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For just yourself, you could try using your own set of links with the WebCollage component of XScreenSaver.

For just yourself, you could try using your own set of links with the WebCollage component of XScreenSaver.

See this xscreensaver FAQ.

Summary: do not stay logged into X as root (in fact, it'd be better to not log into X as root at all--instead, use gksu or xterm+su or xterm+sudo, etc.).

Talk to a doctor right away. If your hands are going numb and shaking then you need a qualified physician to look at them. Also, JWZ has some good information about RSI.

1. pico for quick editing before I've got X up and running.
   
2. NEdit the best programmers' text editor ever!
   
3. fvwm2 a good, fast, customizable window manager (I suffer through twm until this is in place)
   
4. ddd a simply wonderful front-end to gdb.
   
5. mozilla my browser of choice, warts and all (though konquerer is giving me second thoughts)
   
6. xscreensaver nothing makes me happier than xmatrix.
   
7. xpdf simple PDF viewer, no frills.
   
8. ROX-filer a fast and simple file system browser (though I've been leaning towards konquerer for about a year)
   
9. unclutter makes the mouse cursor disappear after several second of inactivity.
   
10. xv in case I need to fiddle with image files.
    
11. xine in case I need to watch a movie.
    

On top of this I have a set of configuration files archived for several of the above programs (i.e. fvwm2 and NEdit) and general system setup (fstab, XFree86, and bash/sh profile).

The reason for its success: Worse is better.

What you say about disregard for SQL standards is true, see MySQL Gotchas. Doing the wrong thing is not so bad, it's *silently* doing the wrong thing that you absoultely do not want in a database system. See also Why not MySQL, which is now rather dated (MySQL has grown some features since), but is a good introduction to what a database should do.

Note also that anyone can write a database system with complete transactional integrity: you simply lock the whole database for every single operation and run only one query or update at a time, one after the other. The challenge is in getting the semantics of serialized database access but with good performance. This is what schemes like row-level locking and multi-version concurrency are for.

Well, we already have Toasters (no direct link, but search for FlyingToasters) on Linux. Might as well have it the other way around...

Nope, not true. You can write software without bugs, but it's not usually economically viable to do so. Using formal proofs with something like Z will get you software that works exactly as you intended[1] (i.e., without bugs). But that comes at a price. Jonathan Bowen gives a 5 fold decrease in productivity for using formal methods for development over standard development methods. For most applications, that's not an attractive tradeoff, and you're better off just living with the relatively few bugs that traditional software development yields. Remember, worse is better. But for certain applications, it's worthwhile. Space exploration should fall into that category, for example, due to the huge costs of losing a spacecraft. But even there, budget cutbacks mean that managers are increasingly looking for short term cost savings (e.g., development costs) without considering the bigger picture.

[1] Of course, that assumes that you get your specification right to start with...

nomo zilla (Part 1)

nscp/aol (Part 2)

He was unhappy with the way Netscape had handled Mozilla, and with the way AOL was handling, well, pretty much everything really. He says, "Now I'm in a more honest line of work: now I sell beer."

nomo zilla (Part 1)

nscp/aol (Part 2)

He was unhappy with the way Netscape had handled Mozilla, and with the way AOL was handling, well, pretty much everything really. He says, "Now I'm in a more honest line of work: now I sell beer."

of jwz quitting Netscape after the AOL fusion?

I remember being really depressed about his resignation letter (it's somewhere in his website). But then I was 15 - and besides, I didn't quite realize he had gotten rich in the process.

so you have working flash in mozilla right? and photoshop without mac-on-linux? what about shadows, transparency, and vector scaling all real time? can you stream wmv, rm, and mov all from your web browser flawlessly? do you have video/voice conferencing in gaim?

I don't need those things.

Linux on my iBook is faster and does what I want.

I even get better screensavers. :)

So I use Linux.

It gives you a FreeDB-driven web-based playlist manager and controls a running XMMS process. The XMMS Oddcast DSP plugin lets it shout to a local Icecast server so you can listen locally or remotely.

I also like the Crossfade plugin, for smooth transitions between songs.

I think it's a Britishism

Being both British and familiar with that particular expression, I would say that's likely.

Those OO'ing, XP'ing sw engrs are welcome to it.

I've been OO'ing for some time now and TBH I'm slowly becoming more than a little indifferent to it all. JWZ had it right when he described the software industry as a sick, navel-gazing mess and quit. I don't do XP, but I work around those who do. I can safely say the whole XP model breaks to pieces when there is no client involved!

Best of luck with your PHd

Seeing that the 1992's screenshot you gave have netscape on it is very impressive as Netscape was released in 1994

Jeez.

Building a computer from parts might be easy for you, but that does not make it "easy". Most people can't handle it. They want to buy a computer and take it out of the box and plug it in and turn it on. This goes for PCs or Macs.

Have you used a Mac that was manufactured in the past half decade? You can use any USB mouse with them, including your seven-buttons-with-scroll-wheel optical mouse. They use PCI, AGP, ATA, and USB for expansion. They have a "taskbar", it's called the Dock.

Windows's popularity is entirely attributable to Worse is Better.

jwz had a far better rant on the same topic. :P

jwz had a far better rant on the same topic. :P

See JWZ's rant about Java.

Now, here's what Python has that Java doesn't:

• Local functions,
• lambdas,
• "everything is an object",
• automatic invoking of getter-setter methods,
• static methods are really class methods (and not merely global functions),
• two (byte, or otherwise) arrays compare equal if they have equal contents (and therefore they also work fine in hashtables),
• separate types but common interface for ascii and unicode strings,
• multiple inheritance (programmers are not dumb),
• weakly typed (solves 4-5 of his problems),
• methods don't really "belong" to classes (in his terminology),
• printf-like formatting is supported :-)

Actually, J2SE 1.5 already fixes a lot of these things in Java.

About static typing: Bruce Eckel very recently wrote about what he thinks about Python's typing, what he refers to as "latent typing". See my related blog entry.

We've started believing that static typing has a low benefit/hassle ratio.

See also: The Great Computer Language Shootout. (Python comes out way too bad in performance.)

Jeez.

Building a computer from parts might be easy for you, but that does not make it "easy". Most people can't handle it. They want to buy a computer and take it out of the box and plug it in and turn it on. This goes for PCs or Macs.

Have you used a Mac that was manufactured in the past half decade? You can use any USB mouse with them, including your seven-buttons-with-scroll-wheel optical mouse. They use PCI, AGP, ATA, and USB for expansion. They have a "taskbar", it's called the Dock.

Windows's popularity is entirely attributable to Worse is Better.

First use of the word "Mozilla". You'll have to search in the page to find it, but if the page is new to you, read the whole thing; it's fascinating.

You know, that's a damn good question. You'd think that threatening litigation you (apparently) don't intend to actually prosecute would be at least somewhat illegal. But maybe the lawyers have protected their livelihood well. :)

Mostly off-topic, I think jwz's law of software might have a new result. I read this article about the new NVIDIA drivers, and on this page, I was horrified to discover that NView now offers a Pop- Up Blocker. I think we need a few more ways to block pop-ups ...

JWZ was trying to get video to play on his box. More than a year old, but still a good guide to interface design.

The good thing about Google Labs is that the innovations are done voluntarily, on the engineer's own time.

But yes, the tendency to expand into new (and unrelated) realms is annoying. When Google starts supporting e-mail, as jwz's law predicts it will, we'll know we're in trouble. Oh, wait ...

"Worse Is Better" I guess.

And you have jwz to thank for it, eh? I guess you can start moving people away from Linux next...

You don't seem to understand Open Source. This *will* save Sun from bankruptcy. By making Java Open Source, Sun will gain a huge number of developers who will work on it for free. ...yup, that trick ALWAYS works! Just like it did for Netscape! And Ximian! And Eazel!

You appear to have confused "open source" with "magic fairy dust". I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it doesn't work that way.

/usr/lib/xscreensaver/epicycle

The epicycle manpage also has a HISTORY section which explains a bit about the history of the idea. It says :-

The geometry of epicycles was perfected by Hipparchus of Rhodes at some time around 125 B.C., 185 years after the birth of Aristarchus of Samos, the inventor of the heliocentric universe model. Hipparchus applied epicycles to the Sun and the Moon. Ptolemy of Alexandria went on to apply them to what was then the known universe, at around 150 A.D. Copernicus went on to apply them to the heliocentric model at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Johannes Kepler discovered that the planets actually move in elliptical orbits in about 1602. The inverse-square law of gravity was suggested by Boulliau in 1645. Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica was published in 1687, and proved that Kepler's laws derived from Newtonian gravitation.

Slashdot being what it is, I'm sure there are readers who have corrections to the above. If you do, please post them as followup or email them to me.

/usr/lib/xscreensaver/epicycle

The epicycle manpage also has a HISTORY section which explains a bit about the history of the idea. It says :-

The geometry of epicycles was perfected by Hipparchus of Rhodes at some time around 125 B.C., 185 years after the birth of Aristarchus of Samos, the inventor of the heliocentric universe model. Hipparchus applied epicycles to the Sun and the Moon. Ptolemy of Alexandria went on to apply them to what was then the known universe, at around 150 A.D. Copernicus went on to apply them to the heliocentric model at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Johannes Kepler discovered that the planets actually move in elliptical orbits in about 1602. The inverse-square law of gravity was suggested by Boulliau in 1645. Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica was published in 1687, and proved that Kepler's laws derived from Newtonian gravitation.

Slashdot being what it is, I'm sure there are readers who have corrections to the above. If you do, please post them as followup or email them to me.

Like webcollage?

I'm not going to be an apologist for RealNetworks past actions. RealNetworks is a big enough company, that Jamie Zawinski's quote "[G]reat things are accomplished by small groups of people who are driven, who have unity of purpose. The more people involved, the slower and stupider their union is." I'll admit we've done slow and stupid things. However, there are certain things that can only be done by big companies, no matter how slow and stupid, which is why I haven't written a similar rant.

However, I'd like to point out that, in the "slow and stupid" vein, we're slowly getting better. The RealPlayer 10 beta isn't perfect, but it's better, and I imagine that things will be better in the final release.

Moreover, we've got a lot of really great things going on in the Helix Community. We've got the Helix Player for Linux, which just the won Best Open Source Project award at LinuxWorld. That means that if there's something that annoys you about it, you can fix it. It's based on Gtk, and the engine code is all cross-platform, so someone could theoretically port it to Windows even.

So, we're trying. I'm hoping that folks could cut us a little slack. I'm hoping that the Linux folks out there could help us change Car Talk's mind, since Windows Media is a pretty Linux-hostile format.

Thanks
Rob Lanphier
Helix Troublemaker
RealNetworks

TECO. A timeline of EMACS variants.

You're over-analyzing it. I taught Java for two years and have used it professionally (although currently it's more of a C world for me), and frankly have little reason for bashing it.

I just needed some opening line to introduce the concept of Qt's cross-platform nature. If the flamewar was the point, I'd post something like this.

Someone on slashdot asks, " Why is it still called X-Windows?".

Predictably, the first reply says: "It isn't. It's called 'The X Window System.' Or simply 'X'. 'X Windows' is a misnomer."

He didn't ask why it is "X-Windows". He asked why it's called "X-Windows". You're wrong that it isn't called "X-Windows". It is! It's just that it isn't "X-Windows". Being something is independent of being called something.

The answer to the question 'Why is it still called X-Windows?' is: It's still called X-Windows in order to annoy the X-Windows Fanatics, who take it upon themselves to correct you every time you call it X-Windows. That's why it's called X-Windows.

Things That Happen When You Say 'X Windows'

THE OFFICAL NAMES

The official names of the software described herein are:

X
X Window System
X Version 11
X Window System, Version 11
X11

Note that the phrases X.11, X-11, X Windows or any permutation thereof, are explicitly excluded from this list and should not be used to describe the X Window System (window system should be thought of as one word).

The above should be enough to scare anyone into using the proper terminology, but sadly enough, it's not. Recently, certain people, lacking sufficient motivation to change their speech patterns, have fallen victim to various 'accidents', or 'misfortune'. I've compiled a short list of happenings, some of which I have witnessed, others which remain heresay. I'm not claiming any direct connection between their speech habits and the reported incidents, but you be the judge... And woe betide any who set the cursed phrase into print!

You are forced to explain toolkit programming to X neophytes.

Bob Schiefler says, "You should know better than that!"

The Power Supply (and unknown boards) on your workstation mysteriously give up the ghost.

Ditto for the controller board for the disk on your new Sun.

Your hair falls out.

xmh refuses to come up in a useful size, no matter what you fiddle.

You inexplicitly lose both of your complete Ultrix Doc sets.

R2 won't build.

Bob Schiefler says "Type 'man X'".

Your nifty new X screen saver just won't go away.

The window you're working in loses input focus. Permanently

-Don

Someone on slashdot asks, " Why is it still called X-Windows?".

Predictably, the first reply says: "It isn't. It's called 'The X Window System.' Or simply 'X'. 'X Windows' is a misnomer."

He didn't ask why it is "X-Windows". He asked why it's called "X-Windows". You're wrong that it isn't called "X-Windows". It is! It's just that it isn't "X-Windows". Being something is independent of being called something.

The answer to the question 'Why is it still called X-Windows?' is: It's still called X-Windows in order to annoy the X-Windows Fanatics, who take it upon themselves to correct you every time you call it X-Windows. That's why it's called X-Windows.

Things That Happen When You Say 'X Windows'

THE OFFICAL NAMES

The official names of the software described herein are:

X
X Window System
X Version 11
X Window System, Version 11
X11

Note that the phrases X.11, X-11, X Windows or any permutation thereof, are explicitly excluded from this list and should not be used to describe the X Window System (window system should be thought of as one word).

The above should be enough to scare anyone into using the proper terminology, but sadly enough, it's not. Recently, certain people, lacking sufficient motivation to change their speech patterns, have fallen victim to various 'accidents', or 'misfortune'. I've compiled a short list of happenings, some of which I have witnessed, others which remain heresay. I'm not claiming any direct connection between their speech habits and the reported incidents, but you be the judge... And woe betide any who set the cursed phrase into print!

You are forced to explain toolkit programming to X neophytes.

Bob Schiefler says, "You should know better than that!"

The Power Supply (and unknown boards) on your workstation mysteriously give up the ghost.

Ditto for the controller board for the disk on your new Sun.

Your hair falls out.

xmh refuses to come up in a useful size, no matter what you fiddle.

You inexplicitly lose both of your complete Ultrix Doc sets.

R2 won't build.

Bob Schiefler says "Type 'man X'".

Your nifty new X screen saver just won't go away.

The window you're working in loses input focus. Permanently

-Don

Many times have I selected to 'copy' a text area, closed the window to reveal the window I want to paste into, then found that paste didn't work and I've lost my work.

Selecting is not copying. When you close, that highlighted selected text isn't there any more. And why in the world would you close rather than iconify?

If I 'copy' something then I expect to be able to access it upon the next paste.

Yes, but selecting is not copying.

You've got an inaccurate mental model. Dragging with Mouse 1, or double or tripple clicking, selects text. Think of it as using a highlighter. Mouse 2 copies-and-pastes, taking the highlighted text and doing something with it. Highlighting doesn't make copy.

Most modern applications (GNOME) also support an explict copy, which is held in a different place. (CLIPBOARD versus PRIMARY.) I can select text in one ap, do a Control-C copy, select other text, go to another window, middle-click to get the currently selected text, and Control-V paste to get the first text. If you want to copy your selected text then close your window, this is the means to use.

Of course not all aps support this. GNU Emacs does things a little different, for example. That's an application issue, not an X issue.

...between applications I use, including Firebird...

and it seems that the market has chosen it

Flames away, but I am still right.

Ok, responding to my own post, X already handles non-text items in the clipboard, which would presumably be available to all remote clients. The problem is that KDE/Gnome apparently do not use these facilities.

The link I found in a post below is here

But X already supports all this. The problem doesn't lie with X at all, it lies with application support for the excellent standard available. X.org cannot help that people are writing applications and toolkits that run on X yet do not do cut-n-paste properly or fully.

An important note: highlight and middleclick is not the same as copy-paste. X has a system for cut/copy/paste beyond the more often supported middleclick "dragging". And yes it supports data of every type, not just text.

The level where somebody needs to do something about cut-n-paste is not X.org, but Bruce Perens Userlinux initiative (is that still alive?) If I were in charge of Userlinux I would refuse to include any application that doesn't fully and properly support cut-n-paste.

Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

what is wrong with rewriting the code from the ground-up?

I usually find Jamie Zawinski to be an arrogant rude asshole, but occasionally our opinions overlap. In this brief rant he describes the Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers software development model, which often leads to rewriting code from the ground up. Over and over and over.

Stay out of that trap, and actually fix stuff during your rewrite, and there's nothing at all wrong with doing it over from scratch. Rewrite it just because you don't feel that modifying other people's code is sexy enough, or that your version will surely be bug-free -- because, hey, it's you -- or because "you would have done things differently," and you'll have failed.

I kinda prefer JWZ's the CADT Model.

Betamax WAS ONLY superior in visual quality...

The original Betamax was only ~60-90 (I forget) minutes of recorded programming. While they had a lead, the need to fight it out in court cut down their lead in the marketplace, and they lost first mover advantage. The second mover, VHS, provided 2 hours of recorded programming. Coincidentally, 2 hours was the average/max running of movies and movies on TV at the time.

Before the concept of time shifting TV became reality with the time-based recorder (if you have to be home to record the show, there isn't MUCH of an advantage to time shifting), VCRs were used to record movies.

That meant that the VHS was a BETTER VCR because it could actually record the movie.

By the time the extended Betamax came out that could record two movies, VHS had the upperhand in the market, and got economies of scale (which combined with the competition) lowered prices. VHS then got the ability to record up to 6 hours at crappy quality, but given the expense of the tapes, was likely popular (all our old tapes at home had to be trashed, because they were recorded at that quality that degraded to nothing... but I can't guess at actual use in the marketplace from my parents behavior).

In addition, the dirty little secret of VHS was that because it was open, all the porn was in VHS. We now see porn as an easily available vice, but at the time, you choices were go to a seedy theater or VHS. The novelty of being able to watch porn at home likely pushed VHS a bit, even if nobody talked about it. This was in an era before 3 (or even 1/2) adult channels on cable + PPV, Internet porn, etc), and if adults wanted to watch dirty movies in the privacy of their own home, VHS was the only game in town.

However, the REAL reason for VHS's early dominance was the 2 hour recording limit.

While modern TV displays are high quality (especially 1080i/720p HDTV-ready sets), the TVs at the time were MUCH lower quality. The visual difference between VHS and Betamax when actually viewed on a television isn't the night-and-day difference that people make it out to be when using it as an arguement for worse is better.

Facts on the urban legend surrounding Betamax, including Sony's alledged refusal to license betamax.

Alex

You missed the point. It's all integrated, and "easy to use". What you just listed are completely un-integrated, discrete projects. So, to quote jwz, "Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing". Sure, I could spend a ton of time learning to do each of those things for myself, or I could just buy a box that already does it for me.

That said, the price is way too high, and I'm betting it's not quite as easy to use or configure as they think it is. However, if they made it truly easy to configure and use, and brought the price to more like $5000 (you're paying for software and customization here), then they might have something - I could certainly see the Sharper Image types digging this. Plus, it would probably have the effect of spurring guys from projects like the ones you listed to make their stuff easier to configure and use, and would also likely result in a FreePluto project... bwahahahaha...

To this day I would still like a screen saver with entertaining local headlines and weather -

I usually just pipe the output of a script to phosphor.

The script fetches news from various sources and just keeps scrolling them by, properly formatted for a human to pick up this or that "at a glance".

If you find something that lets me use a http-url for a screensaver (with autorefresh and maybe some eyecandy), I'd be interested.

But then again, how often do you sit down to watch your screensaver? [insert abolished 2003ish smiley here]

http://www.jwz.org/tent-of-doom/

http://www.jwz.org/tent-of-doom/

The Tent of Doom

There was the "Tent of Doom" at Netscape for example, which was waaay cool.

See subject; :) Other than that, I think JWZ made himself a cubicle tent once. Netscape made him take it down as I recall. I'd love to see more examples of clear fire hazards, so if anyone has any more keep posting.