It is another attempt to impose power structures from the "real world" onto the net. When this idea was first discussed, many asked if the led museum would be included. I'm unsurprised to see that it's not. This is an attempt to draw a line in the sand between the 'respectable' who deserve the title of museum (the narrow closed circuit of fundraising dinners and inherited wealth) and the unwashed masses who might try to extend the idea of museum to something internet-centric.
The fact that this is implemented only as CNAMEs emphasizes that ICANN has polluted the top level namespace with sheer gimmickry. These bastions of privilege have no intention of surrendering their existing domains.
Instead of an orderly development of tld space based on compact representation for the most common areas, we are getting an expression of privilege and influence extended into the net. The nobles are riding across the peasant's fields, hunting the fox.
The real tragedy is that we have been unable to shake off ICANN. This utterly corrupt, elitist and short-sighted clique has no feeling for the natural flavor and development of the net. And yet the only thing which empowers ICANN is that we use the root name servers they recommend. Every attempt to build an alternate root seems to have fizzled, because the center of gravity remains with ICANN.
Until we find a way to migrate from ICANN-dependence, we can expect a continuing series of insults and abuses from them.
Thank you. That was the most intelligent thing I've read on this thread. Some thoughts:
By default, it should find and share all mp3's, vcd's, etc on the disk. Napster took off because it shared the downloads by default. It's reasonable to take this a step further, now that there's such a high chance that the user previously ran a different sharing program.
The program should take the user by the hand, like an installation wizard. On first starting, it should ask the user to pick two favorite genres of music. Then it should show the most popular downloads within those genres. If the user doesn't choose anything, and the connection is not being used heavily, the program should randomly pick and start downloading one of the most popular files in the genre. And this should be made visibly obvious to the user in a way that invites intervention.
We need a Tivo-like associative rating, where you can give things a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, causing other files to appear in the suggestion list (and possibly get downloaded automatically). This would be backed by a cryptographic network of trust, so the originators of the network would anonymously endorse users who have good associative judgement, who would in turn endorse more users.
We need an abuse-resistant mechanism to propogate relevant news items, complete with hyperlinks, within the program. So if congressman Greedo introduces legislation against p2p, an appropriate hyperlink to this story will pop up on each user's program. This will help polarize the "soccer moms" against the cartels.
We need a system that progressively restricts the IP addresses permitted to connect as the number of nodes grows. This makes it difficult to 'sweep' a network from one IP address and identify all the nodes. In other words, the number of nodes available to me should grow as the square root of the number of nodes in the network.
And now some problems:
People generally don't code Windows for fun.
At some point, the ability to search for material means you can identify an IP address that is offering copyrighted material for download. Thus, the user can be targeted and punished - adequate enforcement on this front could dry up the network. Encryption doesn't help here, because the information must be accessible to the client.
Corporations will release modified versions of the program with banner ads and privacy invasion, and these will be the norm due the corporations superior marketing reach.
RIAA/MPAA could finally do the intelligent thing (don't know why they haven't) and create thousands of bogus clients flooding the network with junk.
There is less gap between George W. Bush and the Saudi rulers than there is between me and Bush. Increasingly it seems like the US and its allied states are ruled by a fairly continuous global elite. Sure, the Saudi princes aren't eating barbecued pork ribs, and Bush doesn't have 15 wives, but they are all tied to the lucrative oil trade and have a common interest in the 'stability' (meaning suppression of dissent) of the middle east.
Globalism seems to be a codeword for a new industrial apartheid, in which there are three tiers:
The rulers, whose interests transcend national boundaries.
The first-world citizens, who have freedom, due process and health/environmental protections.
The third world people, who do the manufacturing work.
Maybe I am too cynical, but it seems to me that the US government thoroughly approves Saudi repression, and wishes it could exercise similar tactics within the US. For example, the US threatened to deport suspects to countries where they would be tortured. Why not go all the way and legalize torture in the US, as it is legal in Israel?
I agree. UF is horribly unfunny. And yet, the jokes are perceptive and accurate. They have a good eye for certain kinds of stupidity, but they lack the talent to make something funny from it as Scott Adams does.
UF always reminds me that although I am a geek compared to the majority of the population, there are many who are geekier than me. And I don't mean that in a nice way.
For something that was likely to change often, I might even make the call in real-time, rather than try to develop a caching algorythm.
In Perl, at least, this is easy. You can either use Memoize to automatically cache the function, or use the 'orcish maneuver': my $shipping_price = $shipping_price{ $zip1 }{ $zip2 }{ $weight } ||= get_shipping_price($zip1, $zip2, $weight); Of course this assumes they don't offer free shipping. It also assumes the process won't be alive long enough to hold stale values.
I agree with your concerns. Any subsystem which is not under my control needs to be viewed with suspicion. If I use a library, I go through a period of verification, making sure that my code works with the library. I don't lightly upgrade to a newer version.
Currently, a lot of my code exchanges XML messages with other systems. I log every request and response to aid in troubleshooting. I log the actual messages, not the logical structure, because quite often an error on the other end generates malformed XML, which would mean there's no logical structure to log. Of course many of the issues I am troubleshooting would go away if SOAP were adopted - there would be less room for different implementations of XML generators/parsers, etc.
I tried SOAP::Lite, and besides being slow it dies if you call a service that is not offered by the server. That is a consistent extension of the 'procedure call' metaphor, but it's very irritating because I don't want my code to exit based on a condition beyond my control - someone else's server. Of course it can be fixed with an eval, but it's indicative of this problematic mindset you identified.
I agree. So really, governments are the threat to Linux. They are set up to listen to established interests, and they may squash emerging interests in the process. SSSCA could do it; defining Linux as a 'circumvention device' or 'hacking (=terrorism) tool' could do it. Or even getting legislation directly against Open Source, which Microsoft seems to be seeking right now. Or maybe a law that makes authors of Free Software liable for how it's used, regardless of the license.
The other way to kill Linux is to somehow make the next generation of hardware incompatible. Either legislatively, in the name of [national security|content control] or by paying/strongarming hardware makers. I think it is a few years too late for this tactic, however.
Microsoft can never stop you from running linux in your bedroom. But to 'kill' it in the business world, they will increase the value and lock-in factor of their proprietary systems. Whenever a system is commoditized and clearly specified (web, mail, news) free software can produce a leading implementation. But you may have noticed that we have no answer to Microsoft Exchange. Yes, most of our MTA's are better MTA's than Exchange. Yes, there are lots of web board systems that can replace some of the collaborative functionality.
Exchange is just not on our radar - we're patting ourselves on the back for handling the standard protocols so well, and not noticing that executives don't care. They love Exchange and will try hard to push out Unix solutions so they can bring in Exchange. So the first thrust is the replacement of open, commodity protocols with fast-moving proprietary protocols.
Second, attack the network. TCP/IP is the 'infection vector' for Linux. A TCP/IP network is a Unix network, and any other OS is just a guest. Microsoft could invent a proprietary networking scheme, get Cisco and other vendors on board, and maybe provide protocol adapters (buggy and slow) to let 'legacy' Unix machines connect to the shiny new network.
Third, attack the supply of cheap machines. With enough CPRM/SSSCA type crap built into commodity PC's, they could become unable to run Linux. If installing Linux on a computer becomes a major science project involving some illegal software, it won't be palatable to corporations.
Fourth, pinch off the supply of used ("obsolete") machines. Microsoft could team up with hardware makers, who are also 'harmed' by the pool of aging computers, to come up with some 'bit rot' scheme. Possibly an expiration date on each PC, or possibly an 'environmentally friendly' recycling plan/law where you have to turn in the old hardware.
Just some ideas. Microsoft has always killed competitors by cutting off their air supply. The key is to identify Linux's air supply.
First, it's criminal prosecution, not just a suit. Second, why is Alan obliged to become a martyr to an unjust law in a foreign country? Did you travel to Afghanistan and commit adultery so you could be stoned to death, thereby convincing the Afghanis of the injustice of sharia? Better yet, why don't you go to England and violate the RIP law by refusing to provide decryption keys to a block of data the police want. Maybe when you're living in a British prison Alan Cox will be inspired to come live in an American prison.
In a perfect world, the authentication would be automated. But remember, this system is not just a way to admit registered, known users. It's also a way to catch strangers wandering into the network and let them know that a)Someone owns this network and there are rules, and b) If they help support the network financially they could get more bandwidth and more access.
So it's kind of a combined advertising/security warning/authentication system. Which is a great idea. Because if they had implemented an automated client-server authenticator that was invisible to the user, then strangers would just be blocked from the network and would never learn about it or the benefits of (financially) joining it.
There could be interesting possibilities in such a protocol if it were widely used (read, part of Windows) - computers could autodiscover networks and compare their bandwidth, reliability, coverage, prices and policies, producing a nice comparison chart after your walk around town. But given that we cannot affect the client side immediately, NoCatAuth is a pretty good solution.
To keep the connection open, a small window is opened on the client side (via JavaScript) that refreshes the login page every few minutes. Once the user moves out of range or quits their browser, the connection is reset and requires another manual login.
And then later:
The wireless client requirements again are minimal (only an SSL-enabled browser is required).
No, it also requires Javascript. I'm sure I could script a workaround, but it's one more damn thing to go wrong. And if ubiquitous 802.11 existed, I'd want to use it primarily for ssh, not web. Reading between the lines, 'the public' would not be allowed to ssh. This scheme is oriented towards the idea that internet==web, and of course everyone has javascript.
On the whole, however, I'm impressed by this system. The idealistic idea of free open wireless was threatened by the possibility of anonymous abuse and bandwidth hogging. Nocat appears to make it viable, even in the face of real-world threats. This could have far-reaching effects in undermining the emerging broadband monopolies. The ability to charge for unrestricted access could lead to financially healthy networks with lots of upstream bandwidth. And the ability to use before buying means that you would already know a network's reliability and coverage.
Lastly, I'm a little concerned by the centralization of power implied in the article. If I read it correctly, there is a single trusted authentication service at nocat.net. If the nocat scheme takes off, this center will be a natural target for foes of the internet such as MPAA/RIAA/etc. I hope that if the system takes off, multiple authentication sites will emerge.
I don't see how you got that out of my comment. I'm saying that there are different kinds of jobs; some jobs are good learning opportunities for those who want to round out their knowledge, while other jobs require fairly complete mastery of a field. Those latter jobs are only for experienced people.
You appear to see a paradox or infinite loop in my statement, which I don't.
Debating unix flavors in the context of anything Microsoft is like talking about which ice cream flavor tastes least like sawdust with turpentine sauce.
RH no longer ships AnotherLevel as a window manager.
I think that's because it is unpopular. There are three Next-like window managers: AnotherLevel, Afterstep (which I use) and WindowMaker. I think that AnotherLevel is regarded as the worst of the three. In fact, I expect Afterstep to be dropped from the distro eventually. Have to make room for a dancing paperclip in Gnome or something.
I realize that it can be very unpleasant to change window managers. However, I'd urge you to look around - they have come a long way since AnotherLevel. There are excellent light, minimal wm's (ICEwm and blackbox), nice stable mediumweight wm's (AfterStep, WindowMaker), the powerful and resource-sucking Enlightenment, and of course the two Redmondesque behemoths. (Yes I know Gnome is not a wm, it eats, or copulates with, or suckles wm's.)
I might as well switch to WinXP, where I know that the entire company is focused on one version of the OS...
But would you install the corporate or consumer version? The corporate version seems to have less 'activation' issues, but could be harder to find. Or why not install Win2k, which seems more stable and better thought out than XP? But would you install the workstation or server version? The workstation version has some deliberate crippling in the TCP/IP (max 10 inbound connections per port, I think.) But maybe this can be fixed in the 'registry'. Remind me again, on which version (if any) of the OS is Microsoft focused?
I think all the major commercial distributions are roughly equivalent. At a previous job I was forced to install Mandrake. Once it was up, there was no perceptible difference from RedHat, except that it added auto-indent to vi, which annoyed me until I managed to shut it off. As for the small distros, I have no idea and will probably never have time to play with them.
You certainly have a lot of confidence in the validity of this study. Would you mind providing a link to it? Not to Tog's paraphrase, but to the study itself.
The fact that a vendor came up with a study showing their approach to be superior is not surprising. Have you seen the Microsoft study showing that desktop Unix has a higher TCO than desktop Windows? It's pretty convincing. Until you read it. Then you realize that they are assuming every Unix user has to have a Windows PC as well.
End of fucking story.
Far from it. Even if the alleged study were publicly available, methodologically sound, peer-reviewed, and conducted by experienced scientists, the story would not be over. Since the study so far meets none of these criteria, I'm not sure the story has even begun.
I agree with the general idea that problem-solving ability is more important than knowledge. However, I don't accept your airy rejection of nsswitch.conf. I had a quick read through the man page and decided that if this is completely new to you (as it is to me) then you are not the right person to troubleshoot a show-stopping problem that is caused by this file.
I think this question differentiates between people like me who work on web, database, and other standalone servers, and enterprise sysadmins who work on cooperating sites that are linked by NIS and NFS. There's a whole other set of skills and experience there which I (and I think you) don't have. I think you know perfectly well that the man page only tells part of the story.
Does that mean I don't get hired at company X?
That depends. If the job is one where you can be useful immediately and fill in the holes in your knowledge as you go, then no. But if they are looking for a senior sysadmin who can take full responsibility for their NIS/NFS based site, then yes.
In general, though, I agree that trivia questions are the wrong ones.
What you say is mostly true, but mostly beside the point. First, leave Microsoft out of it. The most respected platform for midrange RDBMS's is Oracle on Sun. The question is, could Linux replace Sun in that setting? Sun does provide meaningful tech support, at least to large sites. Comparing consumer-level tech support ("reboot the comptuer") to enterprise level support is pointless. Yes, the web beats consumer level support.
The web will answer any common question about common software. But if you're doing something even a little off the beaten path, you can run into problems that haven't been solved yet. This can be very dismaying when you're under time pressure. Commercial Unix vendors will actually investigate the problem and issue a patch if necessary.
Yup. Shell is a beautiful, elegant, but treacherous language. The combination of variable expansion, globbing (*'s and ?'s) and backticks allow one line of code to have nearly infinite meanings. The error in this script is probably present in many scripts on production Unix systems. Sysadmins don't usually expect spaces in file names. Also, adding quotes doesn't protect against the variable containing a '*'. And I'm sure there are other gotchas.
If you want to learn shell, I suggest lurking in comp.unix.shell.
So Apple is "ahead of the curve" by being the first to abandon the technique that they developed the Mac specifically for? I'm I the only one who thinks this sounds like crazy talk?
Well if they claimed to be travelling in a straight line it might seem odd that they are revisiting the past. But since we are talking about curves, we should not be surprised to arc back towards the origin. When you've turned a knob from 0 to 10 in the name of "innovation", I guess the next move is to turn it back towards 0, again in the name of "innovation." Maybe Apple and Microsoft are grimacing plastic clown faces bolted to a merry-go-round. They are perpetually rushing into the future, but don't be surprised to see them in the same place later.
It's not simply the physical motion that affects the speed: it is the mental interruption where the brain has to stop it's current task, retrieve the key-commands, then return to the previous mental task that causes the users to slow down.
Why does this not apply to the mouse? You claim that it takes me an appreciable amount of time to remember ":wq". Why would it not take me an appreciable amount of time to remember "file->exit"?
I think the reason I am irritated by this nonsensical theory is that I find vi a very good fit to the way I think about editing a document. You speak of "mental interruption" but I experience more mental interruption in dealing with a GUI.
Why? These cited pages are the first writing of Tog I have read, and there are no words to convey the lack of respect I feel for him. His argument consists of repeated appeals to an alleged study to which he provides neither a link nor a citation. His claim of a two second delay to choose a control key is so far from my experience (including observation of others, so put away the amnesia theory) that I regard him as not only wrong, but dishonest. To say that I am skeptical of his "study" is like saying that I am skeptical of Elvis's repeated visits to the land of the living.
I read the first two of your three links and gave up in disgust. Tog leans heavily on some "study", but for some reason does not provide a link. He claims that it takes two seconds to press a "command key" which is presumably any key that does not enter text.
I won't cite the fact that I don't take two seconds to press a "command key". Tog has already claimed that we are afflicted by micro-amnesia that suppresses this memory. Rather, I'll point to my observations of other people editing documents. When I watch an experienced user using vi, commands do not perceptibly interrupt the flow of keystrokes, except for the escape key which is inconveniently far from home row. As for "command keys" in GUI applications, I have no opinion. When the keyboard interface is viewed as a poor relative of the GUI (which is clearly how Tog views it) it may indeed be suboptimal.
Slashdot Mirror
It is another attempt to impose power structures from the "real world" onto the net. When this idea was first discussed, many asked if the led museum would be included. I'm unsurprised to see that it's not. This is an attempt to draw a line in the sand between the 'respectable' who deserve the title of museum (the narrow closed circuit of fundraising dinners and inherited wealth) and the unwashed masses who might try to extend the idea of museum to something internet-centric.
The fact that this is implemented only as CNAMEs emphasizes that ICANN has polluted the top level namespace with sheer gimmickry. These bastions of privilege have no intention of surrendering their existing domains.
Instead of an orderly development of tld space based on compact representation for the most common areas, we are getting an expression of privilege and influence extended into the net. The nobles are riding across the peasant's fields, hunting the fox.
The real tragedy is that we have been unable to shake off ICANN. This utterly corrupt, elitist and short-sighted clique has no feeling for the natural flavor and development of the net. And yet the only thing which empowers ICANN is that we use the root name servers they recommend. Every attempt to build an alternate root seems to have fizzled, because the center of gravity remains with ICANN.
Until we find a way to migrate from ICANN-dependence, we can expect a continuing series of insults and abuses from them.
- By default, it should find and share all mp3's, vcd's, etc on the disk. Napster took off because it shared the downloads by default. It's reasonable to take this a step further, now that there's such a high chance that the user previously ran a different sharing program.
- The program should take the user by the hand, like an installation wizard. On first starting, it should ask the user to pick two favorite genres of music. Then it should show the most popular downloads within those genres. If the user doesn't choose anything, and the connection is not being used heavily, the program should randomly pick and start downloading one of the most popular files in the genre. And this should be made visibly obvious to the user in a way that invites intervention.
- We need a Tivo-like associative rating, where you can give things a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, causing other files to appear in the suggestion list (and possibly get downloaded automatically). This would be backed by a cryptographic network of trust, so the originators of the network would anonymously endorse users who have good associative judgement, who would in turn endorse more users.
- We need an abuse-resistant mechanism to propogate relevant news items, complete with hyperlinks, within the program. So if congressman Greedo introduces legislation against p2p, an appropriate hyperlink to this story will pop up on each user's program. This will help polarize the "soccer moms" against the cartels.
- We need a system that progressively restricts the IP addresses permitted to connect as the number of nodes grows. This makes it difficult to 'sweep' a network from one IP address and identify all the nodes. In other words, the number of nodes available to me should grow as the square root of the number of nodes in the network.
And now some problems:Globalism seems to be a codeword for a new industrial apartheid, in which there are three tiers:
- The rulers, whose interests transcend national boundaries.
- The first-world citizens, who have freedom, due process and health/environmental protections.
- The third world people, who do the manufacturing work.
Maybe I am too cynical, but it seems to me that the US government thoroughly approves Saudi repression, and wishes it could exercise similar tactics within the US. For example, the US threatened to deport suspects to countries where they would be tortured. Why not go all the way and legalize torture in the US, as it is legal in Israel?I agree. UF is horribly unfunny. And yet, the jokes are perceptive and accurate. They have a good eye for certain kinds of stupidity, but they lack the talent to make something funny from it as Scott Adams does.
UF always reminds me that although I am a geek compared to the majority of the population, there are many who are geekier than me. And I don't mean that in a nice way.
In Perl, at least, this is easy. You can either use Memoize to automatically cache the function, or use the 'orcish maneuver':
my $shipping_price = $shipping_price{ $zip1 }{ $zip2 }{ $weight } ||= get_shipping_price($zip1, $zip2, $weight);
Of course this assumes they don't offer free shipping. It also assumes the process won't be alive long enough to hold stale values.
I agree with your concerns. Any subsystem which is not under my control needs to be viewed with suspicion. If I use a library, I go through a period of verification, making sure that my code works with the library. I don't lightly upgrade to a newer version.
Currently, a lot of my code exchanges XML messages with other systems. I log every request and response to aid in troubleshooting. I log the actual messages, not the logical structure, because quite often an error on the other end generates malformed XML, which would mean there's no logical structure to log. Of course many of the issues I am troubleshooting would go away if SOAP were adopted - there would be less room for different implementations of XML generators/parsers, etc.
I tried SOAP::Lite, and besides being slow it dies if you call a service that is not offered by the server. That is a consistent extension of the 'procedure call' metaphor, but it's very irritating because I don't want my code to exit based on a condition beyond my control - someone else's server. Of course it can be fixed with an eval, but it's indicative of this problematic mindset you identified.
I agree. So really, governments are the threat to Linux. They are set up to listen to established interests, and they may squash emerging interests in the process. SSSCA could do it; defining Linux as a 'circumvention device' or 'hacking (=terrorism) tool' could do it. Or even getting legislation directly against Open Source, which Microsoft seems to be seeking right now. Or maybe a law that makes authors of Free Software liable for how it's used, regardless of the license.
The other way to kill Linux is to somehow make the next generation of hardware incompatible. Either legislatively, in the name of [national security|content control] or by paying/strongarming hardware makers. I think it is a few years too late for this tactic, however.
Microsoft can never stop you from running linux in your bedroom. But to 'kill' it in the business world, they will increase the value and lock-in factor of their proprietary systems. Whenever a system is commoditized and clearly specified (web, mail, news) free software can produce a leading implementation. But you may have noticed that we have no answer to Microsoft Exchange. Yes, most of our MTA's are better MTA's than Exchange. Yes, there are lots of web board systems that can replace some of the collaborative functionality.
Exchange is just not on our radar - we're patting ourselves on the back for handling the standard protocols so well, and not noticing that executives don't care. They love Exchange and will try hard to push out Unix solutions so they can bring in Exchange. So the first thrust is the replacement of open, commodity protocols with fast-moving proprietary protocols.
Second, attack the network. TCP/IP is the 'infection vector' for Linux. A TCP/IP network is a Unix network, and any other OS is just a guest. Microsoft could invent a proprietary networking scheme, get Cisco and other vendors on board, and maybe provide protocol adapters (buggy and slow) to let 'legacy' Unix machines connect to the shiny new network.
Third, attack the supply of cheap machines. With enough CPRM/SSSCA type crap built into commodity PC's, they could become unable to run Linux. If installing Linux on a computer becomes a major science project involving some illegal software, it won't be palatable to corporations.
Fourth, pinch off the supply of used ("obsolete") machines. Microsoft could team up with hardware makers, who are also 'harmed' by the pool of aging computers, to come up with some 'bit rot' scheme. Possibly an expiration date on each PC, or possibly an 'environmentally friendly' recycling plan/law where you have to turn in the old hardware.
Just some ideas. Microsoft has always killed competitors by cutting off their air supply. The key is to identify Linux's air supply.
First, it's criminal prosecution, not just a suit. Second, why is Alan obliged to become a martyr to an unjust law in a foreign country? Did you travel to Afghanistan and commit adultery so you could be stoned to death, thereby convincing the Afghanis of the injustice of sharia? Better yet, why don't you go to England and violate the RIP law by refusing to provide decryption keys to a block of data the police want. Maybe when you're living in a British prison Alan Cox will be inspired to come live in an American prison.
In a perfect world, the authentication would be automated. But remember, this system is not just a way to admit registered, known users. It's also a way to catch strangers wandering into the network and let them know that a)Someone owns this network and there are rules, and b) If they help support the network financially they could get more bandwidth and more access.
So it's kind of a combined advertising/security warning/authentication system. Which is a great idea. Because if they had implemented an automated client-server authenticator that was invisible to the user, then strangers would just be blocked from the network and would never learn about it or the benefits of (financially) joining it.
There could be interesting possibilities in such a protocol if it were widely used (read, part of Windows) - computers could autodiscover networks and compare their bandwidth, reliability, coverage, prices and policies, producing a nice comparison chart after your walk around town. But given that we cannot affect the client side immediately, NoCatAuth is a pretty good solution.
And then later:
No, it also requires Javascript. I'm sure I could script a workaround, but it's one more damn thing to go wrong. And if ubiquitous 802.11 existed, I'd want to use it primarily for ssh, not web. Reading between the lines, 'the public' would not be allowed to ssh. This scheme is oriented towards the idea that internet==web, and of course everyone has javascript.
On the whole, however, I'm impressed by this system. The idealistic idea of free open wireless was threatened by the possibility of anonymous abuse and bandwidth hogging. Nocat appears to make it viable, even in the face of real-world threats. This could have far-reaching effects in undermining the emerging broadband monopolies. The ability to charge for unrestricted access could lead to financially healthy networks with lots of upstream bandwidth. And the ability to use before buying means that you would already know a network's reliability and coverage.
Lastly, I'm a little concerned by the centralization of power implied in the article. If I read it correctly, there is a single trusted authentication service at nocat.net. If the nocat scheme takes off, this center will be a natural target for foes of the internet such as MPAA/RIAA/etc. I hope that if the system takes off, multiple authentication sites will emerge.
I don't see how you got that out of my comment. I'm saying that there are different kinds of jobs; some jobs are good learning opportunities for those who want to round out their knowledge, while other jobs require fairly complete mastery of a field. Those latter jobs are only for experienced people.
You appear to see a paradox or infinite loop in my statement, which I don't.
--void in a.s.r
I think that's because it is unpopular. There are three Next-like window managers: AnotherLevel, Afterstep (which I use) and WindowMaker. I think that AnotherLevel is regarded as the worst of the three. In fact, I expect Afterstep to be dropped from the distro eventually. Have to make room for a dancing paperclip in Gnome or something.
I realize that it can be very unpleasant to change window managers. However, I'd urge you to look around - they have come a long way since AnotherLevel. There are excellent light, minimal wm's (ICEwm and blackbox), nice stable mediumweight wm's (AfterStep, WindowMaker), the powerful and resource-sucking Enlightenment, and of course the two Redmondesque behemoths. (Yes I know Gnome is not a wm, it eats, or copulates with, or suckles wm's.)
But would you install the corporate or consumer version? The corporate version seems to have less 'activation' issues, but could be harder to find. Or why not install Win2k, which seems more stable and better thought out than XP? But would you install the workstation or server version? The workstation version has some deliberate crippling in the TCP/IP (max 10 inbound connections per port, I think.) But maybe this can be fixed in the 'registry'. Remind me again, on which version (if any) of the OS is Microsoft focused?
I think all the major commercial distributions are roughly equivalent. At a previous job I was forced to install Mandrake. Once it was up, there was no perceptible difference from RedHat, except that it added auto-indent to vi, which annoyed me until I managed to shut it off. As for the small distros, I have no idea and will probably never have time to play with them.
The fact that a vendor came up with a study showing their approach to be superior is not surprising. Have you seen the Microsoft study showing that desktop Unix has a higher TCO than desktop Windows? It's pretty convincing. Until you read it. Then you realize that they are assuming every Unix user has to have a Windows PC as well.
Far from it. Even if the alleged study were publicly available, methodologically sound, peer-reviewed, and conducted by experienced scientists, the story would not be over. Since the study so far meets none of these criteria, I'm not sure the story has even begun.
I think this question differentiates between people like me who work on web, database, and other standalone servers, and enterprise sysadmins who work on cooperating sites that are linked by NIS and NFS. There's a whole other set of skills and experience there which I (and I think you) don't have. I think you know perfectly well that the man page only tells part of the story.
That depends. If the job is one where you can be useful immediately and fill in the holes in your knowledge as you go, then no. But if they are looking for a senior sysadmin who can take full responsibility for their NIS/NFS based site, then yes.
In general, though, I agree that trivia questions are the wrong ones.
What you say is mostly true, but mostly beside the point. First, leave Microsoft out of it. The most respected platform for midrange RDBMS's is Oracle on Sun. The question is, could Linux replace Sun in that setting? Sun does provide meaningful tech support, at least to large sites. Comparing consumer-level tech support ("reboot the comptuer") to enterprise level support is pointless. Yes, the web beats consumer level support.
The web will answer any common question about common software. But if you're doing something even a little off the beaten path, you can run into problems that haven't been solved yet. This can be very dismaying when you're under time pressure. Commercial Unix vendors will actually investigate the problem and issue a patch if necessary.
Yup. Shell is a beautiful, elegant, but treacherous language. The combination of variable expansion, globbing (*'s and ?'s) and backticks allow one line of code to have nearly infinite meanings. The error in this script is probably present in many scripts on production Unix systems. Sysadmins don't usually expect spaces in file names. Also, adding quotes doesn't protect against the variable containing a '*'. And I'm sure there are other gotchas.
If you want to learn shell, I suggest lurking in comp.unix.shell.
Well if they claimed to be travelling in a straight line it might seem odd that they are revisiting the past. But since we are talking about curves, we should not be surprised to arc back towards the origin. When you've turned a knob from 0 to 10 in the name of "innovation", I guess the next move is to turn it back towards 0, again in the name of "innovation." Maybe Apple and Microsoft are grimacing plastic clown faces bolted to a merry-go-round. They are perpetually rushing into the future, but don't be surprised to see them in the same place later.
Why does this not apply to the mouse? You claim that it takes me an appreciable amount of time to remember ":wq". Why would it not take me an appreciable amount of time to remember "file->exit"?
I think the reason I am irritated by this nonsensical theory is that I find vi a very good fit to the way I think about editing a document. You speak of "mental interruption" but I experience more mental interruption in dealing with a GUI.
Why? These cited pages are the first writing of Tog I have read, and there are no words to convey the lack of respect I feel for him. His argument consists of repeated appeals to an alleged study to which he provides neither a link nor a citation. His claim of a two second delay to choose a control key is so far from my experience (including observation of others, so put away the amnesia theory) that I regard him as not only wrong, but dishonest. To say that I am skeptical of his "study" is like saying that I am skeptical of Elvis's repeated visits to the land of the living.
I read the first two of your three links and gave up in disgust. Tog leans heavily on some "study", but for some reason does not provide a link. He claims that it takes two seconds to press a "command key" which is presumably any key that does not enter text.
I won't cite the fact that I don't take two seconds to press a "command key". Tog has already claimed that we are afflicted by micro-amnesia that suppresses this memory. Rather, I'll point to my observations of other people editing documents. When I watch an experienced user using vi, commands do not perceptibly interrupt the flow of keystrokes, except for the escape key which is inconveniently far from home row. As for "command keys" in GUI applications, I have no opinion. When the keyboard interface is viewed as a poor relative of the GUI (which is clearly how Tog views it) it may indeed be suboptimal.
Tog's advocacy is not convincing.
Maybe Sun will realize that and distribute a stripped down option. If they don't, maybe you could do so. After all, it sounds like a common need.
That should not have been moderated "Troll". CaseyB correctly pointed out that spootnik is simply pasting text from old usenet postings.