The article states that DNF will come out at the end of '08. What it fails to mention is that 3D Realms is torn between November 31, 2008 and December 1, 20008.
Whereas, in America, people vote to tell their elected asshats who they want in office, but the elected asshats' votes are the onle ones that really count. And those asshats get to vote for whoever they want, even if it goes against what the American voters want.
It will stop when Bush's successor (or sucksessor, as the case may be) is chosen. It will start up again in roughly three more years if we don't generally like the government of those four years, either; six, otherwise.
You must not be American? That's fine and dandy, after all, this is the World Wide Web. Keep in mind, however, that/. is hosted in America, is run by an American company and has a userbase that is comprised of a majority of Americans. If you are American, then SHAME ON YOU for discouraging political discussion at this most crucial time.
You raise some good points. Without Apple, Windows would have nobody to steal from and would stagnate. KDE and GNOME would, likewise, begin to stagnate. Of course, then, they would begin to innovate, MS would steal from them and integrate those ideas into Windows and an alternate Apple would be born to steal the ideas that otherwise would have been theirs to begin with.
Beyond that, yes. I do see your point about Linux being a time sink; I'm just used to the stereotype about taking forever to get it working. I must spend more time figuring out different ways to do the same thing than I do actually doing those things. I'm sure, if you wanted to, you could do the same with OSX and I know it's possible with Windows, as I've been there before, as well. It's just that Linux lends itself so easily to tinkering.
This has to be one of the better threads I've seen on slashdot and I'm honored to have been a part of it. Now, that said, can the moderators distribute some of their goods to my partner here?
At first, yes, Linux takes time to get up and running.
If you're talking about Gentoo.
I actually timed the first boot of Vista on this laptop (it came preinstalled, so I wasn't able to time the entire process) and the install and first boot of Kubuntu on the same laptop. I was actually able to install and boot Kubuntu to a usable state, with all hardware working, faster than Vista booted for the first time.
I'm certain that, were I to include the install time for Vista, I'd have my preferences configured and software installed before I had a usable Vista desktop. I know I would before I had a usable XP desktop.
You're one of the knowing, willing users of Apple's platform. There's nothing wrong with that. As I said, I've never used OSX; I simply haven't had occasion, nor reason, to use it. Nor am I trying to say it should go away; only that it could, with minimal effect on the world, relative to Linux or Windows. Windows, on the other hand, should go away, which would force the hands of developers to support the remaining platforms, which should stay around. It would be nice to get the one Windows-only application I use to work reliably on a different platform. Maybe, then, I'd have a reason to use OSX once in a while.
Though, I'm still more likely to buy Sony than Apple, given the current state of things.
I forgot to mention my Sony headphones, which are, in fact, the best sounding, most comfortable, least expensive pair of headphones I've bought since I've been old enough to know better than to buy from the dollar store.
The trick I use is to never buy a Sony product within 6 months of its release. That's kept my from buying anything made by Sony for 5 years (headphones) and only one product containing Sony parts since that (BenQ-Siemens S88 GSM phone which only works as a camera anymore -- the Sony part is about all that hasn't failed on it).
When they're good, they're the best. When they're not, they're the worst. I've never seen middl-of-the-road products from them.
I've had an Olympus microcassette recorder for over 10 years that's still going strong. It's been dropped, kicked, sat on, stepped on, run over by an SUV, I think I dropped it in the sink once. Meanwhile I had a Sony fail after falling out of my pocket, onto the desk 6 inches below. That's when I quit taking such good care of the damn things; when I realized it didn't matter anyway.
Either way, this is getting farther and farther off-topic as it goes on.
Apple's starting to show their true colors. They're making less and less of the best products and more and more of the worst; or at least the worst value for the money. OSX isn't something I can comment on, really, as I've never used it, and I'm not a big fan of Windows on ANY computer; I'm a Linux user as much as possible. That said, each system has its ups and downs. The biggest issue I see with OSX is that you're stuck on Apple's hardware. The biggest up I see with Linux is that it runs in any-fucking-thing. Windows is the middle of the road and I don't mind using it when I have to. The only one I've been able to live without has been Apple.
What's that tell you?
You can try and debunk that by saying most people will never use Linux, either. Wonderful. Have a router at home? It probably runs Linux. Tivo? Linux. I'm seeing more and more display kiosks running Linux. People use these things every day. I've never seen an ATM, cash register, router, DVR or (non-Apple) display kiosk running on an Apple platform. It truly is the one platform that could disappear tomorrow and only affect those who knowingly use it.
Would that really be such a bad thing? There are viable, workable and, often, better alternatives everywhere. If there weren't, wouldn't I have been forced to interact with it at some point?
More direct to the point, the DTrace issue, the QuickTime issue, the vendor lock-in, the pricing and the marketing are only a few of the reasons we should be avoiding Apple. Sell the stock if you've got it.
Yes. I just won't buy a CD or portable music player from them. I have a Sony alarm clock CD player that's in its 11th year of flawless service. I buy Sony batteries because I can get often them 2 for $1 and I've routinely had them last nearly (or more than) twice as long as Duracell or Energizer. I've got a Samsung video camera with a Sony CCD in it (very nice CCD, by the way) and now wish I had gotten the Sony cam, as Samsung used a shoddy interface to the CCD and the picture is intermittently very clear or very grainy depending on the mood of the camera; an issue that became known about this model, shortly after my warranty expired, which does not affect other cameras using the same CCD. I have a GSM phone with a 2MP Sony CCD in it, as well. The photos it takes surpass my Fuji 5.3MP in clarity. I'm looking into getting a Sony flat panel TV this year, as well.
Notice the types of products I'm talking about, here.
Wait a minute. Am I actually defending myself against a troll?
*repeats to himself* They're not real. They can't hurt you. You don't have to fight back. They're not real. They can't hurt you. You don't have to fight back. They're not real. They can't hurt you. You don't have to fight back.
I was really looking forward to using some of my 4 remaining mod points in this discussion and I truly do despise Sony (and I'm not too big a fan of Apple, either) but I can't resist the urge to straighten out this one misconception...
because they are screwing sony... no.
because they are screwing sony's customers...
Which is not a good reason to like a company. One company who habitually screws over another company which you don't like; ok, you can like them. I may not like Sony and if I do buy a Sony product it's because I've done my research and it is the product which best suits me, but they're not the one being screwed here.
When a company screws the customer, even if the customer is not their customer, it is a reason to begin to dislike them, as well. Especially if you're a stockholder. When a company spends time figuring out how to screw over not their competition, but their competition's customers, they're not too far off from figuring out how to screw their own customers. Let's face it, that's what this is about.
Which is why I will never own an Apple product.
Unless I see some changes.
People, wake up. This is the same game the US Government plays; but I won't go too far off-topic and get into that in this thread. Maybe tomorrow.
Yeah, because the only useful thing the internet did was help spread illegal music? No. However, most of the music produced today should be illegal in any format, not just when shared over the internet.
I agree with you that the support for MS Office formats in Linux is flaky, as it the support for MS Office formats in MS Office. There, fixed that for you.
Misinformation like yours is dangerous Satire is not, I repeat, not misinformation!
At this moment, grandparent is moderated 70% insightful and 30% funny. I have no clue how that happened; I guess 70% of the moderators on slashdot really ARE on crack.
Who cares. Presumably, "have permission" means "paid for permission", which, in turn, most likely means "pays royalties on every copy sold", which translates directly to "the label is being paid", which we all know really means "the artist isn't seeing a penny from the label", which means...
Interesting, Microsoft itself touts it as being more efficient than web services but makes no mention of it being any more or less secure. The topic is security, so that's quite relevant, I should think.
Admittedly, my research consisted of only two Microsoft sources and a Wikipedia article. I still find it disturbing that there was no mention of security whatsoever in any of them.
Yeah, so, they steal the web app credentials. That gives them precisely nothinng. Rember, the web app does not store DB authentication info.
Further, communication over the internet, between the server requesting the data and the server running the web app would be encrypted via SSL. Communication over the LAN, between the server running the web app and the DB server could, optionally, be encrypted as well; they could also be the same server -- just firewall off everything but the HTTPS port. At no point does the data have to travel unencrypted. However, if you're truly that worried about internal data theft, you have bigger fish to fry than an internet-facing DB server.
The security gained from not leaving your DB directly accessible over the internet and preventing listing of available DBs and tables would be well worth the development and debugging time.
Further, if someone did compromise the web app and obtain DB credentials somehow, they would still have to obtain table names in order to access any data. I suppose that could, potentially, be quite simple to pull off internally, with or without the web app acting as proxy. To clarify an earlier comment I made in this post, if you're that concerned about internal data theft, you should reevaluate your hiring and security clearance procedures.
Nice strawman, though. I had to read it a few times to find the flaws in your rebuttal. Further, why are flaws found on some web apps which store passwords or credit card information relevant to this web app, which stores neither?
I should patent this, but I'll put it out in the open, instead, as I'll likely never impliment it myself. Perhaps a substantial number of admins will see this and actually use it; maybe our personal and financial data will end up more secure. Yeah. Right.
Why not have a web app which simply acts as a proxy for the DB? Keep the DB login credentials out of the web app, entirely. Log into the web app over SSL and tunnel your DB queries through the web app. Seems simple enough to me; after logging in to the web app, you would still have to log into the DB, so compromising one doesn't automatically mean the other has been compromised as well.
If the web app doesn't default to a valid DB, but, instead, simply forwards queries to and from the DB server, it would require an attacker to know the login credentials for the web app and the login credentials of the DB. If the web app prevented listing available DBs, the attacker would have to know that ahead of time or be a good guesser. Likewise if the web app prevented listing of table and field names and types.
Once the database and the applcations meant to access it are created, working and deployed, there's no reason to allow such listings, anyway. If such listings are, for some reason, needed, they can be gotten by direct DB access on the internal network; there's no reason they should HAVE to use the web app internally, it would only have to be used by applications accessing the DB from a remote location.
Please, submit counterpoints; make corrections and additions. Let's give these admins something they can use to actually make their (and our) data safer.
Another question: We place our trust in Google every time we use its services, but why do we place more trust in a profit-maximizing enterprise than in our own government? Ostensibly we can hold our government accountable through elections, but we have less influence on corporations. The government has a monopoly on choice. We have no choice, living in this country, whether or not we do business with the government of this country. If they screw us over, we vote, they ignore it; the worst we could do is leave, which is a win for them because they now have one less liability.
Google, on the other hand, has no monopoly. Argue it whichever way you wish, there is no monopoly held by Google. If they screw us over, we go elsewhere and they go out of business.
I'd say we truly have more control over the corporations than we do over the government. Of course, it appears to be the corporations who are in control of the governemtne anymore; perhaps we should excercise some of the control we have over one to regain control of the other?
Slashdot Mirror
Windows DS (that Doesn't Suck).
LotD (Linux on the Desktop).
OSX on commodity hardware.
Pick one.
The article states that DNF will come out at the end of '08. What it fails to mention is that 3D Realms is torn between November 31, 2008 and December 1, 20008.
Whereas, in America, people vote to tell their elected asshats who they want in office, but the elected asshats' votes are the onle ones that really count. And those asshats get to vote for whoever they want, even if it goes against what the American voters want.
wut r yew tulkin gabaut?
It will stop when Bush's successor (or sucksessor, as the case may be) is chosen. It will start up again in roughly three more years if we don't generally like the government of those four years, either; six, otherwise.
/. is hosted in America, is run by an American company and has a userbase that is comprised of a majority of Americans. If you are American, then SHAME ON YOU for discouraging political discussion at this most crucial time.
You must not be American? That's fine and dandy, after all, this is the World Wide Web. Keep in mind, however, that
You raise some good points. Without Apple, Windows would have nobody to steal from and would stagnate. KDE and GNOME would, likewise, begin to stagnate. Of course, then, they would begin to innovate, MS would steal from them and integrate those ideas into Windows and an alternate Apple would be born to steal the ideas that otherwise would have been theirs to begin with.
Beyond that, yes. I do see your point about Linux being a time sink; I'm just used to the stereotype about taking forever to get it working. I must spend more time figuring out different ways to do the same thing than I do actually doing those things. I'm sure, if you wanted to, you could do the same with OSX and I know it's possible with Windows, as I've been there before, as well. It's just that Linux lends itself so easily to tinkering.
This has to be one of the better threads I've seen on slashdot and I'm honored to have been a part of it. Now, that said, can the moderators distribute some of their goods to my partner here?
At first, yes, Linux takes time to get up and running.
If you're talking about Gentoo.
I actually timed the first boot of Vista on this laptop (it came preinstalled, so I wasn't able to time the entire process) and the install and first boot of Kubuntu on the same laptop. I was actually able to install and boot Kubuntu to a usable state, with all hardware working, faster than Vista booted for the first time.
I'm certain that, were I to include the install time for Vista, I'd have my preferences configured and software installed before I had a usable Vista desktop. I know I would before I had a usable XP desktop.
You're one of the knowing, willing users of Apple's platform. There's nothing wrong with that. As I said, I've never used OSX; I simply haven't had occasion, nor reason, to use it. Nor am I trying to say it should go away; only that it could, with minimal effect on the world, relative to Linux or Windows. Windows, on the other hand, should go away, which would force the hands of developers to support the remaining platforms, which should stay around. It would be nice to get the one Windows-only application I use to work reliably on a different platform. Maybe, then, I'd have a reason to use OSX once in a while.
Though, I'm still more likely to buy Sony than Apple, given the current state of things.
I forgot to mention my Sony headphones, which are, in fact, the best sounding, most comfortable, least expensive pair of headphones I've bought since I've been old enough to know better than to buy from the dollar store.
The trick I use is to never buy a Sony product within 6 months of its release. That's kept my from buying anything made by Sony for 5 years (headphones) and only one product containing Sony parts since that (BenQ-Siemens S88 GSM phone which only works as a camera anymore -- the Sony part is about all that hasn't failed on it).
When they're good, they're the best. When they're not, they're the worst. I've never seen middl-of-the-road products from them.
I've had an Olympus microcassette recorder for over 10 years that's still going strong. It's been dropped, kicked, sat on, stepped on, run over by an SUV, I think I dropped it in the sink once. Meanwhile I had a Sony fail after falling out of my pocket, onto the desk 6 inches below. That's when I quit taking such good care of the damn things; when I realized it didn't matter anyway.
Either way, this is getting farther and farther off-topic as it goes on.
Apple's starting to show their true colors. They're making less and less of the best products and more and more of the worst; or at least the worst value for the money. OSX isn't something I can comment on, really, as I've never used it, and I'm not a big fan of Windows on ANY computer; I'm a Linux user as much as possible. That said, each system has its ups and downs. The biggest issue I see with OSX is that you're stuck on Apple's hardware. The biggest up I see with Linux is that it runs in any-fucking-thing. Windows is the middle of the road and I don't mind using it when I have to. The only one I've been able to live without has been Apple.
What's that tell you?
You can try and debunk that by saying most people will never use Linux, either. Wonderful. Have a router at home? It probably runs Linux. Tivo? Linux. I'm seeing more and more display kiosks running Linux. People use these things every day. I've never seen an ATM, cash register, router, DVR or (non-Apple) display kiosk running on an Apple platform. It truly is the one platform that could disappear tomorrow and only affect those who knowingly use it.
Would that really be such a bad thing? There are viable, workable and, often, better alternatives everywhere. If there weren't, wouldn't I have been forced to interact with it at some point?
More direct to the point, the DTrace issue, the QuickTime issue, the vendor lock-in, the pricing and the marketing are only a few of the reasons we should be avoiding Apple. Sell the stock if you've got it.
Yes. I just won't buy a CD or portable music player from them. I have a Sony alarm clock CD player that's in its 11th year of flawless service. I buy Sony batteries because I can get often them 2 for $1 and I've routinely had them last nearly (or more than) twice as long as Duracell or Energizer. I've got a Samsung video camera with a Sony CCD in it (very nice CCD, by the way) and now wish I had gotten the Sony cam, as Samsung used a shoddy interface to the CCD and the picture is intermittently very clear or very grainy depending on the mood of the camera; an issue that became known about this model, shortly after my warranty expired, which does not affect other cameras using the same CCD. I have a GSM phone with a 2MP Sony CCD in it, as well. The photos it takes surpass my Fuji 5.3MP in clarity. I'm looking into getting a Sony flat panel TV this year, as well.
Notice the types of products I'm talking about, here.
Wait a minute. Am I actually defending myself against a troll?
*repeats to himself* They're not real. They can't hurt you. You don't have to fight back. They're not real. They can't hurt you. You don't have to fight back. They're not real. They can't hurt you. You don't have to fight back.
because they are screwing sony's customers...
Which is not a good reason to like a company. One company who habitually screws over another company which you don't like; ok, you can like them. I may not like Sony and if I do buy a Sony product it's because I've done my research and it is the product which best suits me, but they're not the one being screwed here.
When a company screws the customer, even if the customer is not their customer, it is a reason to begin to dislike them, as well. Especially if you're a stockholder. When a company spends time figuring out how to screw over not their competition, but their competition's customers, they're not too far off from figuring out how to screw their own customers. Let's face it, that's what this is about.
Which is why I will never own an Apple product.
Unless I see some changes.
People, wake up. This is the same game the US Government plays; but I won't go too far off-topic and get into that in this thread. Maybe tomorrow.
And we'll write our own.
And me with no mod points...
No, it's just a God damn piece of paper. Jeb's brother said so.
Mod... INSIGHTFUL.
At this moment, grandparent is moderated 70% insightful and 30% funny. I have no clue how that happened; I guess 70% of the moderators on slashdot really ARE on crack.
Satire is also not to be taken seriously.
Thank you, mods. Good karma's never a BAD thing.
Who cares. Presumably, "have permission" means "paid for permission", which, in turn, most likely means "pays royalties on every copy sold", which translates directly to "the label is being paid", which we all know really means "the artist isn't seeing a penny from the label", which means...
Oh. Right. In that case...
Interesting, Microsoft itself touts it as being more efficient than web services but makes no mention of it being any more or less secure. The topic is security, so that's quite relevant, I should think. Admittedly, my research consisted of only two Microsoft sources and a Wikipedia article. I still find it disturbing that there was no mention of security whatsoever in any of them.
Yeah, so, they steal the web app credentials. That gives them precisely nothinng. Rember, the web app does not store DB authentication info.
Further, communication over the internet, between the server requesting the data and the server running the web app would be encrypted via SSL. Communication over the LAN, between the server running the web app and the DB server could, optionally, be encrypted as well; they could also be the same server -- just firewall off everything but the HTTPS port. At no point does the data have to travel unencrypted. However, if you're truly that worried about internal data theft, you have bigger fish to fry than an internet-facing DB server.
The security gained from not leaving your DB directly accessible over the internet and preventing listing of available DBs and tables would be well worth the development and debugging time.
Further, if someone did compromise the web app and obtain DB credentials somehow, they would still have to obtain table names in order to access any data. I suppose that could, potentially, be quite simple to pull off internally, with or without the web app acting as proxy. To clarify an earlier comment I made in this post, if you're that concerned about internal data theft, you should reevaluate your hiring and security clearance procedures.
Nice strawman, though. I had to read it a few times to find the flaws in your rebuttal. Further, why are flaws found on some web apps which store passwords or credit card information relevant to this web app, which stores neither?
Thank you for providing such useful comments.
I should patent this, but I'll put it out in the open, instead, as I'll likely never impliment it myself. Perhaps a substantial number of admins will see this and actually use it; maybe our personal and financial data will end up more secure. Yeah. Right.
Why not have a web app which simply acts as a proxy for the DB? Keep the DB login credentials out of the web app, entirely. Log into the web app over SSL and tunnel your DB queries through the web app. Seems simple enough to me; after logging in to the web app, you would still have to log into the DB, so compromising one doesn't automatically mean the other has been compromised as well.
If the web app doesn't default to a valid DB, but, instead, simply forwards queries to and from the DB server, it would require an attacker to know the login credentials for the web app and the login credentials of the DB. If the web app prevented listing available DBs, the attacker would have to know that ahead of time or be a good guesser. Likewise if the web app prevented listing of table and field names and types.
Once the database and the applcations meant to access it are created, working and deployed, there's no reason to allow such listings, anyway. If such listings are, for some reason, needed, they can be gotten by direct DB access on the internal network; there's no reason they should HAVE to use the web app internally, it would only have to be used by applications accessing the DB from a remote location.
Please, submit counterpoints; make corrections and additions. Let's give these admins something they can use to actually make their (and our) data safer.
I was crazy, when I had this very idea at age 8.
Google, on the other hand, has no monopoly. Argue it whichever way you wish, there is no monopoly held by Google. If they screw us over, we go elsewhere and they go out of business.
I'd say we truly have more control over the corporations than we do over the government. Of course, it appears to be the corporations who are in control of the governemtne anymore; perhaps we should excercise some of the control we have over one to regain control of the other?