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RMS -vs- Doctor, on the evils of Natalism by Anonymous Coward · 2018-05-10 12:34 · Score: 0 · on Richard Stallman Demands Return Of Abortion Joke To libc Documentation (theregister.co.uk)

"Please do not remove it. GNU is not a purely technical project, so the fact that this is not strictly and grimly technical is not a reason to remove this." but RMS complains when someone congratulate another on the GNU list group for having a child. http://www.art.net/Studios/Hac...

Fun With Your New HEAD by BarbaraHudson · 2017-04-29 12:35 · Score: 1 · on Surgeon Plans To 'Reawaken' Cryogenically Frozen Brains, Transplant Them Into Someone Else's Skull (nationalpost.com)

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Thomas M. Disch's sci-fi story Fun With Your New HEAD (full text - about 1 page). No need for donor bodies.

Re:But is Wayland better? by Billly+Gates · 2017-04-19 10:59 · Score: 1 · on Ubuntu Is Switching to Wayland (omgubuntu.co.uk)

Kill X11 with FIRE!

Read the Unix Haters Handbook entry on X and how it can't do the things people think it can for GUI here?

OpenGL is a great reason to dump Xorg. No DRI BS on MacOSX or Windows. It just works and no freaking emulating network protocols and HUUUUGGE latencies emulaing client/servers from the 1980s underneath.

Re:X11 SUCKS by Billly+Gates · 2017-04-19 10:53 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Ubuntu Is Switching to Wayland (omgubuntu.co.uk)

Quotes from the Unix Haters Handbook here.

Let's desconstruct here your arguments X11 myths:

Myth: X Demonstrates the Power of Client/Server Computing

Fact: "The database client/server model (the server machine stores all the data, and the clients beseech it for data) makes sense. The computation client/server model (where the server is a very expensive or experimental supercomputer, and the client is a desktop workstation or portable computer) makes sense. But a graphical client/server model that slies the interface down some arbitrary middle is like Solomon following through with his child-sharing strategy. The legs, heart, and left eye end up on the server, the arms and lungs go to the client, the head is left rolling around on the floor, and blood spurts everywhere.

The fundamental problem with X's notion of client/server is that the proper division of labor between the client and the server can only be decided on an application-by-application basis. Some applications (like a flight simulator) require that all mouse movement be sent to the application. Others need only mouse clicks. Still others need a sophisticated combination of the two, depending on the program's state or the region of the screen where the mouse happens to be. Some programs need to update meters or widgets on the screen every second. Other programs just want to display clocks; the server could just as well do the updating, provided that there was some way to tell it to do so.

The right graphical client/server model is to have an extensible server. Application programs on remote machines can download their own special extension on demand and share libraries in the server. Downloaded code can draw windows, track input eents, provide fast interactive feedback, and minimize network traffic by communicating with the application using a dynamic, high-level protocol.

As an example, imagine a CAD application built on top of such an extensible server. The application could download a program to draw an IC and associate it with a name. From then on, the client could draw the IC anywhere on the screen simply by sending the name and a pair of coordinates. Better yet, the client an download programs and data structures to draw the whole schematic, which are called automatically to refresh and scroll the window, without bothering the client. The user can drag an IC around smoothly, without any network traffic or context switching, and the server sends a single message to the client when the interaction is complete. This makes it possible to run interactive clients over low-speed (that is, slow-bandwidth) communication lines."

Other fun tidbits that made me chuckle

" How to make a 50-MIPS Workstation Run Like a 4.77MHz IBM PC

If the designers of X-Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that.
- Marus J. Ranum, Digital Equipment Corporation

X-Windows is the Iran-Contra of graphical user interfaces: a tragedy of political compromises, entangled alliances, marketing hype, and just plain greed. X-Windows is to memory as Ronald Reagan was to money. Years of "Voodoo Ergonomics" have resulted in an unprecedented memory deficit of gargantuan proportions. Divisive dependencies, distributed deadlocks, and partisan protocols have tightened gridlocks, aggravated race conditions, and promulgated double standards.

X has had its share of $5,000 toilet seats -- like Sun's Open Look clock tool, which gobbles up 1.4 megabytes of real memory! If you sacrificed all the RAM from 22 Commodore 64s to clock tool, it still wouldn't have enough to tell you the time. Even the vanilla X11R4 "xclock" utility consumed 656K to run. And X's memory usage is increasing."

Dude if there ever was a case f

Obligatory Lem reference by gwjgwj · 2015-02-05 19:06 · Score: 1 · on The Poem That Passed the Turing Test

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Do...

Re:In the US they'd have been charged by Jeremy+Erwin · 2014-06-09 08:39 · Score: 2 · on Kids With Operators Manual Alert Bank Officials: "We Hacked Your ATM"

That was Jerry Pournelle's excuse, too.

Re:no no no by sarhjinian · 2011-12-10 06:26 · Score: 1 · on GNOME 3 Wins Linux Journal's Readers' Choice Award

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Re:Microsoft Should Buy Them by guacamole · 2010-09-16 18:14 · Score: 1 · on SCO Puts Unix Assets On the Block

Is this X server you're talking about?

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disaster.html

Re:Not surprising. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-13 00:21 · Score: 0 · on IE9 Team Says "Our GPU Acceleration Is Better Than Yours"

Too true. X was an interesting but highly flawed experiment that inadvertently became a de facto standard. The problems have been recognised for decades but where we once had hundreds of competing UNIX vendors preventing the emergence of a better standard, now we have hundreds of Linux distributions (and desktops and window managers and fan boys) doing the same. Just kill it already.

Re:Had IBM used UNIX by Anonymous Coward · 2010-04-12 06:53 · Score: 1, Informative · on Ubuntu on a Dime

Aw, but it's too much jaw-dropping fun. The opening fantasy completely skips over that a hell of a lot of people used Unix at work and universities, and completely loathed it.

There were even books about that. Oh hey, The Unix-Haters Handbook is still online. http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/handbook.html

Re:So by Nutria · 2010-02-20 12:40 · Score: 1 · on Ars Analysis Calls Windows 7 Memory Usage Claims "Scaremongering"

Lots of people hated Unix. They even wrote a book.

Kill the X Boondoggle Already by lobiusmoop · 2009-11-18 07:00 · Score: -1, Troll · on Samsung Sponsors the Development of Enlightenment

X is an over-engineered monstrous relic from the mid-80's, and the window-managers on top of it are lipstick-on-a-pig kludges. Hopefully Google will present something to potentially replace it with when they announce their Chrome OS tomorrow.

Re:So in other words by sarhjinian · 2009-11-03 04:16 · Score: 5, Interesting · on X11 Chrome Reportedly Outperforms Windows and Mac Versions

Because, from a user's perspective, it doesn't work all that well. Here's an example:

On MacOS X, it's just about impossible to get into a situation where a) video tears or flickers, or b) menus and windows can "rub out" other menus or windows (eg, you can't drag a window around like a giant eraser on Mac OS). On X+whatever, it's pathetically easy to do either. Windows is somewhere in-between the two.

To be fair to X, managing compositing et al isn't it's job---but it should be! Between X's by-design paucity of features and the number of combinations of video driver, X server, window manager and settings thereof, it's hard to get a decent, modern desktop experience. Had X been designed a little more smartly (eg, for actual people and not for computer scientists) this probably wouldn't be such a problem. Grafting things like multiple display support, accelerated 3D, video playback and now, compositing, have shown problems. Back in the day, when you could just buy IRIX (ro whatever) and be assured of a working, end-to-end X implementation this wasn't an issue. With the clusterfuck that is X.org+DRM+GEM+Mesa+KMS+GL/GLX/AIGLX+DRI/DRI2+UXA/EXA/XAA+whatever window manager is invovled, it's a crapshoot.

By comparison, again, we have MacOS X's system, which again just works, even if in theoretical terms it's a little slower. Users don't care that much about GTK benchmarks; they do care if the user experience breaks down.

The UNIX Hater's Handbook, which is a little bit out of date now, goes into the design errors of X. It's worth reading if you're wondering why X drives people nuts.

Multi-player SimCity -- open source Micropolis by Anonymous Coward · 2008-11-10 00:18 · Score: 0 · on Non-Violent, Cooperative Games?

Here's a description I wrote around 1993 of the multi player version of SimCity that I developed.

The source code is now freely available on Google Code at: http://code.google.com/p/micropolis/

In the process of adapting it to the OLPC XO-1 laptop, I disabled the X11 based multi-player user interface, but all the code is still in there, and could be re-enabled with a little work.

But I'm rewriting the user interface in Python, and the new version will use a much better network protocol and architecture than X11 for implementing the multi-player mode.

Multi Player SimCity for X11 is now available from DUX Software!
PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:
SimCity, the original award winning city simulation game from Maxis Software, now runs on powerful Unix workstations with X11! DUX's implementation of SimCity for Unix was awarded product of the year 1992 by Unix World in the January 1993 issue, and reviewed in the April 1993 issue. Now it's souped up, works with standard X11 servers, and even supports networked multi user collaboration! Multi Player SimCity is designed to be a fun cooperative educational experience!
SimCity is a colorful animated interactive system simulation game, providing a set of rules and tools for planning and building a complex dynamic simulated city. Several people on different X11 workstations can participate in the same city, cooperating and coordinating their actions across the network.
Working together, you can zone land use, hook up the power grid, build roads, bridges, parks and stadiums, raise taxes, and even summon disasters, causing the city to grow and thrive, or crumble and die. It's a creative, entertaining way to develop your political skills!
REQUIREMENTS:
SimCity runs on Silicon Graphics Irix, SPARC SunOS, and other Unix workstations. You can play it locally or over the network on most 8 bit color or monochrome X11 displays, like NCD X terminals. And you can hear it on standard sound devices, and NCD's NetAudio server.
OPTIONS:
SimCity supports but doesn't require the X11 shared memory and shaped window extensions, and a local sound device or NetAudio server. And you can turn off the sound so your boss doesn't know you're playing!
FEATURES:
Multi Player SimCity for X11 sports the Motif look and feel, implemented using the efficient TCL/Tk toolkit. It features multiple city editors and maps with overlays, fast colorful animation, engaging sound effects, easy to use pie menus and direct manipulation interaction, simultaneous multi player editing, communication and annotation facilities, and voting dialogs for group decision making. It includes eight challenging scenarios and a library of interesting cities.

Here's the proposal I wrote (and which was accepted) to demonstrate multi player SimCity at INTERCHI'93 in Amsterdam, which explains the cooperative nature of the game:

Multi User City Simulation
SimCityNet is an animated interactive system simulation game, providing a set of rules and tools for planning and building a complex dynamic simulated city. Several people on different workstations can participate in the same game, cooperating and coordinating their actions over the net.
Working together, you can zone land use, hook up the power grid, build roads, bridges, parks and stadiums, raise taxes, and even summon disasters, causing the city to grow and thrive, or crumble and die. SimCityNet features multiple city views and maps with overlays, simultaneous editing and user interface interaction, "voting panels" for group decision making, and multimedia communication and annotation features ("bridges between players").
The multi user interface supports communication via three media in parallel: text, sound, and graphics. It includes a scrolling text log for telegram mess

Ice Cubed -aka- I39L by SimHacker · 2008-11-04 04:16 · Score: 1 · on Wayland, a New X Server For Linux

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disaster.html

As a result, one of the most amazing pieces of literature to come out of the X Consortium is the "Inter Client Communication Conventions Manual," more fondly known as the "ICCCM", "Ice Cubed," or "I39L" (short for "I, 39 letters, L"). It describes protocols that X clients ust use to communicate with each other via the X server, including diverse topics like window management, selections, keyboard and colormap focus, and session management. In short, it tries to cover everything the X designers forgot and tries to fix everything they got wrong. But it was too late -- by the time ICCCM was published, people were already writing window managers and toolkits, so each new version of the ICCCM was forced to bend over backwards to be backward compatible with the mistakes of the past.

-Don

Complaints about X by SimHacker · 2008-11-04 03:48 · Score: 1 · on Wayland, a New X Server For Linux

X: The First Fully Modular Software Disaster:
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disaster.html

X-Windows: ...A mistake carried out to perfection. X-Windows: ...Dissatisfaction guaranteed. X-Windows: ...Don't get frustrated without it. X-Windows: ...Even your dog won't like it. X-Windows: ...Flaky and built to stay that way. X-Windows: ...Complex nonsolutions to simple nonproblems. X-Windows: ...Flawed beyond belief. X-Windows: ...Form follows malfunction. X-Windows: ...Garbage at your fingertips. X-Windows: ...Ignorance is our most important resource. X-Windows: ...It could be worse, but it'll take time. X-Windows: ...It could happen to you. X-Windows: ...Japan's secret weapon. X-Windows: ...Let it get in *your* way. X-Windows: ...Live the nightmare. X-Windows: ...More than enough rope. X-Windows: ...Never had it, never will. X-Windows: ...No hardware is safe. X-Windows: ...Power tools for power fools. X-Windows: ...Putting new limits on productivity. X-Windows: ...Simplicity made complex. X-Windows: ...The cutting edge of obsolescence. X-Windows: ...The art of incompetence. X-Windows: ...The defacto substandard. X-Windows: ...The first fully modular software disaster. X-Windows: ...The joke that kills. X-Windows: ...The problem for your problem. X-Windows: ...There's got to be a better way. X-Windows: ...Warn your friends about it. X-Windows: ...You'd better sit down. X-Windows: ...You'll envy the dead.

Re:Multimouse for Linux? by mikael · 2008-08-03 08:11 · Score: 1 · on Gates Issues Call For "Creative Capitalism"

There might be some complications - some desktops implement mouse cursors in hardware - so you can only have one cursor at a time (ever noticed how a system can crash but the mouse cursor still moves around, but not clicking anything).

Though having multiple mouse cursors might not be a bad thing. There are many times where having two or more mouse cursors might be useful - sorting out image and source code directories for example. Have one mouse cursor for the window where data is being moved from, and another cursor for the window where data is being moved to.

I found this article recently:

The X-Windows Disaster

If the designers of X-Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that.

- Marus J. Ranum, Digital Equipment Corporation

Linux is only free if your time is worthless. by SimHacker · 2008-07-20 04:55 · Score: 1, Interesting · on Linux Needs More Haters

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/x-windows/disaster.html

-Don

Re:Anything else out there? by moosesocks · 2008-06-11 01:16 · Score: 3, Insightful · on The State of X.Org

I'm guessing that X.Org inherited an absolutely terrifying codebase from xfree86.

Simply getting xfree to compile was a chore, even on the (few and far between) stable releases.

Personally, I'm still unconvinced that X is a particularly "good idea." 15 years later, and the promises of simplicity and compatibility are still unrealized, as every single implementation of the protocol has suffered from numerous problems. Perhaps it would be best to start from scratch, and revise X11 to be a more realistic/practical specification.

Even back in 1994, it was being called the Iran-Contra of user-interfaces.

Re:Slashdotters would laud this, but... by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · 2008-05-30 06:51 · Score: 1 · on Network Measurement Tool Detects Reset Packets

A quote from the UNIX haters book:

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/whinux/your-time.html

Linux is Only Free If Your Time is Worthless

GoodNeWS / HyperNeWS / HyperLook by SimHacker · 2008-05-25 00:43 · Score: 4, Informative · on HyperCard, What Could Have Been

In 1989, Arthur van Hoff developed a HyperCard-inspired system called GoodNeWS, written in PostScript, for James Gosling's NeWS window system. Arthur later went on to work at Sun on Java, wrote the Java compiler in Java, the AWT gui toolkit, and the HotJava web browser.

GoodNeWS was later renamed HyperNeWS, then later HyperLook. I went to Glasgow to work with Arthur at the Turing Institute, to develop HyperLook into a product, and I used it to develop the first Unix version of SimCity.

HyperLook was really wonderful, because it combined the strengths of HyperCard with the superior graphics and programmability of PostScript, and the network communication model currently known as AJAX.

I've written down some Ideas for Sugar development environment from HyperLook SimCity, with lots of links and illustrations, relating it with many different programming languages, user interface systems and applications that have inspired me.

Here is just the stuff about HyperLook -- the article goes on further to discuss and compare other technologies I think are interesting and applicable to the OLPC's constructionist education project.

Ideas for Sugar development environment from HyperLook SimCity

I love the ideas behind Smalltalk, EToys and HyperCard, and would like to combine them with ideas from visual programming languages like Robot Odyssey, KidSim, Klik-and-Play, SimAntics, Body Electric/Bounce, Max/MSP/Jitter, etc.

Here are some ideas about HyperLook and other systems, that could be applied to Sugar:

HyperLook was a PostScript-based user interface development environment for the NeWS window system, which Arthur van Hoff created at the Turing Institute in Glasgow. http://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/hyperlook/

I helped develop HyperLook into a commercial product, with a editable user interface development environment, as well as a redistributable non-editable runtime, and I used it to port SimCity to Unix, and develop other components and applications . http://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/hyperlook/ http://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/hyperlook/HyperLook-SimCity.gif

HyperLook was inspired by HyperCard, but it additionally provided a client/server programming model, and more powerful graphics and scripting based on NeWS's object oriented dialect of PostScript. http://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/hyperlook/TalkInterfacing.gif

The NeWS window system was like AJAX, but with:
1) PostScript code instead of JavaScript code
2) PostScript graphics instead of DHTML graphics, and
3) PostScript data instead of XML data.

It had a unified programming/graphics/data/networking model based on NeWS's extended multi-threaded object-oriented dialect of PostScript, instead of a hodge-podge of accidental technologies. (Although I will be the first to admit the X11/NeWS merge was quite a hodge-podge and huge-kludge!) NeWS had an object system based on the simple dynamic ideas of Smalltalk, implemented with the PostScript dictionary stack, supporting multiple inheritance and runtime modification of objects and classes. http://www.donhopkins.com/home/catalog/hyperlook/HyperLookInfo10.g