MCC out of your work computer and bring it home, then plug it into your home desktop shell. Now you have access to all of your work data AND software without having to reinstall anything (and without needing new licenses), and it is a real desktop solution, not like the cramped keyboard/monitor you would get on a laptop.
Actually, one of the companies I consult for recently converted all their desktop machines to notebooks, even though 90% of the time they are just sitting in the office. The reason was to save on software costs (don't need two licenses, one for mobile use and one for office use) and they can quickly get up and go if they need to. The also purchased extra keyboards (and/or 10keys) and peripherals for all the laptops because they didn't have all the features they wanted. Having a solution like the MCC would actually have been a lot better for them.
The problem with most people is that they are entirely too selfish. They say things like "well I shouldn't have to donate money to a copmany so I can download something great." Of course, they are missing the whole point, that it is voluntary. The real question is how much do you like their product? You should all be giving them what you feel the value of their product is. Horrifying as it may sound, we at PhenomINET (shameless plug) have actually had people ask us if they can pay more for our services, since they believe us to be offering a good product. When I ask them why, they say that since dotcoms are having so much trouble, they would rather give a little extra to ensure companies they like don't go out of business. We ourselves actually buy licensed copies of the software we use (redhat etc) whenever possible, because we realize the benefits of supporting these people.
I think that they way all services should work is that you give as much as you feel the product is worth. Would you rather be able to us Mandrake, or have an extra $100 in your pocket? What about $50 or $20 or $10? Pay as much as you think it is worth. If I thought is was even remotely possible to run a business this way, PhenomINET would already be doing it, but I think most people (appearantely some slashdot posters included) are simply to abusive of the system for it to work.
Actually, I already make suggestions to people regarding what service level is best for them, and I tell them straight up if our services aren't in their best interest (though I think that is extremely rare). I don't just try and sell them to the highest amount possible, I try to honestly make it worth their while. I'm a firm believer that business transactions should be beneficial for both sides, and I do everything I can to ensure that it is so. If everyone else did the same, we wouldn't have to worry about companies like Micro$oft.
(Disclaimer: I work for a web hosting company who offers dedicated and colocation services.)
The first thing you should do is make sure to get it in writing. If you look over the contract and don't see something like "system administration" or "full OS maintenance" then ask about it. If they say "Oh yeah, well we say we do some software updates" then you probably want to ask them to change that so that it says specifically OS maintenaince or system administration or security monitoring or something. If they refuse to change it on the grounds that they'd "have to get it cleared with [insert everyone under the sun here]" then either don't use them or be aware that they probably won't do it.
I'd advise finding a company flexible enough to write a contract to your terms. I know at PhenomINET we always are willing to adjust contracts so that we provide exactly what the customer needs, or if we can't provide it, then we just tell you so. This *should* be the case with any company if you are actually paying them in the 1000s per month, but it often isn't so. (since we ourselves have recently been negotiating contracts in the 10s and 100s of thousands and some companies still won't budge) There is no point we see in telling you we will do it but we can't put it in writing, because either you or we will be unhappy afterwards, and that can only mean bad press.
In short, I'd advise talking to several different companies (including phenominet.com of course) and asking them if they can fulfil your needs exactly. If they say they can, get it in writing, and it should be writing that you can easily understand (legalese doesn't have to be complicated, and generally the only times it is complicated is when someone is trying to hide something). Then pick whichever one of those companies offers you the best price.
You might want to become a member of the IEEE and the IEEE Standards Association. While you do have to pay every year, you then get to take advantage of member discounts for many sections including ordering the standards documents, and you get discounts at some conferences, too. Also, you get the opportunity to participate in balloting on new standards. Keep in mind that balloting requires that you be responsible and that it is currently done on paper not electronically.
So, you can give eight examples of "innovation" that have occurred since the dawn of time -- and you're concerned that we haven't had one in the last decade? Boy, that's shocking!
You are missing something there my possibly trolling friend. He didn't limit all of innovation to those 8 items, and 6 of those 8 have occurred in the last 1-200 years. Since it was supposed that technology should advance faster now that we have the internet, we should surely have had more since that time.
Could it be that the internet itself is stifling innovation, by providing *too much* information? Perhaps it is causing people to think that anything can be found if they simply look, rather than actually doing it themselves. Just a theory of course.
Is it just me, or was this some sort of incredibly clever scheme to launch a few hundred satellites into orbit without paying for it...
I mean, this new company paid 25 million for the system, and then the government paid them 70 million in order to use it... how did that happen? If the network is really only worth 25 million, why would the government pay so much to use it? And if the system is worth so much more, how is it they managed to pay only 25 million? Sounds like something funny going on to me...
As both a some-times adverstiser, and someone who filters out most ads, I think this is a great idea. Personally, I filter ads from almost all companies, but not on slashdot, since they are targetted enough that sometimes I actually care to see the ad.
I think it would be great to be able to filter out specific ads I'm not interested in (rather than simply filtering the entire ad server like I usually do now), and I wouldn't mind giving feed back if I had time. I also think it would be much nicer to be able to select preferences and rate ads. I don't mind tasteful advertising at all. If it is helpful, then why should I?
I've seen a lot of people on this thread try and say that all advertising is useless or whatever. But really, how can you hear about a new product if you never see any advertising? Maybe you are thinking, "Well, I could use a new colocation company," so you go to exodus because you've heard of them. Never mind that there may be alternatives, since you pay no attention to advertising you don't know about them.
Maybe you would be interested in a product, but you don't even know it exists. Sure, sometimes you hear from a friend about something, from cars to construction to computers, but can you always find a friend who happens to be a new toothpaste marketing specialist to tell you about caff-o-brush caffeinated toothpaste? Probably not.
I also liked the idea mentioned earlier about being able to specify keywords to get targetting advertisements. eg, show me ads with the keywords "hard drive" since I'm about to buy a new one.
Even better, the ads should be SEARCHABLE in this fashion also. There should be a description of the product and the ad itself, so if I remember I was interested in an ad with boxing gloves, but I don't actually remember the product, I could say "show me ads with the keyword boxing gloves that are in the technology category" and viola I have the ad I was looking for.
(Sorry if somebody posted about this already, but I browse at +4 and didn't see it... if its there before me, mod it up.:)
Number one thing almost all OSS projects I've been with is lack of organization. Often times its hard to make heads or tails from the source. I never expect people to actually comment the code well (as well as they should anyway), but the organization of the code is really fairly bad.
Often times there is a large section of code used repeatedly in a program, which is intended always to do the same thing (such as getting player info from an id number or something). Rather than writing a function (so that the code would always be in one place and its purpose obvious) they instead scatter the same code several times throughout the program. That way, without commented code clearly explaining what is happening, it may not even be obvious that the code is doing the same thing. Is there something special about this instance? Some detail that is different? No, just repeated code. Then suddenly someone needs to change it. Rather than simply going and fixing the one area that has the code, now you have to find every section all over the code and fix it.
This same problem also reflects itself if you are trying port the program, for example from MySQL to PostgreSQL. Ideally the database layer would be mostly hidden from the program itself. Perhaps there is a section for db specific libraries or whatever, but usually the databases are accessed directly in the code. The explaination given is often "I'm using some features that other databases don't have". This is a pretty rediculous answer though, because that only makes it more important to isolate the database specific information. Often times the differences can be made up for programmatically, but its clearly going to be easier if the database code is seperated than if it is intermixed with unrelated code.
Perhaps this should be called modularization, but I think that there are many other areas that could use organization as well. For example, the data structures are often totally disorganized. Classes have come a long way in helping that, but its still a problem in a lot of programs.
Really, I suppose the key problem is that programmers often learn syntactically how to program, but not stylistically. Most of the newer programmers I talk to know all the functions, but they don't think algorithms and data structures are so important. Why should they since outside of a good CS class you almost never hear anything about them. We need ORGANIZATION and STYLE guides for newbie programmers most of all.
As a web hosting and design consultant, I spend a lot of time giving help to people who aren't capable of writing real HTML code. For example, the person who is trying to but up a 200 page story book for children, but on a limited budget. So I tell them, "Sure, you can do a lot of it with program X or program Y. Here is how it works. Of course, it is wrong because the correct tag would be 'blah' but they didn't do it the right way."
Ideally of course, everyone would pay professional web designers to do it (more money for me) but this is a non ideal world and there are a lot of people who would like to contribute something but don't have the means. I help them where I can, but the tools that are available are all old, use deprecated tags, use tags incorrectly or simply write tags the wrong way.
One day I hope I can produce software that would let the code-knowledge-challenged produce good code, but right now everything that comes out of all of the software I've used is totally wrong. Until then, there will still be hundreds of people writing poor code because they don't know what they are doing or they are using a program that is buggy. Then the browsers try to compensate and that's why they are messed up.
Slashdot Mirror
Because their license (for their support product) states "If Customer wishes to increase the number of Installed Servers, then Customer will purchase from Red Hat additional Services for each additional Installed Server." (emphasis added) They are saying that if the Customer wants to install the Software on additional Systems, they will purchase additional Services (aka support) for each additional Installed Server. Just to clarify, an "Installed Server" is not the same as a System which also has Services, it is any System with the Software installed on it.
Don't forget SpamProbe as well. I've been using it for a couple weeks, and it has been working very well for me. I've gotten around 1400 messages, and so far 1 false positive and 6 false negatives. I don't know how well the other filters work, but that seems pretty good to me. It's sure a hell of a lot better than the DNS blacklists I use. (I'm still using those. After all, they filter out the first 70% of my incoming mail and are probably faster anyway.)
Maybe we *do* want the other components, but don't want the browser. Currently there is no option to just download the Composer and Mail portions. Much as I love mozilla, (and I'm using it right now) some of my clients would be unwilling to replace their browser (undoubtedly IE) but would be happy to install Composer to get an easy to use HTML editor or Minotaur to get a better mail application than Outlook. That is why *I* would like to see this change. And who knows, maybe after they get comfortable with the composer or mail app, they'll be easier to convince to move to a browser with a "consistant" interface.
The point is that it is the government of a large region. Did you hit your head today or something?
Yep, just like if they had said "California adopts free software" they would mean that all the inhabitants of California went out and got linux. They definitely wouldn't be referring to the government of the region. Nope. That couldn't be it at all.
He's talking about third world nations like Andalucia, California, and Washington DC. I also don't understand why slashdot keeps writing about these strange nations that nobody has ever heard of.
</sarcasm>
What I want to know is how he had enough karma to post at +2.
Hey everyone who is debating about "demand for cars" and cost of this or that, did you read GMs explanation to EV1 drivers? They said that CARB has decided that any car that doesn't use a conductive charging (rather than inductive) won't qualify as zero emissions. Since Toyota and GM both use inductive charging, they'll be dropping the cars. They are basically really upset that California decided to screw them like this so that they'd have to complete redesign the chargers on the cars and refueling stations, (very very expensive) so GM is saying "screw you too."
I don't personally understand it. Does anyone know why inductive charging shouldn't qualify for zero emmissions?
Perhaps. Or perhaps I'll think I need to take better care of my children. Or that I should educate them better.
It is sorta like when that buffy musical episode came out (yeah yeah, what can I say, I think willow is hot) and all the rightwingers were upset because of the "sex" scene when willow sings to tara. They felt it should have been censored because they thought it suggested lesbian sex. All that time I'm thinking, why would you let your "little" kids watch a show about monsters killing people anyway? Are you concerned they aren't having enough nightmares or something?
Now I know people are going to say that it isn't the same, blah, blah, blah, and of course it isn't the exact same situation. The premise is the same though. If you aren't comfortable with the safety of something like this, then you shouldn't be letting your kids on it. I don't think little children need their own email account at all. I mean, if you child is young enough not to know what "banged by a 12 inch cock" means, why does she need her own email account? But if you believe they do you should take steps to make sure that it is being filtered properly or that your child understands what is coming at her.
Or maybe you need to educate her on where not to use her real email address. Personally, I have an email address that is listed on my web site, (which is listed on google so it isn't like it is impossible to find the site... I've even had friends search for things and find my page unintentionally) and yet I have gotten 4 spams in the last 4 years, all of which are just home-business spams, not porno spams.
I also have an email address I sometimes use for mail testing. It is a hotmail address, one which is not posted on any webpage anywhere, (and I specified that it should not be listed on hotmail's directory) and which I've only used to send a couple of mails to about 3-4 people. Yet it receives 5-10 porn spams a day. So now I know not to use hotmail for my email (as if there was ever a question).
Anyway, I'm getting side tracked. I want to know why you are letting your little children have unfettered access to the internet (which *you* perceive to be a dangerous place) without giving them any sort of education at all about what to avoid or how to protect themselves.
Consider it another way. Would you let your child walk around by herself in Central Park at night? No, probably not. That doesn't mean we should ban people from central park, or even that we should ban people from central park at night. It might even be perfectly safe to be there. I perceive that as being a dangerous situation, so I'd make certain that my children don't do it. Is that really so unreasonable?
"Is this a new frontier for insurance companies?"
There is already this sort of insurance. I work at a hosting company, and we've recently been getting offers from a few companies.
Thats a pretty good idea. I would still think the /. effect would be better suppressed if slashdot would mirror stories, especially if its running off of somebody's mother's DSL connection.
What?! Now you want people to be responsible when they could use their own irresponsibility to generate money for them?? What is the would coming to... That's just downright unamerican.
Well, the moon is about 1.4 light seconds away, so even in the best case latency you'd have more than 1.4 second delay. It is pretty hard to do things when you have to wait 3 seconds for each move (1.4 to do it, and 1.4 to find out if it happened right). Delicate work would be impossible. And then, if you are thinking of something like to mars, you're dealing with a lag time of 5-22 minutes (depending on if it is close or far from us in its orbit), so that is basically out for anything useful. Plus if there is any packet loss, then you have to make the round trip several times before you know if it worked. Of course, they'd probably transmit each packet a few dozen times just to safe, but even then if you are doing things without waiting to see the results you can really mess things up.
Besides, if you are trying to think ahead, (and presumably scientists are) then you realize that going up and playing around at the space station and on the moon is really just something we have to do before we could even consider something as far away as Mars. If we can't make it to orbit and back safely (and I think we can, I don't consider two accidents out of so many years to really be unsafe) then we'd have no hope of going farther.
Hey, EA used to make good games too back in the day. I remember on my Atari 1200 there was this game called "Worms?" that was really great. You can read a short discription of it at http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v9n7/260_Ou tpost_atari.php
but lets face it, that was a long time ago. They also produced really great games for the Commodore 64, like "M.U.L.E." and "Seven Cities of Gold" (which was actually decent on the first release, though the updated VGA version for PC totally sucked). In fact, if you check out HotU and show EA titles by year you'll see that their early stuff was actually pretty good. You'll also notice there are only 16 games listed (ie good games) for 1995-2002, compared to 11 listed for 1986 alone. Granted, its a site for old games, but I don't think they've left much out in this case.
* Standardized support for new hardware features such as vertex/pixel shaders, rather than kludgy vendor-specific extensions to expose the same functionality in OpenGL, and a graceful software fallback path to support vertex shaders in legacy hardware.
OpenGL has been version 1.x since 1992, while MS has a release cycle less than one year long. The first version of DirectX was released in 1995, and we're on version 9 already. Since OpenGL is only on version 1.4, you would hardly expect it to support the new WhizBangPixelMoppers(tm). And since OpenGL was designed for high end workstations (who want stability and compatibility), rather than gamers on their kewl peecee (who really do want WhizBangPixelMoppers), it makes a lot of sense. After all, if I've spent a few hours designing a new part for a car engine when my software outputs "WhizBang(-1) Exception" and then crashes, I'm probably going to be pretty darn mad, and the boss is too.
That being said, the GL2 working group has released a draft of the OpenGL Shading Language, which is intended to provide some of these features to OpenGL2. So you'll get your happy WhizBang soon.
I've noticed that as well. PhenomINET's just started blocking almost all of rackspace, using their own internal blacklist. The nice part about rackspace is that you can quickly check whois.arin.net to find most of the really annoying netblocks. They might even run their own whois server, which would be better, but I don't know about that.
Basically, everything depends on Windows, so you can't really replace Windows and maintain backwards compatibility. In order to have backwards compatibility, you would need to provide all the services provided by Windows, so you would, in effect, just be writing a new Windows.
If you really want to replace Windows with some other system, then you could probably get pretty far by just porting MS Office and Internet Explorer over to the new system. This should pick up quite a few apps. I have no idea how hard this would be.
But, by and large, it's silly to constantly rant and rave about Windows. It's just an abstraction for hardware that allows you to effortlessly run multiple programs. It is so low level, that it almost doesn't make sense to criticize it. And I think many of the critics don't really understand fully what Windows is.
For example, if you don't like the performance, then that is a complaint against the specific hardware or drivers you are running, not against Windows itself.
If you don't like the program crashing, then that is a complaint against the programs you are using (Office, IE, ICQ, etc.). This has nothing to do with Windows.
As far as features go, if you really want a feature and Windows does not provide it, then you have a legitimate complaint. But really, what more do you want from a video (and mouse and keyboard) driver than the ability to get information about GUI events and to paint the screen in any fashion you desire?
To sum up, I don't see that Windows is inherently problematic. I think that most complaints about it are misplaced, and should be directed elsewhere.
Furthermore, when people talk about replacing Windows, they seldom seem to appreciate the benefits of allowing multiple applications to run on screen at once. This is one of Windows's strongest points, yet most people seem to want to replace it with what amounts to software rolled up with a kernel.
Well, that's my $0.02.
The point isn't to sit a bunch of them around the house. If I'm reading the site correctly, the main convenience is convertability. For example:
:)
You are at your office working on your desktop/workstation (with full size monitor, keyboard, etc) when you get a call from (datacenter/field/client/outside-location) and they want you to come out right away because of some problem. Traditionally, if you needed a computer there you would either work on a completely new machine, or you would grab a laptop, which probably has a completely different set of files on it.
With this product, you could slide the MCC out of the desktop holder and into your notebook shell, and now you have a notebook computer that is exactly identical to the desktop you were just working on. Or better yet, if the remote site also has desktop MCC holders, you just grab the MCC and slip it in at the remote location. It would be impractical to bring a real desktop with you, (to big and/or heavy) and though you can have removable hard drives they really aren't the same as actually having the same complete machine as your laptop and desktop etc. This way it really IS exactly the same.
Or as another example, maybe you have some work to take home from the office. Rather than transferring everything to a CD or to your laptop, you can just grab the MCC out of your work computer and bring it home, then plug it into your home desktop shell. Now you have access to all of your work data AND software without having to reinstall anything (and without needing new licenses), and it is a real desktop solution, not like the cramped keyboard/monitor you would get on a laptop.
Actually, one of the companies I consult for recently converted all their desktop machines to notebooks, even though 90% of the time they are just sitting in the office. The reason was to save on software costs (don't need two licenses, one for mobile use and one for office use) and they can quickly get up and go if they need to. The also purchased extra keyboards (and/or 10keys) and peripherals for all the laptops because they didn't have all the features they wanted. Having a solution like the MCC would actually have been a lot better for them.
All I want to know is are they vapor or not?
I think that they way all services should work is that you give as much as you feel the product is worth. Would you rather be able to us Mandrake, or have an extra $100 in your pocket? What about $50 or $20 or $10? Pay as much as you think it is worth. If I thought is was even remotely possible to run a business this way, PhenomINET would already be doing it, but I think most people (appearantely some slashdot posters included) are simply to abusive of the system for it to work.
Actually, I already make suggestions to people regarding what service level is best for them, and I tell them straight up if our services aren't in their best interest (though I think that is extremely rare). I don't just try and sell them to the highest amount possible, I try to honestly make it worth their while. I'm a firm believer that business transactions should be beneficial for both sides, and I do everything I can to ensure that it is so. If everyone else did the same, we wouldn't have to worry about companies like Micro$oft.
-- Gnaeus Sabaco
The first thing you should do is make sure to get it in writing. If you look over the contract and don't see something like "system administration" or "full OS maintenance" then ask about it. If they say "Oh yeah, well we say we do some software updates" then you probably want to ask them to change that so that it says specifically OS maintenaince or system administration or security monitoring or something. If they refuse to change it on the grounds that they'd "have to get it cleared with [insert everyone under the sun here]" then either don't use them or be aware that they probably won't do it.
I'd advise finding a company flexible enough to write a contract to your terms. I know at PhenomINET we always are willing to adjust contracts so that we provide exactly what the customer needs, or if we can't provide it, then we just tell you so. This *should* be the case with any company if you are actually paying them in the 1000s per month, but it often isn't so. (since we ourselves have recently been negotiating contracts in the 10s and 100s of thousands and some companies still won't budge) There is no point we see in telling you we will do it but we can't put it in writing, because either you or we will be unhappy afterwards, and that can only mean bad press.
In short, I'd advise talking to several different companies (including phenominet.com of course) and asking them if they can fulfil your needs exactly. If they say they can, get it in writing, and it should be writing that you can easily understand (legalese doesn't have to be complicated, and generally the only times it is complicated is when someone is trying to hide something). Then pick whichever one of those companies offers you the best price.
--Braeus Sabaco
You might want to become a member of the IEEE and the IEEE Standards Association. While you do have to pay every year, you then get to take advantage of member discounts for many sections including ordering the standards documents, and you get discounts at some conferences, too. Also, you get the opportunity to participate in balloting on new standards. Keep in mind that balloting requires that you be responsible and that it is currently done on paper not electronically.
You are missing something there my possibly trolling friend. He didn't limit all of innovation to those 8 items, and 6 of those 8 have occurred in the last 1-200 years. Since it was supposed that technology should advance faster now that we have the internet, we should surely have had more since that time.
Could it be that the internet itself is stifling innovation, by providing *too much* information? Perhaps it is causing people to think that anything can be found if they simply look, rather than actually doing it themselves. Just a theory of course.
-- Braeus Sabaco
-- Braeus Sabaco
I mean, this new company paid 25 million for the system, and then the government paid them 70 million in order to use it... how did that happen? If the network is really only worth 25 million, why would the government pay so much to use it? And if the system is worth so much more, how is it they managed to pay only 25 million? Sounds like something funny going on to me...
-- Braeus Sabaco
I think it would be great to be able to filter out specific ads I'm not interested in (rather than simply filtering the entire ad server like I usually do now), and I wouldn't mind giving feed back if I had time. I also think it would be much nicer to be able to select preferences and rate ads. I don't mind tasteful advertising at all. If it is helpful, then why should I?
I've seen a lot of people on this thread try and say that all advertising is useless or whatever. But really, how can you hear about a new product if you never see any advertising? Maybe you are thinking, "Well, I could use a new colocation company," so you go to exodus because you've heard of them. Never mind that there may be alternatives, since you pay no attention to advertising you don't know about them.
Maybe you would be interested in a product, but you don't even know it exists. Sure, sometimes you hear from a friend about something, from cars to construction to computers, but can you always find a friend who happens to be a new toothpaste marketing specialist to tell you about caff-o-brush caffeinated toothpaste? Probably not.
I also liked the idea mentioned earlier about being able to specify keywords to get targetting advertisements. eg, show me ads with the keywords "hard drive" since I'm about to buy a new one.
Even better, the ads should be SEARCHABLE in this fashion also. There should be a description of the product and the ad itself, so if I remember I was interested in an ad with boxing gloves, but I don't actually remember the product, I could say "show me ads with the keyword boxing gloves that are in the technology category" and viola I have the ad I was looking for.
-- Braeus Sabaco
Number one thing almost all OSS projects I've been with is lack of organization. Often times its hard to make heads or tails from the source. I never expect people to actually comment the code well (as well as they should anyway), but the organization of the code is really fairly bad.
Often times there is a large section of code used repeatedly in a program, which is intended always to do the same thing (such as getting player info from an id number or something). Rather than writing a function (so that the code would always be in one place and its purpose obvious) they instead scatter the same code several times throughout the program. That way, without commented code clearly explaining what is happening, it may not even be obvious that the code is doing the same thing. Is there something special about this instance? Some detail that is different? No, just repeated code. Then suddenly someone needs to change it. Rather than simply going and fixing the one area that has the code, now you have to find every section all over the code and fix it.
This same problem also reflects itself if you are trying port the program, for example from MySQL to PostgreSQL. Ideally the database layer would be mostly hidden from the program itself. Perhaps there is a section for db specific libraries or whatever, but usually the databases are accessed directly in the code. The explaination given is often "I'm using some features that other databases don't have". This is a pretty rediculous answer though, because that only makes it more important to isolate the database specific information. Often times the differences can be made up for programmatically, but its clearly going to be easier if the database code is seperated than if it is intermixed with unrelated code.
Perhaps this should be called modularization, but I think that there are many other areas that could use organization as well. For example, the data structures are often totally disorganized. Classes have come a long way in helping that, but its still a problem in a lot of programs.
Really, I suppose the key problem is that programmers often learn syntactically how to program, but not stylistically. Most of the newer programmers I talk to know all the functions, but they don't think algorithms and data structures are so important. Why should they since outside of a good CS class you almost never hear anything about them. We need ORGANIZATION and STYLE guides for newbie programmers most of all.
--Braeus Sabaco
Ideally of course, everyone would pay professional web designers to do it (more money for me) but this is a non ideal world and there are a lot of people who would like to contribute something but don't have the means. I help them where I can, but the tools that are available are all old, use deprecated tags, use tags incorrectly or simply write tags the wrong way.
One day I hope I can produce software that would let the code-knowledge-challenged produce good code, but right now everything that comes out of all of the software I've used is totally wrong. Until then, there will still be hundreds of people writing poor code because they don't know what they are doing or they are using a program that is buggy. Then the browsers try to compensate and that's why they are messed up.