Since the machines lacking the USB boot option tend to be relatively ancient and often lacking in the RAM department as well, I carry a CD version of DamnSmallLinux just to be safe, and Knoppix on a 12cm/5" CD too since in my experience it often works on tricky hardware and carries a decent set of tools as well.
Saddly, a lot of modern hardware can't boot a USB stick, in my experience. Most of the computers I tried couldn't do it. But really, I'm all but out of the PC game these days. I was just lamenting at the sad state of PC hardware.
Was there ever a time when pop music was more than a formula? Look as far back as the 40's. Mostly trite, fomulaic crap. I think the reality is that the majority of people don't really *enjoy* music or have any real preferences. They mostly just listen to whatever is on the radio and whatever is in fashon. Hell, same thing with beer. 97% of the beer consumed in the US is cheap, mass produced, bland Bud, Miller, and Coors. Most people just don't appreciate quality beer or music. But they pay for it anyway. And that is where the big corps get their profits.
Wait, I thought the "T" key put the Mac into "target firewire" mode and effectively made it an external harddrive for another computer. Don't you have to go into the "Startup Disk" app to select a new disk to boot from?
Definitly the ideal would be to run the whole OS off the flash drive and have no storage or OS on the computer itself. Of course, this would currently only work with Linux (limited by Linux hardware support) and Macs. And Macs already have a good head start by being able to boot off of USB. And they don't generally have problems booting the same OS on different hardware. There are many modern PCs that cannot boot from a USB memory stick. And even if you could, we all know how picky Windows XP is about its hardware. I once wrote DamnSmallLinux and the Debian base installer to a USB stick hoping it woudl prove to be a universal recovery/install media. I was horribly disappinted to find that most of the PCs that I tried to boot just couldn't. They didn't have the option in the BIOS. Back to static data on CDs...
Well, it is written in Java, for one thing. As a general rule, I despise the Java AWT. The only Java application that I will use is Azureus (BitTorrent). And that is only because it has a GTK front end. It is still on the sluggish side as far as respnsiveness goes. Also, jEdit is 10x more complex that I need it to be.
Don't get wrong, I'm not using a Mac just for TextMate. It is just what they had available where I started working 2 months ago. I am trying to make the best of it. I still run Linux at home.
I don't consider $40 to be modest for your average little shareware application. $5 is modest. There are, of course, some share apps that are really worth it. Some shareware programming editors such as TextMate or skEdit are fairly advance and probably took a fair amount of time to develop. But the majority of shareware utilities that I find are pretty dinky and if done by comeone who knows what they are doing, can be cranked out pretty quickly.
I guarantee you that the makers of the really useful shareware apps are selling far more than a few dozen or even 100. And if they aren't, then their have probably set their price unreasonably high and have a lot of moochers/pirates out there.
Obviously I just dont' buy the overpriced ones. But what annoys me are the ones that are (or would be) useful, are crippled, and ask an unreasonable amount to activate them. Anyway, it just comes down to culture. In OSS it is a totally different atmosphere. You get the sense that people program simply because they like to program, and all self motives aside on my part, it just feels refreshing. And you can STILL get the same kind of response via email, if not from the developer himself, but from a mailing-list.
That is another thing I am going to have to get used to... paying money for small programs/features that I would get for free on Linux. Not that I am religious about free software or anything. Even before I even knew about OSS, it always pissed me off how programmers think they need to charge $20+ for some silly little app that they probably did as a hobby or to learn how to program. VirtualDesktop is probably worth it, I suppose, but there are some dinky little shareware apps out there that are just not worth it. You can buy a major game for $50 which probably has thousands of manhours behind it, but a little program that allows you to have vitual desktops costs $40? Where is their sense of proportion?
I am probably going to pay for TextMate, possibly VirtualDesktop... this could get expensive.
I must admit though, back in my BBS days I did release my own piece of nag/shareware (for DOS). I think I asked for $5. Now I realize how silly it was to ask for money.
I'm just not accusomed to minimizing and hiding. I really like having 4 or more virtual desktops dedicated to certain applications. ON a Mac, and especially Windows, I find myself wasting a lot of time wading through many many Windows to find what I want. CMD-Tab is OK when you just need to switch between two applications, but I often have more than two, each with multple windows of its own.
Copy/paste with the mouse (middle button) is handly, but certainly not a deal killer. OS X supports two button mice and right click context menus. THe poor virtual desktop situation is a bit of a problem though.
A century ago, most people couldn't afford a car.
Now, most people have at least one.
Bad analogy. A more accurate analogy would be comparing a car to a nuclear submarine. 40 years ago, people couldn't afford a nuclear submarine. And people still can't afford a nuclear submarine. Probably never will.
Prices come down, "dude", and once self-replicating intelligent nanotech takes off and the Space Elevator is built, getting to Space, and around in Space once you're there, will be relatively inexpensive,
No, I will be living by myself in my own habitat/spacecraft, free form corporate and governmental interference.
ROFL! Right. Not in our lifetimes.
I never wrote anything about corporate-controlled research; I was writing about research in general, which can be performed by corporations, yes, but also by educational institutions, or by individuals.
For example, if I wanted to research genetically-modified plants here on Earth, in many cases I would need some sort of (possibly expensive or restrictive) government oversight/licensing, and wouldn't be permitted to do some kinds of research at all (e.g., finding ways to make kudzu grow faster, or to produce deadly toxins).
Out in Space, this wouldn't be a problem.
You didn't say anything about corprotate controlled research, it was implied. Corprotation and government are the only entities capable of funding the facilities required to support life in space. Even today, individuals simply do not have the resources to do meaningful advanced research on Earth, much less in space. Doing such research in space will require 100x the resources that is required on Earth. Not only will you need the actual equpment (labs and such), but you will need life support for yourself and your (possible family).
I think you take for granted just how well Earth's natural environment takes care of you right now. The difference between a wooden framed house with simple appliances and a space oribtal (which doesn't even exist yet) are astronomical. There is just no comparison.
The question is, are you a scientist? Is any corporation or educational instution going to bother funding your research in space? You, as an individual, most likely cannot afford the equipment to do such research. If you do research, it is either using the facilities of a corproation or an educational institution. Either way, you don't own it. They own you. At least on Earth you have a home of your own to go to at the end of the day.
Then Man has had this cultural need since the time he moved from the trees to the Savannah, out of Africa, throughout the Old World and Australia, across the Bering Land Bridge, and down through the Americas.
There is a difference between simply migrating/ evolving and the kind of "viral" spreading that Europeans have done over the last several hundred years. You should check out the book 'Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
I found Desktop Manager to be flaky and unpredictable. At least on Tiger. Applications would mysteriously close, windows would open up on the wrong desktop... and things like that. Overall, it doesn't really work quite like I am used to on Linux boxes. I wish it was better integrated.
I started using a Mac on a regular basis about 2 months ago, and I am still finding it awkward to manage windows compared to the various Linux desktops I've used for nearly a decade. Yeah, I've tried Expose` too. Doesn't quite do it for me. Oh well, at least I have TextMate. If only I could port it to Linux...;-)
For the same reason that the Pilgrims and others colonized America: to get away from repressive governments.
Unfortunately, there is nowhere on Earth that scum like GWB et al can't reach.
The only solution is to get off the planet.
Yeah, too bad colonizing another planet is nothing like taking a ship across an ocean.
To ensure the propogation of the human race should something bad happen to the Earth (e.g., asteroid strike, etc.).
Larry Niven once wrote that the reason that the dinosaurs became extinct is that they didn't have a space program.
Granted, one needn't go so far as to colonize planetary surfaces to ensure the survival of the human race; orbital colonies can do that as well.
(I plan to move out to the asteroid belt my own self, once such a thing becomes feasible, and then, eventually, out to the Oort Cloud and interstellar space (although, admittedly, by then I will probably be no longer a human).)
Well, you just lost any credibility with me. Orbital colonies? For the average person? Give me a break. Most people can barely afford a 3 bedroom house on Earth. Who do you think is going to pay for all the high tech hardware required to support you out there? You need to lay off the sci-fi, dude.
To engage in dangerous or low-gravity research.
Research that would be difficult or impossible to do here on Earth, due to its gravity (e.g., some metalurgy, chemistry, and biology) might be easier to do on Mars.
Research that would be dangerous to do here on Earth (e.g., with virulent pathogens or self-replicating nanotechnology) can be done on Mars or other planets with less chance of endangering life on Earth.
(Again, though, much of this research could probably be better done using orbital facilities.)
Well there goes your idea of escaping Earthly problems. You're talking about leaving repressive governments for a corprorate controlled research facility/colony. What kind of life is that? Do you think you will own the bed you sleep on? Not likely. At least on Earth you can go to another country when the going gets rough. Out in space The Corporation will own you and there will be no place to go because they own all the means of transportation and the life support too. "Dare to argue with The Board? How about we cut down on your oxygen supply....." Sounds l ike hell to me.
To spread our species throughout the galaxy, like plaque spreads on teeth.
Our species is a voracious virus, seeking to inhabit every environment.
It's what we do.
It's what we are.
It is our destiny.
And so on.
Sounds more like a reason to question the whole idea of colonizing Mars, not a reason to do it. It seems to me that this need to spread like a virus is more cultural than genetic.
Remind me again why people would WANT to colonize Mars? If we are hurting that bad for space, why not move to Antartica, the bottom of the ocean, of the middle of the desert? All of those would be no more harsh than Mars and they're easier to get to. Is it just the novelty of it? What is the point? Do people LIKE the idea of living completely on artificial life support 24/7? Is it about fat people wanting to be lighter?
Wait, so you wouldn't be required to release your changes? Just provide (don't delete) the link to the ORIGINAL source code? Well that seems pretty trivial.
Ok, then what makes "public performance" so special? What is the significance of it beign public? In most cases, isn't the public part of the code automatically being published? I mean, all the HTML and Javascript is right there for you to save to disk if you want it.
While I agree that this GPL3 implication isn't so great, I think you may be lackign some perspective. Do you really care if other people get hold of you theme modified web comic source? I mean, is a modified theme coveted intellectual property? I can see companies like Google being affected by this. They have probably made a significant invenstment of man hours into customizing GPL'd software, but for your webcomic site? Who cares?
Well, something like that would be solved by the LGPL which allows you to link to GPL libraries without making the whole project subject to the license. Assuming you use a library and don't actually embed it into your code. In most cases this isn't an issue, I don't imagine.
I've been pretty happy with the GPL. I understand why it exists and what it is for, but this is going a little too far. Why are web sites singled out? Couldn't you demand that anyone making money using GPL'd software in any way should hand over their modifications? If I run a modified Postfix, for example, to process mail in a certain way, shouldn't I be required to release that code? Where does it stop?
First of all, Google Maps and Gmail are relatively simple applications. Web applications just dont' scale. Once you get beyond the complixity of a email client or simple map pan/scan, web applications get horrendously slow. Mostly because HTML lacks GUI components and you need to manufacture them in Javascript. Once you start doing that, you see performance drop dramtically. Look at all the "JSUI" libraries. They suck. Worse than Java applets. And they aren't going to get any better.
If you think Google Maps is neat, download Google Earth. Try doing that on the web.
Really? I see Ajax going the same way as Java. Java was an overhyped panacea for universal (write once, run anywhere) software later relegated to a very specific niche. In the case of Java, it is primarily serverside web services. AJAX will simply continue to spice up more traditional web services such as google maps.
AJAX/DHTML shows even LESS promise than Java. At least Java was capable, from the start, of making a real GUI. HTML barely even has the basic GUI components. Most web applications which try to duplicate some desktop functionality (with the exception of web based email) are just huge, ugly hacks. Moving to web applications would be a step 10 years back in usability and a complete waste of perfectly good bandwidth. Maybe coning from the *nix world, web applications look attractive. But if you've spent any time using real GUIs such as OS X, you'd know what I mean. No Windows or OS X user is going to give up MS Office for web based services.
Yeah, but people LIKE their general purpose machines that they can install games on and run complex applications quickly. The fact is that most web applications royally suck compared to locally installed applications which leverage the OS features with relative speed. People have been saying that web applications is a potentially very big market for a decade now. But it hasn't panned out except for free email services... Nobody is going to give up Microsoft Office for some half-assed Javascript and HTML web application!
The problem with Ajax is precicely that it DOES interact with HTML and not, say, some sane GUI model. Easy to mix with a web page, hard to make a good desktop-style application with. Mind you, AJAX is not limited to HTML. You could, for example, use it with XUL. Unfortunately it only works with Mozilla based browsers.
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Saddly, a lot of modern hardware can't boot a USB stick, in my experience. Most of the computers I tried couldn't do it. But really, I'm all but out of the PC game these days. I was just lamenting at the sad state of PC hardware.
-matthew
Was there ever a time when pop music was more than a formula? Look as far back as the 40's. Mostly trite, fomulaic crap. I think the reality is that the majority of people don't really *enjoy* music or have any real preferences. They mostly just listen to whatever is on the radio and whatever is in fashon. Hell, same thing with beer. 97% of the beer consumed in the US is cheap, mass produced, bland Bud, Miller, and Coors. Most people just don't appreciate quality beer or music. But they pay for it anyway. And that is where the big corps get their profits.
-matthew
Wait, I thought the "T" key put the Mac into "target firewire" mode and effectively made it an external harddrive for another computer. Don't you have to go into the "Startup Disk" app to select a new disk to boot from?
-matthew
Definitly the ideal would be to run the whole OS off the flash drive and have no storage or OS on the computer itself. Of course, this would currently only work with Linux (limited by Linux hardware support) and Macs. And Macs already have a good head start by being able to boot off of USB. And they don't generally have problems booting the same OS on different hardware. There are many modern PCs that cannot boot from a USB memory stick. And even if you could, we all know how picky Windows XP is about its hardware. I once wrote DamnSmallLinux and the Debian base installer to a USB stick hoping it woudl prove to be a universal recovery/install media. I was horribly disappinted to find that most of the PCs that I tried to boot just couldn't. They didn't have the option in the BIOS. Back to static data on CDs...
-matthew
Well, it is written in Java, for one thing. As a general rule, I despise the Java AWT. The only Java application that I will use is Azureus (BitTorrent). And that is only because it has a GTK front end. It is still on the sluggish side as far as respnsiveness goes. Also, jEdit is 10x more complex that I need it to be.
Don't get wrong, I'm not using a Mac just for TextMate. It is just what they had available where I started working 2 months ago. I am trying to make the best of it. I still run Linux at home.
-matthew
I don't consider $40 to be modest for your average little shareware application. $5 is modest. There are, of course, some share apps that are really worth it. Some shareware programming editors such as TextMate or skEdit are fairly advance and probably took a fair amount of time to develop. But the majority of shareware utilities that I find are pretty dinky and if done by comeone who knows what they are doing, can be cranked out pretty quickly.
I guarantee you that the makers of the really useful shareware apps are selling far more than a few dozen or even 100. And if they aren't, then their have probably set their price unreasonably high and have a lot of moochers/pirates out there.
Obviously I just dont' buy the overpriced ones. But what annoys me are the ones that are (or would be) useful, are crippled, and ask an unreasonable amount to activate them. Anyway, it just comes down to culture. In OSS it is a totally different atmosphere. You get the sense that people program simply because they like to program, and all self motives aside on my part, it just feels refreshing. And you can STILL get the same kind of response via email, if not from the developer himself, but from a mailing-list.
-matthew
-matthew
Gee, thanks for the hope. :-)
You have to admit, though, that it isn't half as annoying as Windows.
-matthew
That is another thing I am going to have to get used to... paying money for small programs/features that I would get for free on Linux. Not that I am religious about free software or anything. Even before I even knew about OSS, it always pissed me off how programmers think they need to charge $20+ for some silly little app that they probably did as a hobby or to learn how to program. VirtualDesktop is probably worth it, I suppose, but there are some dinky little shareware apps out there that are just not worth it. You can buy a major game for $50 which probably has thousands of manhours behind it, but a little program that allows you to have vitual desktops costs $40? Where is their sense of proportion?
I am probably going to pay for TextMate, possibly VirtualDesktop... this could get expensive.
I must admit though, back in my BBS days I did release my own piece of nag/shareware (for DOS). I think I asked for $5. Now I realize how silly it was to ask for money.
-matthew
I'm just not accusomed to minimizing and hiding. I really like having 4 or more virtual desktops dedicated to certain applications. ON a Mac, and especially Windows, I find myself wasting a lot of time wading through many many Windows to find what I want. CMD-Tab is OK when you just need to switch between two applications, but I often have more than two, each with multple windows of its own.
-matthew
Copy/paste with the mouse (middle button) is handly, but certainly not a deal killer. OS X supports two button mice and right click context menus. THe poor virtual desktop situation is a bit of a problem though.
-matthew
Bad analogy. A more accurate analogy would be comparing a car to a nuclear submarine. 40 years ago, people couldn't afford a nuclear submarine. And people still can't afford a nuclear submarine. Probably never will.
Prices come down, "dude", and once self-replicating intelligent nanotech takes off and the Space Elevator is built, getting to Space, and around in Space once you're there, will be relatively inexpensive,
No, I will be living by myself in my own habitat/spacecraft, free form corporate and governmental interference.
ROFL! Right. Not in our lifetimes.
I never wrote anything about corporate-controlled research; I was writing about research in general, which can be performed by corporations, yes, but also by educational institutions, or by individuals. For example, if I wanted to research genetically-modified plants here on Earth, in many cases I would need some sort of (possibly expensive or restrictive) government oversight/licensing, and wouldn't be permitted to do some kinds of research at all (e.g., finding ways to make kudzu grow faster, or to produce deadly toxins). Out in Space, this wouldn't be a problem.
You didn't say anything about corprotate controlled research, it was implied. Corprotation and government are the only entities capable of funding the facilities required to support life in space. Even today, individuals simply do not have the resources to do meaningful advanced research on Earth, much less in space. Doing such research in space will require 100x the resources that is required on Earth. Not only will you need the actual equpment (labs and such), but you will need life support for yourself and your (possible family).
I think you take for granted just how well Earth's natural environment takes care of you right now. The difference between a wooden framed house with simple appliances and a space oribtal (which doesn't even exist yet) are astronomical. There is just no comparison.
The question is, are you a scientist? Is any corporation or educational instution going to bother funding your research in space? You, as an individual, most likely cannot afford the equipment to do such research. If you do research, it is either using the facilities of a corproation or an educational institution. Either way, you don't own it. They own you. At least on Earth you have a home of your own to go to at the end of the day.
Then Man has had this cultural need since the time he moved from the trees to the Savannah, out of Africa, throughout the Old World and Australia, across the Bering Land Bridge, and down through the Americas.
There is a difference between simply migrating/ evolving and the kind of "viral" spreading that Europeans have done over the last several hundred years. You should check out the book 'Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond.
-matthew
Probably because it is built into the system board. I imagine the CPU is slotted.
-matthew
I found Desktop Manager to be flaky and unpredictable. At least on Tiger. Applications would mysteriously close, windows would open up on the wrong desktop... and things like that. Overall, it doesn't really work quite like I am used to on Linux boxes. I wish it was better integrated.
;-)
I started using a Mac on a regular basis about 2 months ago, and I am still finding it awkward to manage windows compared to the various Linux desktops I've used for nearly a decade. Yeah, I've tried Expose` too. Doesn't quite do it for me. Oh well, at least I have TextMate. If only I could port it to Linux...
-matthew
Yeah, too bad colonizing another planet is nothing like taking a ship across an ocean.
To ensure the propogation of the human race should something bad happen to the Earth (e.g., asteroid strike, etc.). Larry Niven once wrote that the reason that the dinosaurs became extinct is that they didn't have a space program. Granted, one needn't go so far as to colonize planetary surfaces to ensure the survival of the human race; orbital colonies can do that as well. (I plan to move out to the asteroid belt my own self, once such a thing becomes feasible, and then, eventually, out to the Oort Cloud and interstellar space (although, admittedly, by then I will probably be no longer a human).)
Well, you just lost any credibility with me. Orbital colonies? For the average person? Give me a break. Most people can barely afford a 3 bedroom house on Earth. Who do you think is going to pay for all the high tech hardware required to support you out there? You need to lay off the sci-fi, dude.
To engage in dangerous or low-gravity research. Research that would be difficult or impossible to do here on Earth, due to its gravity (e.g., some metalurgy, chemistry, and biology) might be easier to do on Mars. Research that would be dangerous to do here on Earth (e.g., with virulent pathogens or self-replicating nanotechnology) can be done on Mars or other planets with less chance of endangering life on Earth. (Again, though, much of this research could probably be better done using orbital facilities.)
Well there goes your idea of escaping Earthly problems. You're talking about leaving repressive governments for a corprorate controlled research facility/colony. What kind of life is that? Do you think you will own the bed you sleep on? Not likely. At least on Earth you can go to another country when the going gets rough. Out in space The Corporation will own you and there will be no place to go because they own all the means of transportation and the life support too. "Dare to argue with The Board? How about we cut down on your oxygen supply....." Sounds l ike hell to me.
To spread our species throughout the galaxy, like plaque spreads on teeth. Our species is a voracious virus, seeking to inhabit every environment. It's what we do. It's what we are. It is our destiny. And so on.
Sounds more like a reason to question the whole idea of colonizing Mars, not a reason to do it. It seems to me that this need to spread like a virus is more cultural than genetic.
-matthew
Remind me again why people would WANT to colonize Mars? If we are hurting that bad for space, why not move to Antartica, the bottom of the ocean, of the middle of the desert? All of those would be no more harsh than Mars and they're easier to get to. Is it just the novelty of it? What is the point? Do people LIKE the idea of living completely on artificial life support 24/7? Is it about fat people wanting to be lighter?
-matthew
Well, it was just an example. Replace "Postfix" with your favorite backend software.
Wait, so you wouldn't be required to release your changes? Just provide (don't delete) the link to the ORIGINAL source code? Well that seems pretty trivial.
-matthew
Ok, then what makes "public performance" so special? What is the significance of it beign public? In most cases, isn't the public part of the code automatically being published? I mean, all the HTML and Javascript is right there for you to save to disk if you want it.
-matthew
While I agree that this GPL3 implication isn't so great, I think you may be lackign some perspective. Do you really care if other people get hold of you theme modified web comic source? I mean, is a modified theme coveted intellectual property? I can see companies like Google being affected by this. They have probably made a significant invenstment of man hours into customizing GPL'd software, but for your webcomic site? Who cares?
-matthew
Well, something like that would be solved by the LGPL which allows you to link to GPL libraries without making the whole project subject to the license. Assuming you use a library and don't actually embed it into your code. In most cases this isn't an issue, I don't imagine.
-matthew
I've been pretty happy with the GPL. I understand why it exists and what it is for, but this is going a little too far. Why are web sites singled out? Couldn't you demand that anyone making money using GPL'd software in any way should hand over their modifications? If I run a modified Postfix, for example, to process mail in a certain way, shouldn't I be required to release that code? Where does it stop?
Seems like a pain int he butt, if nothing else.
-matthew
First of all, Google Maps and Gmail are relatively simple applications. Web applications just dont' scale. Once you get beyond the complixity of a email client or simple map pan/scan, web applications get horrendously slow. Mostly because HTML lacks GUI components and you need to manufacture them in Javascript. Once you start doing that, you see performance drop dramtically. Look at all the "JSUI" libraries. They suck. Worse than Java applets. And they aren't going to get any better.
If you think Google Maps is neat, download Google Earth. Try doing that on the web.
-matthew
Really? I see Ajax going the same way as Java. Java was an overhyped panacea for universal (write once, run anywhere) software later relegated to a very specific niche. In the case of Java, it is primarily serverside web services. AJAX will simply continue to spice up more traditional web services such as google maps.
AJAX/DHTML shows even LESS promise than Java. At least Java was capable, from the start, of making a real GUI. HTML barely even has the basic GUI components. Most web applications which try to duplicate some desktop functionality (with the exception of web based email) are just huge, ugly hacks. Moving to web applications would be a step 10 years back in usability and a complete waste of perfectly good bandwidth.
Maybe coning from the *nix world, web applications look attractive. But if you've spent any time using real GUIs such as OS X, you'd know what I mean. No Windows or OS X user is going to give up MS Office for web based services.
-matthew
Yeah, but people LIKE their general purpose machines that they can install games on and run complex applications quickly. The fact is that most web applications royally suck compared to locally installed applications which leverage the OS features with relative speed. People have been saying that web applications is a potentially very big market for a decade now. But it hasn't panned out except for free email services... Nobody is going to give up Microsoft Office for some half-assed Javascript and HTML web application!
-matthew
The problem with Ajax is precicely that it DOES interact with HTML and not, say, some sane GUI model. Easy to mix with a web page, hard to make a good desktop-style application with. Mind you, AJAX is not limited to HTML. You could, for example, use it with XUL. Unfortunately it only works with Mozilla based browsers.
-matthew