My main gripe is with those who parrot the same old "X is bad" line with the reasoning that "it doesn't look like Windows", "it has all sorts of things I don't understand" or "it doesn't work like the MacOS". I likely would've saved myself a bit of explanation simply by acknowledging that X is a system with warts aplenty but that it has benefits lacking in the current systems as well.
But that was my mistake. X11 has its drawbacks, but it's not the root of all evil, either.
As I recall, NeWS and Display Postscript were not open standards. That, more than anything, likely accounts for why neither is around any longer. Berlin is an open standard, but I'm discouraged by the slowness it's progressing and the lack of running client apps. A better "Kept Simple Stupid", network transparent, open, windowing environment would be a good thing to have, but it would have to be substantially better than X11 (probably not too difficult) and easier to use (both user-side and developer-side) in order to catch on. Unfortunately, we're not there yet.
There is a major difference between implementing something clean and simple and something that is a
complex mass of special cases. Yes, you still want X for a Mac, just the same as you want SAMBA for Unix boxes, but don't go thinking
it's not a flawed system. X is an albatross hanging about the neck of the Unix world. It's a great example of how superior products can be
crushed by flawed but free alternatives.
Where, exactly, have I or anyone stated that X11 is without flaws? As I've said in another post, it has its share of warts but that's just the way life is. But the fact remains that it still just a protocol that anybody can implement with varying degrees of success. Perhaps one day a better windowing protocol (Berlin?) will supplant it like HTTP did to Gopher, but that day isn't here yet and the work continues.
And even when something better comes along, X11 may persist just like Gopher sites can still be viewed with web browsers. Network transparency guarantees non-exclusivity, and that's also a Good Thing.
Do I need to display remote apps? Not often. Even then, most of the time a terminal will do. I would like to see something for Linux much
more Win/Mac like - a fast, no-network-bullshit display system. If I want to run remote apps, I'll start an X server similar to X-Win32 or
MacX.
Which brings us full-circle again, because that's exactly what this app is: a sort of "MacX for Aqua". It doesn't replace the existing MacOSX desktop, but merely allows X11 clients to display on it. I'm sure we all agree something like that is handy.
There's room enough for both sorts of displays, I think.
that is why HTTP *has* been improved, persistent connections, etc,
because as things scale it *does* hold back the web
HTTP has been improved. So has X11. When the need calls for it, protocols get improved. If HTTP really were in need of dire replacement, there'd be a call for FOOTP to replace it. As of yet, I haven't seen such a desire.
And besides... this isn't 1975 anymore. I think we can do better than blasting bitmaps across the network using a broken security scheme.
Nobody's saying X11 is perfect. But it's here now, has *lots* of clients and it does exactly what it's supposed to. And since it need not replace an existing GUI, there's no reason not to implement it and enjoy X11's benefits on top of an existing GUI scheme.
Perhaps Berlin will do an even better job, but it's not here yet and remains unproven. And in the meantime, X11 still works. To me, it seems like most of the "X11 is bad!" cries are from people who don't understand what it is and when benefits it has over the current schemes, which is unfortunate because neither Microsoft or Macintosh offers some of its greatest benefits. I'd hate to see the standard free graphical display replaced by something prettier but less featureful until the benefits of network-transparent GUIs are rediscovered all over again.
Long enough to make me wonder why, to this day, Microsoft and Macintosh haven't implemented something as useful. X may not have a lot of pretty client apps or great games, but it's one of the most useful things I have on my boxen.
Being able to use graphical apps from my laptop by displayed on my desktop or vice-versa is such a godsend that I don't want to live without it. That's one of the main reasons I use UNIXen at home rather than Windows or MacOS.
By implementing an X server on top of MacOSX's GUI, X clients can connect to it. This allows all our current X apps to work, network transparently or even from the Mac itself. That is a Very Good Thing.
And since X is a protocol, it is neither slow, buggy or holding anything back any more than HTTP is slow, buggy or holding the web back. So can we please stop with the "X is bad" rhetoric?
Ever since redhat was started, dot zero releases are like the front bumper of car that was driven 1300 miles in south Georgia and Florida in
the summer.
Hmm. It sounds like such a bumper would be full of squished bugs with little chance of finding any alive. I'd say it's a pretty good thing to have plenty of known dead bugs plastered prominantly in the logs of any piece of software...
I've tried GQView again and the results are much-improved, thankfully. I do have a 5000x4000 700k+ jpeg that soaks up lots of memory, but the performance is on par with xv and ImageMagick. But I'll get a better idea on performance once I point it at my hefty bg image collection - I am hopeful that it'll work okay, though.
But the main point is really its non-free (as in beer, even) nature.
I think we'd all like a really good image viewer. ImageMagick's display is good for just viewing an image, but it has no browsing capabilies like xv, which is the only thing keeping me from using it all the time.
GQView is Imlib based, unfortunately, and I haven't seen Imlib scale very well at all, making it useless for pretty big images.
xv is old, unsupported and non-free. But I'm still on the lookout for an alternative...*sigh*
Re:Another good, old book, Soul of a New Machine
on
Hackers
·
· Score: 2
I'd use a 2Ghz processor for emulation,
encoding my CDs to ogg files and compiling software quickly. There's always a use for a speedy processor - but I wouldn't throw a lot of money at one just yet.
When it comes to silky smooth keyboarding, I've developed a great fondness for Sun keyboards. So, when it came time to build a system, I picked up one of pfuca's "Happy Hacking" keyboards and couldn't be happier. Not only do the keys have that "Sun smoothness", but they also have all the keys (such as control) in the right places! Simply amazing. Not only that, but the keyboard has just 60(!) keys on it by using chording to put the arrow keys to the immediate left of "return" and the F keys doubled up with the number keys. It seems a bit awkward at first, but it works so much better keeping my hands in a single spot and not flying all over the keyboard. Plus, the thing is so tiny I can fit both the keyboard and a mousepad on my keyboard shelf with plenty of room to spare!
So yes, I do understand the importance of a good keyboard. Your keyboard, mouse, monitor and chair are going to be the most used pieces of equipment on your computer, will likely last over several computers and will make a huge difference in your comfort and productivity. Anyone who skimps on them deserves exactly what they get.
Prices this
time were dropped, I think, based on marketing information, probably not at random as they say. What happens if next time they are
raised. Does that still count as "capitalism"? All Amazon has to do, if you complain because you found out, is that "oh, sorry, there must
have been a glitch..." and they're sitting happy becuase there were thousands of customers who didn't catch the "glitch".
There is no such thing as "price discrimination". If Amazon thinks a bunch of consumers will pay $22 for Product X but the rest will only pay $20, they're free to try and charge the bunch of consumers $22 for it. There's no "bait and switch" here; everybody is still paying what Amazon charges. But if that bunch of consumers sees that SomeOtherSite.com is charging only $20 for Product X, Amazon will lose those sales. Thus, the price for that bunch will fall back to $20 again.
It's still capitalism and if you want to make it work, you have to shop around.
t's not just a simple case of being lazy. Granted Amazon doesn't give you a slogan stating the best price, but last I checked price
descimination was illegal. You won't walk into a store and find out that the person in front of you got the computer for $1000 while you're
being charged $2000.00
Racial or gender discrimination isn't legal, but Amazon doesn't have that information anyway. But no company has any obligation to charge customers identical prices for the same item. If the guy in front of you has a "$1000 off your next computer" coupon, you'll be charged a different price. Kids or the elderly can get discounts for all sorts of things, thus being charged a different price. If a company has a sale, the people buying before and during the sale get charged different prices. If I buy a car, I might haggle a different price than someone else for the same model/features.
If you're willing to pay what Amazon charges, then what do you have to complain about? If the deal you're getting isn't good enough, shop somewhere else. Last time I looked, I didn't see a "guaranteed to be the best price" slogan anywhere on their site so they have a right to charge you any price they damn well please. And if you don't like it, there's plenty of alternatives.
I would also like to point out that improving slashdot is not just a matter of metamoderation and moderation, it is a matter of generating
intelligent discussion through posting insightful/informative/whatever comments. If no-one sees these because your karma is negative,
it detracts from slashdot. Obviously there is no easy answer to finding the right balance.
You are correct. Unfortunately, the current system has done very little to improve the state of Slashdot discussion. In fact, I believe it has proven detrimental and needs nothing less than a complete overhaul - or be scrapped entirely.
Take the anonymous trolls, for instance. Not only are they still present, but they have become such a nuisance that reading articles at level 0 or less is almost a waste of bandwidth. Anyone wanting to honestly submit an anonymous (or unpopular) opinion isn't going to be heard unless moderators intervene to raise it a few points. And downgrading troll posts has not deterred them in any way from making yet more posts - since the amount of posts a troll can make is basically infinite but a moderator only gets five points to work with at a time.
Not only that, but moderators haven't improved discussion by moderating posts up, either. Part of the reason for this is that posts that are inflammatory or simply telling an unpopular opinion aren't going to be moderated to the same levels as another post that just parrots what most everyone else already believes. In fact, metamoderation encourages moderators to moderate conservatively since trying to champion an unpopular opinion is likely to lose you karma points in the metamoderation phase. The end result is no reward for going outside the Slashdot mainstream but plenty of grief.
As it stands, Slashdot has degenerated into a sort of "karma game"/popularity contest that does little to further discussion into anything interesting but plenty to dumb the whole site down into a sort of love fest, which is something of a minor tragedy considering the potential.
Clearly the post is both, but since Slashdot offers no place to discuss Slashdot itself, there's nothing else to do save for making offtopic threads such as this one.
Near as I can tell, points aren't given for metamoderation but you can certainly lose a bundle of them by labeling a post such as this one since the metamoderators are unlikely to check the post's context and "disagree" with whatever you pick. Just think of it as thanks for a job well done.
And if you moderate in a way others disagree with, you'll also lose karma. Consider it a little penalty for your hard work in trying to keep Slashdot a better place. Or, just uncheck "willing to moderate" and avoid the game altogether.
I stand by my original claim. You say that working with Python seemed natural to you after minimal exposure, and I don't doubt it. But
where is the challenge in that that drives you to develop truly unique solutions to new problems? Where is the exploration of the
boundries of existing algorithms?
Perl may be a mess sometimes, but many many people have reached true flashes of absolute brilliance with it that I seriously doubt
would have been possible in Python.
If your idea of art is still life fruit bowls, Greek Revival architecture, and self-indulgent baroque like Bach, then yes, Python may be for
you. Fortunately, many of us have moved on, and demand more of our art.
Languages don't make brilliant solutions any easier than my pencil makes me good at writing, and anyone who thinks otherwise has indulged in a few too many Wall'isms. A clever solution to a problem, quicksort for example, is not more or less so depending on what language it is implemented in. A language is a tool, nothing more and to think otherwise is like saying a good brush has made you a better artist.
I think Perl stifles my creativity by forcing me to put {}brackets around my code blocks. And C stifles my creativity by not allowing me to use keywords as variable names. And Lisp stifles my creativity by forcing me to use parentheses.
Oh please do get over it. If your creativity is entirely dependant upon a certain style of language syntax, perhaps you'd best take up maintaining old COBOL code and leave the programming to those who are beyond such trivialities.
Though I can't find it offered any more, I took a University of Minnesota course devoted entirely to computer history. It started with the works of Babbage but focused primarily on the era between post-ENIAC and pre-IBM PC. Fascinating stuff. I wish I'd held onto my textbook. I'm surprised these sorts of technical history courses aren't offered more.
That's a great idea, but unfortunately it is only a cure for the symptom rather than the disease. The current opt-out system requires far too much work on the consumer's part simply to keep their personal info private. If these companies really want to profit from my info, they should have to ask me first and give me compensation - since they'll be profiting without any real work on their part.
But in any case, blasing Amazon over this isn't very helpful since it's just one of many many online and offline companies that are trading my data even now. Just a drop in the ocean, really.
Slashdot Mirror
As I recall, NeWS and Display Postscript were not open standards. That, more than anything, likely accounts for why neither is around any longer. Berlin is an open standard, but I'm discouraged by the slowness it's progressing and the lack of running client apps. A better "Kept Simple Stupid", network transparent, open, windowing environment would be a good thing to have, but it would have to be substantially better than X11 (probably not too difficult) and easier to use (both user-side and developer-side) in order to catch on. Unfortunately, we're not there yet.
Where, exactly, have I or anyone stated that X11 is without flaws? As I've said in another post, it has its share of warts but that's just the way life is. But the fact remains that it still just a protocol that anybody can implement with varying degrees of success. Perhaps one day a better windowing protocol (Berlin?) will supplant it like HTTP did to Gopher, but that day isn't here yet and the work continues.
And even when something better comes along, X11 may persist just like Gopher sites can still be viewed with web browsers. Network transparency guarantees non-exclusivity, and that's also a Good Thing.
Which brings us full-circle again, because that's exactly what this app is: a sort of "MacX for Aqua". It doesn't replace the existing MacOSX desktop, but merely allows X11 clients to display on it. I'm sure we all agree something like that is handy.
There's room enough for both sorts of displays, I think.
HTTP has been improved. So has X11. When the need calls for it, protocols get improved. If HTTP really were in need of dire replacement, there'd be a call for FOOTP to replace it. As of yet, I haven't seen such a desire.
Nobody's saying X11 is perfect. But it's here now, has *lots* of clients and it does exactly what it's supposed to. And since it need not replace an existing GUI, there's no reason not to implement it and enjoy X11's benefits on top of an existing GUI scheme.
Perhaps Berlin will do an even better job, but it's not here yet and remains unproven. And in the meantime, X11 still works. To me, it seems like most of the "X11 is bad!" cries are from people who don't understand what it is and when benefits it has over the current schemes, which is unfortunate because neither Microsoft or Macintosh offers some of its greatest benefits. I'd hate to see the standard free graphical display replaced by something prettier but less featureful until the benefits of network-transparent GUIs are rediscovered all over again.
Long enough to make me wonder why, to this day, Microsoft and Macintosh haven't implemented something as useful. X may not have a lot of pretty client apps or great games, but it's one of the most useful things I have on my boxen. Being able to use graphical apps from my laptop by displayed on my desktop or vice-versa is such a godsend that I don't want to live without it. That's one of the main reasons I use UNIXen at home rather than Windows or MacOS.
It really is neat stuff.
X11 is a protocol
By implementing an X server on top of MacOSX's GUI, X clients can connect to it. This allows all our current X apps to work, network transparently or even from the Mac itself. That is a Very Good Thing.
And since X is a protocol, it is neither slow, buggy or holding anything back any more than HTTP is slow, buggy or holding the web back. So can we please stop with the "X is bad" rhetoric?
Hmm. It sounds like such a bumper would be full of squished bugs with little chance of finding any alive. I'd say it's a pretty good thing to have plenty of known dead bugs plastered prominantly in the logs of any piece of software...
I've tried GQView again and the results are much-improved, thankfully. I do have a 5000x4000 700k+ jpeg that soaks up lots of memory, but the performance is on par with xv and ImageMagick. But I'll get a better idea on performance once I point it at my hefty bg image collection - I am hopeful that it'll work okay, though.
I think we'd all like a really good image viewer. ImageMagick's display is good for just viewing an image, but it has no browsing capabilies like xv, which is the only thing keeping me from using it all the time.
GQView is Imlib based, unfortunately, and I haven't seen Imlib scale very well at all, making it useless for pretty big images.
xv is old, unsupported and non-free. But I'm still on the lookout for an alternative...*sigh*
But the book is, indeed, quite a good read.
I'd use a 2Ghz processor for emulation, encoding my CDs to ogg files and compiling software quickly. There's always a use for a speedy processor - but I wouldn't throw a lot of money at one just yet.
Just in case...
...both of them.
So yes, I do understand the importance of a good keyboard. Your keyboard, mouse, monitor and chair are going to be the most used pieces of equipment on your computer, will likely last over several computers and will make a huge difference in your comfort and productivity. Anyone who skimps on them deserves exactly what they get.
There is no such thing as "price discrimination". If Amazon thinks a bunch of consumers will pay $22 for Product X but the rest will only pay $20, they're free to try and charge the bunch of consumers $22 for it. There's no "bait and switch" here; everybody is still paying what Amazon charges. But if that bunch of consumers sees that SomeOtherSite.com is charging only $20 for Product X, Amazon will lose those sales. Thus, the price for that bunch will fall back to $20 again.
It's still capitalism and if you want to make it work, you have to shop around.
Racial or gender discrimination isn't legal, but Amazon doesn't have that information anyway. But no company has any obligation to charge customers identical prices for the same item. If the guy in front of you has a "$1000 off your next computer" coupon, you'll be charged a different price. Kids or the elderly can get discounts for all sorts of things, thus being charged a different price. If a company has a sale, the people buying before and during the sale get charged different prices. If I buy a car, I might haggle a different price than someone else for the same model/features.
It's called capitalism.
If you're willing to pay what Amazon charges, then what do you have to complain about? If the deal you're getting isn't good enough, shop somewhere else. Last time I looked, I didn't see a "guaranteed to be the best price" slogan anywhere on their site so they have a right to charge you any price they damn well please. And if you don't like it, there's plenty of alternatives.
I can hope, anyway.
You are correct. Unfortunately, the current system has done very little to improve the state of Slashdot discussion. In fact, I believe it has proven detrimental and needs nothing less than a complete overhaul - or be scrapped entirely.
Take the anonymous trolls, for instance. Not only are they still present, but they have become such a nuisance that reading articles at level 0 or less is almost a waste of bandwidth. Anyone wanting to honestly submit an anonymous (or unpopular) opinion isn't going to be heard unless moderators intervene to raise it a few points. And downgrading troll posts has not deterred them in any way from making yet more posts - since the amount of posts a troll can make is basically infinite but a moderator only gets five points to work with at a time.
Not only that, but moderators haven't improved discussion by moderating posts up, either. Part of the reason for this is that posts that are inflammatory or simply telling an unpopular opinion aren't going to be moderated to the same levels as another post that just parrots what most everyone else already believes. In fact, metamoderation encourages moderators to moderate conservatively since trying to champion an unpopular opinion is likely to lose you karma points in the metamoderation phase. The end result is no reward for going outside the Slashdot mainstream but plenty of grief.
As it stands, Slashdot has degenerated into a sort of "karma game"/popularity contest that does little to further discussion into anything interesting but plenty to dumb the whole site down into a sort of love fest, which is something of a minor tragedy considering the potential.
Near as I can tell, points aren't given for metamoderation but you can certainly lose a bundle of them by labeling a post such as this one since the metamoderators are unlikely to check the post's context and "disagree" with whatever you pick. Just think of it as thanks for a job well done.
And if you moderate in a way others disagree with, you'll also lose karma. Consider it a little penalty for your hard work in trying to keep Slashdot a better place. Or, just uncheck "willing to moderate" and avoid the game altogether.
Languages don't make brilliant solutions any easier than my pencil makes me good at writing, and anyone who thinks otherwise has indulged in a few too many Wall'isms. A clever solution to a problem, quicksort for example, is not more or less so depending on what language it is implemented in. A language is a tool, nothing more and to think otherwise is like saying a good brush has made you a better artist.
Oh please do get over it. If your creativity is entirely dependant upon a certain style of language syntax, perhaps you'd best take up maintaining old COBOL code and leave the programming to those who are beyond such trivialities.
Though I can't find it offered any more, I took a University of Minnesota course devoted entirely to computer history. It started with the works of Babbage but focused primarily on the era between post-ENIAC and pre-IBM PC. Fascinating stuff. I wish I'd held onto my textbook. I'm surprised these sorts of technical history courses aren't offered more.
But in any case, blasing Amazon over this isn't very helpful since it's just one of many many online and offline companies that are trading my data even now. Just a drop in the ocean, really.