This is one of those ideas that won't be feasible unless and until lift to orbit costs about what long distance air travel costs now.
It's feasible if the new material is worth more then its production and transportation costs. There might be very valuable use-cases, so your statement seems a bit to early in my opinion. It might be worth it to check it out.
I currently use Ubuntu Linux, on a standalone laptop - it has no Internet connection. I occasionally carry flash memory drives between this machine and the Macs that I use for network surfing and graphics
Your comment and some other comments here are NOT about literate programming. There is NO reason literate programs should use more words or longer words then normal programs.
The only thing literate programming is about, is the reversal of comments and code. Instead commenting your code, you write comments and write your code in between; as if you're writing a book.
It might be a fallen out of fashion for C-programs, but for programs in functional languages it is very common and extremely useful
A HASKELL program is usually very compact and the surrounding comments are more important then the actual lines of code. This makes writing the program as a book is a very good practice.
A similar study by Stanford scientists suggests that droughts reduced the population to as few as 2,000 humans, who were scattered in small, isolated groups
This is exactly the kind of statement that make me wonder how many people read it and believe it.
I'm no expert and these scientists can probably make more accurate estimates than me, but they surely can't know how many people lives 2000 years ago. A handfull of teeth, some half-understood DNA-data and some theories simply don't give that kind of information.
2000 might be a nice "estimate" but maybe they should write 2000 (+/- 1 bilion).
Re:I Want My First Personal Linux Machine
on
Ubuntu 8.04 Released
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I'm running XP at home. I've got two large hard drives, not in a RAID. Were I to download this Ubuntu release, would it be easy to set up dual-booting? What's the best way to do that, assuming I don't want to upset by Windows install in any way? Would I need to use FAT32 on a drive to make it visible to both OSs? Is there a robust method to at least read NTFS in Linux? Would it make sense to install on a USB memory stick or an external hard drive?
NTFS read/write access has stable for a long time. No need for FAT32.
You don't need an external harddisk or usb-stick. Ubuntu won't disturb Windows.
Just download, burn and boot the live cd, then click the install icon. Ubuntu will guide you smoothly into making some space and dual-booting.
You can tell me I'm wrong, but when >70% of the population has a product that almost requires iTunes
You're wrong.
Make that <7%. I'd guess more like 1% or 2%. iPod dominates the 'market' with about 72%, but the market for portable music players is not the entire population and not anywhere near as big as the market for home-computers and laptops. Besides, Amarok is an excellent substitute.
I couldn't disagree more. How many users do you think, are actually using one of these professional tools?
I think only a few. Most users still use there computer for web browsing, emailing wordprocessing and IM.
Although it would be nice to have those professional applications ported or seriously replaced with Open Source versions, it's definitely not the BIG problem of Linux on the desktop
What is missing from the puzzle for being a "desktop"?
Simple answer: easy installation.
FreeBSD with Gnome or KDE is simply not comparable to Ubuntu Hardy (for example) in terms of installation and administration for the average Joe.
I agree that for the desktop might not be the right terminology but if you step in Joe's shoes and compare both solutions you'll notice a huge difference.
every time we need to load a driver into kernel-space
"Every time" as in.... ? Most of us don't load drivers into kernel space on a yearly basis. Correct me if I'm wrong but this sounds like a terrible argument against a monolithic kernel.
The main goal of every company is to make as much profit as possible. You can't survive without this goal.
The article is mainly about companies that try to do business with non-profit organizations. I don't see how this can be labeled "social enterprises". Integrating some "social" goals in your business' mission statement is nice and pretty common, but it doesn't change the fact that your main goal should be making profit.
The article doesn't seem to state anything that would convince me otherwise. Nothing to see here. Move along.
We're developing a system which makes this very easy and free (except phone bill) on bliin.com (or m.bliin.com on your mobile), and we've noticed that people are rarely bothered by the privacy issue. The coolness of seeing yourself and your friends live on the map tends to outweigh paranoia.
Just because this guy invented (or part-invented) an encryption technique, he is not necessarily an expert in any other field - no matter how much of a celebtrity he may be.
Just because this guy invented an encryption technique, doesn't mean he less capable of studying the risks than some nuclear expert. At a first glance, he doesn't seem to claim anything outrageous.
Beware of "celebrities" with a cause, but not necessarily more or less then "experts" with a cause
unison -batch performs excellent automated synchronization.
incron can be used to run unison -batch whenever a file is modified.
Together they'll do the job.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see why this is a major update (5 => 6).
Soap & XML was already implemented which leaves namespaces and unicode support as new features, and a bunch of stuff removed
This is one of those ideas that won't be feasible unless and until lift to orbit costs about what long distance air travel costs now.
It's feasible if the new material is worth more then its production and transportation costs. There might be very valuable use-cases, so your statement seems a bit to early in my opinion. It might be worth it to check it out.
Ehhh.. WTF?
Your comment and some other comments here are NOT about literate programming. There is NO reason literate programs should use more words or longer words then normal programs.
The only thing literate programming is about, is the reversal of comments and code. Instead commenting your code, you write comments and write your code in between; as if you're writing a book.
It might be a fallen out of fashion for C-programs, but for programs in functional languages it is very common and extremely useful
A HASKELL program is usually very compact and the surrounding comments are more important then the actual lines of code. This makes writing the program as a book is a very good practice.
Important point. mod up.
A similar study by Stanford scientists suggests that droughts reduced the population to as few as 2,000 humans, who were scattered in small, isolated groupsThis is exactly the kind of statement that make me wonder how many people read it and believe it.
I'm no expert and these scientists can probably make more accurate estimates than me, but they surely can't know how many people lives 2000 years ago. A handfull of teeth, some half-understood DNA-data and some theories simply don't give that kind of information.
2000 might be a nice "estimate" but maybe they should write 2000 (+/- 1 bilion).
NTFS read/write access has stable for a long time. No need for FAT32.
You don't need an external harddisk or usb-stick. Ubuntu won't disturb Windows.
Just download, burn and boot the live cd, then click the install icon. Ubuntu will guide you smoothly into making some space and dual-booting.
Don't Panic
You're wrong.
Make that <7%. I'd guess more like 1% or 2%. iPod dominates the 'market' with about 72%, but the market for portable music players is not the entire population and not anywhere near as big as the market for home-computers and laptops. Besides, Amarok is an excellent substitute.
..., based on Mozilla and 3D technology from VizibleI guess not "all" these new browsers are based on the IE engine...
It's not just made for Vista. It's modeled after Vista too.
I couldn't disagree more. How many users do you think, are actually using one of these professional tools?
I think only a few. Most users still use there computer for web browsing, emailing wordprocessing and IM.
Although it would be nice to have those professional applications ported or seriously replaced with Open Source versions, it's definitely not the BIG problem of Linux on the desktop
Simple answer: easy installation.
FreeBSD with Gnome or KDE is simply not comparable to Ubuntu Hardy (for example) in terms of installation and administration for the average Joe.
I agree that for the desktop might not be the right terminology but if you step in Joe's shoes and compare both solutions you'll notice a huge difference.
"Every time" as in .... ? Most of us don't load drivers into kernel space on a yearly basis. Correct me if I'm wrong but this sounds like a terrible argument against a monolithic kernel.
Moderated as offtopic??
Only on slashdot
What makes you think they have? Any sources on this?
Besides, even if they have access to it, they surely didn't get the right to open-source it. Not legally nor morally, even for open-source advocates.
The main goal of every company is to make as much profit as possible. You can't survive without this goal.
The article is mainly about companies that try to do business with non-profit organizations. I don't see how this can be labeled "social enterprises". Integrating some "social" goals in your business' mission statement is nice and pretty common, but it doesn't change the fact that your main goal should be making profit.
The article doesn't seem to state anything that would convince me otherwise. Nothing to see here. Move along.
A.T.M. machines? What are they? Machines that make Automated Teller Machines or something? Not so regular where I come from...
We're developing a system which makes this very easy and free (except phone bill) on bliin.com (or m.bliin.com on your mobile), and we've noticed that people are rarely bothered by the privacy issue. The coolness of seeing yourself and your friends live on the map tends to outweigh paranoia.
Just because this guy invented an encryption technique, doesn't mean he less capable of studying the risks than some nuclear expert. At a first glance, he doesn't seem to claim anything outrageous.
Beware of "celebrities" with a cause, but not necessarily more or less then "experts" with a cause
... not very promising.
unison -batch performs excellent automated synchronization. incron can be used to run unison -batch whenever a file is modified. Together they'll do the job.