Okay, so I just imagined this quote from Andrew Tanenbaum on his website where he described Linux as such:
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Linus for producing it. Before there was Linux there was MINIX, which had a 40,000-person newsgroup, most of whom were sending me email every day. I was going crazy with the endless stream of new features people were sending me. I kept refusing them all because I wanted to keep MINIX small enough for my students to understand in one semester. My consistent refusal to add all these new features is what inspired Linus to write Linux. Both of us are now happy with the results. The only person who is perhaps not so happy is Bill Gates. I think this is a good thing.
M$ seems to not understand that viewing the source is only one third of the Open Source equation. The other half is being able to modify the code, and distribute those modifications.
Linux would be some grad student's pet project were it not for the fact that Linus opened the code for discussion, so to speak. Many of the early ideas for the Linux kernel were inspired by the Minux operating system, published in book form by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. The source code was there for Minux, published and documented. I have a copy myself from my days as a computer engineering student.
Why don't we use the Minux kernel? Well for starters, Tanenbaum (at least at the time) was a bit of a minimalist. His goal was to create a toy operating system to teach operating system design with. He didn't want to hear about adding drivers or alternate file systems. And for every good reason, you have to master walking before running, let alone flight.
Enter Linus. He develops a new kernel, but instead of publish it in book form, he released it on a newsgroup and asked for suggestions on how to improve it. The rest is history, or at least in the CVS logs.
That is the miracle of high gain antennas. Satellite signals from space aren't all that balsy either. With the right antenna you focus the signal on a single point. Just like taking a magnifying glass and focusing the energy on an ant.
I'm curious about how they managed to compensate for the curvature of the earth. After a white the signal will start bouncing off the ground en route to the recieving station.
That said, there is a wide gulf of "motions" between making the Linux interface more consistant and simply throwing in the towel and allowing a proprietary product to wiggle its way into our everyday lives.
I wouldn't recommend linux developers touch this with a 10 foot pole. It just legitimizes the use of proprietary file formats, and (gasp) digital rights management.
And who can forget folks, who has Microsoft managed to NOT screw. There are so many ways they can twist this dagger once it's in our back I need to see a chiropractor just thinking about it,
Except of course there is no construct for "To Be" in Klingon. The linguist who designed it was a bit of a purist. Needless to say he had to do a bit of interesting work with the dialog to translate Hamlet's speach for the Undiscovered Country. LOL
This simply shows that at least in Norway decrypting a DVD is not data theft. OTOH, since the prosecution did not try to charge him with copyright circumvention we still have no ruling on the matter.
The ommision of the Fourier Transform is a big one, because it, or a kissing cousin, is precisely what human senses USE for calibration.
We don't take a straight signal in and record it like a video camera. We run it through a biological convolution function that generates a holographic signal. That is what allows our eyes to subtract out the blood vessels on top of our retina. That is also what allows our ears to subtract out background noise from a room to hear a conversation.
Next they will be telling us that movie makers not painting the back of sets will cause macular degeneration!
Review From One Who Actually Saw the Movie
on
Critics Pan Nemesis
·
· Score: 2
Friends, Slashdotters, Netizens, lend me you ears...
I just got back from the movie, (ideed wallowing in nerdiness by composing this review in bed, on a Dual Booting Sony Viao, running Linux over a wireless connection, through an IPTABLES based router, across another connection, and through my Office T1 line.)
Do not believe the bad hype. The movie has a good bit of soul. Indeed, it does ask some very real questions about humanity.
You feel for the villian at times.
The story tellers lead you down dark corridors. When you don't think the protagonists are going to be able to get out they find a way through brainpower and force of will. The director really keeps you in the dark about where the story is going. When you arrive, you feel like you have been on a rollar coaster.
There is a shock at the end. I can't tell you what, but you will not see it coming, I assure you.
Now, go out, give Paramount some of your hard earned dollars, and come back to tell me how I got it all wrong.
Skip spreadsheets. Whip up some tables in your relational database of choice (MySQL, SQLite, Postgres, et al) and slap a web interface on the front using your serverside scripting language of choice (TCL,PHP,PERL, et all).
I am actually in the process of writing a self-contained webserver based on the TclHttpd using the SQLite embedded database. The plan is to run the server on the individuals computer, and have them open a browser connection to localhost.
The TCL Web server can also load specialized modules for printing forms, and also access the local file system to syncronize data, poke through the registry etc. Charts and graphics could be handled by rendering GIF files.
The really nice part about this setup is that a small office can all access the books. With a forms-based accounting system, you SO will be up and running in no time flat.
Not to nickpick. but your arguments are inconsistent.
The quality of tech support was not in question, it is a matter of when an employee clocks out at the end of the day and acts as a private citizen X does the company get to govern his/her actions.
No one was saying these individuals were trying to act as agents of the company. All liability arguments are moot. This is simply a matter of control.
I think it would be also fair to say that Sci-Fi is simply modern mythology told in a far away place that is in the future instead of the past.
How many Evil Computer stories do we have to read before we realize it is a rehashing of the legend of the Golem? (A Rabbi creates a creature from clay that goes bezerk. He destroys it by rubbing out a symbol on its forehead.)
How many Apolcalptic War stories do we have to read before going back to the Vikings and Ragnorok?
How many time traveling stories do we have to read before going back to all the tales the Greeks used to tell about Prophesy? (Oedipus' father was told the future, tried to change it, and ended up actually causing it.)
While we are on the subject of the Greeks, they were the ones who introduced magical items as plot devices.
Give credit where credit is due, we ALL stand on the backs of giants.
You would really love the book The Computers of Star Trek. You think that all of the computer equipment on the show is high tech, until you realize they were rehashing the mainframe concept.
I have to admit I'm a bit of a closet Sci-Fi Novelist. I have about 30 or so first chapters sitting in a bin of iniquity within a pile of documents that seem to follow me with every computer I own.
I have taken great pains to study the great masters. I have read the commentaries of several authors, poured through Campell's "Power of Myth", and foisted my work on unwitting colleges and family.
What I lack is what the masters posses: magic. I don't mean the swords and sorcery type of magic, I mean the I'm moving my left hand so you don't see my right hand reach down into my pockey type magic. The ability to suspend disbelief and despite the audience's best efforts, engage them in a meaningful story dressed up as a shootem-up or fantasy.
How many Sci-Fi novels have you read, and after reflecting on the whole story you realize that the characters weren't just real people, they are people that you actually knew. How many plots seems fantastic and almost farcical, and end up being allegories for current events?
My problem is that I don't have a lack of story telling ability. I just don't have a story to tell .
I wouldn't really count the Hitchiker's series as a solid work of science fiction. It was a lampoon of other works of science fiction up until the last book 5, where he tried to introduce that character who had no filters and the entire universe collapsed.
IMO he should have stopped at book 2, about where the radio series ended, and about where he actually tried to make the story coherent.
Far more serious a work in sciece fictions was his Dirk Gently's series. He tackled some serious issues regarding time, mythology, the very meaning of reality.
My computer blue screens more often under XP than it ever did under 98. I run a network of 2000 machines, and let me tell you, our old friend BSOD still visits on a regular basis.
I run Linux and Windows side by side on identicle hardware in production environments. Linux is just too damn simple to kill. Windows is only getting more complicated. Bugs and hangs are proportional to code complexity. Do the math.
Slashdot Mirror
Then again, software doesn't kill people when it fails.
Thank you for showing me sanity.
And I'll also kind of ignore that the first few versions of Linux were published on the comp.os.minix newsgroup.
I will give you that MINIX is mispelled.
WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?!?!
LOL
This from the same guy who visits his Wife's in-laws. Someone should start writing this stuff down, it sounds like I have a career in politics.
Mea Culpa.
Linux would be some grad student's pet project were it not for the fact that Linus opened the code for discussion, so to speak. Many of the early ideas for the Linux kernel were inspired by the Minux operating system, published in book form by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. The source code was there for Minux, published and documented. I have a copy myself from my days as a computer engineering student.
Why don't we use the Minux kernel? Well for starters, Tanenbaum (at least at the time) was a bit of a minimalist. His goal was to create a toy operating system to teach operating system design with. He didn't want to hear about adding drivers or alternate file systems. And for every good reason, you have to master walking before running, let alone flight.
Enter Linus. He develops a new kernel, but instead of publish it in book form, he released it on a newsgroup and asked for suggestions on how to improve it. The rest is history, or at least in the CVS logs.
I'm curious about how they managed to compensate for the curvature of the earth. After a white the signal will start bouncing off the ground en route to the recieving station.
Not to completely rag on you man, but people in developing countries would have to learn how to read before the internet would be much use to them.
Oh well, I'm still sucking on the internet pipe like a dwarf on a firehose.
Hmmm, perhaps instead of a subscription to Science, maybe Hustler or Screw magazine?
That said, there is a wide gulf of "motions" between making the Linux interface more consistant and simply throwing in the towel and allowing a proprietary product to wiggle its way into our everyday lives.
And who can forget folks, who has Microsoft managed to NOT screw. There are so many ways they can twist this dagger once it's in our back I need to see a chiropractor just thinking about it,
According to Illiad the story went like this [userfriendly.org]
Except of course there is no construct for "To Be" in Klingon. The linguist who designed it was a bit of a purist. Needless to say he had to do a bit of interesting work with the dialog to translate Hamlet's speach for the Undiscovered Country. LOL
This simply shows that at least in Norway decrypting a DVD is not data theft. OTOH, since the prosecution did not try to charge him with copyright circumvention we still have no ruling on the matter.
We don't take a straight signal in and record it like a video camera. We run it through a biological convolution function that generates a holographic signal. That is what allows our eyes to subtract out the blood vessels on top of our retina. That is also what allows our ears to subtract out background noise from a room to hear a conversation.
Next they will be telling us that movie makers not painting the back of sets will cause macular degeneration!
I just got back from the movie, (ideed wallowing in nerdiness by composing this review in bed, on a Dual Booting Sony Viao, running Linux over a wireless connection, through an IPTABLES based router, across another connection, and through my Office T1 line.)
Do not believe the bad hype. The movie has a good bit of soul. Indeed, it does ask some very real questions about humanity.
You feel for the villian at times.
The story tellers lead you down dark corridors. When you don't think the protagonists are going to be able to get out they find a way through brainpower and force of will. The director really keeps you in the dark about where the story is going. When you arrive, you feel like you have been on a rollar coaster.
There is a shock at the end. I can't tell you what, but you will not see it coming, I assure you.
Now, go out, give Paramount some of your hard earned dollars, and come back to tell me how I got it all wrong.
I think there is a reason the wife doesn't let me balance the checkbook.
I tend to forget that can does not imply ought.
I am actually in the process of writing a self-contained webserver based on the TclHttpd using the SQLite embedded database. The plan is to run the server on the individuals computer, and have them open a browser connection to localhost.
The TCL Web server can also load specialized modules for printing forms, and also access the local file system to syncronize data, poke through the registry etc. Charts and graphics could be handled by rendering GIF files.
The really nice part about this setup is that a small office can all access the books. With a forms-based accounting system, you SO will be up and running in no time flat.
Anyone in?
The quality of tech support was not in question, it is a matter of when an employee clocks out at the end of the day and acts as a private citizen X does the company get to govern his/her actions.
No one was saying these individuals were trying to act as agents of the company. All liability arguments are moot. This is simply a matter of control.
How many Evil Computer stories do we have to read before we realize it is a rehashing of the legend of the Golem? (A Rabbi creates a creature from clay that goes bezerk. He destroys it by rubbing out a symbol on its forehead.)
How many Apolcalptic War stories do we have to read before going back to the Vikings and Ragnorok?
How many time traveling stories do we have to read before going back to all the tales the Greeks used to tell about Prophesy? (Oedipus' father was told the future, tried to change it, and ended up actually causing it.)
While we are on the subject of the Greeks, they were the ones who introduced magical items as plot devices.
Give credit where credit is due, we ALL stand on the backs of giants.
You would really love the book The Computers of Star Trek. You think that all of the computer equipment on the show is high tech, until you realize they were rehashing the mainframe concept.
I have taken great pains to study the great masters. I have read the commentaries of several authors, poured through Campell's "Power of Myth", and foisted my work on unwitting colleges and family.
What I lack is what the masters posses: magic. I don't mean the swords and sorcery type of magic, I mean the I'm moving my left hand so you don't see my right hand reach down into my pockey type magic. The ability to suspend disbelief and despite the audience's best efforts, engage them in a meaningful story dressed up as a shootem-up or fantasy.
How many Sci-Fi novels have you read, and after reflecting on the whole story you realize that the characters weren't just real people, they are people that you actually knew. How many plots seems fantastic and almost farcical, and end up being allegories for current events?
My problem is that I don't have a lack of story telling ability. I just don't have a story to tell .
IMO he should have stopped at book 2, about where the radio series ended, and about where he actually tried to make the story coherent.
Far more serious a work in sciece fictions was his Dirk Gently's series. He tackled some serious issues regarding time, mythology, the very meaning of reality.
My computer blue screens more often under XP than it ever did under 98. I run a network of 2000 machines, and let me tell you, our old friend BSOD still visits on a regular basis.
I run Linux and Windows side by side on identicle hardware in production environments. Linux is just too damn simple to kill. Windows is only getting more complicated. Bugs and hangs are proportional to code complexity. Do the math.