Hard_Code wrote: The problem is that X (and unix in general) don't provide a smooth learning curve. For *normal* *users* it should be easy and intuitive to start doing basic stuff, and one should gradually be able to perform more complicated and powerful things as they learn.
Upsilon wrote: This is ridiculous.... I wasn't born knowing UNIX! Anyway, my point is that I didn't find it that hard! A cliff? No way. Sure, it was more complicated than windoze, but I relished in the power that complexity allowed me. If I didn't know something, I RTFM Those who understand the benefits of a more complex system will also tend to have the abilities needed to tame such systems. ...don't need or want complexity? Get a Mac!
How about Reading The F*****g Comment? I'm always 'surprised' at how people reply to comments they appear to have never heard nor read.
Hard_Code says it's harder to learn how to do anything (be it simple or powerful) on unix. Upsilon 'replies' (although I'm hard pressed to see how Upsilon has understood what Hard_Code said) that,
1. "it's not that hard", 2. but gee I can do so much with it, 3. and besides, nobody is forcing you.
Now remember, Hard_Code's point is that it should be easy for a novice to do something simple. Upsilon's point 2. is hence irrelevant. We're not talking about how much semi-experienced Upsilon can do, but about a novice. Upsilon could have talked about his experience with novices, but didn't. He could have mentioned existing ways to make learning unix easier, but no. Instead, a technical person tells us it's not that hard, which just corroborates Hard_Code's point. That it is hard. Upsilon's point 3 is likewise redundant. Hard_Code thinks it should be easier for novices, and Upsilon replies, well, if they don't like it, they can f**k off. Upsilon does not say why he thinks it should be hard, why it would be impossible to build a powerful system with a gradual, but long learning curve (which is what Hard_Code advocates)... no he just avoids the issue completely.
Now I'm not trying to pick on Upsilon personally, because everybody pretty much does this. Upsilon just happened to volunteer an example of how people don't deal specifically with the issue raised by someone, and "reply" by talking about something completely different. It's like someone says that it's cold in Russia, to which someone replies, "Well, it's warm here in America!". Excuse me? I though we were talking about the weather in Russia??
So please please please, Reply To The F*****g Comment (RTTFC)
It's my job to make sure that the browsing experience is the same, regardless of whether you're using a PC or a Mac, running Win9x, WinNT, MacOS, *nix, or BeOS, etc...
Thank you. Design is so full of value judgements, and I doubt that there are many designers who make compatability a high priority. I share your view.
I work on simply avoiding use of any feature that doesn't work in most browsers.
The vast majority of web "designers" should be shot.
As a 'designer' (studied Architecture), I concurr. Most designers, as I see it, want to be original, cool and be noticed. Like, "hey wow, you did that cool design...", so they try to invent stuff, just for the sake of it. They'll do stuff not because it's necessary, or because it's needed, but just to put their "personal" signature on it. And lord forbid they re-use a solution that is known to work, it all has to be new and fresh (and often crap). It's new crap vs. tried and working.
So they lap up all the new proprietary gizmos, looking to impress -- so all MS has to do is create the impression that it's browser has better usage and more gizmos, and the designers will revel in their new 'expressive power'.
This was not a problem in print, because whatever tool you used, the end product was universally compatible paper. But on the web, we have no such luxury.
This has to be the best reason ever to construct web pages as downloadable executables. Fsck the "browser". It just doesn't work. Just give me a tool that lets me create content that cross compiles to a dozen different platforms natively, auto indexes itself with the search engines, and to hell with waiting for money grabbing companies to agree with each other.
Ok, ok, so there may be some security issues, but that's just an opportunity for better network filtering software...
bad licenses are good for the the open source community...
Sorry, but such pronouncements will have everybody arguing all day, for one side or the other, pretty much leading nowhere.
If you look for the good side, then you will find examples supporting 'good'.
If you look for the bad side, you will find examples supporting 'bad'.
'Good'/'Bad' is a judgement call, and judgement is a very limited way of looking. Thinking is pretty much polarised into Either/Or boxes, while reality is fluid and ever-changing.
Drop the generalisation, and perhaps consider specific examples very carefully. If you study just one licence carefully, with all the factors that led to it and all the effects that it led to, then something can be learned, concluded, agreed upon, regarding that one event. But continue 'debating' sides and you find yourselves with a load of new opinions and conclusions about nothing.
Do you see how it leads nowhere? You'll either keep your opinion, or drop it for another opinion... 'yes, licences (whatever) are bad etc.'. Just opinions, just garbage that clutters your thinking. Are you interested in opinions? Are you interested in truth?
Why does Apple get all this loyalty? The products are good in a lot of ways, but they're not that good (be honest!). Is it the home of people who just like to be different from the mainstream, and that's the attraction?
Well, yes, from where I'm sitting (a dual boot mac/linuxppc box), I see pc hardware has lots of value, (and perhaps some pitfalls for the newbie nurse walking into her local high street cheapo 'home pc' shop),
but windows really gets on my tits. I can't stand it. Ever since the day I discovered I could nuke one app by installing another, I just lost all ability to stomach it (yes, yes, mac has bastard extensions, but two apps rarely install 'the same one')
Then there's the design factor... press a button on the colorsync monitor and the relevant control panel pops up, that kind of thing. Keyboards you can plug into the monitor. (ok, this is before USB came out, but you get the idea). A visually sedate and appealling widget set also helps, although this is a taste issue.
Lastly, my favourite and critically acclaimed 3d modeller, form.Z started out on the mac (has since been ported to windows), and was basically my reason for getting a mac. But really, there are so many issues involved, apart from just 'brain dead printer models', like investment in apps, not too much bizarre behaviour, the promise of upcoming MOSX, etc. that changing or choosing a platform is always a compromise. People know they arn't going to get the perfect everything, so they balance it out and put up with the deficiencies. Why do you think windows has been such a survivor?
It's obvious that M$ has been illegally trying to use it's dominance in web browsing to try to dominate the OS market. In a recent statement, they said,
We are committed to creating great products. We believe the addition of an Operating System to the Internet Explorer experience is a great enhancement, which will benefit comsumers greatly. We fully recommed M$ Winblows as a great choice of OS, as it alone will work best with Internet Explorer. We have included the OS as a great new feature -- it is a great enhancement, and we absolutely cannot remove it from the browser.
Industry analysts have voiced their support for the inclusion of the legacy OS, stating,
This is great for the whole industry. Modern business wholly depends on this functionality.
It may be (and we can hope) that MacOS X, with its Unix underpinnings, will allow the world of free (as in both beer and speech) software to penetrate the Macintosh world in a way it never could before.
For example, although I have semi-technical interests (ie. used to work at a help desk in a PC/Mac/Pr1mos/Apollo environment (like, 8 years ago)) I've always disliked Windows and so use Macs at home. Exept I also wanted to use the excellent, free (Guiness), *nix rendering app. Radiance. So I heard you could run *nix on a Mac, and behold, MkLinux and LinuxPPC. Now much as I love learning more Linux, dual booting between renderer and modeller is a pain, so I'm really looking forward to MacOS X --- I need it!
All the semi-techys like myself out there are just gonna lurve Mc'Ten...
On a related note, a bloke said to me, like 4 years ago, that he didn't understand why our department was ditching it's macs and buying pee-sees, coz' the whole world was going *nix.... I thought he was on something, but like, even Apple gets it (!)
In the evolution of computing, the only factor is miniturization. So cast your predictions simply: the wordprocessing/emailing business desktop will migrate to the palmtop. The server will become the desktop. It's my pet theory that word processing is one of the office productivity killers, along with spreadsheets etc. Businesses are about information flow and processing, not pithy emails and Excel numerical obscurity. So the server, running jobs, becomes the desktop departemental nexus of opertations. So *nix has to become the dominant desktop. Evolution demands it. This is all just cool baby.
The human genome project will be handled most likely like any other huge and potentially dangerous human advance. People will first misuse it, they will get burned very badly, and then they will learn how to control it and how to use it in such a way as to benefit them and not burn them.
Whoa! Lets just slow down a mo and peruse the scenery you've just casually passed before us....
"Getting badly burnt" would include two small atom bombs, two very brief flashes of light, and instant death to thousands of civilians? Would it not? It would include releasing chemical agents in a city underground network, yes? We are not talking about a kid in school who learns not to throw pencils at his schoolmates, yes? We are talking about absolute, massive and utterly horrific suffering unleashed by a few individuals with a small batch of technology, am I correct?
If that's what you mean, then sure, we can agree that a little "burning" will be taking place.
Technically advanced, Spiritually poor
on
Frankenstein Time
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· Score: 1
The staggering success of Science since the Enlightenment has left us thinking that the Objective world is the only game in town. The Subjective, inner development of Man has been neglected. And the fact of our impoverished spiritual/developmental life is being reflected back to us by the demonic applications of this technology.
The scale and consequences are just too big to ignore, and in seeking to understand the problem we only come face to face with ourselves. Yes, the technology can do great good, and it can do great harm. The technology, Science itself, is Value-less. E=mc2 has no inherent good nor bad within it. So while scientists continue to claim they are pursuing Truth, they neglect to remember that their science, being purely Objective, in incapable of telling us anything about the Subjective realm of Morals, Art, Spirit, and inter-subjective Culture.
Our problem today is that Science has scrambled ahead with flat, objective, value-less data about the world, far outstripping our deep, subjective, cultural ability to agree about how to handle the new found toys. It has been said that the biggest problem facing us today is not the economic or ecological crisis, but our inability to agree on what to do about it. With respect to the disaster, the Ecological Crisis, science gave us the techniques that created it (pollution), and science can give us the techniques to fix it (clean fuel etc.) -- the problem is We, as Humanity, can't bring ourselves to agree on a damned thing!
It's like, if you agree with what I say, then somehow I get the uppper hand -- I get to be right and you are wrong. This inner weakness precludes any genuine working progress.
3. the infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe
Although, to think about it, your no. 3 is not the chaos I meant. I mean more a sort of deep order that on the surface seems too incomprehensible, and hence 'chaotic'. His opinion that 'trusted' has to be formal is maybe 'offtopic'. Maybe a better question to ask is whether we can find evidence that the surface chaos of OS does indeed bring forth a more 'ordered' system than what his formal methods could produce.
1. a state of utter confusion or disorder. 2. any confused, disorderly mass 3. the infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe
I think he meant 1 and 2. Not 3
Yes, I guess you're right.
Another question is whether OS development is really 1 and 2, like he seems to think, or whether it's more like 3.
Open Source systems such as Linux are developed in too chaotic a system to ever reach a trusted state.
Please, don't bring Chaos into the argument. Does he understand chaos? Does he know what chaos is? Life evolved out of chaos, creating everything we know. How does he profess to understand the complexity of Open Source development without inquiring further into it's nature? What hidden jems of intellectual development are manifesting within this post-modern matrix of meme exchange? Does he really know?
He could have called it "random", but he called it "chaos". He acknowledges it's all beyond him. He doesn't "trust" it because he doesn't understand it. QED
Now I'd like to know how on one hand you can bash MSFT in your post yet praise KDE & GNOME for ripping of an idea that MSFT pioneered almost a decade ago with DDE/OLE/COM.
"Ripping off" implies there was a very specific and novel invention. But the notion of component software is just a broad, general evolution in software engineering. Modula-2 (Wirth, 1982) incorporated information hiding and a module concept. They built a component OS, Project Oberon, with it, which later became the BlackBox framework... which is just one of many such projects.
As for praising KDE&GNOME, well, maybe some people just expect them to do it better.:-)
There's the history of the small Italian town who's main industry was glass blowing. Their economy depended on it, and their craftsmen were masters. But anyone found trying to leave the town would be killed!
Putting aside for a moment the complexities of the modern patent system, the historical example just shows that when people create some sort of advantage for themselves they want to milk it for everything they can. Regardless.
Witness the news re. possible American 'sanctions' against South Africa. RSA have a huge AIDS epidemic, and the treatments cost $$$$. South Africa is threatening to ignore the American drug companies patents, and just produce the stuff locally, at local cost, given that they are in an emergency situation. But USA wants to protect it's business, and are making threats.
This basic greed is the basis for our society. And whomever is born into it (society) is educated to "go forth and be greedy". We all want more, be it money, security, status, power, popularity etc... So somehow 'we' society have to formalise this so that we can all play at getting more. The rules of the game are codified into laws, like the patent system. This sort of prevents an all-out anarchy, but in no way changes the spirit of the endeavour. Someone who is not successful is described as someone who does $1 worth of work and gets paid $1. While success is doing $1 worth of work and getting paid $10000. We call it making 'investments'. In a sense it would seem fair that someone who spends a year developing something should be paid a year's salary. Instead licensing means we could be paying said inventor a million fold.
But any attempt to codify what is 'fair' will not work because it's in the context of people grabbing all they can. Someone will inevitably grab more, which with patents might mean getting an extension on the life of a patent, or patenting something that they can grab us by the balls with. The basic greed is not going to go away while it's the object of the game. It's like, the games that end in a draw are boring. The people who manage to screw the patent systems to their own advantage best are the winners. And those of us who wern't trying to are the 'losers'. They win because, at the end of the Monopoly game, they count their cash and come out tops. Winning by any other measure would not be the same game.
Just like the rules of Monopoly are designed so that someone will gain control of everything, so our 'society' game is designed so that the most greedy will aquire the most. But I'm not advocating any sort of political revolution.... the politics are just the mechanism, not the origin. It's our basic outlook on life that's creating these games, which we only complain about when we feel we've been dealt a bad hand.
Most people assume that in order to have a life you have to go out and socialize with people. Not everyone is an extroverted, chatty, flippant person.
Ok, that's totally ok. I just used the example of "socialising" (which in the UK often means drink till you puke) because we were talking about office apps, and so I thought of secretaries. At 6pm the bars usually fill with big groups of women from the offices.
I'm no party animal, and I too stay at home with my wife. I used to think there was something wrong with me for not being social and popular, but I guess now I accept myself for being me more, and funnily enough I can accept extravert chatty in-you-face types more too.
My wife and I sometimes ask each other... "should we go to this party... do you want to... should we be sociable...?" and then we break out in a laugh, "NO!"
Life is a school. It's just that most people stop attending lessons.:-P
People are very smart, it's just that as they were growing up, they were taught that it was smart to pretend to look stupid. It's called an "act", and it's what Shakespear (IMHO) was referring to. People have a "script", a sort of "program", that uses their abilities to create the results that they unknowingly think they're supposed to create. Some people also call it the "personality", a complex of patterns that repeat themselves endlessly throughout a person's life. Ever wonder why people always seem to re-create the same problems in their lives, even though they change partner, move to a different city or get a "new" job?
That's the first point, that stupidity is something people do, not something that they are. People can find very smart and creative ways of screwing things up.
The first point deals with "people", ie. the general, all inclusive label, and that's what I'm objecting to. I'm objecting to the all out labelling of "people" meaning "stupid". The second, local point, is about people's willingness to learn technical information. And yes, some people don't want to know about on/off switches! When I see someone "switch off" their computer using the monitor power button, it just blows me away. Like, what the f***??? And these same people show themselves to be smart in other ways. So it's really about recognising that some people have a "blank spot" around computers.
I've worked tech support for many years, and most of the people I talk to are... ignorant... definitely stupid... truly stupid... rude... bitches... assholes... with greasy hair... fat asses... haven't bathed... brushed their teeth... chewing tobacco... and their fingernails are yellow and deformed
Ehm... I guess every tech support person has their limit...
They just log in, perform the 6 clicks/data entry things that they have to, then log out. I don't think they actually had to learn to use computers, I think they had to learn by rote the 6 steps to get the awful computer-related job done.
Yes. I think there is a sort of "technical blind spot" that some people have. And that we, as the producers of the IT gadgets, have to accept and cope with that.
As an example, I once had a partner who had a flat (apartment), and in the flat was a door. First time I came round, she warned me not to touch the doorknob on the door because it was broken, and had been broken for years. Well, one day I accidentally did, and the thing fell off. I picked it up off the floor, noticed the threads in it, and screwed it back onto the door. There was never, of course, nothing wrong with it, it just needed to be screwed on.
This episode alerted me to just how "blind" some people are to certain things. Now this lady was a professional in a position of responsability, and there really wasn't anything wrong with her... except for a technical blind spot.
A lot of people just don't know how computers work, they don't know the basics... because no-one has ever explained it to them.
Lesson 1: your computer will not blow up. Lesson 2: your computer is dumb. Lesson 3:...
Your average desktop user has the IQ of a lobotomized flatworm.
Look, I'm not taking issue with the other things you said, but just get it that people are not stupid.
Maybe all them office secretaries and accounting people just have something better to do with their time than sit at their desks till the late hours learning Emacs! Like going out and socialising... ie. they have a life. So kindly stop equating IQ with the will to learn computer junk.
This reminds me of something from lectures on law in the building industry (architects being sued etc.): Basically judges don't stray far from polular opinion. In that if most 'average citizen' people think that this is a case of theft, or benefitting unfairly from someone else's work, then judges will find some excuse to rule that way.
Therefore, we need more technical education, probably in schools, so that we all understand the issues, whether we do computers for a living or not. Only then will judges favour a more technically sane finding.
Information published electronically will get copied, quickly, easily, effortlessly. The very act of 'distribution' is copying... this text is now in your computer. That's the inherent nature of the medium. "You can run, but your mug shot will be on every web server in the world before you get out the door..." This is the issue society must face.
Unfortunately, he completely violates his own principles
Yes, exactly. And when you take away all the smoke and contradictions, what did he actually say: "Don't hate MS", "Don't hate proprietary software."
Well, if he objects to the emotional quality of some people, maybe he should just refer them to a psychotherapist...
If people have had bad experiences that turn into an irrational hatred, then pitching a rational argument at them is not really going to work... And until it's legislated that binary-only distributors can't travel on the same bus as Free-Source-Suprematists, then I see nothing immoral about a little dislike.
I like Linux because it gave me a chance to run a great "U.S.-Department-of-Energy-and-the-Swiss-federal-g overnment-funded" (dare I say free) rendering app, and the chance to learn some unix,
and I like Macs because they have a pretty nice UI, they try to be simple, and don't rely heavily on shared libs, and they run my favourite 3D modeller (ok, it has since been ported to Wintel)
and I dislike Windows for lots of reasons... some aesthetic, some technical, some due to it's reputation, and also because if I hear another person say that Windows is "industry standard and we don't need anything else" I'll scream!
But he has casually belittled the main issue of Intellectual Property
He attacked people's feelings, and faults... neither of which addresses the bigger question regarding intellectual property. Software can be easily copied, in the sence that if someone out there is using some extra space on their hard drive to store a copy, it is not costing me anything extra. Yes, he is right that it still costs something, but it doesn't cost me anything. And it could be useful to others, so why should I have the right to control it? The real ethical questions here are immense, and a real problem for society, especially now that society is Global.
We are all standing on the shoulders of giants, so we could be more careful about claiming ownership simply because "I thought of it".
Slashdot Mirror
he hasn't understood the meaning of the words "server" and "client"
Maybe he's a very intuitive type....and is confused.
Hard_Code wrote:
The problem is that X (and unix in general) don't provide a smooth learning curve. For *normal* *users* it should be easy and intuitive to start doing basic stuff, and one should gradually be able to perform more complicated and powerful things as they learn.
Upsilon wrote: .... I wasn't born knowing UNIX!
...don't need or want complexity? Get a Mac!
This is ridiculous
Anyway, my point is that I didn't find it that hard! A cliff? No way. Sure, it was more complicated than windoze, but I relished in the power that complexity allowed me. If I didn't know something, I RTFM
Those who understand the benefits of a more complex system will also tend to have the abilities needed to tame such systems.
How about Reading The F*****g Comment? I'm always 'surprised' at how people reply to comments they appear to have never heard nor read.
Hard_Code says it's harder to learn how to do anything (be it simple or powerful) on unix. Upsilon 'replies' (although I'm hard pressed to see how Upsilon has understood what Hard_Code said) that,
1. "it's not that hard",2. but gee I can do so much with it,
3. and besides, nobody is forcing you.
Now remember, Hard_Code's point is that it should be easy for a novice to do something simple. Upsilon's point 2. is hence irrelevant. We're not talking about how much semi-experienced Upsilon can do, but about a novice. Upsilon could have talked about his experience with novices, but didn't. He could have mentioned existing ways to make learning unix easier, but no. Instead, a technical person tells us it's not that hard, which just corroborates Hard_Code's point. That it is hard.
Upsilon's point 3 is likewise redundant. Hard_Code thinks it should be easier for novices, and Upsilon replies, well, if they don't like it, they can f**k off. Upsilon does not say why he thinks it should be hard, why it would be impossible to build a powerful system with a gradual, but long learning curve (which is what Hard_Code advocates)... no he just avoids the issue completely.
Now I'm not trying to pick on Upsilon personally, because everybody pretty much does this. Upsilon just happened to volunteer an example of how people don't deal specifically with the issue raised by someone, and "reply" by talking about something completely different. It's like someone says that it's cold in Russia, to which someone replies, "Well, it's warm here in America!". Excuse me? I though we were talking about the weather in Russia??
So please please please, Reply To The F*****g Comment (RTTFC)
It's my job to make sure that the browsing experience is the same, regardless of whether you're using a PC or a Mac, running Win9x, WinNT, MacOS, *nix, or BeOS, etc...
Thank you. Design is so full of value judgements, and I doubt that there are many designers who make compatability a high priority. I share your view.
I work on simply avoiding use of any feature that doesn't work in most browsers.
The vast majority of web "designers" should be shot.
As a 'designer' (studied Architecture), I concurr. Most designers, as I see it, want to be original, cool and be noticed. Like, "hey wow, you did that cool design...", so they try to invent stuff, just for the sake of it. They'll do stuff not because it's necessary, or because it's needed, but just to put their "personal" signature on it. And lord forbid they re-use a solution that is known to work, it all has to be new and fresh (and often crap). It's new crap vs. tried and working.
So they lap up all the new proprietary gizmos, looking to impress -- so all MS has to do is create the impression that it's browser has better usage and more gizmos, and the designers will revel in their new 'expressive power'.
This was not a problem in print, because whatever tool you used, the end product was universally compatible paper. But on the web, we have no such luxury.
This has to be the best reason ever to construct web pages as downloadable executables. Fsck the "browser". It just doesn't work. Just give me a tool that lets me create content that cross compiles to a dozen different platforms natively, auto indexes itself with the search engines, and to hell with waiting for money grabbing companies to agree with each other.
Ok, ok, so there may be some security issues, but that's just an opportunity for better network filtering software...
Am I talking from where the sun doesn't shine?
I posted expecting to get rejected, but instead I got reflected.
:-)
bad licenses are good for the the open source community...
Sorry, but such pronouncements will have everybody arguing all day, for one side or the other, pretty much leading nowhere.
If you look for the good side, then you will find examples supporting 'good'.
If you look for the bad side, you will find examples supporting 'bad'.
'Good'/'Bad' is a judgement call, and judgement is a very limited way of looking. Thinking is pretty much polarised into Either/Or boxes, while reality is fluid and ever-changing.
Drop the generalisation, and perhaps consider specific examples very carefully. If you study just one licence carefully, with all the factors that led to it and all the effects that it led to, then something can be learned, concluded, agreed upon, regarding that one event. But continue 'debating' sides and you find yourselves with a load of new opinions and conclusions about nothing.
Do you see how it leads nowhere? You'll either keep your opinion, or drop it for another opinion... 'yes, licences (whatever) are bad etc.'. Just opinions, just garbage that clutters your thinking. Are you interested in opinions? Are you interested in truth?
Why does Apple get all this loyalty? The products are good in a lot of ways, but they're not that good (be honest!). Is it the home of people who just like to be different from the mainstream, and that's the attraction?
Well, yes, from where I'm sitting (a dual boot mac/linuxppc box), I see pc hardware has lots of value, (and perhaps some pitfalls for the newbie nurse walking into her local high street cheapo 'home pc' shop),
but windows really gets on my tits. I can't stand it. Ever since the day I discovered I could nuke one app by installing another, I just lost all ability to stomach it (yes, yes, mac has bastard extensions, but two apps rarely install 'the same one')
Then there's the design factor... press a button on the colorsync monitor and the relevant control panel pops up, that kind of thing. Keyboards you can plug into the monitor. (ok, this is before USB came out, but you get the idea). A visually sedate and appealling widget set also helps, although this is a taste issue.
Lastly, my favourite and critically acclaimed 3d modeller, form.Z started out on the mac (has since been ported to windows), and was basically my reason for getting a mac. But really, there are so many issues involved, apart from just 'brain dead printer models', like investment in apps, not too much bizarre behaviour, the promise of upcoming MOSX, etc. that changing or choosing a platform is always a compromise. People know they arn't going to get the perfect everything, so they balance it out and put up with the deficiencies. Why do you think windows has been such a survivor?
Also, I've never needed to re-install the OS. :-P
I'd be installing Yellow Dog instead...
For myself,
Combining best of two worlds, and be able to rely on the box staying up.
Industry analysts have voiced their support for the inclusion of the legacy OS, stating,
For example, although I have semi-technical interests (ie. used to work at a help desk in a PC/Mac/Pr1mos/Apollo environment (like, 8 years ago)) I've always disliked Windows and so use Macs at home. Exept I also wanted to use the excellent, free (Guiness), *nix rendering app. Radiance. So I heard you could run *nix on a Mac, and behold, MkLinux and LinuxPPC. Now much as I love learning more Linux, dual booting between renderer and modeller is a pain, so I'm really looking forward to MacOS X --- I need it!
All the semi-techys like myself out there are just gonna lurve Mc'Ten...
On a related note, a bloke said to me, like 4 years ago, that he didn't understand why our department was ditching it's macs and buying pee-sees, coz' the whole world was going *nix.... I thought he was on something, but like, even Apple gets it (!)
In the evolution of computing, the only factor is miniturization. So cast your predictions simply: the wordprocessing/emailing business desktop will migrate to the palmtop. The server will become the desktop. It's my pet theory that word processing is one of the office productivity killers, along with spreadsheets etc. Businesses are about information flow and processing, not pithy emails and Excel numerical obscurity. So the server, running jobs, becomes the desktop departemental nexus of opertations. So *nix has to become the dominant desktop. Evolution demands it. This is all just cool baby.
Whoa! Lets just slow down a mo and peruse the scenery you've just casually passed before us....
"Getting badly burnt" would include two small atom bombs, two very brief flashes of light, and instant death to thousands of civilians? Would it not? It would include releasing chemical agents in a city underground network, yes? We are not talking about a kid in school who learns not to throw pencils at his schoolmates, yes? We are talking about absolute, massive and utterly horrific suffering unleashed by a few individuals with a small batch of technology, am I correct?
If that's what you mean, then sure, we can agree that a little "burning" will be taking place.
The scale and consequences are just too big to ignore, and in seeking to understand the problem we only come face to face with ourselves. Yes, the technology can do great good, and it can do great harm. The technology, Science itself, is Value-less. E=mc2 has no inherent good nor bad within it. So while scientists continue to claim they are pursuing Truth, they neglect to remember that their science, being purely Objective, in incapable of telling us anything about the Subjective realm of Morals, Art, Spirit, and inter-subjective Culture.
Our problem today is that Science has scrambled ahead with flat, objective, value-less data about the world, far outstripping our deep, subjective, cultural ability to agree about how to handle the new found toys. It has been said that the biggest problem facing us today is not the economic or ecological crisis, but our inability to agree on what to do about it. With respect to the disaster, the Ecological Crisis, science gave us the techniques that created it (pollution), and science can give us the techniques to fix it (clean fuel etc.) -- the problem is We, as Humanity, can't bring ourselves to agree on a damned thing!
It's like, if you agree with what I say, then somehow I get the uppper hand -- I get to be right and you are wrong. This inner weakness precludes any genuine working progress.
Although, to think about it, your no. 3 is not the chaos I meant. I mean more a sort of deep order that on the surface seems too incomprehensible, and hence 'chaotic'. His opinion that 'trusted' has to be formal is maybe 'offtopic'. Maybe a better question to ask is whether we can find evidence that the surface chaos of OS does indeed bring forth a more 'ordered' system than what his formal methods could produce.
2. any confused, disorderly mass
3. the infinity of space or formless matter supposed to have preceded the existence of the ordered universe
I think he meant 1 and 2. Not 3
Yes, I guess you're right.
Another question is whether OS development is really 1 and 2, like he seems to think, or whether it's more like 3.
Please, don't bring Chaos into the argument. Does he understand chaos? Does he know what chaos is? Life evolved out of chaos, creating everything we know. How does he profess to understand the complexity of Open Source development without inquiring further into it's nature? What hidden jems of intellectual development are manifesting within this post-modern matrix of meme exchange? Does he really know?
He could have called it "random", but he called it "chaos". He acknowledges it's all beyond him. He doesn't "trust" it because he doesn't understand it. QED
"Ripping off" implies there was a very specific and novel invention. But the notion of component software is just a broad, general evolution in software engineering. Modula-2 (Wirth, 1982) incorporated information hiding and a module concept. They built a component OS, Project Oberon, with it, which later became the BlackBox framework... which is just one of many such projects.
As for praising KDE&GNOME, well, maybe some people just expect them to do it better. :-)
Putting aside for a moment the complexities of the modern patent system, the historical example just shows that when people create some sort of advantage for themselves they want to milk it for everything they can. Regardless.
Witness the news re. possible American 'sanctions' against South Africa. RSA have a huge AIDS epidemic, and the treatments cost $$$$. South Africa is threatening to ignore the American drug companies patents, and just produce the stuff locally, at local cost, given that they are in an emergency situation. But USA wants to protect it's business, and are making threats.
This basic greed is the basis for our society. And whomever is born into it (society) is educated to "go forth and be greedy". We all want more, be it money, security, status, power, popularity etc... So somehow 'we' society have to formalise this so that we can all play at getting more. The rules of the game are codified into laws, like the patent system. This sort of prevents an all-out anarchy, but in no way changes the spirit of the endeavour. Someone who is not successful is described as someone who does $1 worth of work and gets paid $1. While success is doing $1 worth of work and getting paid $10000. We call it making 'investments'. In a sense it would seem fair that someone who spends a year developing something should be paid a year's salary. Instead licensing means we could be paying said inventor a million fold.
But any attempt to codify what is 'fair' will not work because it's in the context of people grabbing all they can. Someone will inevitably grab more, which with patents might mean getting an extension on the life of a patent, or patenting something that they can grab us by the balls with. The basic greed is not going to go away while it's the object of the game. It's like, the games that end in a draw are boring. The people who manage to screw the patent systems to their own advantage best are the winners. And those of us who wern't trying to are the 'losers'. They win because, at the end of the Monopoly game, they count their cash and come out tops. Winning by any other measure would not be the same game.
Just like the rules of Monopoly are designed so that someone will gain control of everything, so our 'society' game is designed so that the most greedy will aquire the most. But I'm not advocating any sort of political revolution.... the politics are just the mechanism, not the origin. It's our basic outlook on life that's creating these games, which we only complain about when we feel we've been dealt a bad hand.
Yet, it is not even close to where Scheme was 20 years ago.
Lisp solved the same problems 40 years ago...
Ta!
Ok, that's totally ok. I just used the example of "socialising" (which in the UK often means drink till you puke) because we were talking about office apps, and so I thought of secretaries. At 6pm the bars usually fill with big groups of women from the offices.
I'm no party animal, and I too stay at home with my wife. I used to think there was something wrong with me for not being social and popular, but I guess now I accept myself for being me more, and funnily enough I can accept extravert chatty in-you-face types more too.
My wife and I sometimes ask each other... "should we go to this party... do you want to... should we be sociable...?" and then we break out in a laugh, "NO!"
Life is a school. It's just that most people stop attending lessons. :-P
People are very smart, it's just that as they were growing up, they were taught that it was smart to pretend to look stupid. It's called an "act", and it's what Shakespear (IMHO) was referring to. People have a "script", a sort of "program", that uses their abilities to create the results that they unknowingly think they're supposed to create. Some people also call it the "personality", a complex of patterns that repeat themselves endlessly throughout a person's life.
Ever wonder why people always seem to re-create the same problems in their lives, even though they change partner, move to a different city or get a "new" job?
That's the first point, that stupidity is something people do, not something that they are. People can find very smart and creative ways of screwing things up.
The first point deals with "people", ie. the general, all inclusive label, and that's what I'm objecting to. I'm objecting to the all out labelling of "people" meaning "stupid". The second, local point, is about people's willingness to learn technical information. And yes, some people don't want to know about on/off switches! When I see someone "switch off" their computer using the monitor power button, it just blows me away. Like, what the f***??? And these same people show themselves to be smart in other ways. So it's really about recognising that some people have a "blank spot" around computers.
Ehm... I guess every tech support person has their limit...
Yes. I think there is a sort of "technical blind spot" that some people have. And that we, as the producers of the IT gadgets, have to accept and cope with that.
As an example, I once had a partner who had a flat (apartment), and in the flat was a door. First time I came round, she warned me not to touch the doorknob on the door because it was broken, and had been broken for years. Well, one day I accidentally did, and the thing fell off. I picked it up off the floor, noticed the threads in it, and screwed it back onto the door. There was never, of course, nothing wrong with it, it just needed to be screwed on.
This episode alerted me to just how "blind" some people are to certain things. Now this lady was a professional in a position of responsability, and there really wasn't anything wrong with her... except for a technical blind spot.
A lot of people just don't know how computers work, they don't know the basics... because no-one has ever explained it to them.
Lesson 1: your computer will not blow up. ...
Lesson 2: your computer is dumb.
Lesson 3:
Look, I'm not taking issue with the other things you said, but just get it that people are not stupid.
Maybe all them office secretaries and accounting people just have something better to do with their time than sit at their desks till the late hours learning Emacs! Like going out and socialising... ie. they have a life. So kindly stop equating IQ with the will to learn computer junk.
In that if most 'average citizen' people think that this is a case of theft, or benefitting unfairly from someone else's work, then judges will find some excuse to rule that way.
Therefore, we need more technical education, probably in schools, so that we all understand the issues, whether we do computers for a living or not. Only then will judges favour a more technically sane finding.
Information published electronically will get copied, quickly, easily, effortlessly. The very act of 'distribution' is copying... this text is now in your computer. That's the inherent nature of the medium. "You can run, but your mug shot will be on every web server in the world before you get out the door..." This is the issue society must face.
Yes, exactly. And when you take away all the smoke and contradictions, what did he actually say: "Don't hate MS", "Don't hate proprietary software."
Well, if he objects to the emotional quality of some people, maybe he should just refer them to a psychotherapist...
If people have had bad experiences that turn into an irrational hatred, then pitching a rational argument at them is not really going to work... And until it's legislated that binary-only distributors can't travel on the same bus as Free-Source-Suprematists, then I see nothing immoral about a little dislike.
But he has casually belittled the main issue of Intellectual Property
He attacked people's feelings, and faults... neither of which addresses the bigger question regarding intellectual property. Software can be easily copied, in the sence that if someone out there is using some extra space on their hard drive to store a copy, it is not costing me anything extra. Yes, he is right that it still costs something, but it doesn't cost me anything. And it could be useful to others, so why should I have the right to control it? The real ethical questions here are immense, and a real problem for society, especially now that society is Global.
We are all standing on the shoulders of giants, so we could be more careful about claiming ownership simply because "I thought of it".