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Here at UNC Chapel Hill, incoming freshmen required (or so they trick you into thinking) to buy laptops through the school (Carolina Computing Initiative). Price is kind of cheap, but the warrenty, repair, and insurance provided is pretty decent. The software provided is everything a basic student needs (check the CCI site as well as the downloads). I signed up for introduction to computer programming my freshman year, and everyone got a copy of Visual J++ 6.0. Office XP is $10 bucks through student stores.

Along with this and the increasing amount of freeware out there, who really needs anything else? You've got your instant messenger, you've got your winamp, you've got your snood...90% of college kids are set for 4 (or 5) years without ever needing any type of upgrade! That way we can spend money on our DVDs and blank CDs (which is of course offered standard with the most purchased model through CCI). That just leaves piracy to mp3s, which only hurts the RIAA because of their stance on the matter...don't get me started on this one, I could go extremely off topic :oP

Here at UNC Chapel Hill, incoming freshmen required (or so they trick you into thinking) to buy laptops through the school (Carolina Computing Initiative). Price is kind of cheap, but the warrenty, repair, and insurance provided is pretty decent. The software provided is everything a basic student needs (check the CCI site as well as the downloads). I signed up for introduction to computer programming my freshman year, and everyone got a copy of Visual J++ 6.0. Office XP is $10 bucks through student stores.

Along with this and the increasing amount of freeware out there, who really needs anything else? You've got your instant messenger, you've got your winamp, you've got your snood...90% of college kids are set for 4 (or 5) years without ever needing any type of upgrade! That way we can spend money on our DVDs and blank CDs (which is of course offered standard with the most purchased model through CCI). That just leaves piracy to mp3s, which only hurts the RIAA because of their stance on the matter...don't get me started on this one, I could go extremely off topic :oP

Actually, they should be ashamed to sell that as suitable for heavy duty. This is freaking 2002, not 1992. An UltraSparc III has 8 MB of L2 cache. A MIPS R12000 has (or can have) the same amount. IBM Power4s have similar amounts. (USIII has 32K instruction and 64K data L1 cache, and R12k has 32K of L1, for the sake of comparison.)

I admit I don't have any hard data to back this up, but it's my suspicion that it's in large part the large L2 cache that causes Sparcs to thrash Intels at some tasks. There's a good page on some processor design considerations at SETI@UNC.

what about all the coin-ops that had force feedback in the 80's

Sega's Out Run had force feedback in 1986. More importantly, there seems to be a paper by a J. Batter from IFIP 1971 called "GROPE-I: A computer display to the sense of feel." It is referenced on a UNC force feedback research page as well as by a 1985 SIGGRAPH article (paid ACM membership required). This is all well before the Feb., 1990 filing date of Immersion's earliest relevant patent.

The irony is that if J. Batter had filed a patent in 1971, it would have expired before Immersion's patent was filed!

• Obscene speech, which must be patently offensive under contemporary community standards, appeal to prurient interests, and lack serious redeeming value. Child pornography falls under this category. This decision is always a judgement call. Merely indecent speech is protected: unless and until it crosses over into obscenity, you're free to do as you will.
  
• Speech that creates a clear and present danger to the public interest, whether it immediately endangers public safety (e.g. shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater), incites immediate illegal action ("That lousy no-good so-and-so! Let's go burn his house down!"), poses a serious threat to the government (i.e. not just rhetoric), or threatens the President or his family. There is a fine line here: you are allowed to advocate a (potentially) illegal act, but not incite people to perform it.
  
• Fighting words, namely denigrating speech likely to cause the average person to fight back or retaliate right then.
  
• Speech that defames -- slander and libel go here.
  
• False or deceptive advertising is not protected speech.
  

1. The restriction serves a compelling government or public interest,
   
2. There is no less obtrusive means available, and
   
3. The restriction is not "unconstitutionally vague" -- your average Joe should be able to decide whether or not it applies in a given case.
   

The Linux operating system was born in 1991 and was created by one man, a
Finnish student coincidentally named Linux Torvalds. Since these humble
beginnings, a multi-million dollar
industry has sprung up to exploit the commercial potential of Linux, but
until recently Linux has eluded mainstream acceptance. However, due to the
recent economic downturn together with uncertainty over changes to Microsoft's pricing policy, Linux is
now being touted as a serious contender to Microsoft Windows. While there
are many other alternatives to Windows, including BSD which is based on SUN's (Stanford University Network - correction by bc) server-grade Solaris operating system,
none have commanded the same level of media attention as Linux.

Linux Mandrake is just the
latest in a long line of quirkily christened versions of Linux. Previous
versions of Linux have been named Red Hat, Slack Ware,
Storm and Coral. In stark contrast to the mundane names such
as 98, ME or NT preferred by Microsoft, the crazy
names of each Linux release hint at its renegade nature.

My foray into the world of Linux began by downloading a "CD image" from
the Linux web site. But don't worry, this isn't software piracy, it's
perfectly legal! Linux is shareware, meaning that it can be freely
redistributed without fear of a visit by the Business Software Alliance. The free
availability of Linux is a major reason for its popularity among
cash-strapped students and self-styled anti-capitalist hackers.

Before installing new software, it is always advisable to read the
documentation. Unfortunately, an unpleasant surprise was in store for me
in the "required configuration" section of the manual.
I was shocked to learn that Linux Mandrake only runs on Pentium
processors, meaning that my hopes of testing the water with my old Gateway 486 were dashed. Furthermore, a
whopping 32 megabytes of memory are required to run Linux! Although the advocates of Linux self-righteously
boast the efficiency of their chosen operating system and deride the
"bloatware" produced by Microsoft, it appears that their claims are
blatantly incorrect. Although my humble 486 will happily run Windows 95,
it seems that Linux requires far more powerful, and more expensive,
computer hardware. Is this really the sign of a lean, mean operating system?
Of course not.

Sadly, not even being able to install Linux is just the first of my many
complaints. A brief perusal of the
features of Linux Mandrake reveals that Linux is sorely lacking many
crucial productivity applications. For example, why isn't the industry
standard web browser, Internet Explorer, included with Linux? Despite the
best efforts of the experts at the Internet
Engineering Task Force to encourage adoption of the Internet Explorer
standard, the creators of Linux seem to think that they know better. By
refusing to adhere to recognised standards, Linux is simply undermining
its own credibility.

Similarly, almost all of the world's most popular and widely used software
is completely incompatible with Linux! It may surprise you to learn that
your copy of Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, or Lotus Notes will not
work under Linux. Those who wish to use their computer for recreational
purposes are also out of luck, for almost all of the most popular games
are unavailable for Linux. Although a wide range of software is freely
available for Linux, these pitiful offerings are mostly unfinished, unreliable and do not
bear comparison to their commercial counterparts.

Computer security is also an area that seems to have been overlooked by
the developers of Linux. In these times when hacking and viruses are
commonplace, it defies belief to learn that no anti-virus software is available for
Linux. To add insult to injury, there is no Linux version of the popular
ZoneAlarm firewall. By using Linux,
you are issuing an open invitation to the hordes of ne'er-do-wells on the
Internet.

The shortcomings of Linux are obvious. Without even installing Linux
Mandrake, I have exposed several fundamental flaws. Surely it is not too
much to expect that, after ten years of development, the creators of Linux
would have addressed these problems? The real question that the
prospective Linux user must ask himself is, "Why bother?" After all,
Microsoft Windows comes free with most PCs and there simply isn't a need
to replace it, particularly not with a product of inferior quality.

Although it is always tempting to support the underdog, Windows XP will
be the deserved victor in the battle ahead. I recommend that those
Adequacy readers who are hoping to upgrade their operating system
patiently wait for the release of Windows XP, rather than foolishly
wasting their time, effort and money on Linux.

They have something like this. It's called public domain and all copyrighted works end up free (well, really, with no owner to restrict their use) after a certain amout of time. Unfortunately, in the case of software owned by a corporation, it takes 95 - 120 years! I think it'd be cool if some software, say anything that retails for That should help out some less prosperous countries. But that's a pretty liberal position. I say screw em. Make em pay!

The Linux operating system was born in 1991 and was created by one man, a
Finnish student coincidentally named Linux Torvalds. Since these humble
beginnings, a multi-million dollar
industry has sprung up to exploit the commercial potential of Linux, but
until recently Linux has eluded mainstream acceptance. However, due to the
recent economic downturn together with uncertainty over changes to Microsoft's pricing policy, Linux is
now being touted as a serious contender to Microsoft Windows. While there
are many other alternatives to Windows, including BSD which is based on SUN's (Stanford University Network - correction by bc) server-grade Solaris operating system,
none have commanded the same level of media attention as Linux.

Linux Mandrake is just the
latest in a long line of quirkily christened versions of Linux. Previous
versions of Linux have been named Red Hat, Slack Ware,
Storm and Coral. In stark contrast to the mundane names such
as 98, ME or NT preferred by Microsoft, the crazy
names of each Linux release hint at its renegade nature.

My foray into the world of Linux began by downloading a "CD image" from
the Linux web site. But don't worry, this isn't software piracy, it's
perfectly legal! Linux is shareware, meaning that it can be freely
redistributed without fear of a visit by the Business Software Alliance. The free
availability of Linux is a major reason for its popularity among
cash-strapped students and self-styled anti-capitalist hackers.

Before installing new software, it is always advisable to read the
documentation. Unfortunately, an unpleasant surprise was in store for me
in the "required configuration" section of the manual.
I was shocked to learn that Linux Mandrake only runs on Pentium
processors, meaning that my hopes of testing the water with my old Gateway 486 were dashed. Furthermore, a
whopping 32 megabytes of memory are required to run Linux! Although the advocates of Linux self-righteously
boast the efficiency of their chosen operating system and deride the
"bloatware" produced by Microsoft, it appears that their claims are
blatantly incorrect. Although my humble 486 will happily run Windows 95,
it seems that Linux requires far more powerful, and more expensive,
computer hardware. Is this really the sign of a lean, mean operating system?
Of course not.

Sadly, not even being able to install Linux is just the first of my many
complaints. A brief perusal of the
features of Linux Mandrake reveals that Linux is sorely lacking many
crucial productivity applications. For example, why isn't the industry
standard web browser, Internet Explorer, included with Linux? Despite the
best efforts of the experts at the Internet
Engineering Task Force to encourage adoption of the Internet Explorer
standard, the creators of Linux seem to think that they know better. By
refusing to adhere to recognised standards, Linux is simply undermining
its own credibility.

Similarly, almost all of the world's most popular and widely used software
is completely incompatible with Linux! It may surprise you to learn that
your copy of Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, or Lotus Notes will not
work under Linux. Those who wish to use their computer for recreational
purposes are also out of luck, for almost all of the most popular games
are unavailable for Linux. Although a wide range of software is freely
available for Linux, these pitiful offerings are mostly unfinished, unreliable and do not
bear comparison to their commercial counterparts.

Computer security is also an area that seems to have been overlooked by
the developers of Linux. In these times when hacking and viruses are
commonplace, it defies belief to learn that no anti-virus software is available for
Linux. To add insult to injury, there is no Linux version of the popular
ZoneAlarm firewall. By using Linux,
you are issuing an open invitation to the hordes of ne'er-do-wells on the
Internet.

The shortcomings of Linux are obvious. Without even installing Linux
Mandrake, I have exposed several fundamental flaws. Surely it is not too
much to expect that, after ten years of development, the creators of Linux
would have addressed these problems? The real question that the
prospective Linux user must ask himself is, "Why bother?" After all,
Microsoft Windows comes free with most PCs and there simply isn't a need
to replace it, particularly not with a product of inferior quality.

Although it is always tempting to support the underdog, Windows XP will
be the deserved victor in the battle ahead. I recommend that those
Adequacy readers who are hoping to upgrade their operating system
patiently wait for the release of Windows XP, rather than foolishly
wasting their time, effort and money on Linux.

Well I did some digging, and found that in the long run, as in 10-15 YEARS you are correct.

Initially, however, a CS PhD will make less than a Master's. This is most likely specific to CS, though.

Thanks for playing.

Efficient programming tools.

Go back and read Fred Brooks' excellent book, The Mythical Man-Month (original copyright, 1975, 20th anniversary edition in 1995), and specifically chapter 16, "No Silver-Bullet -- Essence and Accident in Software Engineering". If you come across the 20th anniversary edition, also check out chapter 17, "No Silver Bullet" Refired, and the following chapter that discusses which of Brooks' predictions did, didn't, and were/are waiting to come to pass. Chapter 16 is captioned, succinctly,

There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicitly.

Even though that was written decades ago now, it's every bit as true now as it was then. There are no programming breakthroughs on the horizon. Four programmers never will be able to write a better Photoshop in four months, because Adobe has been pouring dozens or hundreds of very smart programmers on the problem for years now, and they've had access to the very best development tools and methodologies available.

As one very smart and very skilled Perl hacker I know mentioned recently, he *hates* Perl and he *hates* programming, not because Perl is such a bad language -- he doesn't seem to think that it is -- but that even a cleverly idiomatic, high level language like that can't do anything to make the everyday logical issues in programming go away. All it can do is, as much as possible, minimize the burden of having to juggle syntax, implementation details, and high & low level logical issues all at the same time.

No software development breakthrough has been able to eliminate those problems. Not high level languages, not object-oriented tools & methodologies, not artificial intelligence or expert systems or graphical / icon based programming or fancy debuggers or advanced IDEs or more powerful hardware. None of it has made the essential, intractable problems go away, though most of them have made the ancilliary issues less problematic. As Brooks puts it (emphasis his):

I believe the hard part of building software to be the specification, design, and testing of this conceptual construct, not the labor of representing it and testing the fidelity of the representation. We still make syntax errors, to be sure; but they are fuzz compares to the conceptual errors in most systems.

If this is true, building software will always be hard. There is inherently no silver bullet.

And that about sums it up. You might as well focus on the hardware advances, because Moore's Law is still making it proceed at an incredible clip. But software? It isn't growing any faster than any other human endeavour, which is to say, it's moving slowly and it always will. It's not the software's fault that the hardware is making it look pokey, so please don't ask any more of it [in terms of methodology or technique] than the last fifty years of experience have been demonstrate. Clearly, we're moving ahead as fast as we can, and that means slowly...

Your small collection of HTML files???

To be honest, it doesn't look like a very big task apart from the actual english->SomethingElse step. Cliff's comments are correct - but not relevent to what I see on your site. Step 1 is obviously a little note on your homepage asking for volunteers to do the translating.
I'm sure for a few $$$ you could persuade some language students at the local college to help.

I've been involved with the translation of an HTML based application - commericially and for an international company, so the translation bit was easy - and HTML is a pain to deal with.
It was hard for the translators to distinguish between things that should be translated and things that shouldn't be because the content, the formatting and the scripting is so intertwined. The scripting problems were eased by going the traditional route of splitting localisable strings into a separate file and loading controls dynamically at run time. The solution to the rest was good QA.

The Linux operating system was born in 1991 and was created by one man, a Finnish student coincidentally named Linux Torvalds. Since these humble beginnings, a multi-million dollar industry has sprung up to exploit the commercial potential of Linux, but until recently Linux has eluded mainstream acceptance. However, due to the recent economic downturn together with uncertainty over changes to Microsoft's pricing policy, Linux is now being touted as a serious contender to Microsoft Windows. While there are many other alternatives to Windows, including BSD which is based on SUN's (Stanford University Network - correction by bc) server-grade Solaris operating system, none have commanded the same level of media attention as Linux.

Linux Mandrake is just the latest in a long line of quirkily christened versions of Linux. Previous versions of Linux have been named Red Hat, Slack Ware, Storm and Coral. In stark contrast to the mundane names such as 98, ME or NT preferred by Microsoft, the crazy names of each Linux release hint at its renegade nature.

My foray into the world of Linux began by downloading a "CD image" from the Linux web site. But don't worry, this isn't software piracy, it's perfectly legal! Linux is shareware, meaning that it can be freely redistributed without fear of a visit by the Business Software Alliance. The free availability of Linux is a major reason for its popularity among cash-strapped students and self-styled anti-capitalist hackers.

Before installing new software, it is always advisable to read the documentation. Unfortunately, an unpleasant surprise was in store for me in the "required configuration" section of the manual. I was shocked to learn that Linux Mandrake only runs on Pentium processors, meaning that my hopes of testing the water with my old Gateway 486 were dashed. Furthermore, a whopping 32 megabytes of memory are required to run Linux! Although the advocates of Linux self-righteously boast the efficiency of their chosen operating system and deride the "bloatware" produced by Microsoft, it appears that their claims are blatantly incorrect. Although my humble 486 will happily run Windows 95, it seems that Linux requires far more powerful, and more expensive, computer hardware. Is this really the sign of a lean, mean operating system? Of course not.

Sadly, not even being able to install Linux is just the first of my many complaints. A brief perusal of the features of Linux Mandrake reveals that Linux is sorely lacking many crucial productivity applications. For example, why isn't the industry standard web browser, Internet Explorer, included with Linux? Despite the best efforts of the experts at the Internet Engineering Task Force to encourage adoption of the Internet Explorer standard, the creators of Linux seem to think that they know better. By refusing to adhere to recognised standards, Linux is simply undermining its own credibility.

Similarly, almost all of the world's most popular and widely used software is completely incompatible with Linux! It may surprise you to learn that your copy of Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, or Lotus Notes will not work under Linux. Those who wish to use their computer for recreational purposes are also out of luck, for almost all of the most popular games are unavailable for Linux. Although a wide range of software is freely available for Linux, these pitiful offerings are mostly unfinished, unreliable and do not bear comparison to their commercial counterparts.

Computer security is also an area that seems to have been overlooked by the developers of Linux. In these times when hacking and viruses are commonplace, it defies belief to learn that no anti-virus software is available for Linux. To add insult to injury, there is no Linux version of the popular ZoneAlarm firewall. By using Linux, you are issuing an open invitation to the hordes of ne'er-do-wells on the Internet.

The shortcomings of Linux are obvious. Without even installing Linux Mandrake, I have exposed several fundamental flaws. Surely it is not too much to expect that, after ten years of development, the creators of Linux would have addressed these problems? The real question that the prospective Linux user must ask himself is, "Why bother?" After all, Microsoft Windows comes free with most PCs and there simply isn't a need to replace it, particularly not with a product of inferior quality.

Although it is always tempting to support the underdog, Windows XP will be the deserved victor in the battle ahead. I recommend that those Adequacy readers who are hoping to upgrade their operating system patiently wait for the release of Windows XP, rather than foolishly wasting their time, effort and money on Linux.

For names of large numbers, see http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/large.html.

Go here: Names for Large Numbers.

You will find that "undecillion" is not in fact made up, nor are likely most of the terms you've seen used by cryptographers. "Zillion" however is a nonsense word. 10^15 is a quadrillion (in the American system). According to the above page it might be a thousand billion or billiard in continental Europe, or a million billion in Britain (especially by the Times of London--more likely they would avoid a specific term).

The most noted (and specific, unlike "zillion") made up terms are gogol and gogolplex.

There's more info about the beta test of the toolbar voting buttons here. It looks like it's open to the public to try out.

You don't have to think too hard about the analogy between links and votes to see that Google could make good use of this info. People try to abuse links, but Google pulls lots of useful info out with PageRank. It's pretty easy to imagine a "VoteRank" that says how predictive of good pages a voter is. They could also do plenty of killer stuff to learn user preferences..

To all these claims: These are things I heard someplace. I did not research any of these, so don't take these as fact.

It is claimed that the 1929 movie "Woman in the Moon" invented the launch count-down.

Star Trek PADD and today's PDAs. (I believe that the Newton actually has been designed with the show's device in mind.

IIRC, pressurized, needle-free vaccination devices have been designed after watching McCoy doing medical treatment on Trek. After a short web search, one of them appears to be the Gene Gun described here.

The Linux operating system was born in 1991 and was created by one man, a
Finnish student coincidentally named Linux Torvalds. Since these humble
beginnings, a multi-million dollar
industry has sprung up to exploit the commercial potential of Linux, but
until recently Linux has eluded mainstream acceptance. However, due to the
recent economic downturn together with uncertainty over changes to Microsoft's pricing policy, Linux is
now being touted as a serious contender to Microsoft Windows. While there
are many other alternatives to Windows, including BSD which is based on SUN's (Stanford University Network - correction by bc) server-grade Solaris operating system,
none have commanded the same level of media attention as Linux.

Linux Mandrake is just the
latest in a long line of quirkily christened versions of Linux. Previous
versions of Linux have been named Red Hat, Slack Ware,
Storm and Coral. In stark contrast to the mundane names such
as 98, ME or NT preferred by Microsoft, the crazy
names of each Linux release hint at its renegade nature.

My foray into the world of Linux began by downloading a "CD image" from
the Linux web site. But don't worry, this isn't software piracy, it's
perfectly legal! Linux is shareware, meaning that it can be freely
redistributed without fear of a visit by the Business Software Alliance. The free
availability of Linux is a major reason for its popularity among
cash-strapped students and self-styled anti-capitalist hackers.

Before installing new software, it is always advisable to read the
documentation. Unfortunately, an unpleasant surprise was in store for me
in the "required configuration" section of the manual.
I was shocked to learn that Linux Mandrake only runs on Pentium
processors, meaning that my hopes of testing the water with my old Gateway 486 were dashed. Furthermore, a
whopping 32 megabytes of memory are required to run Linux! Although the advocates of Linux self-righteously
boast the efficiency of their chosen operating system and deride the
"bloatware" produced by Microsoft, it appears that their claims are
blatantly incorrect. Although my humble 486 will happily run Windows 95,
it seems that Linux requires far more powerful, and more expensive,
computer hardware. Is this really the sign of a lean, mean operating system?
Of course not.

Sadly, not even being able to install Linux is just the first of my many
complaints. A brief perusal of the
features of Linux Mandrake reveals that Linux is sorely lacking many
crucial productivity applications. For example, why isn't the industry
standard web browser, Internet Explorer, included with Linux? Despite the
best efforts of the experts at the Internet
Engineering Task Force to encourage adoption of the Internet Explorer
standard, the creators of Linux seem to think that they know better. By
refusing to adhere to recognised standards, Linux is simply undermining
its own credibility.

Similarly, almost all of the world's most popular and widely used software
is completely incompatible with Linux! It may surprise you to learn that
your copy of Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, or Lotus Notes will not
work under Linux. Those who wish to use their computer for recreational
purposes are also out of luck, for almost all of the most popular games
are unavailable for Linux. Although a wide range of software is freely
available for Linux, these pitiful offerings are mostly unfinished, unreliable and do not
bear comparison to their commercial counterparts.

Computer security is also an area that seems to have been overlooked by
the developers of Linux. In these times when hacking and viruses are
commonplace, it defies belief to learn that no anti-virus software is available for
Linux. To add insult to injury, there is no Linux version of the popular
ZoneAlarm firewall. By using Linux,
you are issuing an open invitation to the hordes of ne'er-do-wells on the
Internet.

The shortcomings of Linux are obvious. Without even installing Linux
Mandrake, I have exposed several fundamental flaws. Surely it is not too
much to expect that, after ten years of development, the creators of Linux
would have addressed these problems? The real question that the
prospective Linux user must ask himself is, "Why bother?" After all,
Microsoft Windows comes free with most PCs and there simply isn't a need
to replace it, particularly not with a product of inferior quality.

Although it is always tempting to support the underdog, Windows XP will
be the deserved victor in the battle ahead. I recommend that those
Adequacy readers who are hoping to upgrade their operating system
patiently wait for the release of Windows XP, rather than foolishly
wasting their time, effort and money on Linux.

I made a parody, visit here to see (it probably won't be up too long...). Finally, you can also get the code in the directory mentioned above, if you are having trouble finding a mirror. Retrieve yesiwill-1.0.tar.gz

• Greg

I made a parody, visit here to see (it probably won't be up too long...). Finally, you can also get the code in the directory mentioned above, if you are having trouble finding a mirror. Retrieve yesiwill-1.0.tar.gz

• Greg

I made a parody, visit here to see (it probably won't be up too long...). Finally, you can also get the code in the directory mentioned above, if you are having trouble finding a mirror. Retrieve yesiwill-1.0.tar.gz

• Greg

make sure you do *daily* builds on each target platform from day 1 of implementation.

I can't agree with this more. The one big source project I've been involved with was a year and a half long migration of a live MVS system to a mass storage archive on a ConvexOS UNIX system while both systems stayed up and in production. I was coding day and night, and the "at night" part included making the ConvexOS side work on my Amiga. (Picture for a moment putting 800,000+ files in 800Gb on an Amiga 3000. We obviously didn't do it, but not because the code wasn't willing!)

The ConvexOS and Amiga systems were different enough to make clear the distinction between those things that were part of the problem vs. those that were implementation issues on a given platform. By forcing me to keep the issues separate, we ended up with a much better product.

As our migration project was winding down, we took it to another university to help them with their MVS to UNIX migration. Their target UNIX platform was much more "normal" than ours, but the platform eccentricities were already abstracted out, and the port went very smoothly, largely because I developed the non-MVS side of the software on multiple platforms from day one. (Actually from about day 85, but day one would have been better.)

(Info about our MVS to UNIX migration is available at here.)

Linux Mandrake is just the latest in a long line of quirkily christened versions of Linux. Previous versions of Linux have been named Red Hat, Slack Ware, Storm and Coral. In stark contrast to the mundane names such as 98, ME or NT preferred by Microsoft, the crazy names of each Linux release hint at its renegade nature.

My foray into the world of Linux began by downloading a "CD image" from the Linux web site. But don't worry, this isn't software piracy, it's perfectly legal! Linux is shareware, meaning that it can be freely redistributed without fear of a visit by the Business Software Alliance. The free availability of Linux is a major reason for its popularity among cash-strapped students and self-styled anti-capitalist hackers.

Before installing new software, it is always advisable to read the documentation. Unfortunately, an unpleasant surprise was in store for me in the "required configuration" section of the manual. I was shocked to learn that Linux Mandrake only runs on Pentium processors, meaning that my hopes of testing the water with my old Gateway 486 were dashed. Furthermore, a whopping 32 megabytes of memory are required to run Linux! Although the advocates of Linux self-righteously boast the efficiency of their chosen operating system and deride the "bloatware" produced by Microsoft, it appears that their claims are blatantly incorrect. Although my humble 486 will happily run Windows 95, it seems that Linux requires far more powerful, and more expensive, computer hardware. Is this really the sign of a lean, mean operating system? Of course not.

Sadly, not even being able to install Linux is just the first of my many complaints. A brief perusal of the features of Linux Mandrake reveals that Linux is sorely lacking many crucial productivity applications. For example, why isn't the industry standard web browser, Internet Explorer, included with Linux? Despite the best efforts of the experts at the Internet Engineering Task Force to encourage adoption of the Internet Explorer standard, the creators of Linux seem to think that they know better. By refusing to adhere to recognised standards, Linux is simply undermining its own credibility.

Similarly, almost all of the world's most popular and widely used software is completely incompatible with Linux! It may surprise you to learn that your copy of Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, or Lotus Notes will not work under Linux. Those who wish to use their computer for recreational purposes are also out of luck, for almost all of the most popular games are unavailable for Linux. Although a wide range of software is freely available for Linux, these pitiful offerings are mostly unfinished, unreliable and do not bear comparison to their commercial counterparts.

Computer security is also an area that seems to have been overlooked by the developers of Linux. In these times when hacking and viruses are commonplace, it defies belief to learn that no anti-virus software is available for Linux. To add insult to injury, there is no Linux version of the popular ZoneAlarm firewall. By using Linux, you are issuing an open invitation to the hordes of ne'er-do-wells on the Internet.

The shortcomings of Linux are obvious. Without even installing Linux Mandrake, I have exposed several fundamental flaws. Surely it is not too much to expect that, after ten years of development, the creators of Linux would have addressed these problems? The real question that the prospective Linux user must ask himself is, "Why bother?" After all, Microsoft Windows comes free with most PCs and there simply isn't a need to replace it, particularly not with a product of inferior quality.

Although it is always tempting to support the underdog, Windows XP will be the deserved victor in the battle ahead. I recommend that those Adequacy readers who are hoping to upgrade their operating system patiently wait for the release of Windows XP, rather than foolishly wasting their time, effort and money on Linux.

Many moons ago, when I was a grad student at UNC we had some demos with a treadmill and with an exercise bike. You'd use the treadmill to walk around the build. For the bike you'd pedal around a simple terrain.

I remember seeing an old guy (maybe 75 years old) trying to walk around on the treadmill. I swear that he was going to have a heart attack.

I'm always amazed that given all the VR demos we did, I never saw anyone lose their lunch. People would get dizzy, but no one actually blew chunks.

dave

Productivity: A Personal Choice

Chief Programmer Teams

Intermittent Aberrations: Can Mature Companies Innovate?

How to Defend an Unpopular Schedule

Description: A few very small standard utilities. Assembler versions of some of them are included for i386/Linux (both a.out and ELF), Sparc/Solaris2 and Sparc/SunOS4. Portable C versions of all the utilities are are also included. You need these utilities, and there is no excuse for not having the hyper-efficient (and small!) binaries that result from use of assembler.

Interesting concept. Linux's standard utilities are unnecessarily bloated, replacing them with smallutils allows a respectable distribution to fit on a 1.44MB floppy. According to the documentation, these utilities are included:

• false
• link
• pwd
• sln
• sync
• true
• uname
• unlink

So, I've put emacs-21.1.tar.gz and leim-21.1.tar.gz for a temporary mirror. Visit:

• http://ils.unc.edu/gbnewby/gnu (reasonable server on an Internet2 net connection)

If you make a temporary mirror, perhaps you could respond to this post. ... Greg

Here are some interesting charts showing how war and technology are blood brothers. As technology advances, we increase our ability to kill more people, at a faster rate.

Indeed, this idea applies even to non-war machines and technology that is not directly tied to war. For example, with the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks, the killing was made possible using a regular old plane. However, the plane is a technology exemplar. The plane, in many ways, defines so much technology. The commercial planes were not meant for war or killing, yet they did kill many people.

As technology increases, we will see more death. However, the death will come from humans using and abusing technology. That is always the way it has been. Humans kill other humans. Technology just helps.

I find the idea of a "well-rounded" education to be a shot in the dark at something that most students won't pursue at most liberal arts colleges because they/we simply aren't motivated enough. The best "well-rounded" education is something that takes cultivation, dedication, and a bit of stubborness. For instance, here at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- just like at many other universities -- the courses that challenge me to think less-egocentrically and infuse in me a desire to change my/others' [warped] perceptions of our lifestyles (recycling, hello?) by offering more efficient alternatives are the ones that contribute to a "well-rounded" education.

However, lacking specialization can be detrimental as well. I'm just as guilty as any student of believing in the infinite superiority of his particular area(s) of study -- I also realize that the capacity to learn is something that one cultivates from a young age.

Trent Gardner did a wonderful exposition on Leonardo da Vinci's life -- there is a man whose thinking is truly well-rounded.

Austria
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrake/iso/ (Vienna)
Canada
http://sunsite.ualberta.ca/pub/Mirror/Linux/mandra ke/mandrake-8.0/iso/ (Alberta)
Czech Republic
ftp://klobouk.fsv.cvut.cz/pub/linux-mandrake/Mandr ake/iso/ (Prague)
ftp://mandrake.redbox.cz/Mandrake/iso/
France
ftp://chronos.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/pub/linux/dist ributions/Mandrake/iso/(Belfort)
ftp://ftp.club-internet.fr/pub/unix/linux/distribu tions/Mandrake/iso/ (Paris)
ftp://ftp.uvsq.fr/pub/mandrake/mandrake/iso/ (Versailles) Germany
ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/mandrake/iso/ (Chemnitz) Spain ftp://ftp.cica.es/pub/Linux/Mandrake/iso/ (Sevilla) United Kingdom
ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/un ix/Linux/Mandrake/iso/ (Canterbury) United States
ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/iso/ (Georgia)
ftp://ftp.stealth.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.mandrake.com /Mandrake/iso/
ftp://jungle.metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributio ns/mandrake/Mandrake/iso/ (North Carolina)

I have to seriously object to the knee-jerk reaction that the story's submitter seems to be suffering from. This isn't censorship in the classroom. It's not as if these schools are imposing some draconian system of keeping information out of the hands of their students--they just want them to pay attention in class.

The system in place is one that I've actually used as a teaching assistant at UNC. We have, as do many universities, a huge problem with students simply not paying attention in class. The classes I taught were multimedia development, so every student was sitting in front of a computer. You could gurantee that everytime the lights went down for instruction, the email terminals came up. I never actually had a professor use the screen capture, but the fact that it exists doesn't bother me at all.

The reality is, these kinds of measures are not censorous. Institutions of higher learning have been and will continue to be places where freedom on the Internet will be vitally important. When this freedom begins to be limited at schools, we're in serious trouble.

And here is the URL for the research: http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/force/

If you want a ~$600 DVD recorder, you already have a couple of other choices.

At $629 on PriceWatch, the Pioneer DVR-A03 that a number of posters have already mentioned writes DVD-R at 2X, DVD-RW at 1X, as well as CD-R and CD-RW.

At $535 on PriceWatch, the Panasonic LF-D311 writes DVD-R at 1X and DVD-RAM (1X for 2.6GB, 2X for 4.7GB), as well as reading the usual CD formats, but apparently not writing any CD format whatsoever.

Currently, to the best of my knowledge, the only Linux software that can drive DVD writes is proprietary (sorry, there really is no good link for it). I am not sure whether complete information on how to drive these DVD writes is given in the SCSI-3 standards on www.t10.org or whether some additional information is needed. Any pointers to this information would be appreciated, as I might get ambitious one of these days and try to hack cdrecord or cdwrite to control these drives if nobody beats me to it.

According to this, the ideal average number of non-neutral mutations per "breeding" is just under one. This is due to the fact that perhaps 99.9% of mutations are harmful, so the population will degenerate if there is more than this; but, having too much less than that, and the population will fall behind in adapting to change. So, every time you breed a plant (typically once or more per growing season), you tend to change one gene in that plant - probably for the worse.

With genetic engineering, however, you average one or two genes per change - about two breedings of a normal plant. But, these "breedings" have much, much higher odds of being beneficial. The plant is then treated as a normal "selective breeding" plant, in that it has to meet the standards of "outperforming all other similar plants". The same criterea are applied to it as are applied to non-GE plants to see if its better - health risks, disease-resistance, yield, taste (if applicable), etc. It has to exceed them, notably, or noone will buy it. It falls under the same "desirability" criteria that most plants do - however, it didn't require the massive numbers of iterative breedings to get the specific desired major beneficial mutation.

Regardless, all we're dealing with here, at the core, is "change". The genetics are changing. Not incredibly rapidly. As a general rule, a genetic modification does one thing: adds a new protien to a plant. Sure, the new protien will interact with other protiens, etc, and there will be some unpredictability - but it will be *far*, *far* more predictable than a random new protien.

- Rei

P.S. - that was a much better argued post than the last person who replied - I actually had to look up mutation rates for this one ;)

That would totally screw up the stats

Not really a bother, I highly doubt they're calculating speed from two samples alone. They'll definitely be running the samples through some sort of filter (1 2 3 etc) to smooth the noise and eliminate 'outliers'. Moreover, they'll probably be also looking at average distance travelled over some time, e.g. it would be very easy to see that you drove, say, 5 miles on some particular stretch of highway in 4 minutes and 22 seconds, which means you drove on average 68 MPH for that stretch. Hardly rocket science.

I note that one of my colleagues, whose grad-school software is more widely used, has kept the copyright to himself and licensed his code unter LGPL. (The project is GLUI, a portable UI toolkit for OpenGL programs. Google keyword: GLUI. Hi Paul.)

• Get to know the night staff - I eat my lunch at about the time the janitors finish, so I usually sit around with them and talk for a while. I've heard some amazing stories
  
• Read manuals - check the tops of racks of equipment that outside people (like EMC) maintain. Sometimes they'll leave the manuals there.
  
• Read documentation - SGI and Apple have lots of cool reading, not to mention Other Places.
  
• Write throwaway code - They may own it, so just try things out. See how fast you can get a parallel matrix multiply to go when you spread it over all 16 or so of the processors of a nice beefy box.
  
• Automate things - write scripts to make life easier for everyone, and give yourself even more free time to worry about!
  
• Read good books - I've been catching up on my reading backlog.
  
• Check HR's web page to double check your benefits - I found a nice discount on books from fatbrain that I had missed.
  
• See if the zone where managers sit has better toilet paper in the bathrooms.
  

"Easy". Check out the first paper on this page. It's from SIGGRAPH 2000, where it rocked my world. ;^) It describes how OpenGL, with two (fairly simple, although not supported by today's[*] hardware) extensions, can be used to execute RenderMan shaders.

When I looked at "Relativity" by Escher, I thought that it would be bizarre if you modeled that scene as a quake map. It's actually possible, and I think that it's interesting, if not useful or fun for deathmatches :-) .

There is a different Escher picture that is interesting to compare with the screenshot in the link: up and down.
It's not excacty the same type of distortion. Actually, I'm quite suprised Escher never used that particular type of distortion, I guess it shows that the style of art he created is by no means exhausted.

I am an undergrad student in the Computer Science Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm not all that familiar with the various graduate research programs, but telecollaboration is one area that we are researching. This page has a list of some of these research projects. Although I didn't immediately find anything like what you're describing, you're surely welcome to try.

Daniel Plaisted

I am an undergrad student in the Computer Science Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm not all that familiar with the various graduate research programs, but telecollaboration is one area that we are researching. This page has a list of some of these research projects. Although I didn't immediately find anything like what you're describing, you're surely welcome to try.

Daniel Plaisted

I am an undergrad student in the Computer Science Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm not all that familiar with the various graduate research programs, but telecollaboration is one area that we are researching. This page has a list of some of these research projects. Although I didn't immediately find anything like what you're describing, you're surely welcome to try.

Daniel Plaisted

DVDs, or more accurately, the contents of the DVD, will eventually pass into the public domain, but since copyright law has been amended repeatedly to extended the copyright duration we are unlikely to ever see any current content be released. A summary here shows copyright expiry times depending on the content creation date. The current expiry time for corporately owned content is 95 years minimum. This table is probably specific to US law, but that will be a close, probably exact, match to the Berne Convention which is in force throughout most of the western world.

For all the people talking about public domain... take a look at: http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm. Basically there are different periods when different songs come into the public domain... just look at the chart for the info.

For those talking about Fair Use, we can basically say that Fair Use is a decorative law... basically it does nothing but offer guidelines... it doesn't say anything concrete.. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html. Take a look, you can read it... it's just pretty much fluff.

And then we come to the RIAA site (http://www.riaa.com/Copyright-Laws-2.cfm)... although very biased on the topic, you can see their position in the following quote.

"Generally speaking, you are not allowed to take the 'value' of a song without permission, and sometimes that value is found even in a three-second clip."

Steve

"Must an employer pay a non-exempt employee for time spent on-call?"

"It depends"

"...
to determine whether an employee's on-call time is compensable under FLSA:
(1) the terms of the employment agreement, if any;
(2) the physical restrictions placed on an employee while on call;
(3) the response time;
(4) the percentage of calls expected to be returned by the on-call employee;
(5) frequency of actual calls during on-call periods;
(6) actual uses of the on-call time by the employee; and
(7) the disciplinary action, if any, taken by the employer against employees who fail to answer calls. "

For more on this see:
http://www.iog.unc.edu/programs/hresources/q02.htm l

And consult a lawyer. (And you'll probably still not have a crystal clear answer unless there is case law identical to your situation.)

BTW: My father works as a mechanic/engineer on critical machines, and they also have pager-duty that rotates, so it isn't just IT/IS people. His company only rotates the pager among salaried (exempt) individuals now because the company didn't want to pay overtime for the pager.

Their pager system limited the person to a fairly small geographical area (less than 1 hour drive), and the employee was to respond immediately, and they were the only person on-call at a time.

Was it in 3D? "Habitat" is one early implementation of a virtual world, although in 2D. I'm not sure when it was first launched, but it was somewhere around 1985/6 I'll wager.

Everyone interested in virual worlds know about it. Those of you who do not, search the web for papers by F. Randall Farmer, some of which you'll find here, the most famous of which is The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat.

Recommended reading.

According to the article, this technology's intimate relationship with Internet2 comes mostly from the fact that there were very few applications around which NEEDED Internet2's impressive network stats to actually run. Consequently, the peeps at I2 contacted Jaron to lead up the project. And ... well, you can read about it here.

Additionally there's some other teleimmersion sites at UNC and at Jaron's research site.

There has been lots of work on information visualization. It's not really like The Matrix, but attempts to be. Check out PNL's visualization team's work. In Citeseer, look for articles about Bead and Lyberworld.

I've done some work on this with a system called Yavi; can send a reference if you want. It's not hard to find lots of work on this. For an historical bibliography (1993 + prior), see my references here.

Unfortunately, I don't think it can do hidden lines. Also, it costs money. However, it is easy to use.