I'm sure using a Live CD would have helped him understand the problems better, but his central point is that even Ubuntu still has compatibility issues, and the primary reason for this is because the Linux community is splintered into different communities, none of which has enough of the market share to justify the resources (by vendours) to fix these problems.
Byrne has long argued that the press dismissed his views at least in part because Weiss - hiding behind various anonymous accounts - spent years controlling the relevant articles on Wikipedia, the "free online encyclopedia anyone can edit."
Well that's the point of the article, not so? That journalists (the real ones that are supposed to be full of integrity etc) are making calls on what to publish based on what is written in Wikipedia. Am I the only one that finds it hideously scary that one site can have this much control over the conventional media?
I agree absolutely. Another peeve is the amount of "correlationisnotcausation" tags these types of articles get. True, correlation does not PROOVE causation, but it provides a great starting point for conjecture and the scientific process.
Thanks ibmjones, finally a +5 post that makes sense in this forum. I am shocked at the amount of posts here that basically says: "If you are not good at programming, then you can do design, system administration or project management." HTF do you do any of that if you do not understand programming? When you design, you design so that a programmer can implement it. When you administer a system, you have to automate a large amount of routine tasks in order to free up time to do other work - these are usually done with programmed scripts. I don't even want to think about working with a PM that does not know anything about programming.
I absolutely agree! In logic (as in philosophy, not maths) its called the "Two wrongs make a right" fallacy. If it happens in the US, then that makes in OK in Syria... somehow.
I was born and lived in Johannesburg all my life. We don't need international researchers (they are welcome, of course) - we need local people with skills that can be applied to grow the economy. And there is plenty of work here for mathematicians and physicists (and engineers, and software developers). The infrastructure in SA is well developed, we need skilled people to grow it. The crime problem still exists, but I honestly think calling JHB the most dangerous city in the world is a bit excessive. I have seen more street muggings in Paris than in the streets here.
Jeeze, you made me laugh! "..severely lacking in agriculture?". Very good one.
South Africa doesn't need agriculture (if you're in Europe, go to the local fruit store and count the number of fruit imported from SA. Here's a hint to find them - they're usually the biggest, best ones). The infrastructure is here. We need skills to enable us to grow the economy. Skills like maths and science - corporations here pay good money for scientific skills, in quality of life terms probably better than Europe and the USA. You may argue that you were talking about the rest of Africa - fact is, economic growth has to start from somewhere.
South Africa is a developing country - and I mean developing as in development is taking place, not as in third world backwards etc. There is a lot of well paying work here for people with maths and science. Engineers are also in short supply. A bright African student, with otherwise no hope of advancing his education in maths/science, will jump at an opportunity to attend a local center of excellence, get an education, and apply for one of these jobs. And not everyone is aiming for the Einstein level of excellence when it comes to scientific career - many people (most, in fact), would settle for a secure, well paying, satisfying job.
O FFS, using extreme examples like Sierra Leone to generalize about Africa is just ridiculous. I live in South Africa, and there are a lot of bright people here, both South Africans and from other African countries. We need an initiative like this - if some of the people choose to leave with their skills, so be it, but many will choose to stay and apply their knowledge here.
With your reasoning: Maybe the USA should stop building universities, because we all know Noth American countries like Nicaragua and Honduras are dirt poor and just a waste of any attempt at excellence.
Re:Excession and Look to Windward?
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Matter
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Agreed. For me Excession was like reading an IRC log, only between space ships.
We don't catch free animals in the nature, by far most of our food comes from farms and not even from normally evolved animals, but animals breed over centuries to fit human needs. That sounds a bit fishy...
Completely agree on your sentiments with W3C. These are the same people who gave us standards on CSS, web services, XHTML. What a portfolio of inter-operable open standards! Even their one success, HTML, is actually a mess that they have been trying to fix (unsuccessfully) for years.
Slaves don't count in the thought experiment because they didn't get democracy in either case
But they did get democracy - the majority of population at the time democratically decided not to give any vote or freedom to their slaves. That's the problem with unconstitutional democracy - the majority can do with the minority whatever they want.
Yeah, I read Andre Brink's "Duiwelskloof" (Devil's Valley) in the original Afrikaans. A number of Amazon reviewers complained about the amount of swearing in it - they just don't understand that swearing in Afrikaans feels completely different from English! Swear words like the f-word, although the same in meaning, just has a completely different "feel" to it when said in Afrikaans. Its just... funnier.
I can understand that cameras in crime fighting may be a waste of time in cities like London where criminals use "clever" rather than violent tactics. Here in Johannesburg, the installation of CCTV cameras have brought the violent crime levels in the inner city down by 80%. We don't have debates here about civil rights and privacy laws - pretty much everyone is happy to be able to walk down the street and not being shot at every other day.
People and Programs are both best defined by what they DO, not what they ARE Ironically, that is exactly what OO is all about - hide the data and expose the behaviour.
In MY office environment, people use Excel (amongst a host of other proprietary software) to extract information from data sources, manipulate sensitive financial information and forward it to downstream applications for further processing. They use mathematical models in Excel to evaluate positions and how/when to do deals with huge exposure.
Hey, I'm not saying its the right way to do things, just that its the reality. I don't know of any corporate bank that do things differently.
The guys at Naked Objects (http://www.nakedobjects.org/) have been singing a similar tune for some time now. Not the part about making business more like games, but about using "open-ended" and proper object oriented software that allows user interaction similar to games. I think they even used The Incredible Machine as inspiration.
Maybe the standard should first address the basic issue of how we view our interactions with a computer.
For some applications, a computer program consists of a set of "objects" that can be manipulated using "commands". (Examples: most 3D games, CAD, design tools, most email clients). The command is local to the object. These types of applications are known for being open-ended in the sense that they do not try to force the user to come to a solution using a predefined path, but allow the user to determine how he wants to solve the problem.
Other applications promote a task-oriented (process based?) interaction (work flow, Amazon check out). For these apps, a whole different set of rules need to apply. The user must be guided in a very restricted way to solve his problem.
I reckon a completely different set of UI standards should apply to these 2 scenarios.
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I'm sure using a Live CD would have helped him understand the problems better, but his central point is that even Ubuntu still has compatibility issues, and the primary reason for this is because the Linux community is splintered into different communities, none of which has enough of the market share to justify the resources (by vendours) to fix these problems.
Byrne has long argued that the press dismissed his views at least in part because Weiss - hiding behind various anonymous accounts - spent years controlling the relevant articles on Wikipedia, the "free online encyclopedia anyone can edit."
Well that's the point of the article, not so? That journalists (the real ones that are supposed to be full of integrity etc) are making calls on what to publish based on what is written in Wikipedia. Am I the only one that finds it hideously scary that one site can have this much control over the conventional media?
I agree absolutely. Another peeve is the amount of "correlationisnotcausation" tags these types of articles get. True, correlation does not PROOVE causation, but it provides a great starting point for conjecture and the scientific process.
I was rather hoping for a BattleChess like game where the players box it out to decide which piece captures which. This just sounds ... weird.
Thanks ibmjones, finally a +5 post that makes sense in this forum. I am shocked at the amount of posts here that basically says: "If you are not good at programming, then you can do design, system administration or project management." HTF do you do any of that if you do not understand programming? When you design, you design so that a programmer can implement it. When you administer a system, you have to automate a large amount of routine tasks in order to free up time to do other work - these are usually done with programmed scripts. I don't even want to think about working with a PM that does not know anything about programming.
I absolutely agree! In logic (as in philosophy, not maths) its called the "Two wrongs make a right" fallacy. If it happens in the US, then that makes in OK in Syria ... somehow.
I was born and lived in Johannesburg all my life. We don't need international researchers (they are welcome, of course) - we need local people with skills that can be applied to grow the economy. And there is plenty of work here for mathematicians and physicists (and engineers, and software developers). The infrastructure in SA is well developed, we need skilled people to grow it. The crime problem still exists, but I honestly think calling JHB the most dangerous city in the world is a bit excessive. I have seen more street muggings in Paris than in the streets here.
Jeeze, you made me laugh! "..severely lacking in agriculture?". Very good one.
South Africa doesn't need agriculture (if you're in Europe, go to the local fruit store and count the number of fruit imported from SA. Here's a hint to find them - they're usually the biggest, best ones). The infrastructure is here. We need skills to enable us to grow the economy. Skills like maths and science - corporations here pay good money for scientific skills, in quality of life terms probably better than Europe and the USA. You may argue that you were talking about the rest of Africa - fact is, economic growth has to start from somewhere.
I guess you've never met a black person before. Let me put it in your terms: most of them are actually amazingly smart! Almost like us! Amazing!
Well, a more interesting question might be - does the average engineer get paid more than the average football player?
South Africa is a developing country - and I mean developing as in development is taking place, not as in third world backwards etc. There is a lot of well paying work here for people with maths and science. Engineers are also in short supply. A bright African student, with otherwise no hope of advancing his education in maths/science, will jump at an opportunity to attend a local center of excellence, get an education, and apply for one of these jobs. And not everyone is aiming for the Einstein level of excellence when it comes to scientific career - many people (most, in fact), would settle for a secure, well paying, satisfying job.
You're kidding, right?
O FFS, using extreme examples like Sierra Leone to generalize about Africa is just ridiculous. I live in South Africa, and there are a lot of bright people here, both South Africans and from other African countries. We need an initiative like this - if some of the people choose to leave with their skills, so be it, but many will choose to stay and apply their knowledge here. With your reasoning: Maybe the USA should stop building universities, because we all know Noth American countries like Nicaragua and Honduras are dirt poor and just a waste of any attempt at excellence.
Agreed. For me Excession was like reading an IRC log, only between space ships.
Did you perhaps mean The Algebraist? If so, kuddos to you!
Completely agree on your sentiments with W3C. These are the same people who gave us standards on CSS, web services, XHTML. What a portfolio of inter-operable open standards! Even their one success, HTML, is actually a mess that they have been trying to fix (unsuccessfully) for years.
But they did get democracy - the majority of population at the time democratically decided not to give any vote or freedom to their slaves. That's the problem with unconstitutional democracy - the majority can do with the minority whatever they want.
Yeah, I read Andre Brink's "Duiwelskloof" (Devil's Valley) in the original Afrikaans. A number of Amazon reviewers complained about the amount of swearing in it - they just don't understand that swearing in Afrikaans feels completely different from English! Swear words like the f-word, although the same in meaning, just has a completely different "feel" to it when said in Afrikaans. Its just ... funnier.
I can understand that cameras in crime fighting may be a waste of time in cities like London where criminals use "clever" rather than violent tactics. Here in Johannesburg, the installation of CCTV cameras have brought the violent crime levels in the inner city down by 80%. We don't have debates here about civil rights and privacy laws - pretty much everyone is happy to be able to walk down the street and not being shot at every other day.
But since you started..
In MY office environment, people use Excel (amongst a host of other proprietary software) to extract information from data sources, manipulate sensitive financial information and forward it to downstream applications for further processing. They use mathematical models in Excel to evaluate positions and how/when to do deals with huge exposure.
Hey, I'm not saying its the right way to do things, just that its the reality. I don't know of any corporate bank that do things differently.
The guys at Naked Objects (http://www.nakedobjects.org/) have been singing a similar tune for some time now. Not the part about making business more like games, but about using "open-ended" and proper object oriented software that allows user interaction similar to games. I think they even used The Incredible Machine as inspiration.
Maybe the standard should first address the basic issue of how we view our interactions with a computer.
For some applications, a computer program consists of a set of "objects" that can be manipulated using "commands". (Examples: most 3D games, CAD, design tools, most email clients). The command is local to the object. These types of applications are known for being open-ended in the sense that they do not try to force the user to come to a solution using a predefined path, but allow the user to determine how he wants to solve the problem.
Other applications promote a task-oriented (process based?) interaction (work flow, Amazon check out). For these apps, a whole different set of rules need to apply. The user must be guided in a very restricted way to solve his problem.
I reckon a completely different set of UI standards should apply to these 2 scenarios.