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Slashback: Tenacity, Freedomware, Lem
Honest, I'm not dead. Again. silvaran writes "A clarification on CNet News indicates that IBM will not stop supporting or selling OS/2 as mentioned previously. Says IBM spokesman Steve Eisenstadt, 'As long as our customers want OS/2, we will support them... We don't have plans to withdraw OS/2.' The withdrawal notice lists several hundred components or software packages that will no longer be available, but OS/2 itself will still be offered."
Like Marshall MacLuhan in Annie Hall. tree writes "The Boston Globe has a really interesting interview with Stanislaw Lem, author of the 1961 novel "Solaris": he is a bit baffled about the latest movie adaptation. In any event, it's a great read for fans of Lem."
They win, GNU Win, we all win. Shwag writes "Last week I downloaded TheOpenCD after it was on Slashdot. I learned about all kinds of great free (as in speech) software. I then searched for more and found out about GNU Win which is a win32 free software cd but it has way more software! Yay! This is a really great way to show people the benefits of free software and get them ready for transitioning to linux."
A platform built from an Acorn. An anonymous reader writes "The (London) Guardian's Online section reports today on the new Ionix PC earlier Slashdotted for being the first desktop to run Intel's XScale processor. The Guardian concentrates on how the new machine may revive the fading fortunes of the once-pioneering Risc OS, but also makes mention of the fact it is ditching old proprietary Acorn subsystems."
Woe to the boonie dwellers, until enough balloons are in place. Avenger writes "Another DSL provider is getting out of the market. Hughes Electronics has announced that they will no longer be providing high-speed Internet services. Over 160,000 users will be affected. As it stands right now, they still will be providing connectivity via DirecPC."
But it seemed like such a great do-it-yourself idea! adagioforstrings writes "You may recall last year Home Depot announced they were deploying Linux at 90,000 point-of-sale terminals across the nation. Well, time went by and no more was heard about it...until now, when Home Depot announced they would be upgrading their POS systems with technology from NCR Corp., and 360 Commerce Inc. and ... Microsoft Corp."
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I think that you may have misinterpereted his "Almost dead" remark. I think it was referring to the recent /. article that IBM would be discontinuing OS/2. He wasn't trying to pick a fight with you.
From his offical website
Maybe it has to do with their decision to choose Microsoft for POS instead of Linux?
_-_-_
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Well, now we have proof that the Slashdot editor's don't even read the damn articles.
The DirecTV deal has nothing to do with rural customers. Rural customers couldn't get DSL from them before they went out of business, either.
The DirecTV story does not apply to their satelite-based system (DirecWay/DirecPC). This is what the people in the boonies use. The article clearly states this.
won't happen. too much of the code was shared with Microsoft and is held in joint copyright.
Here we have an excellent example of somebody doing something because they were not sure about what they were talking about. Hence take the "safe" bet and use Windows.
The problem with the statement she makes is that they would have a lack of drivers if they went cross-platform. So that means they have all the drivers on the i386 platform. Hence right now they are locked into i386. So since they were "locked" they might as well get locked totally and use Windows. Why, because at least it is supported!
To Jill Taylor this logic makes sense. However, to people outside it makes little sense since either route would end up at the same destination. The problem with her logic is that she is associating Linux with cross-platform and failure to do so as a strike against the platform. In other words in her mind Linux 1 Windows 2, when in fact the score is Linux 2 Windows 2.
It is funny when I am on panels and I make these comments on the bad logic within corporations many people take a hissy fit. The reality is that most people decide on funny logic like this.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Stewey, I have to agree about OS/2 being a remarkable OS. As an ex-IBMer, I guess I'm biased, but I truly believe that the VDM in OS/2 was a better DOS than DOS. The fine tuning you could do on the behaviour of DOS apps was incredible.
An example of this would be an app written using Borland's Turbo Vision framework. These apps poll for keyboard input like no tomorrow. Under any flavour of Windows, you can get the CPU useage down to about 50%, but no better. On OS/2, you could get CPU useage down to 1% and still have a nice, snappy response.
I ran a 3-node DOS-based BBS package (RemoteAccess) for several years and enjoyed it most when running under OS/2. Most of my apps were DOS apps and running them there was a far better experience than using DOS and DESQview.
They have all their Windows cd key labels taped to the side of their PCs throughout their store for anyone to read or record.
On the labels it specifically tells them not to remove the label either.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I'm not sure how far on or off topic this is, but I happen to work for Home Depot's biggest competitor, Lowe's. All of the POS registers in the stores built in the last few years are running Red Hat, and all of the ASCII terminals are being replaced with thin clients that - surprise! - are running Red Hat as well. All of the programs we use for special order sales, project design, and such are all being ported to the new thin clients. The basic trend is to move away from Windows (Design and Special Order tools) and AIX (POS and terminals throughout the store) to Linux.
Some of the other stories were published in English as the book Mortal Engines.
At the official Stanislaw Lem Web site, they have the entire statement made by Lem about the new movie version of Solaris , written on December 8th.
He seems to have a negative view of the typical Hollywood ending, saying that
Home Depot will never be a leader in the industry if it continues to view IT as an expense rather than an investment.
Agreed! To view IT as a cost center only is to blind oneself to the advances that we can make to "mere retail."
In fact, Wal-Mart and Home Depot are even compared here
You have no idea! The Home Depot concept IS the Wal-Mart concept (mostly). The common managerial question at HD upon considering a new idea was, "Has Wal-Mart done it?" The Home Depot cheer was a carbon copy of the Wal-Mart cheer. Giving stock to all company employees was an idea HD copied from Wal-Mart as well. So was the "Inverted Pyramid" idea (read: lie).
The differences between Home Depot and Wal-Mart are why HD will shrink and Wal-Mart will grow. 1. Home Depot has a service element which is much, much more difficult to quality and inventory control. 2. HD is much more limited in what they can sell than Wal-Mart is. Many Wal-Marts now have grocery stores.
If what you're saying really is true of Home Depot, expect Wal-Mart to keep swallowing Home Depot's business.
It's inevitable. Wal-Mart and Home Depot will eventually be competitors, and HD will lose that battle.
I expect that Wal-mart will remain a leader for some time to come in the retail space.
I expect that Wal-Mart will be the defining force behind retail until the retail concept becomes obsolete.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Some Strugatsky novels are online here:
http://lib.ru/TRANSLATION/
Prisoners of Power is a good one also.
Cthulhu loves you.
When you launch a Windows app in OS/2, it launches Windows inside a virtual DOS box, then runs your app. It's real Windows 3.1 code, not an emulation.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Amusingly enough a large number of ATM's in operation actually use OS/2. This may be part of IBM's backpedaling regarding not supporting that OS anymore.
Once more unto the breach dear friends...
yes, Lem doesn't have the incredibly well developed characters of someone like Dick, the silly alien interactions of Asimov, the wars and battles of Pournelle, or the geekness vindication of Stephensen or Gibson.
he doesn't try to make fantasy out of sci-fi, he doesn't try to give us a warm fuzzy about technology or society, or excite us with explosive plots. his books provide a mental challenge, paradoxes, psychology, and stark reality that most popular science fiction completely ignores. there are tons of people who used to say j.r.r. tolkien is boring. they don't anymore because JRRT is in the mainstream now, but c'mon, reading LOTR and the Silmarillion was a lot like reading history books with an occasional plot! (btw, i'm not knocking JRRT, i've always loved his work)
now, i'm a native Polish speaker (and reader) so of course i've read Lem in Polish and maybe a lot is lost in translation (actually, i think Solaris' translation isn't all that bad, i've read it in both Polish and English). give his other works a chance: Return from the Stars, Eden, Fiasco, the short stories of Ion Tichy (Star Diaries), the essays of One Human Minute...
read my epinions review of Lem for more, if you're interested.
frankly, i'm really disappointed that slashdotters would be so ignorant of Lem's amazing insights in the rest of his works...
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through