I realize that power users will always want to change little things in their OSes. Nevertheless, I maintain that the most meaningful changes aren't ones that configurable operating systems allow you to make; they're usually corrections for programs which were improperly designed in the first place. Design a program once well, and your users won't need to customize it.
The problem that I have is that the needs of a beginning user are very different from those of a power user. Tasks which would be difficult to figure out for the beginner (if the developer made the GUI extremely efficient, for example if everything was a control-key combination that you had to memorize) are simple for the advanced user, and tasks which are easy for the beginning user are a headache for the advanced user to do repeatedly if there's no form of automation built in (a voice interface - easy for beginners, but voice is so slow if you can touch type). I don't think you can please everyone with exactly one GUI, and that's what Apple tries to do.
Sure, it's plenty consistent and I don't have an argument with that. Sure, you can start doing new tasks with a minimum of learning. But the learning curve essentially stops there - you can't go further to automate your tasks or do them in different ways, because Apple won't let you, because things have to stay simple enough for the next beginner who might sit at your desk tomorrow.
On the other hand, the KDE desktop that I have at home is simple enough for my wife to use (it looks exactly like Windows) but configurable enough that I can set up hotkeys, menus, etc. That's without even considering that I could just use Gnome or any other WM on the same machine without forcing her to change.
There might be hope for Apple, though - if they truly handle multiple users correctly in OS X, they can have every new user's desktop installed with the default look, and let each user make their own customizations to use (sort of like ~/.Xdefaults and the zillion rc files in ~). Now all we need is a smart card system to swap those in and out of other people's desktops for when you are working with a coworker on their machine. But I don't think that there can be "One True Interface" that everyone finds completely intuitive, because ultimately people are different and want to access and manipulate information in the ways that they are used to.
As for his point about files having no name, one name, many names, being in no directory, one or many, and a directory having one or many files. He said that three of these were currently legal and the other five not. That shows a clear lack of knowledge of the Unix separation of inodes and directory entries.
I thought so too - almost all of those are are possible:
a file with one name - possible
a file with multiple names - possible with links
many files sharing one name - possible if they are in separate directories (see below)
many files sharing one directory - possible
a file can be in one or more directories - again possible with links
a file with no name - I'm not sure about this. From my viewpoint, a thing (can of soda or a file) isn't distinct without some sort of name. For a can of soda, the name may not be just "Pepsi", it may be "the fourth Pepsi from the left in the fridge". Likewise with files - they don't need good names, but they do need to be distinguishable from their fellows, even if just by inode number. If you can't tell your 10000 head of cattle apart in some basic way, then how do you know you really have 10000?
a file in no directory - see below
Why is it that every forward-looking guru has it in for hierarchical filesystems? I remember reading something like this a year ago on/. with essentially the same refrain - that hierarchy is somehow more confusing or harder for the user. On the contrary - we use hierarchies all the time in real life to organize important stuff - we divide furniture by room, food by shelf in the fridge, and tools onto different hooks in the garage.
I wouldn't argue with a system like Mac OS X is going to use (from a previous/. article that I'm too lazy to find) - the BSD/usr,/etc, and so forth will be hidden from the user. Reducing unnecessary complexity from the user's view is a good thing, and that will hide all of the files that to the user's view are identical and not of interest. But not providing a way to pigeonhole information as necessary is the short path to madness.
I did like some of his comments about lifestreams and time - the idea sounded a little disorganized (remember, we're eschewing hierarchical organization here) but workable with a few changes.
No fear of getting locked in to the lockin list...
on
Web Site "Lock-In"
·
· Score: 1
...since top9's list crashes Netscape 4.61 on HP-UX. If this sounds familiar, it should - I probably complain about it weekly. I know I give Netscape the finger daily as it always crashes once or twice while reading the morning's news. CNet seems to do it in fairly regularly, slashdot only crashes it rarely. Some component of page complexity?
Microsoft sued the hardware manufacturer because the manufacturer's sale of Win/DOS violated the license agreement between Microsoft and the manufacturer and, as such, was an act of piracy.
Actually, the defendant had no contract or agreement with Microsoft at all. MS sold to a large OEM, who then sold a PC with Windows/DOS to a secondary reseller. That reseller then tried to do the unbundling.
Is this any different from a store owner opening up a bag of bite sized candybars and selling them despite the fact that they all have "this item is not packaged for individual retail sale" written on the label?
I was under the impression that such labeling was used because they didn't want to put the required nutrition information on every single stick of gum, or maybe couldn't fit it onto the individual packaging. Sort of an behind-covering move by the manufacturer of the product.
Compare that to the simple elegancy of MacOS where every app behaves the same way.
Contrariwise, when that "One True Way" doesn't work for you as a user, you have no recourse on a Mac. I don't care how much HCI design Apple puts into the OS; if I as a user fall outside their statistical sample then I'm up a creek without a paddle. In a certain sense, a more complex but configurable interface is in the interests of the mediuma-to-advanced user if it lets them become more productive.
Making Mac users enjoy open source software is therefore easy: make a user interface that is aimed at the user, not the underlying program model. That is - make applications that don't suck.
I'll admit that the UI design of many open source programs is not 100% intuitive. But if a Mac user isn't willing to expand their horizons by trying an interface which looks a little different, they probably aren't going to get to far in the Open Source world of give-and-take and compromise.
Did the moderator actually read this post before marking it as flamebait? Because it isn't flamebait, it's a good reason why some Mac enthusiasts don't write their own software.
I hope you get smacked down in MM, O lousy moderator.
Those hardware vendors do have an option - if they release source for their drivers and get it integrated into the kernel, then it will most likely be updated for them in most cases, and will be easier for them to update when they need to make changes. Plus they get testing for free. Of course in some cases this would require opening the source to their drivers, but TANSTAAFL.
You're right about the kernel changes, though - I remember reading about a change that broke things for Linux PPC (I think, it was some non-x86 architecture) recently that no one on the PPC side realized was going to happen. The theory that the kernel team seems to go by is that on development kernels, they reserve the right to break things if necessary, and driver writers need to keep up with those changes. It kinda made sense the way Alan explained it - in a distributed project like the Linux kernel, if you wait for every piece to be ready for a change you'll never get anything done. Better (in their opinion, at least) to change early and give people more time to catch up to the new interface/code/API/whatever, rather than stalling central kernel development while you wait for the changes to the JoeBobTech Network Adapter.
The point is not "stability above all else", the point is that in OS design as in other things, you can either learn from the mistakes of the past or repeat them yourself. There's no reason to sacrifice stability just for a snazzy user interface, and there's no reason to sacrifice security just to get singing and dancing attachments in the mail. That's why 20+ years of design and industrial usage of an OS (if you consider all of Unix as one OS, which is a vast simplification) is a good thing, not a bad thing.
In case you haven't been paying attention, this has already been addressed in a paper linked to on Slashdot a few weeks ago.
In case you haven't been paying attention, this was addressed in this very article (see top of page) which is the same as the article from a few weeks ago.
First off--a word of thanks. A friend and sometime employee who lurks on SlashDot sent me an email this morning that read, "so--kicking over anthills on/. again?" I fully expected to see some ugly flames when I checked in. I am delighted by the posts of those of you who have taken the time to respond. SlashDot has a reputation for trolls, and I'm delighted by the tone and tenor of these comments. It's a very engaging conversation.
I couldn't agree more - it's easy to just dismiss another viewpoint (which unfortunately happens a lot on this forum) but if you really listen to what people are trying to get across, you can learn a lot. Or at least I have.
If you don't mind, I may use this conversation as an example when people say that only those that follow the/. party line can get moderated up. I notice that you have relevant comments from personal experience and you backed them up with facts, and as a result were moderated up. That's exactly the way things are supposed to work, IMHO. If only that were always the case....
Well, that explains the relative levels of stability and security of the two very nicely. 20 years (actually more) of proven technology == good, reinventing the wheel based on DOS == bad. Thanks for summing up:)
...Linux that barely supported threads at all until not too long ago.
In general the Linux model is to make forking a new process extremely cheap, so that you can just use new processes rather than threads. Threading hasn't been there since the beginning because there hasn't been as much of a need for it.
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply; I haven't any experience as a systems integrator but I will try to bring up a couple points.
Don't kid yourself--any bargain you make with a tool or hardware vendor puts you in the same position. Suppose (for sake of argument) that somebody conclusively proves that using BSD instead of Linux makes you 38% more attractive to really good looking women. Do you think that Larry Augustin and VA BSD will think of your needs and concerns while they change their name?
I don't suppose I would expect them to consult me on that; I was thinking more of cases where they stop selling a product that you really depend on for your sales, or take that product in a significantly different direction. In a market that contains Microsoft, you might be lucky to find another company whose product you can use instead - in many such markets, Microsoft will have destroyed those other companies and you won't have any other options besides restructuring your business around the remaining options that MS provides you.
On the other hand, if Red Hat decides to go in a different direction than I like, I could just start using a commodity Linux or BSD distro from some other vendor, or even take the existing RH source code and tweak it to work for me. Not entirely painless maybe, but not a business-shattering event. No one's integration business would go down the tubes if RH faced similar antitrust action, for example.
Maybe I'm a little fuzzy on the exact bounds of what systems integrators do, but it seems to me that if you're a Microsoft shop and you only integrate between various MS tools, why can't you be replaced by Microsoft at some point in the future? If they already have the know-how (which they would need to keep their systems compatible in the first place), and they wanted the business, and they already know who your customer is, some future MS Integration Division could easily provide what you provide, probably more cheaply.
I'm not sure how likely this scenario is, it just seems like you sacrifice a lot of control of your business that way. I can see that in the short-term the single-vendor approach (especially if vendor==MS) is a big win for your company; I'm just not convinced that in the long run it will turn out to be so. As you pointed out, Microsoft's business practices (which are entirely beyond your control) may cause serious problems for your business now.
There are a lot of teenagers today on SlashDot that don't remember life when a single-seat programmer's license cost $3000 bucks (or 1.5 times the cost of a compact car)...[more on how development used to be].
I can't argue with that, since I haven't been through it. From my perspective, though, MS is no longer on the side of the angels. You can now get development tools, documentation, tools source, and a direct hotline to the creators of the products that you use for free, without any reciprocal expectations on you. You don't have to use just Red Hat tools, you don't have to just provide Red Hat solutions, you're free to choose the best tool for the job in every circumstance. You aren't locked in and neither are your customers when something better comes along. From my perspective, Microsoft may have started the sea change in developer relations, but it is no longer leading the charge. It's great that you retain that loyalty and I can't fault you for that; I guess we'll have to let the market sort out how much you really have to thank Microsoft for.
I emailed my representatives through a different "Freedom to Innovate" page after it was mentioned on/. a few months ago. I did the same thing - I described the impact that MS has had on the industry, and encouraged my reps to back the DOJ 100%. I just wish the average consumer was as aware of the negative impact as they are of the positive impact that Microsoft has had.
Don't you worry about being discarded by MS once you can no longer expand their market share any further, or if you come to be perceived as a threat to them? It sounds to me like a very Faustian bargain - you've done well for yourself by allying with the market leader, but at the same time your business is irrevocably tied to their business goals and their bottom line. As you mentioned, if MS changes (or is forced to change) their business strategies they aren't going to give you and your business any consideration.
Let me put that another way - now that you know the dependencies that this sort of partnership locks you into, would you take the risk again and get into a similar relationship with the next big technology company?
Seriously, since the environment of Jupiter is much less earthlike than the environments of Europa or Io, it's probably safer to drop Galileo into Jupiter. None of our bugs will be able to hurt anything that has evolved under those conditions, and the space probe will just be another meteorite out of many in the Jovian system.
You have a point - people haven't really deserted MS in the past over the quality of their software or their version-upgrade merry-go-round. Maybe people are used to getting jerked around in the software market and can't imagine any other way. ASP is only going to increase that feeling of lack of control - people will only use it if they don't think they have another choice.
Of course, there hasn't been a free, usable desktop with available apps until recently. I see this as an opportunity for Linux distributors. Why pay MS (even micropayments) to hold your data hostage and maybe even "upgrade" your apps for you, when you can set up an easy, reliable server for your data, provide an intuitive, locked-down desktop for your users, and relax? It might depend on the size of the business that you have - smaller businesses are going to be less willing to maintain their own IT department. But on the other hand, ASPs are going to be less willing to cater to the really small accounts, so I think things will balance out.
Under Linux Mandrake, one has to download an obscene number of RPMS (like 4 or 5) the go into the command line, type in RPM -Uvh X*.rpm, then run xf86config to configure it.
On my Mandrake system, I download RPMs, fire up kpackage, open the RPM, and click install. No command line necessary. I suppose you could set up.rpm as a mime-type in Netscape (already done in kfm) so that you just click on the RPM in Netscape and it gets installed. I haven't installed XF 4.0, but there's no reason that they couldn't have a post-install script set up to run xf86config. Sure there's some configuration to be done, but on the other hand this is a major system upgrade (as other posters have pointed out). The amount of effort is equivalent to what you'd do in Windows.
I don't put much faith in this guy's prognostications; if he was a real usability guru he would have set up his DNS so that useit.com => www.useit.com. Saving me typing == usability in my book.
As for ASP, once consumers and businesses get bitten by someone else holding their data and apps hostage (or even just due to a network outage), they'll be moving over to free, unencumbered, and open systems like never before.
Now if any would be the time for God to come down and bitch slap us straight.
So if humanity's karma is knocked down to -1, does that mean that other intelligent civilizations will no longer see our trolling TV commercials and our offtopic cell phone transmissions? Although they might think the Areceibo transmission was +1, Funny.
I didn't know that about Canada, though - I wonder how much else there is about international space exploration efforts that we don't here about here in the states.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem that I have is that the needs of a beginning user are very different from those of a power user. Tasks which would be difficult to figure out for the beginner (if the developer made the GUI extremely efficient, for example if everything was a control-key combination that you had to memorize) are simple for the advanced user, and tasks which are easy for the beginning user are a headache for the advanced user to do repeatedly if there's no form of automation built in (a voice interface - easy for beginners, but voice is so slow if you can touch type). I don't think you can please everyone with exactly one GUI, and that's what Apple tries to do.
Sure, it's plenty consistent and I don't have an argument with that. Sure, you can start doing new tasks with a minimum of learning. But the learning curve essentially stops there - you can't go further to automate your tasks or do them in different ways, because Apple won't let you, because things have to stay simple enough for the next beginner who might sit at your desk tomorrow.
On the other hand, the KDE desktop that I have at home is simple enough for my wife to use (it looks exactly like Windows) but configurable enough that I can set up hotkeys, menus, etc. That's without even considering that I could just use Gnome or any other WM on the same machine without forcing her to change.
There might be hope for Apple, though - if they truly handle multiple users correctly in OS X, they can have every new user's desktop installed with the default look, and let each user make their own customizations to use (sort of like ~/.Xdefaults and the zillion rc files in ~). Now all we need is a smart card system to swap those in and out of other people's desktops for when you are working with a coworker on their machine. But I don't think that there can be "One True Interface" that everyone finds completely intuitive, because ultimately people are different and want to access and manipulate information in the ways that they are used to.
I thought so too - almost all of those are are possible:
Why is it that every forward-looking guru has it in for hierarchical filesystems? I remember reading something like this a year ago on /. with essentially the same refrain - that hierarchy is somehow more confusing or harder for the user. On the contrary - we use hierarchies all the time in real life to organize important stuff - we divide furniture by room, food by shelf in the fridge, and tools onto different hooks in the garage.
I wouldn't argue with a system like Mac OS X is going to use (from a previous /. article that I'm too lazy to find) - the BSD /usr, /etc, and so forth will be hidden from the user. Reducing unnecessary complexity from the user's view is a good thing, and that will hide all of the files that to the user's view are identical and not of interest. But not providing a way to pigeonhole information as necessary is the short path to madness.
I did like some of his comments about lifestreams and time - the idea sounded a little disorganized (remember, we're eschewing hierarchical organization here) but workable with a few changes.
...since top9's list crashes Netscape 4.61 on HP-UX. If this sounds familiar, it should - I probably complain about it weekly. I know I give Netscape the finger daily as it always crashes once or twice while reading the morning's news. CNet seems to do it in fairly regularly, slashdot only crashes it rarely. Some component of page complexity?
OK, I'm done bitching now, mod away.
Don't you know that your actions have automatically branded you a pirate in the eyes of Microsoft? How dare you! See http://www.microsoft.com/OEM/nakedPC.htm, for example.
</sarcasm >
Amen indeed. It's good to see common sense triumph for once.
Actually, the defendant had no contract or agreement with Microsoft at all. MS sold to a large OEM, who then sold a PC with Windows/DOS to a secondary reseller. That reseller then tried to do the unbundling.
I was under the impression that such labeling was used because they didn't want to put the required nutrition information on every single stick of gum, or maybe couldn't fit it onto the individual packaging. Sort of an behind-covering move by the manufacturer of the product.
Contrariwise, when that "One True Way" doesn't work for you as a user, you have no recourse on a Mac. I don't care how much HCI design Apple puts into the OS; if I as a user fall outside their statistical sample then I'm up a creek without a paddle. In a certain sense, a more complex but configurable interface is in the interests of the mediuma-to-advanced user if it lets them become more productive.
I'll admit that the UI design of many open source programs is not 100% intuitive. But if a Mac user isn't willing to expand their horizons by trying an interface which looks a little different, they probably aren't going to get to far in the Open Source world of give-and-take and compromise.
...not that I'm defending emacs [shudder].
Did the moderator actually read this post before marking it as flamebait? Because it isn't flamebait, it's a good reason why some Mac enthusiasts don't write their own software.
I hope you get smacked down in MM, O lousy moderator.
Those hardware vendors do have an option - if they release source for their drivers and get it integrated into the kernel, then it will most likely be updated for them in most cases, and will be easier for them to update when they need to make changes. Plus they get testing for free. Of course in some cases this would require opening the source to their drivers, but TANSTAAFL.
You're right about the kernel changes, though - I remember reading about a change that broke things for Linux PPC (I think, it was some non-x86 architecture) recently that no one on the PPC side realized was going to happen. The theory that the kernel team seems to go by is that on development kernels, they reserve the right to break things if necessary, and driver writers need to keep up with those changes. It kinda made sense the way Alan explained it - in a distributed project like the Linux kernel, if you wait for every piece to be ready for a change you'll never get anything done. Better (in their opinion, at least) to change early and give people more time to catch up to the new interface/code/API/whatever, rather than stalling central kernel development while you wait for the changes to the JoeBobTech Network Adapter.
See link.
Just out of curiosity, what functionality of Quicken do you use that's so far beyond GnuCash?
The point is not "stability above all else", the point is that in OS design as in other things, you can either learn from the mistakes of the past or repeat them yourself. There's no reason to sacrifice stability just for a snazzy user interface, and there's no reason to sacrifice security just to get singing and dancing attachments in the mail. That's why 20+ years of design and industrial usage of an OS (if you consider all of Unix as one OS, which is a vast simplification) is a good thing, not a bad thing.
In case you haven't been paying attention, this was addressed in this very article (see top of page) which is the same as the article from a few weeks ago.
I couldn't agree more - it's easy to just dismiss another viewpoint (which unfortunately happens a lot on this forum) but if you really listen to what people are trying to get across, you can learn a lot. Or at least I have.
If you don't mind, I may use this conversation as an example when people say that only those that follow the /. party line can get moderated up. I notice that you have relevant comments from personal experience and you backed them up with facts, and as a result were moderated up. That's exactly the way things are supposed to work, IMHO. If only that were always the case....
I couldn't have put it better myself. Well, except for the nuking them from orbit part - standard business antitrust penalties will be fine with me.
Well, that explains the relative levels of stability and security of the two very nicely. 20 years (actually more) of proven technology == good, reinventing the wheel based on DOS == bad. Thanks for summing up :)
In general the Linux model is to make forking a new process extremely cheap, so that you can just use new processes rather than threads. Threading hasn't been there since the beginning because there hasn't been as much of a need for it.
Thanks for such a thoughtful reply; I haven't any experience as a systems integrator but I will try to bring up a couple points.
I don't suppose I would expect them to consult me on that; I was thinking more of cases where they stop selling a product that you really depend on for your sales, or take that product in a significantly different direction. In a market that contains Microsoft, you might be lucky to find another company whose product you can use instead - in many such markets, Microsoft will have destroyed those other companies and you won't have any other options besides restructuring your business around the remaining options that MS provides you.
On the other hand, if Red Hat decides to go in a different direction than I like, I could just start using a commodity Linux or BSD distro from some other vendor, or even take the existing RH source code and tweak it to work for me. Not entirely painless maybe, but not a business-shattering event. No one's integration business would go down the tubes if RH faced similar antitrust action, for example.
Maybe I'm a little fuzzy on the exact bounds of what systems integrators do, but it seems to me that if you're a Microsoft shop and you only integrate between various MS tools, why can't you be replaced by Microsoft at some point in the future? If they already have the know-how (which they would need to keep their systems compatible in the first place), and they wanted the business, and they already know who your customer is, some future MS Integration Division could easily provide what you provide, probably more cheaply.
I'm not sure how likely this scenario is, it just seems like you sacrifice a lot of control of your business that way. I can see that in the short-term the single-vendor approach (especially if vendor==MS) is a big win for your company; I'm just not convinced that in the long run it will turn out to be so. As you pointed out, Microsoft's business practices (which are entirely beyond your control) may cause serious problems for your business now.
I can't argue with that, since I haven't been through it. From my perspective, though, MS is no longer on the side of the angels. You can now get development tools, documentation, tools source, and a direct hotline to the creators of the products that you use for free, without any reciprocal expectations on you. You don't have to use just Red Hat tools, you don't have to just provide Red Hat solutions, you're free to choose the best tool for the job in every circumstance. You aren't locked in and neither are your customers when something better comes along. From my perspective, Microsoft may have started the sea change in developer relations, but it is no longer leading the charge. It's great that you retain that loyalty and I can't fault you for that; I guess we'll have to let the market sort out how much you really have to thank Microsoft for.
I emailed my representatives through a different "Freedom to Innovate" page after it was mentioned on /. a few months ago. I did the same thing - I described the impact that MS has had on the industry, and encouraged my reps to back the DOJ 100%. I just wish the average consumer was as aware of the negative impact as they are of the positive impact that Microsoft has had.
Don't you worry about being discarded by MS once you can no longer expand their market share any further, or if you come to be perceived as a threat to them? It sounds to me like a very Faustian bargain - you've done well for yourself by allying with the market leader, but at the same time your business is irrevocably tied to their business goals and their bottom line. As you mentioned, if MS changes (or is forced to change) their business strategies they aren't going to give you and your business any consideration.
Let me put that another way - now that you know the dependencies that this sort of partnership locks you into, would you take the risk again and get into a similar relationship with the next big technology company?
No way - that's not until 2010.
Seriously, since the environment of Jupiter is much less earthlike than the environments of Europa or Io, it's probably safer to drop Galileo into Jupiter. None of our bugs will be able to hurt anything that has evolved under those conditions, and the space probe will just be another meteorite out of many in the Jovian system.
You have a point - people haven't really deserted MS in the past over the quality of their software or their version-upgrade merry-go-round. Maybe people are used to getting jerked around in the software market and can't imagine any other way. ASP is only going to increase that feeling of lack of control - people will only use it if they don't think they have another choice.
Of course, there hasn't been a free, usable desktop with available apps until recently. I see this as an opportunity for Linux distributors. Why pay MS (even micropayments) to hold your data hostage and maybe even "upgrade" your apps for you, when you can set up an easy, reliable server for your data, provide an intuitive, locked-down desktop for your users, and relax? It might depend on the size of the business that you have - smaller businesses are going to be less willing to maintain their own IT department. But on the other hand, ASPs are going to be less willing to cater to the really small accounts, so I think things will balance out.
On my Mandrake system, I download RPMs, fire up kpackage, open the RPM, and click install. No command line necessary. I suppose you could set up .rpm as a mime-type in Netscape (already done in kfm) so that you just click on the RPM in Netscape and it gets installed. I haven't installed XF 4.0, but there's no reason that they couldn't have a post-install script set up to run xf86config. Sure there's some configuration to be done, but on the other hand this is a major system upgrade (as other posters have pointed out). The amount of effort is equivalent to what you'd do in Windows.
I don't put much faith in this guy's prognostications; if he was a real usability guru he would have set up his DNS so that useit.com => www.useit.com. Saving me typing == usability in my book.
As for ASP, once consumers and businesses get bitten by someone else holding their data and apps hostage (or even just due to a network outage), they'll be moving over to free, unencumbered, and open systems like never before.
So if humanity's karma is knocked down to -1, does that mean that other intelligent civilizations will no longer see our trolling TV commercials and our offtopic cell phone transmissions? Although they might think the Areceibo transmission was +1, Funny.
Wouldn't that be the USSR? [/nitpick]
I didn't know that about Canada, though - I wonder how much else there is about international space exploration efforts that we don't here about here in the states.