Sorry but that's one of the dumbest things I've read in a while.
You're noting that the name "Linux" covers a broad range of things, and comparing it to the name "FreeBSD" which refers to one thing. You're then trying to say that "the BSDs don't have the fragmentation that Linux has". I call bullshit. Your example proves nothing remotely near that. It proves that FreeBSD isn't fragment, but then neither is the Debian project's distribution.
If I say "I run BSD" then there at least 3 different systems I could be running. Would you then say that "the BSDs have fragmentation just like Linux does"?
Inversely, if I say "I run Debian" then "I qualify my package management, my system boot scripts, where my conf files are, how the system works".
Sorry, I'm not normally this harsh, but what was your point again? If you try to compare Linux to FreeBSD then yes Linux will appear more fragmented. But how about we compare FreeBSD to Debian shall we? Apples to apples? Does your argument that it "damages" Debian still hold?
From my limited understanding, the problem with a space elevator is essentially that the ribbon is kept tight (and under massive strain) due to it's length and the mass located out in space. So why not have a sequence of ballon mounted elevators (ie. one at 1000 feet, another from 1000 to 2000 feet, etc) allowing some slack in the ribbon? Once we get to a point where balloons are no longer feasible we can start using a real space elevator. The final "real space elevator" would no longer extend so far into the Earth's gravity-well and so is more easily built.
First, you should be one of at least 2 or 3 reviewers. And you only need to worry about your anonymity if you were harsh to the author's work (fear of retaliation).
If one review is harsh, and the other two are nice, the author of the paper still doesn't know who exactly (in this case you) was the nasty one. If all/most reviews are harsh, then you don't need to worry because you're not the only one being harsh (and so it was justified).
If your name can be tied to a single review, there's a problem. But being tied to a batch of reviews doesn't matter.
Are you allowed to wear a motorcycle helmet into a post office or a bank? The ability for others to identify you, so long as it doesn't become physically inconvenient, is a very old idea. And yes, it's because you *might* break a law.
Keywords/topics are the primary feature of Epiphany's bookmark system. A patch exists to build a hierarchical menu out of them. The idea is to be easy-to-use but not radical (like a graph structure would be). Try it out if you want.
The Epiphany system can become unwieldy once you have either a large number of topics or a large number of bookmarks.
There is a patch to build a hierarchical menu of bookmarks automatically by taking into account the bookmarks where a user selected two or more topics. It needs users to test it though.
Where does the GPL say that you need to provide a full copy of the source? If I take part of some GPL project and use it, I only need to provide source for *that* part.
As for rasterisation, I agree. But so long as the components of the font that you use are included, you should be fine.
Link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of context -- either on its own or as part of a sequence of links. Link text should also be terse.
For example, in HTML, write "Information about version 4.3" instead of "click here". In addition to clear link text, content developers may further clarify the target of a link with an informative link title (e.g., in HTML, the "title" attribute).
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
usr
User. The "/usr" directory hierarchy on {Unix} systems. Once upon a time, in the early days of Unix, this area actually held users' home directories and files. Since these tend to expand much faster than system files,/usr would be mounted on the biggest disk on the system. The root directory, "/" in contrast, contains only what is needed to {boot} the {kernel}, after which/usr and other disks could be mounted as part of the multi-user start-up process.
While I accept what you've said (it at least *sounds* correct), can you please provide a link to a similary well-presented but more authoritative source than yourself posting on Slashdot? This isn't a challenge, but just a request for further information. Thanks.
OK, I'm getting sick of this. From all the evidence I have seen, Google bows to political pressure just the same as any citizen. Give me an example where Google has tried to impose it's own opinion on people of the world? Where does it use it's brand power to impose it's political or self-serving commercial views (which would be evil)?
Bowing to politicial views of a country is not evil. Just because it has power in the world (as a trusted source of information and thus a fantastic propaganda machine) does not mean that the heads of Google should wield that power for any reason. Google should not be a 'knight in shining armour'.
I'm not sure where it was pointed out that the tree structure is not computer optimised. Can you point me to that?
Anyway, spatial Nautilus is designed to utilise what spatial memory abilities you have to allow for flatter directory tree structures. This is what was demonstrated in the article. Other Gnome projects are doing the same (notice that the menus in Gnome projects are becoming smaller, with much less menu nesting?). Deep hierarchies are being avoided in all aspects of Gnome, and Nautilus demonstrates that. Many files + shallow tree = wider tree, and to navigate that you will need to use what non-computer-based skills you have. Whether or not spatial memory abilities are built into the brain is not a real concern - you have them, so you might as well use them.
I won't spend too much time addressing the second half of your response as it deals with arguments I didn't bring up. I will say that I have thousands of photos, on my hard drive, and use spatial Nautilus. An example path is/share/Photos/2004/Mountaintop. I have no problems whatsoever navigating to that location with spatial Nautilus. The directory/share/Photos/2004 contains around 10 sub-directories./share/Photos/2003 around 20 sub-directories. Spatial Nautilus helps me navigate these kinds of wider trees.
If the tree structure is for human use, why is it such a common structure for computers? They're used in the file system because they're efficient for computers. The suggestion that a human could place all their files into one directory and the computer "couldn't care less" is wrong - there is a bound on the number of files which can be contained in a directory. Why is that?
Imagine if the file system was unstructured (a flat list), but with the filenames given standardised names like:etc:X11:XF8Config. You would find that, although unique names are provided for each file, the computer quickly bogs down. Every time it needs to access a file it needs to load and search a massive list to find it's location on the disk.
Anyway, my point was that users have been prevented from constructing wider tree structures which they can use spatial information to navigate. Computer users tend to create logically clean (but deep) tree structures, as a *result* of computer science creating tools to manage trees efficiently. But a user (relying on spatial information) doesn't *need* logically clean tree structures, and (it is argued) is faster with wider trees.
Look, the filesystem is a TREE. That's what it IS. Any metaphor that you try to make the filesystem fit some other pattern will only take you so far. A tree is a very nice, clean structure.
And quite frankly, don't we WANT newbies to be learning the actual behavioural properties of the tools they use, rather than an artificially constructed interface which we deem them more able to use?
A computer is a tool, and should be approached as such. A user (newbie or otherwise) should not be forced to adapt their mind to structures used for efficient electronic computation. The spatial metaphor is founded on the idea that the human mind is not a computer, and so the most suitable structure for electronic computers is not the most suitable structure for humans.
A similar approach is taken with Epiphany's bookmark system where users categorise their bookmarks by selecting (possibly multiple) topics to associate a bookmark with. Many people have the same response (it's not a tree! give me my tree!), but have ignored the principle here. We want to make the computer human-oriented, not the human computer-oriented. Consider it for a while.
I would guess that he's referring to the Eugenia who frequently posts on the Gnome lists. I remember her posts on usability issues, often comparing Gnome to OS X or (her favourite) BeOS.
You state that "only" the base operating environment is GNU, and note that many other groups have contributed further software. Therefore, GNU should not get any special mention.
Did you ever consider that every single one of your examples (KDE, XFree86, Apache, Postgresql, Mozilla) uses GNU libc? If we consider Linux as the bedrock, GNU libc (and other standard libraries and utilities) are the soil.
Try building a workable computing environment (ie. one which works like UNIX), using Linux and absolutely no GNU components. I can build one without KDE, XFree86, Apache, Postgresql, or Mozilla. But I would be pressed to make one without a single GNU piece of code.
I see a lot of comments saying that the standard is vague and ambiguous. That might be true, but that isn't why your documents don't render correctly.
Ever tried to write an HTML document which "renders" correctly for a blind person?
Ever consider that HTML is meant to instruct the browser on what is intended and not on how to render it? The idea of these markup languages is that you "mark" text as the heading, or as a paragraph, and let the user agent (normally a web browser) sort it out.
You can demand that CSS code always renders the same, except that the user may choose to override your settings. If you depend on using your CSS-based layout to be able to navigate your website, then you wrote your webpage incorrectly. I see the ambiguity in the standards as saying "don't rely on me!", and you simply shouldn't rely on them.
Consider the following - I'll write down the letters 'a' and 'b' in some order in secret. Now, you pick a number 1 or 2. I'll then tell you the letter at that position.
Since noone (not even us) can predict what the outcome can be, I'd say we have a random letter generator.
Now consider that each person's brain essentially works in parallel, with only limited information exchanged between sections. Are you so sure then that humans cannot act randomly?
You obviously haven't been to one of the matches. I used to program stuff in the simulation league (nothing real, just little dots moving about on the screen). You should have seen the people jumping around in the lecture theatre, yelling to their team to c'mon, c'mon, kick it in!
People will identify with - and get involved with - almost anything. You could really feel the tension in the room grow as the ball was moved closer and closer to goals.
Maybe I'm wrong though - I'm an Aussie and we'll place bets on flies crawling up a wall.:)
All we need now is the implementation of their extension in Mesa - if they're going to go to all the trouble of developing OpenGL extensions you'd expect nVidia to help there as well.
Just a thought: Do people who are colour blind feel the same way we do about past photos?
I experienced exactly the same thing you described when looking at the pictures - it's like you suddenly realise that the world did exist and everyone in it was real so long ago. It's incredible. I'd be interested to hear if colour-blind people have always felt the same way we used to wrt old photos, or do they feel the way that we do now?
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry but that's one of the dumbest things I've read in a while.
You're noting that the name "Linux" covers a broad range of things, and comparing it to the name "FreeBSD" which refers to one thing. You're then trying to say that "the BSDs don't have the fragmentation that Linux has". I call bullshit. Your example proves nothing remotely near that. It proves that FreeBSD isn't fragment, but then neither is the Debian project's distribution.
If I say "I run BSD" then there at least 3 different systems I could be running. Would you then say that "the BSDs have fragmentation just like Linux does"?
Inversely, if I say "I run Debian" then "I qualify my package management, my system boot scripts, where my conf files are, how the system works".
Sorry, I'm not normally this harsh, but what was your point again? If you try to compare Linux to FreeBSD then yes Linux will appear more fragmented. But how about we compare FreeBSD to Debian shall we? Apples to apples? Does your argument that it "damages" Debian still hold?
From my limited understanding, the problem with a space elevator is essentially that the ribbon is kept tight (and under massive strain) due to it's length and the mass located out in space. So why not have a sequence of ballon mounted elevators (ie. one at 1000 feet, another from 1000 to 2000 feet, etc) allowing some slack in the ribbon? Once we get to a point where balloons are no longer feasible we can start using a real space elevator. The final "real space elevator" would no longer extend so far into the Earth's gravity-well and so is more easily built.
First, you should be one of at least 2 or 3 reviewers. And you only need to worry about your anonymity if you were harsh to the author's work (fear of retaliation).
If one review is harsh, and the other two are nice, the author of the paper still doesn't know who exactly (in this case you) was the nasty one. If all/most reviews are harsh, then you don't need to worry because you're not the only one being harsh (and so it was justified).
If your name can be tied to a single review, there's a problem. But being tied to a batch of reviews doesn't matter.
Are you allowed to wear a motorcycle helmet into a post office or a bank? The ability for others to identify you, so long as it doesn't become physically inconvenient, is a very old idea. And yes, it's because you *might* break a law.
Keywords/topics are the primary feature of Epiphany's bookmark system. A patch exists to build a hierarchical menu out of them. The idea is to be easy-to-use but not radical (like a graph structure would be). Try it out if you want.
h tml
http://www.dsl.uow.edu.au/~harvey/code_epiphany.s
The Epiphany system can become unwieldy once you have either a large number of topics or a large number of bookmarks.
There is a patch to build a hierarchical menu of bookmarks automatically by taking into account the bookmarks where a user selected two or more topics. It needs users to test it though.
http://www.dsl.uow.edu.au/~harvey/code_epiphany.sh tml
Where does the GPL say that you need to provide a full copy of the source? If I take part of some GPL project and use it, I only need to provide source for *that* part.
As for rasterisation, I agree. But so long as the components of the font that you use are included, you should be fine.
Go to http://www.bom.gov.au/reguser/by_prod/aviation/ and follow the instructions. Now I can't really read it, but I'd say you're after the Area Forecasts. They have information like:
WINDS CLOCKWISE 35 KNOTS WITHIN 60NM OF LOW BELOW 5000
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
While I accept what you've said (it at least *sounds* correct), can you please provide a link to a similary well-presented but more authoritative source than yourself posting on Slashdot? This isn't a challenge, but just a request for further information. Thanks.
OK, I'm getting sick of this. From all the evidence I have seen, Google bows to political pressure just the same as any citizen. Give me an example where Google has tried to impose it's own opinion on people of the world? Where does it use it's brand power to impose it's political or self-serving commercial views (which would be evil)?
Bowing to politicial views of a country is not evil. Just because it has power in the world (as a trusted source of information and thus a fantastic propaganda machine) does not mean that the heads of Google should wield that power for any reason. Google should not be a 'knight in shining armour'.
I'm not sure where it was pointed out that the tree structure is not computer optimised. Can you point me to that?
/share/Photos/2004/Mountaintop. I have no problems whatsoever navigating to that location with spatial Nautilus. The directory /share/Photos/2004 contains around 10 sub-directories. /share/Photos/2003 around 20 sub-directories. Spatial Nautilus helps me navigate these kinds of wider trees.
Anyway, spatial Nautilus is designed to utilise what spatial memory abilities you have to allow for flatter directory tree structures. This is what was demonstrated in the article. Other Gnome projects are doing the same (notice that the menus in Gnome projects are becoming smaller, with much less menu nesting?). Deep hierarchies are being avoided in all aspects of Gnome, and Nautilus demonstrates that. Many files + shallow tree = wider tree, and to navigate that you will need to use what non-computer-based skills you have. Whether or not spatial memory abilities are built into the brain is not a real concern - you have them, so you might as well use them.
I won't spend too much time addressing the second half of your response as it deals with arguments I didn't bring up. I will say that I have thousands of photos, on my hard drive, and use spatial Nautilus. An example path is
If the tree structure is for human use, why is it such a common structure for computers? They're used in the file system because they're efficient for computers. The suggestion that a human could place all their files into one directory and the computer "couldn't care less" is wrong - there is a bound on the number of files which can be contained in a directory. Why is that?
:etc:X11:XF8Config. You would find that, although unique names are provided for each file, the computer quickly bogs down. Every time it needs to access a file it needs to load and search a massive list to find it's location on the disk.
Imagine if the file system was unstructured (a flat list), but with the filenames given standardised names like
Anyway, my point was that users have been prevented from constructing wider tree structures which they can use spatial information to navigate. Computer users tend to create logically clean (but deep) tree structures, as a *result* of computer science creating tools to manage trees efficiently. But a user (relying on spatial information) doesn't *need* logically clean tree structures, and (it is argued) is faster with wider trees.
A computer is a tool, and should be approached as such. A user (newbie or otherwise) should not be forced to adapt their mind to structures used for efficient electronic computation. The spatial metaphor is founded on the idea that the human mind is not a computer, and so the most suitable structure for electronic computers is not the most suitable structure for humans.
A similar approach is taken with Epiphany's bookmark system where users categorise their bookmarks by selecting (possibly multiple) topics to associate a bookmark with. Many people have the same response (it's not a tree! give me my tree!), but have ignored the principle here. We want to make the computer human-oriented, not the human computer-oriented. Consider it for a while.
You made a mistake when you suggested that Cyan made Myst III. Presto Studios (http://www.presto.com/) created it.
If you wrote to Cyan complaining about Myst III, you can't really blame them for not giving a response - it's not their game.
I would guess that he's referring to the Eugenia who frequently posts on the Gnome lists. I remember her posts on usability issues, often comparing Gnome to OS X or (her favourite) BeOS.
You state that "only" the base operating environment is GNU, and note that many other groups have contributed further software. Therefore, GNU should not get any special mention.
Did you ever consider that every single one of your examples (KDE, XFree86, Apache, Postgresql, Mozilla) uses GNU libc? If we consider Linux as the bedrock, GNU libc (and other standard libraries and utilities) are the soil.
Try building a workable computing environment (ie. one which works like UNIX), using Linux and absolutely no GNU components. I can build one without KDE, XFree86, Apache, Postgresql, or Mozilla. But I would be pressed to make one without a single GNU piece of code.
I see a lot of comments saying that the standard is vague and ambiguous. That might be true, but that isn't why your documents don't render correctly.
Ever tried to write an HTML document which "renders" correctly for a blind person?
Ever consider that HTML is meant to instruct the browser on what is intended and not on how to render it? The idea of these markup languages is that you "mark" text as the heading, or as a paragraph, and let the user agent (normally a web browser) sort it out.
You can demand that CSS code always renders the same, except that the user may choose to override your settings. If you depend on using your CSS-based layout to be able to navigate your website, then you wrote your webpage incorrectly. I see the ambiguity in the standards as saying "don't rely on me!", and you simply shouldn't rely on them.
Consider the following - I'll write down the letters 'a' and 'b' in some order in secret. Now, you pick a number 1 or 2. I'll then tell you the letter at that position.
Since noone (not even us) can predict what the outcome can be, I'd say we have a random letter generator.
Now consider that each person's brain essentially works in parallel, with only limited information exchanged between sections. Are you so sure then that humans cannot act randomly?
You obviously haven't been to one of the matches. I used to program stuff in the simulation league (nothing real, just little dots moving about on the screen). You should have seen the people jumping around in the lecture theatre, yelling to their team to c'mon, c'mon, kick it in!
People will identify with - and get involved with - almost anything. You could really feel the tension in the room grow as the ball was moved closer and closer to goals.
Maybe I'm wrong though - I'm an Aussie and we'll place bets on flies crawling up a wall. :)
So, does that mean that if I distribute source, I must also distribute the source! Oh no! :)
You don't need graphics-card/linux-specific hacks. It was reported on OpenGL.org recently that nVidia added the functionality to OpenGL it's extensions system.
All we need now is the implementation of their extension in Mesa - if they're going to go to all the trouble of developing OpenGL extensions you'd expect nVidia to help there as well.
Just a thought: Do people who are colour blind feel the same way we do about past photos?
I experienced exactly the same thing you described when looking at the pictures - it's like you suddenly realise that the world did exist and everyone in it was real so long ago. It's incredible. I'd be interested to hear if colour-blind people have always felt the same way we used to wrt old photos, or do they feel the way that we do now?