Slashdot Mirror
Design Hardware/Software for Global Civil Society
-cman- writes "White box builders and Gnome hackers take note! With the announcement of various oxymoronic "trusted computing" initiatives in recent week, Bruce Sterling, self-appointed Pope-Emperor of the Viridian Design Movement has announced a new design contest to design a '...genuinely trustable, cheap, well-designed, rugged, sexy, accessible computer system that is owned, manufactured and operated for, well, Global Civil Society.'" I'll buy one.
".Net builders and XP hackers take note! With the announcement of various oxymoronic "trusted computing" initiatives in recent week, Bill gates, self-appointed Pope-Emperor of the Republican Innovation Movement has announced a new design contest to design a '...genuinely trustable, cheap, well-designed, rugged, sexy, accessible computer system that is owned, manufactured and operated for, well, Global Civil Dominance.'"
I'll pirate one.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Damn the box let's just try get the "Global Civil Society" first.
You Are Being Lied To.
What language would be the Universal Language??? Esperanto? How about a universal geek language? Klingon!
Grok et Spock baby!
i prescribe a VT220 for use by Global Civilians. if someone can't figure out how to use it, they shouldn't be allowed near a fucking computer in the first goddamn place.
IEEE, IETF, even the Liberty Alliance could put together a competing system.
The key here is that any proposed security standard needs to be
Anything less than this *WILL* fail on a global market. MS probably has a shot at controlling the US PC market if the government and their anti-trust proceedings don't bitch slap them
So somebody is supposed to build computers for everybody on the whole planet, but that somebody shouldn't be big enough that they are capable of doing such a thing? Maybe we should put some plans on our desks and let the computer gnomes build them overnight?
From the web page:
From the Viridian FAQ: The contests are opportunities for graphic or conceptual creativity. Logos, posters, teapots, lamps, that sort of thing. We do this to amuse ourselves, and to give some coherent form to our ideas. Images and symbols are every bit as important to the Viridian Movement as our constant outflow of rants.
Not to flame them or anything, but you'd think a site that cares as much about design as they claim would have, well, a better design themselves.
We've all gotten very used to thinking that "computers == 1970s mainframe shrunk to desktop size," in that we deal with fragile hardware, fragile drivers, fragile applications, overly complex systems, and having to become system administrators. That's not how it has to be.
Some computer systems are solidly reliable, but we don't think of them as computers. We call them consoles and PDAs. But technology has advanced so much that we could easily have a PDA with more horsepower in it than was used at Boeing to design the 777, or what animators had on their desks when working on Toy Story. It's a matter of breaking free from thinking of computers as generic "PC"s running generic operating systems. Smaller is better in this case. How much performance and time do we waste just to keep running the same generic, "modern" systems: Linux, Windows, MacOS. They're all the same, and they're all missing the point.
...will wake up one day and realize they are just technicians not world saviors. Of course, actors and musicians would have to do that first. I'm not holding my breath.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I take it the think has to be biodynamic, too?
I don't get it. Mr. evironmentalist want's a espionage-free computer. And it has to look good, because it is targeted on the ever-fashion-aware Global Civil Society servants?
Why doesn't he go buy one a rugged laptop [dolch.com] and sticks linux on it? No backdoors, no espionage, all trusted computing for the field?
I probably don't get it, do I?
We, who are about to salute you, die
Whaaa??? Hardware/Software to make people civil? Globally? Can anyone else hear the echoes bouncing off the empty walls at slashdot?
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
http://www.viridianrepository.com/ was made with microsoft frontpage. bastards.
There are a people out there saying just that. this has some details...
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
this is a funny post, laugh
I want 2D games back.
With the idea of MS getting control of our systems, I see the same problem here as with the old NSA_KEY silliness. You can't actually use something like the NSA_KEY without giving it away.
How do you know someone doesn't have something monitoring network traffic? So if you send your magical super-key to a computer to open it up, you have to hope that they have no such software/hardware active. If they do have such hardware/software, then the 'bad guys' now have the super key of happiness that gives them total control.
I can imagine how a terrorist would love to see their system get 'hacked' by such a universal password.
Or am I totally missing something?
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
and this has lots of details, and some specific, recent commentaries on MS share price fraud...
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
You are right. None of the above is still a valid option for me. I don't know why everybody either makes a stink about this stuff or tries to rally a community to create their own oppressive system.
Okay, so what exactly are the specs of this platform he's asking for?
1) "genuinely trustable, cheap, well-designed, rugged, sexy, accessible."
good, cheap, fast. Pick two. Seriously, rugged, cheap and accessible (presuming he means easy to use) are about the only things in this section that are actually design requirements. The "genuinely trustable" we'll look at below in the "open specifications" comment. "Well-designed" and "sexy" are not design specifications, as much as marketing pre-planning.
2) "a primarily political and social computer"
ummm....right. This isn't a design spec, it's...well....pointless, actually. We'll ignore it.
3) No corporate or national logos.
Okay. This is a valid design requirement, but probably an impossible one.
4) "The software and communications protocols in this device should be transparent. Honest. Aboveboard. Public. Public-spirited. Fair. Inclusive. Multi-culti. Legitimate. This Is What Democracy Looks Like. All that stuff that computer hardware and software never, ever is"
Right. The IEEE and the IETF are secretly planning to take over the world. Just you wait. and don't get me started on JEDEC. They never take input from the community. This is a design spec, but an insane one.
There's no way. You would, in effect, have to re-design every part of the computer to manage this. This includes a different card spec (PCI and AGP are apparently not multi-culti enough), a different CPU (they display corporate logos, after all), different BIOS (corporate logos again), etc. You would have re-design the entire computer, ignoring all existing specs. This is crazy.
Abacus
I'm sorry, but this is logistically impossible. Let's take this apart:
What we need is a genuinely trustable, cheap, well-designed, rugged, sexy, accessible computer system that is owned, manufactured and operated for, well, Global Civil Society.
What is trustable? If the computer is trusted by the owner then that means the owner must have full control in order to guarantee no shoddy behavior is going on. However, this is the exact antithesis of what RIAA wants because it wants full control to do the exact same thing-- to guarantee no shoddy behavior is going on. In system's design, all of the above terms are meaningless. Everyone has different opinions on exactly what these terms mean which is why I have learned to steer well clear of them. To me, sexy is code that is well documented, simple, and broken into intelligent behavioral pieces. I also know people who think sexy is that all sections of code larger than 50 lines must be broken into a separate procedure. To me, that's a maintenance nightmare and hardly sexy.
The real issue, something that I've been arguing for a long time is that piracy is the natural balance to capitalism. When the demand for a product outweighs what the public feels as fair for the product, then fewer people feel bound to honoring a purchase. Unfortunately, there is a law of numbers in capitalism and the number of people who do not have the expertise to make a wise decision when purchasing technical goods versus those who do are far greater in number. Thus, regardless of the number of better alternatives out there, people will buy in the way they are used to, which currently is Microsoft. The only way to prevent what is going to happen is to educate enough of the public to make Microsoft believe it would not be financially wise to attempt to go that route. The advent of XP being rent-able was foiled when enough consumer backlashes were heard. But, in some form, XP was going to sell because they are the megacorp. And, as long as we allow megacorps, they are going to do whatever it is that will give the most dollars. They are always going to attempt to strive for that perfect goal of performing no effort and collecting money for it. Microsoft figured this out a long time back. They just want to make sure for every transaction that occurs, they get paid to allow it to happen. And, we all put them there because we, as a whole, have always voted by buying the cheapest. Now, the cost is always going to be the threat of being finally utterly controlled by one of those megacorps.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Apparently Sten Guns were not very well made, or well liked:
Ode to a Sten Gun
By Gunner. S.N. Teed
You wicked piece of vicious tin!
Call you a gun? Don't make me grin.
You're just a bloated piece of pipe.
You couldn't hit a hunk of tripe.
But when you're with me in the night,
I'll tell you pal, you're just alright!
Each day I wipe you free of dirt.
Your dratted corners tear my shirt.
I cuss at you and call you names,
You're much more trouble than my dames.
But boy, do I love to hear you yammer
When you 're spitting lead in a business manner.
You conceited pile of salvage junk.
I think this prowess talk is bunk.
Yet if I want a wall of lead
Thrown at some Jerry's head
It is to you I raise my hat;
You're a damn good pal...
You silly gat!
Source
Ya know, that's how I feel about my computer much of the time. "You are a piece of sh*t, except when I really need you."
Cheap, no DRM, owned by all, rugged, low on batteries, portable, and it computes.
anyone who has anything to do with a standards body nowadays know's that people try and hijack standards so their tech/patent gets into it
this way if you implement the standard you have to pay
you can't have an opensource MPEG 4 without paying 3million bucks when you distribute it and they call that a standard
ok real hardware and software
in terms of a kernel their is in My Humble Opinion
Linux
Open BSD
netbsd for every arch under the sun (joke included)
then we have the problem of hardware
Opencores provides some of the effort BUT my favorate is
LEON-1 VHDL model
- Functional SPARC compatible processor core integer unit. Runs on Altera, Mietec, Temic MG2, Xilinx. Developed for space missions. Implemented as a highly configurable, synthesisable GPL VHDL model.
Altera 10K200E FPGA or Xilinx XCV300 enable this you can also get a LCD and keyboard AMBA devices from www.gaisler.com
what I would like is a machine that you could say that the whole thing is opensource
regards
john jones
Comment removed based on user account deletion
(Going on the idea that this fantasy system will be a laptop, though that may be reading too much into it.)
:) (This is going with the idea that it *would* need one ... maybe not.)
1) the keyboard can't suck. The best keyboards on laptops (IMO) are the ones found on IBM ThinkPads, though there is some competion from Toshiba. Most laptop keyboards are are not only awful feeling to begin with, they rapidly get worse and stay worse. Unless your entry has to be ultra-ultra lightweight, please consider putting a few justified ounces into a keyboard. Make it something that will be worth typing on in 10 years, like my IBM model M keyboard is.
Also, the keys should be tilted to a sane angle for typing, not a big rectangle of keys. Only a few laptops have ever tried escaping the wrist-killer of normal laptop keyboard layouts. No matter what keyboard layout one ends up using (QUERTY, Dvorak or something else), your hands still need a break.
2) The pointer can't suck, and they all do
IBM-style pointers are my favorite, but they are probably too troublesome and breakage prone: how about an optical trackpad with a replaceable window in the event that the original is scratched / scuffed beyond use? Or an embedded trackball like in the old Powerbooks, but with an optical ball as in current desktop trackballs?
3) Modularity, ports and jacks are all-important.
Realize (or at least grudgingly hypothesize) that some or all of the computer is going to break, and view it as an inherently leaky system. The screen will get pierced by an arrow while you're traipsing through the rain forest, or the hot foreign-aid worker you're respectfully dating will cause you to pour coffee on the keyboard, or the pointer will just decide to go on permanent vacation, or a purse-snatcher will leave you holding only the detachable screen. Gone.
There must be ways built in for the thing to go on functioning at least a little bit, and if at all possible to be field repaired.
Whatever the screen configuration ends up being (conventional clamshell? web-pad? little eye-piece?), it needs to be replaceable with no more than a (makeshift, flat-head) screwdriver and some human fingers.
Provision should be built-in to use number bad or other keyboard part as an alternate pointer controller if the main one busts.
Re ports: USB / USB2 seem like good choices these days for a low-cost machine. I think it would be smarter to provide a bunch of USB(2) ports than try to provide the whole range of ethernet, firewire, serial, parallel, etc etc. Let that be taken care of by emulation and adapters, and encourage everything in the world that could grow a USB port to do so. Has some downside, but simplicity and interchangeability is important. A low-cost computer could be a micro-ISP if it had 8 USB modems and an ethernet adapter hooked to it's 4 USB ports via a couple of powered USB hubs. Or a weather station. Or a Whoooznitz Whutzall Thingamajibber. Point is, modularity should trump built-in featuritus.
Now forget I just said that and let me hypnotize you with this idea: it should have a built-in camera. Randy Waterhouse had one in Cryptonomicon, but despite this obvious hint to the hardware industry, very few laptops really have a camera, and the one on the Sony Picturebooks isn't the dirt-cheap pinhole variety of Randy's.
4) Built in software, in two parts:
a) Really, any open-source operating system would work. Some variety of either BSD or Linux seems the obvious choice right now, either would work fine. Or some other variant, so long as the software's license is open enough to enocourage unhindered distribution, modification.
b) Lots of knowledge on the hard drive.
Why do hard drives come blank? Who knows, but should they? Remember, today's "tiny" hard drive holds more written knowledge than the world possessed in sum not long ago.
I'd like to see on this thing a copy of:
- a good serious world almanac
- a good non-serious or at least non-traditional world almanac like the HG2G or similar
- lots of maps
- a simple word-for-word translator with dictionaries for many languages, so documents could be at least looked at on a very coarse level even if you don't know the language.
- the U.S. Constitution (and heck, the communist manifesto, as a "see also" reference)
- diagrams for lots of things.
- classic literature of several languages
5) Other concerns
- must be workable on world current, at low power. Look at the capabilities of today's 800MHz transmeta chip, or 400MHz Xscale, and aim lower.
- should be built with solar in mind. Casing should have attachment points for a solar panel or two. Low-power LEDs to indicate charge level. Agressive power-throttling.
Phew.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
While I'll have to agree that Sterling's proposal seems off the wall and not very well thought out, it's still an idea that appeals to me for some reason. Maybe it's the thought that there has to be a better way (yes, even better than Linux). Maybe I'm just not cynical enough and I still dream of seeing a world in which a paperless office becomes a reality without losing our freedom of speech.
I refuse to just let the corporations steamroll over my rights - and yours. I've been through depression, but I've never given up, and I never will.
So you say it's crazy? So you say it's impossible? Oh, well let's just not give it another thought then! Let's let the CEO's of Microsoft and Enron do the thinking for us. Surely, they have our best interests at heart, and there's nothing we can do to improve our lot.
Well, I'll tell you what: you can sit on your rump, telling the ones who are out there doing the impossible that it's impossible. If that's what you really want, you can have it. I'll leave you with one last quote to ruminate upon:
Nathan's blog
A worthy contender...
http://www.simputer.org/
Just add inexpensive keyboard, inexpensive mouse, LCD screen, HD and RAM. A laptop CD-ROM will work, (Case Outlet sells one) and the thing netboots anyway so that would be a possibility for installing the OS anyway without the need for a CD-ROM.
Software? Why, the Debian distribution of Linux, or maybe Slackware Linux. Debian's more Politically Correct, though.
Remember, VIA hasn't signed on to Palladium yet, and hopefully they never will.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Microsoft has 30 billion in cash. They can buy and sell Intel and AMD..
Cool! Amazing Toys.