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It's not revolutionary enough to impress Bezos and Jobs.

It doesn't have GPS
It doesn't have the ability to communicate with other TurboScooters
It doesn't have a palm device for information gathering and realy
It does have a tracking module, to allow for caravans and auto navigation
It doesn't have the physical hooks to allow daisychaining of scooters together.

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I rollerblade; around a *lot* of places, rollerblades are banned, restricted, or prohibited.

Hovercraft is just a little too... sci-fi for my tastes.

Electric go-karts with GPS and auto-navigation and caravan-ing, seems a smarter and cooler idea, myself.

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Yeah, I read up on his wheelchair; it makes me think it'll be an electrical scooter/cart.

What would be neat is if it had GPS and maps, maybe via built in Palm type device.

Also, the ability to daisy chain and form caravans (and thus the statement about planning cities around it, campuses, etc)

Especially if it could track painted guides, as well as allow for clean electrical power, as well as communicating with each other, and maybe even running off an inductive power source!

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Fits inside a duffel bag and a couple cardboard boxes (I'd guess moving boxes)

Can be assembled quickly with hex wrenches and a screwdriver...

That makes me think of a pair of rollerblades, or one of those scooter thingies!

2 models, the metro and the pro; Just those naming conventions make me think of rollerblades or scooters, too, with the metro being an economical version, and the pro with additional bells and whistles...

And the invention will "profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities."

It sounds like he's describing something both economical and ecological, as an alternative to... cars? Buses?

I'm thinking... electrical scooters or rollerblades, that can be chained together, like links!

Say, something like a shopping cart sized device, allowing one to sit or stand, with safe and clean electrical power, allowing one to move at, say, 10mph for 25 or 35 miles?

Able to link and chain, to create caravans...

It'll confound people because it isn't quite a car, nor a sidewalk friendly device...

And it'll be definitely fun!

Also, it could have an additional contact strip, to draw power, inductively, from embedded power strips!


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I said cheapest *and* most established.

The logical union of cheapest and most established?

SCSI is not the cheapest; By far, SCSI drives and devices usually have a pretty hefty premium, whereas currently a Firewire drive is marginally more expensive than the IDE drives.

And stop being so silly; as to your firewire mouse, how about SCSI mice? Or SCSI washer/driers?

A firewire interface card is about $100 now; how is that terribly more expensive than SCSI?

As per USB, it is definitely more established, but I thought I said USB2? Which is a new update to the USB spec? Hello?

SCSI is more established, I don't disagree, but it's more expensive.
USB2 doesn't quite exist yet, so it is far from established...

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I agree that, philosophically at least, more error correction should exist to handle more data. There's plenty of info and science around error correction, so I'm not too worried about that.

Your problems with accuracy can be handled in manifold ways; multiple lasers (3, ostensibly) to handle the burn accuracy. Read accuracy would probably be no different than what you described, using 12.5% intensity deltas between values, instead of 50% intensity values.

There's no reason to slow down the burn to increase accuracy; just use better receptors, and higher tolerance devices. That technique seems to work fine for Intel, which keeps cranking out faster and faster CPUs with better and better processes and technique!

So IDE doesn't cut it? That's why there is... SCSI, Firewire, SerialATA and USB2. My preference is for Firewire to take the lead, as it is the cheapest and most established of the 4 listed technologies...

So, given that we can get around all those technical difficulties... Why can't we see a faster read and burn rate?

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So would you only like one OS provider, for greater interoperability (at cost of service, performance, and capability), or one phone service provider, or one ISP, or one music provider, etc?

The price of competition, incompatibility, is balanced by the value of competition, which is each of the 5 standards trying to outdo each other, on the ground of price, performance, capability, reliability, useability, etc.

If there were only 1 standard, why would you think we'd get any improvement or innovation? The same forces that would bring about 1 standard *should* also force the system to never ever change or improve; the minute someone comes up with a better idea, you'd have 2 competing incompatbile systems, and the problem starts again!

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I dunno, it seems likely that once word of mouth spreads ("Hey, my JVC/Panasonic/RCA DTV doesn't record Star Trek: Mysteries!") they won't be able to sell very well, whereas any old analogue TVs would still sell like hotcakes...

Or *monitors* hooked up to digital converters, to TiVO like devices, with the ability to record, stream, and copy, will become all the rage.

I mean, there's no reason for Sony to not sell a 30" monitor and a $40 DTV adaptor for the PC/monitor, right?

Unless these guys are pressuring and targeting folks like ATI and Pinnacle, etc, PCs should still have the capability to recieve channels and view TV...

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Maybe I have my info wrong, but the ADC is a littl e more than just power, DVI, and USB; the monitors hooked up to them (LCD and the like) actually use the USB port to transmit calibration data, IIRC, though you'll have to scroll down to the bottom of the PDF linked in order to get an inkling of some of this capability...



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Still deciding what to get; the iBook, all cute and cuddly like, the PowerBook, all serious and stoic, or the G4 Cube, suave and classy.

In terms of performance, PCs seem to be fast enough that faster just doesn't matter. Why would I need a 1.5GHz system? I'm running on a 500MHz system, and plan to be running it for another few years yet. Heck, even 800MHz would seem to last for at least 5 years, given my track record with my last computer.

Still, I'll probably think a 500MHz Apple sucks, right? I dunno, I don't have enough experience with the G3/G4 to say; do they age particularly better than a x86?

On the other hand, I am enamored with Apple's drive for innovation.

The USB IO adoption
The Firewire IO adoption
The use of Airport and wireless networking
Mac OSX (in the near future), and Unix stability, without the ugliness of Linux!

Well, Linux isn't quite ugly, it's damn functional, but sorta a pain to set up. Win2k is such a breeze to use.

Then there's the quiet fanless iMacs and G4 cubes.
There's the firewireness of the iBooks and Powerbooks.
Optical Mice. Everywhere
*Really* nice LCD screens.

Other hardware coolness I'm looking forward to; More snazzy designs!
A Newton2!
Wireless PCs; at least, as much as possible...
OS X!
Pervasive computing!
Inclusion of mic and USB cam with *all* computers!
Instant Messaging type usability in the OS

Other random cool stuff...
Still, they aren't dead yet, and they're still doing okay...

Maybe I'll regret writing this post in a few months, when I have my Apple. I'll post and let everyone know!

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I've seen plenty of worse movies, myself.

Episode One, for example, if you need a movie with glimpses of the metaphysical, about good and evil, of being balanced and true...

The fight scenes among the Bamboo were a little too much for me.

Uninspired dialogue? Give an example of inspired dialogue, please. This is very traditional, classic, and even a little cliched; but it was never expected to be anything else.

Acting? I got the very strong impression that Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat had a very restrained, repressed attraction that neither would allow to emerge. I also found that Ang Lee's exuberant recklessness very real. A teenager with her first car, almost.

Plot was random? I guess that's what you saw.

We saw the story of an Empress Palpatine man hater, and her young disciple. The young disciple wants to push herself and her world, being greater than the master. She sees an opportunity to escape her destiny when she meets Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat, but in doing so destroys the lives of everyone she loves.

Her lover is the one that gives her the first inkling of what living outside the system may be like. Perhaps you were put off by the extra long flashback sequence around her comb?

Oh well. I'm glad I saw it, at least.

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Even if I disagree *totally* with your reasoning...

The problem is that if Amazon does some sort of netflix type site with books, the author's guild will just charge that Amazon is taking away rightful copyright control and profit away from the authors, again.

With every book purchased, the author *already* gets paid, so there is nothing wrong with what Amazon is doing. Those books have already been paid for!

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to your own post on how awesome this movie is!

I think the Matrix is only 15% of this movie!

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I can't believe the world would be a happier place if people did what was superior, over what is standard.

It would be nice, I guess, to always do what was superior; but that would just become and define what is standard!

Now if people would only start to be happier, then the world would be a much happier place, IMHO ^^

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Its not nearly so simple as a logical and.

For one thing, his PoE model is designed to make each indivdual nets(I think) more capable at responding to a set of features. I don't know if it would intentionally segregate into set animal, set small, and set furry, but it's supposed to be much simpler than the standard supervised network to train.

All it needs to do is get good at sorting images and simplifying the input; a second stage of recognition is then applied to the, theoretically, simpler set of information.

The example you're using is incomplete; his PoE would detect the features small, animal, and furry, where the traditional model would detect the feature cat-like and the feature dog-like, without the sharing of information or neurons that the PoE enables. The second stage of his PoE, the recognition center, would use the sum-product of each of of the simpler feature detectors and then decide if it were cat or dog like.

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I've already made two reply posts to others in the thread.

Firewire! Go Firewire!

They are at spec1 in hard disks, notebooks, PCs, cameras, camcorders, and PS2s. Spec2 is already on the way, with designs for spec3, as well as wireless.

It is comparably priced to EIDE at similar sizes, and already has every single benefit that is being touted for SATA, but now and cheaper ^^

SCSI is SCSI, and won't be going away any time soon. But here's to hoping Firewire wins!

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It was called Firewire. Apple already makes provisions for in in all their current PCs. You can also buy them at prices and sizes comparable to current IDE drives, so the aren't nearly as expensive or high end as serial ATA. The SATA essentially provides for EIDE what SCSI has had for ages, and what Firewire was built with as well; command queueing, daisy chaining multiple devices, and processor decoupling for the data chain. It's just a simpler design, with less wires. Me, I hope Firewire wins this one.

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Here's to hoping Firewire wins out this one.

There are already Firewire drives of comparable price to EIDE and of comparable size.

Firewire cards, devices, and OS support already exists.

Firewire is already working over version 2, with plans for version 3, as well as wireless!

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Why is Star Wars on DVD any more (or less) relevant than Mononoke on DVD, or a review on The Emperor's Groove, or a review on Extreme Programming?

So if you want a vote... Me! I care!

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Well yes I have a problem with that. That's why I asked in the first place.

So if they can convict you of something without accessing the encrypted files, they can also baselessly use those same encrypted files against you, under the umbrella that you refuse to decrypt them, and that encrypted files used in a crime are themselves criminal...

Is this like making a punishment worse for illegally owning a gun, even if the gun had nothing to do with the crime or the punishment?

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Search for medal of valor here.

It's the last link, as far as I can tell.

I don't see how section 308 is as bad as Dave Koppel feared? Am I misreading, or reading the wrong text?

It doesn't mention wiretapping, and where it does mention encryption:

(c) AMENDMENT OF SENTENCING GUIDELINES RELATING TO USE OF ENCRYPTION- Pursuant to its authority under section 994(p) of title 28, United States Code, the United States Sentencing Commission shall amend the Federal sentencing guidelines and, if appropriate, shall promulgate guidelines or policy statements or amend existing policy statements to ensure that the guidelines provide sufficiently stringent penalties to deter and punish persons who intentionally use encryption in connection with the commission or concealment of criminal acts sentenced under the guidelines.

It would seem that encryption used intentionally by criminals to hide the crime would have to face 'sufficiently stringent penalties'

Would this then only apply to those who have been accused *and* determined to be guilty of criminal acts 'sentanced under the guidelines'?

His fear of wiretapping comes from S2448RS, senate, not house...

Search for "wire, oral, and electronic communications", here.

It's section 8, under authority to...

However, there is no related section or subsection under HR46...

So the only problem I can tell is under HR46 section 304 clause (2)
(2) The criminal forfeiture of property under this subsection, any seizure and disposition thereof, and any administrative or judicial proceeding relating thereto, shall be governed by the provisions of section 413 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. 853), except subsection (d) of that section.'

Are there reasons to suspect this clause? It seems out of place, in a computer crime action...

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I suspect the market will narrow as it becomes a footrace towards efficiency, refinements, and generational improvements.

NVIDIA and ATI will settle into the top 2, with Matrox hovering around the edge...

Some no-name will come up with something stellar and exciting, 2 years from now (not BitBoys), and knock some excitement into the display adaptor market, until ATI or NVIDIA catch up, 2 years later, giving said competitor 2 years to build itself up to a frenzy... then a third competitor will jump in, with a further refinement, and perhaps topple ATI in the process... then there will be a competition between the incumbent NVIDIA, the newly grown Radical, and freshly fed Upstart+ATI...

Something like what happened just two years ago, when 3dfx bowled everyone over (s3, Rendition, ATI, and Matrox)

It's just business, as usual.

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You forget ATI
Oh, and Matrox

They aren't dead yet.

I think ATI still has a very good presence in the market, so NVIDIA still has a lot of fighting (and thus competition) to do.

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Something breaks here...

Underdog bests incumbent, knocks them silly, outmaneuvers them, and then destroys them, finally purchasing all the relevent patents and technologies:

Nvidia == Underdog
3dFX == Incumbent

AMD == Underdog
Intel == Incumbent

Microsoft == Incumbent
Apple == Underdog

I suspect I have your pattern wrong; what pattern causes Microsoft buying Apple insightful, instead of confusing. Apple hasn't been an incumbant, unless you're counting the days of Apple II...

Your VA Linux crack should give some insight, but all I could glean was that an upstart who has no technical prowess is able to purchase VA Linux, who will probably crumble in a way analgous to 3dFX...

The only thing that comes to mind is Slashdot's ties to VA Linux(whatever they are), and that a kid who delivers newspapers are somehow... more relevant than Slashdot?

I'm sorry, I know asking about a joke will often kill the humor.

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(Two weeks after assignment 4, in which some deadlocks and synchronization issues are resolved in the scheduler...)

Microsoft releases SP2 for Windows98 SE as part of IE5.01 release

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Isn't this a contradiction on your part?

"I realize that Modula-2 is a great teaching language, but... I hate how CS programs force pinko, academic tools like Modula-2 onto students."

Regardless of your contradiction, a full CS degree should be teaching language *independent* stuff, for the most part, such that it is irrelevant that "pinko, academic" tools are forced onto you.

With a decent grounding in predicate calculus, semaphores, locks, synchronization, threads, etc... you can forget Modula2 the minute class is over, and still be doing cool things.

To rephrase, the class should be teaching you things at a level abstract from reality. You should be able to grab, say, C++ from a *one* term class at a local college, or if you're really masochistic, out of one of those 21 day books ^^

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I dunno if that's in the next generation cards, as it were.

If you want a music device that takes dictation... get yerself a minidisc player/recorder.

For $150 you can get 74 mintue talk times, play mp3 comparable quality songs, and buy $3 data discs. It's not nearly as neat as having a iPaq handheld, but hey, it plays for 6 or so hours.

I'm hoping for a next gen PDA device that takes CF+ and a 1gb microDrive, headphone jack, Palm OS, and costs $400... but, unless there's a Visor module to take CF+ and does MP3 decoding, I don't think that's going to happen in the near future

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Competition!

If VMWare wants the money of the people, it needs to provide a better product than that written by the people, for the people.

VMWare can support multiple architectures
VMWare can offer better performance
VMWare can offer more flexibility
VMWare can offer more supported devices
VMWare can offer better packaging and convenience

It's the issue that if a person is not satisfied by a commercial product, a person has every incentive to go out and code their own; it's very much a capitalist-freedom thing. If things don't work the way I want them too, I'm free to make something that does, and if I wanted to sell it to other people, I can, and if I want to give it away, well, I can do that too ^^

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If I offended you ^^

Anyway, reading the patent, doesn't mp3 do some perceptual encoding magic between the DCT and HUFF processes, to actually throw away non-audible data?

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I don't think Huffman coding is itself patented, as that is a statistical based compression algorithm, and in simple terms, the more often a 'word' appears, the smaller the number of bits is used to represent it;

For the readers unaware of Huffman coding:
If 'CompletELY' appeared 51% of the time in a document, then it would get the code '1'
Everything else would start with a '0'

'0100'
'0101'
'0110'
'0111'
'001'
'000'
etc. It would be proportioned based on percentage appearance.

Anyway, unless I am of course mistaken, the MP3 patent in question is the distribution of the data, the specific encoding table, and not the process of encoding, decoding, or storage, or whatnot. Huffman is used in a *lot* of places where mp3 don't tread.

But I could be wrong ^^

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This will be a real-world test of GPL and the power of the internet.

You are right that the OV people have no resources, money, or lawyers, but the OV people aren't critical either. OV can live and thrive *without* the OV people.

So what can happen? Thompson stifles the top 10 developers? 100? 1000? Will they target everyone who's downloaded the code?

Lets say the top 10 developers are sued to, essentially death. That doesn't mean they lose; OV could be found non-infringing. At which point *any* developer could pick up the pieces and continue.

If it is found infringing, well, that's all folks. The code was infringing... Fix, and release again, I guess.

A commercial big daddy will help it nothing in proving the code is not infringing, I don't think. It can only provide resources. In the end, I hope OV survives, and that we have a better solution, that the GPL reigns powerful, and Thomson gets egg on their face.

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It's all about atmosphere, and thus the 'emotion' engine parlance.

I was sooo impressed with Xenogears for PSX when there were cities you entered, and there were *crowds* of people wandering, walking, shopping, chattering, etc. It made such a difference! It's like Episode 4 and Episode 4 Special Release. A whole bunch of aliens were added to the crowd scenes...

You're accustomed to racing games, but real highways are littered with cars...

Imagine, not a racing game, but a cross country Cannonball Run type game; not only are you racing 10 other people, but you have to deal with navigation, traffic, traffic jams, pedestrians, etc... Not possible in real life (and thus worthy of game status), and possibly quite fun!



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It really does depend on the skill of the combatants, I think, and not the crudeness or technical accomplishment of the weapon.

For the poorly trained, I think the .45 magnum has tremendous amount of kickback, such that if the first shot is missed, the guy with the stone knife(essentially equivilent to a combat knife) almost certainly has the advantage.

On the other hand, a stone knife in the hands of a inept klutz has only chance on his side ^^

Then there's the fact that a magnum has only 6 or so shots, right?

So it's still not conclusive ^^

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On space station Earth, with an atmosphere polluted by CO, NO2 and NO3, acid rains and other noxious compounds in our air, water, soil, and bodies...

I'd imagine a satellite space station would potentially have a much cleaner, if not better, environment ^^

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I didn't say wireless won't improve. Competition from both ends says wireless capacity will improve just as wired capacity will improve... but by it's very nature, currently at least, wired capacity is just an order of magnitude greater than wireless, unless some developments are occuring/have occurred that I am unaware of.

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Wireless cannot compete with wired bandwidth.

Is there something in the future to fix that? I don't know. But as soon as VoIP and VideooIP start replacing POTS, I think the landlines will have a sudden advantage.

There may be a schism up ahead in which both will compete in the same space, but really, they are independent and can survive off different markets.

Landlines can be used fairly easily to provide something like T1 level speeds to the average user, where the digital network can stream both video, voice, data, etc. In the future, we can expect several times more bandwidth than that...

Wireless is currently slow, and IIRC, 3G wireless is only expected to go up to 2mbps, which is just slightly faster than current DSL pipes... DSL has been shown capable of going up to 7mbps over copper wire (IIRC), and with the simple addition of another pair of wires, you can get 14mbps... with more complex wiring, of course (4 wires, for example), you could prolly get even better bandwidth and throughput than current t3 trunks ^^

And that's not even talking about the potential of fibre-optic landlines ^^

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Just amused. Yes, the internet is 'new and fresh' technology, but there's nothing saying that it's a new and different world.

If it truly were a new and different world, most people would not be able to function in it, and until they can create new constructs to suit the new technology, they have to rely on baggage brought from the old world...

That's just human nature, I think.

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You're right, most people do prefer security to possibility, freedom, and excitement ^^

I did make as a parting comment the fact that someone not so scrupulous, who had access to this data, becomes the most feared and dangerous person around.

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Not a foolproof one, by any means, but an answer none-the-less

There's the concept of the slippery slope. One step down justifies the second step; using something akin to induction, the Nth step justifies the N+1 step, etc.

So we violate a *little* bit of privacy to protect children. Then we violate a little bit more, to stop criminals. Well, why not a little bit more to stop hate-groups? Then a little bit more to stop the insane. Then a little bit more to stop the disgruntled office worker with a gun. Then a little bit more for the kid who always gets beat up after school, and trying to find a gun. And a little bit more for the guy trying to find some booze and drugs for his party...

To address your statement, privacy is worth more than very many things. There will always be situations in which privacy is discarded (police search and seizure, warrant to enter, wiretap, etc), but on general grounds, any rights we have, once we give up, cannot generally be taken back without a fight.

The argument against RIP is essentially that of innate rights and protections. In the US, at least, any right not enumerated by the Constitution or Bill of Rights is automatically granted to the people, or something like that. In otherwords, a right need not be explicit for it to be afforded protection and observance.

I mean, the police services and such, in our best interest, want to protect us. That I can understand. The govt, I'm not so sure I trust, but let's give them some leeway. They can feel free to fund technology to decrypt, decode, decipher, and hack away at the security systems... but to intentionally allow a flaw in the system? Then what's to stop the not so scrupulous peoples from taking advantage of this? What's to stop the criminals?

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There are probably several different mentods to achieve the scanning;

GLV Ribbon Rotating Mirror
* -> 0
^ /|\
Laser _____________
Display

Laser Rotating GLV Ribbon
---> *
/|\
___________
Display

You can also probably play with diffraction gratings, lenses, mirrors, and other neato optical toys to get the desired effects

You know, this is stupid. Evidently, the lamness filter detects all this neato ascii art, and thinks it shouldn't be posting it... Well, at least I can't preview it, though the messed up non-plaintext version got committed. Maybe I should try again ^^

*sigh*

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There are probably several different mentods to achieve the scanning;

GLV Ribbon Rotating Mirror
* -> 0
^ /|\
Laser _____________
Display

Laser Rotating GLV Ribbon
---> *
/|\
___________
Display

You can also probably play with diffraction gratings, lenses, mirrors, and other neato optical toys to get the desired effects

You know, this is stupid. Evidently, the lamness filter detects all this neato ascii art, and thinks it shouldn't be posting it... Well, at least I can't preview it, though the messed up non-plaintext version got committed. Maybe I should try again ^^

*sigh*

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To achieve the scanning;
GLV Ribbon Rotating Mirror
* -> 0
^ /|\
Laser _____________
Display

Laser Rotating GLV Ribbon
---> *
/|\
___________
Display

You can also probably play with diffraction gratings, lenses, mirrors, and other neato optical toys to get the desired effects

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NASA's budget, IIRC, is pretty small.
<a href="http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/facts/HTML /FS-003-HQ.html"> NASA's budget</a>

Something like 14 billion a year. Given that the US GNP is close to hundreds of trillions of dollars...

Regardless of whether I'm correct or you believe me about the money, sedimentation, as a process, does not work with volcanic activity or wind. It's defined by the existence of a liquid and solutes, things dissolved into the liquid.

IE, a sediment. Take sand, mud, clay, etc, in a jar of water, and let the stuff settle down and compact into rock, stone, whatever. This process just isn't defined by wind or volcanic activity, where volcanic activity melts and reforges pre-existing stone, and wind wears down and erodes pre-existing stone.

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Nintendo, if they only wanted to make money, would have made Pokemon card games for Dreamcast, with online play, or Pokemon racing games, for the PSX...

Me, I can't fathom their strategy. Well, actually, I can guess.

By releasing a atomic box, the GameCube and the GameBoyA, they can lure and entice developers.

"We have a fixed platform. It'll be easy to develop for, without future driver or incompatibility issues."
"We use PPC and ATI. It's as easy as buying a G4^2 box and our development kit."

Still, they should probably have separate software and hardware divisions, for maximum profitability, with reduced or zero licensing costs for internal development.

That way we can get the games we want on the platforms we want... Nintendo could get more money by selling more games... and then they could compete, platform for platform, technologically, with the increased funds.

Though I guess there is still the fear that releasing games on competing hardware is suicidal...

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Itty-bitty living space...

Why is it ridiculous? These machines are expected to have a lifespan of 5-8 years... In 3 or 4 years, I'd think the average PC would match their performance, and in only 2 years a top of the line PC would theoretically blow them away...

This is just 'futureproofing' their products.

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A cross-licensing deal together!

I'd imagine Apple PCs would make excellent development platforms, as well as demonstration and testing machines.

I'd think Connectix would love to write an emulator for Apple machines!

I'd hope that Nintendo would gain and profit from selling ever more games! It just stands to see if those DVD-ish discs Nintendo would use are truly DVD compliant and readable by Apple machines!

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Political or technical issues.

Support costs are only marginally useful in the sense that they keep customers in the fold, but are not themselves actual revenue sources(excepting the big support contracts for Big Iron).

If IBM supported Linux at all, on Thinkpads, its probably more because all the techies and support people use Thinkpads with Linux, without any negative bearing on Linux, or on IBM.

For example, if this were profitable, a third party company could exist that solely offered support and service for Linux under IBM Thinkpads. Somehow, I doubt they would find the field any more profitable than IBM does, and thus, no service for Linux.

Open Source is a development and coding philosophy that allows for standing on the shoulders of giants (like Science, technically), but isn't by itself anything profitable.

Just like schematics available for a car vs technical support for a car converted to running methanol or something! I think the analogy holds ^^

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If a program team came into a project with the specific goal of satisfying 1 need, instead of 100, or 1 customer (the boss, or his daughter, or someone's niece), then you'd have much higher efficiency.

Then perhaps v2 would to rewrite the program into a framework such that it could be extended with plugins and paired with other similarly written programs.

It's a methodology that might actually work. Design for one person. Test on one person. Target one person. Support one person.

Then, afterwards, rework it so that that one person can still use it perfectly, but that everyone else on the team can still use it. Maybe stage three is to rework it so anyone else can use it, with small, minor enhancements and such, but always back to the basis that the one tester, the one user, the one customer, can still use the product.

Does this sound bad? It sounds reasonable, to me!

As for the Church Turing Thesis; a computer is a computer, but MS Word is a blender. It should not be used for maintaining address books, making flow charts, web site design, or databases. It is a blender.

It could have a plugin for web export. For address book export. For Database export, whatever. But it isn't a computer, or a system. It's just a word processing program!

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This soons sooo much like the old CISC vs RISC arguments!

Someone needs to develop and outline a RISC UI environment and tools; Reduced Interface Set Computing, or something.

A set of small, fast, reliable, easy to develop, easy to debug, easy to enhance set of tools. The base for this exists in the GNU toolset... but this has to be applied to a bigger base.

A image processor that handles photos, web-prep, and printing, for the average consumer, without continually adding features or cruft that users don't really use. Leave the hooks for plugins, of course, to enhance and extend it... but leave the core simple, small, and reliable.

Winamp is something very similar for songs and sounds!

Mozilla could stand to be something similar. Is there already too much cruft in it? Mozilla-PARED?

Word processors? VI doesn't cut it, as much as I like it. A Wordpad++ or something like that.

Anyone agree?

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The really neat thing is that you can run Mac OSX, and thus Aqua, on an equivilent PC!

MS had the opportunity and ability to port WinNT to PowerPC and Sparc(they did, a while ago)... but it would be really neat to see the alternative!

On the other hand... imagine running Daisy atop Windows, sitting inside a VMWare instance on Linux on Daisy on an S/390!

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