The big question is whether true life could have evolved from those primordial simple molecules. Since the odds of this happening in the known time period on Earth are under considerable dispute, the "native origin" theory of life could turn out to require more bizarre coincidences than the "space seed" theory. If life could have come from somewhere else (I like the comet theory myself), then it would have had much more time to come into existence and the chain of random chance that created life forms wouldn't have to be so shaky.
Woops, I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else. The "Space Seed" theory is the one where Ricardo Montalban seeded the primordial Earth with Ceti eels, isn't it?:)
I'd have to agree with that - my wife easily figured out the Gnome panel and menu system which is more-or-less a W95 workalike (OK, OK, there's a lot more neat stuff, but for her it's W95 all over again) and she has no problems using Linux for email, web browsing, and word processing, but installing it would be something that she would never do. Not that she'd install Windows either, but of course most Windows users never have to.
They're both compatible as X applications; as long as you have the appropriate libraries for Gnome and KDE, there's no reason you can't run apps written for either at the same time on the same desktop. I'm not sure what the status of drag-n-drop between the two is - the standard X clipboard seems to work OK though.
I'm not sure that I agree with the frequent remark that it would be more efficient to just focus on one desktop; you might instead get a situation where all the ex-KDE folks fight with the Gnome folks all the time, or vice versa, and so even less work gets done:) In a perfect world, putting all the developers onto one combined project would result in one great desktop. In the real world, differences of ego, technical direction, user interface preferences, object systems (CORBA), etc. are probably too great to ever get the entire development community to agree on a single desktop, at least until one or the other gains sufficient market share and flexibility that the developers of the other can make the switch fairly painlessly.
I was thinking that it would make a good companion piece to Cryptonomicon - they both discussed men of thought thrown into the midst of WWII and prized for their intellect. OK, Cryptonomicon had a lot more stuff too, but just imagine the yarn that Stephenson could spin out of this guy's story:)
I'd like to personally congratulate Ransom Love on this one - for the first time in recent history, he's managed to open his mouth and not immediately cram his foot in edgewise. It's nice to see the guy start to have a clue about Linux and the open source world.
Yes, it's named after what you think it's named after, and yes, the
article mentions why naming it Hal might not be such a hot idea."
I don't know, it seems to fit if you ask me. HAL was very childlike in the movie, especially in regards to his "dad" Dr. Chandra (well, in the sequel at least), and only ended up hurting people because he was lied to and thought there was no other way. How is that any different from a human child who is abused and as a result doesn't value human lives at all?
I don't think they should have named it HAL just because it's going to get boring after every single AI project is named HAL, but naming it after the famous movie star of the same name wasn't a bad idea in my opinion. As long as you treat it right and don't give it control over vital life support functionality, you should be just fine:)
If the person taking the drugs tended to react by accusing you of being their dealer and trying to drag you down with them, then I think you'd be justified after reading about a few such cases on/. to decide to only intervene in cases of family or friends that you knew wouldn't attack you out of fear. It's painful to watch people make their own mistakes, but if they won't let you help them, then I don't see what else you can do. Unless it's friends or family, you have to think of your own interests first, and not expect that complete strangers will be grateful that you tried to help them.
This would be more like a friend told you he was going to kill his wife, and so you roughed her up a little first to see if she was safe from him or not:)
"Go down hill, really fast. When you see a tree, swerve!"
...
[or, my favorite]
"He had his testicles all over me!"
[John Cusack] "Tentacles - 'nt'. Big difference."
Re:Did you expect any differently?
on
$1200 Cheap!
·
· Score: 1
I beg to differ - using your monopolistic power from one market to force a monopoly in another market is the very hallmark of the anticompetitive actions that Microsoft is on trial for. Microsoft is using their business gains from other monopolies (whether legally or illegally acquired doesn't matter) to create a new monopoly in the console game market.
Disabling plugins is the biggest step towards a Microsoft-only Internet - for once and for all, Microsoft can squash the threat that developers would make the browser into an OS and remove the need for Windows. It is truly a master stroke - I bet Cringely wishes he'd predicted this one:)
I hate to point this out, and I mean no offense to the competent Microsoft developers reading this, but Microsoft has been encouraging exactly that - programmers who don't really know how things work, they just know how to click on things in Visual Whatever. I don't fault Microsoft for making programming a little more accessible to some programmers (even though those programmers generally produce a lot of crap), but Microsoft knows that its developers don't know and/or don't care that they're being locked into a Microsoft-only solution. That's the way they've played the game for years. That's what happens when the company that owns the platform also makes the programming tools.
Not that I don't agree with you, but I'll point out the obvious contradiction: many people in the past felt that slaves weren't intelligent or driven enough to govern their own lives, and that controlling and using them for someone else's good was beneficial to everyone involved. The big difference was deciding that slaves were people and not property; as long as slaves were property then you could make the same argument about a slave that you have just made about software.
I don't expect that software will become people any time soon (although maybe by the end of my lifetime), so I still agree with you, just for different reasons.
OK, how was that flamebait? I fully expected to be Offtopic or Redundant with that post (not that I would agree with that, but I expect it), but remember, even when you really really really want to moderate someone down, you will look slightly less stupid if you pick a moderation type that's actually germane to the post at hand.
Slashdot Mirror
So does that mean Alan Cox is really Ice-T? [shudder]
Obligatory: "Oh, no. You can't fool me. It's turtles all the way down."
The big question is whether true life could have evolved from those primordial simple molecules. Since the odds of this happening in the known time period on Earth are under considerable dispute, the "native origin" theory of life could turn out to require more bizarre coincidences than the "space seed" theory. If life could have come from somewhere else (I like the comet theory myself), then it would have had much more time to come into existence and the chain of random chance that created life forms wouldn't have to be so shaky.
Woops, I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else. The "Space Seed" theory is the one where Ricardo Montalban seeded the primordial Earth with Ceti eels, isn't it? :)
I'd have to agree with that - my wife easily figured out the Gnome panel and menu system which is more-or-less a W95 workalike (OK, OK, there's a lot more neat stuff, but for her it's W95 all over again) and she has no problems using Linux for email, web browsing, and word processing, but installing it would be something that she would never do. Not that she'd install Windows either, but of course most Windows users never have to.
They're both compatible as X applications; as long as you have the appropriate libraries for Gnome and KDE, there's no reason you can't run apps written for either at the same time on the same desktop. I'm not sure what the status of drag-n-drop between the two is - the standard X clipboard seems to work OK though.
I'm not sure that I agree with the frequent remark that it would be more efficient to just focus on one desktop; you might instead get a situation where all the ex-KDE folks fight with the Gnome folks all the time, or vice versa, and so even less work gets done :) In a perfect world, putting all the developers onto one combined project would result in one great desktop. In the real world, differences of ego, technical direction, user interface preferences, object systems (CORBA), etc. are probably too great to ever get the entire development community to agree on a single desktop, at least until one or the other gains sufficient market share and flexibility that the developers of the other can make the switch fairly painlessly.
I was thinking that it would make a good companion piece to Cryptonomicon - they both discussed men of thought thrown into the midst of WWII and prized for their intellect. OK, Cryptonomicon had a lot more stuff too, but just imagine the yarn that Stephenson could spin out of this guy's story :)
An Austrian sparrow, or a Prussian sparrow?
I'd like to personally congratulate Ransom Love on this one - for the first time in recent history, he's managed to open his mouth and not immediately cram his foot in edgewise. It's nice to see the guy start to have a clue about Linux and the open source world.
I don't know, it seems to fit if you ask me. HAL was very childlike in the movie, especially in regards to his "dad" Dr. Chandra (well, in the sequel at least), and only ended up hurting people because he was lied to and thought there was no other way. How is that any different from a human child who is abused and as a result doesn't value human lives at all?
I don't think they should have named it HAL just because it's going to get boring after every single AI project is named HAL, but naming it after the famous movie star of the same name wasn't a bad idea in my opinion. As long as you treat it right and don't give it control over vital life support functionality, you should be just fine :)
[strangely apropos Simpsons reference]: "Better hurry up, kid, in ten minutes this place is turning into a Starbucks!"
Somehow, I originally read that as "Whorehouse" and was thinking that if that's what my sister did, I wouldn't be telling people :)
Yes, but they were talking about Macs at the time :)
If the person taking the drugs tended to react by accusing you of being their dealer and trying to drag you down with them, then I think you'd be justified after reading about a few such cases on /. to decide to only intervene in cases of family or friends that you knew wouldn't attack you out of fear. It's painful to watch people make their own mistakes, but if they won't let you help them, then I don't see what else you can do. Unless it's friends or family, you have to think of your own interests first, and not expect that complete strangers will be grateful that you tried to help them.
This would be more like a friend told you he was going to kill his wife, and so you roughed her up a little first to see if she was safe from him or not :)
[Better Off Dead]
"Go down hill, really fast. When you see a tree, swerve!"
...
[or, my favorite]
"He had his testicles all over me!"
[John Cusack] "Tentacles - 'nt'. Big difference."
I beg to differ - using your monopolistic power from one market to force a monopoly in another market is the very hallmark of the anticompetitive actions that Microsoft is on trial for. Microsoft is using their business gains from other monopolies (whether legally or illegally acquired doesn't matter) to create a new monopoly in the console game market.
See, patents do encourage innovation! Perhaps you could say that science views ridiculous patents as an obstruction, and routes around them?
Disabling plugins is the biggest step towards a Microsoft-only Internet - for once and for all, Microsoft can squash the threat that developers would make the browser into an OS and remove the need for Windows. It is truly a master stroke - I bet Cringely wishes he'd predicted this one :)
I hate to point this out, and I mean no offense to the competent Microsoft developers reading this, but Microsoft has been encouraging exactly that - programmers who don't really know how things work, they just know how to click on things in Visual Whatever. I don't fault Microsoft for making programming a little more accessible to some programmers (even though those programmers generally produce a lot of crap), but Microsoft knows that its developers don't know and/or don't care that they're being locked into a Microsoft-only solution. That's the way they've played the game for years. That's what happens when the company that owns the platform also makes the programming tools.
One other problem - the user option to suppress signatures is nonfunctional. I've never seen so much random crap in my life :)
He's ruthlessly bouncy, too - kind of like a ruthless, evil, bald Tigger :)
Unfortunately, his comical appearance in that video makes it very difficult for me to take him as seriously as I should...
Not that I don't agree with you, but I'll point out the obvious contradiction: many people in the past felt that slaves weren't intelligent or driven enough to govern their own lives, and that controlling and using them for someone else's good was beneficial to everyone involved. The big difference was deciding that slaves were people and not property; as long as slaves were property then you could make the same argument about a slave that you have just made about software.
I don't expect that software will become people any time soon (although maybe by the end of my lifetime), so I still agree with you, just for different reasons.
OK, how was that flamebait? I fully expected to be Offtopic or Redundant with that post (not that I would agree with that, but I expect it), but remember, even when you really really really want to moderate someone down, you will look slightly less stupid if you pick a moderation type that's actually germane to the post at hand.
Gah, why do I even bother...
Remember, if the posted story looks wrong, you should have used Preview :)
You've got a window, and you felt a need for more? Man, count your blessings :)