Err.. In the UK anyway, non-profit means just that - the company cannot make a profit - all revenue must be ploughed back into the company (as opposed to going to investors in the form of dividends, or to employees in the form of profit-based bonuses). So, in the long term, the company can only break even.
Non-profit organisations can be very lucrative things, of course. Large charities will employ people with 6 figure incomes, so long as they can justify that it's a reasonable way to spend the charity's funds.
I think an MS linux distro is quite possible - remember that MS had xenix in the beginning, and they have never been averse to backing two horses if that seems sensible.
Also, I think MS may port DCOM to Linux, although that is less certain. No-one I know in the shrink-wrap development scene has much interest or faith in CORBA.
I think DCOM is a case of MS doing it badly but doing it better than anyone else, so unless CORBA really takes off, I think alot of the people who might start developing for KDE/GNOME would love to see a proven object model available.
Remember folks - outside of Unix, if it isn't OO, it isn't in the running.
Hmmm. I guess most people here (including me) would support someone who ran a site called microshaft.com that contained anti-ms jokes, anti-ms truth, and anti-ms FUD in equal quantities.
But I would also support a site called linucks.com run by Microsoft that contained anti-linux jokes, anti-linux truth, and anti-linux FUD in equal quantities.
It's not a case of supporting the little guy against the big guy - it's a case of supporting free speech against spin and evangelism.
Anyway - that's not directly relevant - just curious to see how people would feel if MS _did_ do something like that.
Sorry, but VRML in general, and COSMO in particular, suck.
Lots of academics producing a functionally poor, verbose, over complex load of rubbish.
To see it done properly:
http://www.viscape.com
And yes, it's proprietary and not available for Linux, but it's simply a 100% better way of handling 3D realtime environments. Also, it has some fantastic authoring software.
> Paine wrote that "we have it within our power to > begin the world anew."
I always saw that as the role of global nuclear war myself. I don't think the Internet will quite do the job.
Nothing wrong with institutionalised religion..
on
Review:Virtual Faith
·
· Score: 1
I think he's right in that just because people don't attend churces and sing hymns they aren't religious.
He's also right in that religious symbols, even when worn/used in other contexts (fashion, teenage rebellion, etc) almost always betray a more serious religious interest beneath the surface.
However, I take issue with the tired old idea that somehow 'The Church' needs to constantly change and adapt to keep 'in tune with' the youth (which means, generally, 'the journalistic generalisation of youth').
I like the book of Common Prayer, and Cathedrals, and candles, and requiems by Faure and Mozart. I like Latin, and I like the fact that I can go to a church and hear the same words that people 15 generations ago were hearing. And I like them all the more because it is a rebellion against the modern notion that what is new is good and what is old is bad.
Sure, institutionalised religion may not be for everyone, but the Net doesn't undermine it. It provides a voice for those who _seek_ to undermine the institutional religions, but equally it provides a forum for those institutions.
"protect me O Lord, from the changes and chances of this fleeting world, in Thine eternal changelessness" (from the service of Compline)
I'm glad the ACLU have the guts to come out and challenge this.
I hope the challenge fails, or results in only a modified form of the law - but free speech is SO MUCH more important than some annoying email in the linux kernel list.
If I'm beaten up/tortured by the police, and in an attempt to generate some interest in my case and some funding for my defence, I resort to mass emailing, that seems like an acceptable use of spam to me.
I think there need to be restrictions on SPAM, especially on the commercial stuff, but formulating the law well will be very, very, hard. By challenging the law, the ACLU will make people think harder, and hopefully result in a better formed piece of legislation.
"Who, outside of complete neophytes buy Compaq's anyhow? "
I'm no fan of Compaq, but let's look at what's on offer from these big over-priced corporates
1.Proprietary case
Which is easier to remove (no screwdriver), and easier to lock down with padlock systems.
2.Proprietary Hardware
Like, Sun, Irix, etc. More expensive, but more reliable. By using the same supplier for all hardware, incomatabilites are reduced.
Compaq also offers features like network reporting of hardware failure. Allows an admin to, for instance, alter BIOS settings on the 400 desktops on floors 4-6 of the office, all in one go, by remote.
3.Proprietary loader that hides all the system info (like card type, memory count, and peripheral assay) from view.
That's annoying, but then since you specced the machine, you don't really need to know this.
4.IDIOTIC use of completely separate forms of power management (BIOS, Windows, and their own proprietary power manager), all of which screw network connections."
Can't say if it screws up the network. Advanced power management features are very important when you are managing 2000+ machines. Do you want to send someone round re-booting them by hand? With these systems, you could reboot 1500 machines remotely, and then get a report of which machines failed to come back to online status and then send an engineer out to check those machines.
The issues of running a kick-ass home system and 20,000 systems across a multi-national company have remarkably little in common. Compaq, let's face it, is geared more towards one and not the other.
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard, which is very good, especially if you have very large hands. (As is their mouse, suggesting that they ought to concentrate on hardware...). However, it does take some getting used to, since it is quite a radical design (central hump, angled hands etc).
Otherwise, the bigger the keyboard the better. Sun keyboards are very nice, for example.
But most important is to get one of those strips of 2 1/2 inch thick foam to wrest your wrists on. That makes the most difference for me.
I think it's important and that keyboards match your hand size.
I hope someone notices this in between the cries of horror.
I've just completed an e-commerce website for a font foundry (a company that makes fonts). They won't sell you a font via the website if you live in a country with a physical reseller - you have to go via the reseller.
At a glance this is patently stupid. However, from the font foundry's point of view it is very sensible. They currently get 100% of their revenue from about 6 resellers in about as many countries. Let us suppose after being running for 1 month, the website accounts for 3% of their revenue (realism at work).
If one of their resellers got so annoyed that their own supplier is undercutting them that they stopped reselling fonts from that foundry, the foundry would suffer a 14% drop in revenue. That would be crippling. Possibly, a percentage of that 14% would start using the web site, but not instantly and not all of them.
The cash flow problem are significant, to put it mildly.
That said, Compaq has behaved rather drastically, but people need to understand that businesses have to look after other businesses in the supply chain as well as end users. Compaq only got where it is today with the help of its (old style) resellers. Undercutting them is not the best way to say "thank you".
As the reviewer says, this is a book that would appeal to your boss.
That's a very different market place to the technical nutshell series. People associate the 'old animal drawings' brand with books that techies have close at hand. It would be confusing to use that same look for a book that a curious executive might read over a weekend or dip into during a long business flight.
O'Reilly (nutshell) covers are fantastic, but what is really special is the excellent typography and layout inside. I hope they keep that across their whole range.
I assume you don't object to paying for the physical entity...
Are you concerned that the individuals who contributed have copyright over their work?
That's a seperate question entirely. Since I have no plans to make money by re-using what they have written, I'm more than happy to pay for it.
The .con-ing us all article has some good points.
on
Free the Open Source
·
· Score: 1
Sun's Java advocacy is just as FUD spreading as anything MS has ever done.
Sun continue to talk in misleading ways about how Java is better than everything else.
For instance, the way they constantly point out how Java servlets are so much better than Perl CGI programs. Cough - try not mixing your architectures so much next time.
The multi-platform promises of Java are just that - promises.
I don't doubt for a minute that Sun see OSS as simply another feature on the marketing landscape to be used in the most profitable way possible.
There was FUD here, sure, but less than I see from Sun, and no more than I see in/. most days.
"Currently 512MB of memory is the maximum supported on the DS20 with Linux"
Errr.... I kind of thought half the point of going with 64bit architecture and OS was so you could use lots of RAM and disk.
Anyone know if this is a: 1. limitation of Linux 2. limitation of the Alpha port of Linux 3. limitation of the RedHat distro of the Alpha port of Linux 4. some other reason 5. a complete lie
If you buy a software medical package, and instead of going to the doctor (v expensive), you fill out some details with signs and symptoms, and it mis-diagnoses you and you get seriously ill, how happy are you going to be?
Can you not imagine such software being illegal, because no matter how good it is, the chance of it going dangerously wrong are pretty good.
With law, the end result will not be serious illness - it might be simply life-long debt, reposession of your house etc.
Why should the public not be protected from misleading advice - be it from bad lawyer or a bad law package?
I have no problem with DIY will software, or DIY first aid software.
I have a big problem with DIY GP software, or DIY Solicitor software.
I've never understood the American obsession with hating lawyers and then giving them loads of money at every turn. Very strange...
" Obviously the amount of logic necessary for human intelligence fits inside the human brain"
You assume: 1. Logic is a necessary and sufficient requirement for intelligence 2. The mind is the brain
Today we compare the brain to computers Before that we compard the brain to clockwork Before that we compared it to a windmill
We don't seem to be learning. There is nothing about consciousness that suggests it requires a physical mechanism. There is simply a numerical correlation (not necessarily causal) between the existence of minds and the existence of brains.
Neither is proven or obvious. This is why more scientists should read philosophy (and vice versa)
Anyone who says that the human brain is 'a million times more intelligent' than a computer is a twit, end of story.
1. Just how do you measure intelligence? (see the SJ Gould book 'the mismeasure of man' for discussion on why you can't). (And the recent/. IQ vote)
2. This assumes that computers are intelligent AT ALL. They are no more intelligent than a rock, just more useful for some tasks.
While I'm at it, Moore's Law is heading for the rocks, because it's pretty obvious you CAN'T keep doubling the transistors/area forever, unless you invent sub-atomic transistors, which seem just a little unlikely. We are already nearing the barrier caused by the indivisibility of atoms - some storage devices have a bit density approaching the atomic density of the medium (IBM are getting close to one bit stored on just a few molecules)
But MOST OF ALL:
NO-ONE has even a vague shadow of a theory on how the brain actually works. We have no idea what it does, or how it does, much less how to start imitating it. Functional PET scans vaguely indicate that certain bits of it are more concerned with some functions than other bits, that's not very good is it?
Kurzweil can join Negroponte in the pit of fools who predict the exciting so as to get fame and media attention. Twit.
P.S. Just don't get me started on how genetic algorithms and neural nets are going to save the world of AI, because they probably aren't.
I've been playing with MacOS X Server recently - and that's a pretty neat system too.
Nice stable BSD base, but with all the crap from the/etc files put in a friendly database format. They should have used LDAP for the database, but what they've got (NetInfo) looks pretty good. And, no, it's nothing like the NT registry, before you mention it:)
I was playing with WindowMaker too - boy has Linux got some work to do to catch up...
Slashdot Mirror
Err.. In the UK anyway, non-profit means just that - the company cannot make a profit - all revenue must be ploughed back into the company (as opposed to going to investors in the form of dividends, or to employees in the form of profit-based bonuses). So, in the long term, the company can only break even.
Non-profit organisations can be very lucrative things, of course. Large charities will employ people with 6 figure incomes, so long as they can justify that it's a reasonable way to spend the charity's funds.
Yes - it would be interesting.
I think an MS linux distro is quite possible - remember that MS had xenix in the beginning, and they have never been averse to backing two horses if that seems sensible.
Also, I think MS may port DCOM to Linux, although that is less certain. No-one I know in the shrink-wrap development scene has much interest or faith in CORBA.
I think DCOM is a case of MS doing it badly but doing it better than anyone else, so unless CORBA really takes off, I think alot of the people who might start developing for KDE/GNOME would love to see a proven object model available.
Remember folks - outside of Unix, if it isn't OO, it isn't in the running.
Hmmm. I guess most people here (including me) would support someone who ran a site called microshaft.com that contained anti-ms jokes, anti-ms truth, and anti-ms FUD in equal quantities.
But I would also support a site called linucks.com run by Microsoft that contained anti-linux jokes, anti-linux truth, and anti-linux FUD in equal quantities.
It's not a case of supporting the little guy against the big guy - it's a case of supporting free speech against spin and evangelism.
Anyway - that's not directly relevant - just curious to see how people would feel if MS _did_ do something like that.
Sorry, but VRML in general, and COSMO in particular, suck.
Lots of academics producing a functionally poor, verbose, over complex load of rubbish.
To see it done properly:
http://www.viscape.com
And yes, it's proprietary and not available for Linux, but it's simply a 100% better way of handling 3D realtime environments. Also, it has some fantastic authoring software.
> Paine wrote that "we have it within our power to > begin the world anew."
I always saw that as the role of global nuclear war myself. I don't think the Internet will quite do the job.
I think he's right in that just because people don't attend churces and sing hymns they aren't religious.
He's also right in that religious symbols, even when worn/used in other contexts (fashion, teenage rebellion, etc) almost always betray a more serious religious interest beneath the surface.
However, I take issue with the tired old idea that somehow 'The Church' needs to constantly change and adapt to keep 'in tune with' the youth (which means, generally, 'the journalistic generalisation of youth').
I like the book of Common Prayer, and Cathedrals, and candles, and requiems by Faure and Mozart. I like Latin, and I like the fact that I can go to a church and hear the same words that people 15 generations ago were hearing. And I like them all the more because it is a rebellion against the modern notion that what is new is good and what is old is bad.
Sure, institutionalised religion may not be for everyone, but the Net doesn't undermine it. It provides a voice for those who _seek_ to undermine the institutional religions, but equally it provides a forum for those institutions.
"protect me O Lord, from the changes and chances of this fleeting world, in Thine eternal changelessness" (from the service of Compline)
I'm glad the ACLU have the guts to come out and challenge this.
I hope the challenge fails, or results in only a modified form of the law - but free speech is SO MUCH more important than some annoying email in the linux kernel list.
If I'm beaten up/tortured by the police, and in an attempt to generate some interest in my case and some funding for my defence, I resort to mass emailing, that seems like an acceptable use of spam to me.
I think there need to be restrictions on SPAM, especially on the commercial stuff, but formulating the law well will be very, very, hard. By challenging the law, the ACLU will make people think harder, and hopefully result in a better formed piece of legislation.
"Who, outside of complete neophytes buy Compaq's anyhow? "
I'm no fan of Compaq, but let's look at what's on offer from these big over-priced corporates
1.Proprietary case
Which is easier to remove (no screwdriver), and easier to lock down with padlock systems.
2.Proprietary Hardware
Like, Sun, Irix, etc. More expensive, but more reliable. By using the same supplier for all hardware, incomatabilites are reduced.
Compaq also offers features like network reporting of hardware failure. Allows an admin to, for instance, alter BIOS settings on the 400 desktops on floors 4-6 of the office, all in one go, by remote.
3.Proprietary loader that hides all the system info (like card type, memory count, and peripheral assay) from view.
That's annoying, but then since you specced the machine, you don't really need to know this.
4.IDIOTIC use of completely separate forms of power management (BIOS, Windows, and their own proprietary power manager), all of which screw network connections."
Can't say if it screws up the network. Advanced power management features are very important when you are managing 2000+ machines. Do you want to send someone round re-booting them by hand? With these systems, you could reboot 1500 machines remotely, and then get a report of which machines failed to come back to online status and then send an engineer out to check those machines.
The issues of running a kick-ass home system and 20,000 systems across a multi-national company have remarkably little in common. Compaq, let's face it, is geared more towards one and not the other.
Microsoft ergonomic keyboard, which is very good, especially if you have very large hands. (As is their mouse, suggesting that they ought to concentrate on hardware...). However, it does take some getting used to, since it is quite a radical design (central hump, angled hands etc).
Otherwise, the bigger the keyboard the better. Sun keyboards are very nice, for example.
But most important is to get one of those strips of 2 1/2 inch thick foam to wrest your wrists on. That makes the most difference for me.
I think it's important and that keyboards match your hand size.
I hope someone notices this in between the cries of horror.
I've just completed an e-commerce website for a font foundry (a company that makes fonts). They won't sell you a font via the website if you live in a country with a physical reseller - you have to go via the reseller.
At a glance this is patently stupid. However, from the font foundry's point of view it is very sensible. They currently get 100% of their revenue from about 6 resellers in about as many countries. Let us suppose after being running for 1 month, the website accounts for 3% of their revenue (realism at work).
If one of their resellers got so annoyed that their own supplier is undercutting them that they stopped reselling fonts from that foundry, the foundry would suffer a 14% drop in revenue. That would be crippling. Possibly, a percentage of that 14% would start using the web site, but not instantly and not all of them.
The cash flow problem are significant, to put it mildly.
That said, Compaq has behaved rather drastically, but people need to understand that businesses have to look after other businesses in the supply chain as well as end users. Compaq only got where it is today with the help of its (old style) resellers. Undercutting them is not the best way to say "thank you".
Monsanto are far worse.
I can live without Computers, but not without food.
As the reviewer says, this is a book that would appeal to your boss.
That's a very different market place to the technical nutshell series. People associate the 'old animal drawings' brand with books that techies have close at hand. It would be confusing to use that same look for a book that a curious executive might read over a weekend or dip into during a long business flight.
O'Reilly (nutshell) covers are fantastic, but what is really special is the excellent typography and layout inside. I hope they keep that across their whole range.
I assume you don't object to paying for the physical entity...
Are you concerned that the individuals who contributed have copyright over their work?
That's a seperate question entirely. Since I have no plans to make money by re-using what they have written, I'm more than happy to pay for it.
Sun's Java advocacy is just as FUD spreading as anything MS has ever done.
/. most days.
Sun continue to talk in misleading ways about how Java is better than everything else.
For instance, the way they constantly point out how Java servlets are so much better than Perl CGI programs. Cough - try not mixing your architectures so much next time.
The multi-platform promises of Java are just that - promises.
I don't doubt for a minute that Sun see OSS as simply another feature on the marketing landscape to be used in the most profitable way possible.
There was FUD here, sure, but less than I see from Sun, and no more than I see in
From the web site:
"Currently 512MB of memory is the maximum supported on the DS20 with Linux"
Errr.... I kind of thought half the point of going with 64bit architecture and OS was so you could use lots of RAM and disk.
Anyone know if this is a:
1. limitation of Linux
2. limitation of the Alpha port of Linux
3. limitation of the RedHat distro of the Alpha port of Linux
4. some other reason
5. a complete lie
???
If you buy a software medical package, and instead of going to the doctor (v expensive), you fill out some details with signs and symptoms, and it mis-diagnoses you and you get seriously ill, how happy are you going to be?
Can you not imagine such software being illegal, because no matter how good it is, the chance of it going dangerously wrong are pretty good.
With law, the end result will not be serious illness - it might be simply life-long debt, reposession of your house etc.
Why should the public not be protected from misleading advice - be it from bad lawyer or a bad law package?
I have no problem with DIY will software, or DIY first aid software.
I have a big problem with DIY GP software, or DIY Solicitor software.
I've never understood the American obsession with hating lawyers and then giving them loads of money at every turn. Very strange...
" Obviously the amount of logic necessary for human intelligence fits inside the human brain"
You assume:
1. Logic is a necessary and sufficient requirement for intelligence
2. The mind is the brain
Today we compare the brain to computers
Before that we compard the brain to clockwork
Before that we compared it to a windmill
We don't seem to be learning. There is nothing about consciousness that suggests it requires a physical mechanism. There is simply a numerical correlation (not necessarily causal) between the existence of minds and the existence of brains.
Neither is proven or obvious. This is why more scientists should read philosophy (and vice versa)
Anyone who says that the human brain is 'a million times more intelligent' than a computer is a twit, end of story.
/. IQ vote)
1. Just how do you measure intelligence? (see the SJ Gould book 'the mismeasure of man' for discussion on why you can't). (And the recent
2. This assumes that computers are intelligent AT ALL. They are no more intelligent than a rock, just more useful for some tasks.
While I'm at it, Moore's Law is heading for the rocks, because it's pretty obvious you CAN'T keep doubling the transistors/area forever, unless you invent sub-atomic transistors, which seem just a little unlikely. We are already nearing the barrier caused by the indivisibility of atoms - some storage devices have a bit density approaching the atomic density of the medium (IBM are getting close to one bit stored on just a few molecules)
But MOST OF ALL:
NO-ONE has even a vague shadow of a theory on how the brain actually works. We have no idea what it does, or how it does, much less how to start imitating it. Functional PET scans vaguely indicate that certain bits of it are more concerned with some functions than other bits, that's not very good is it?
Kurzweil can join Negroponte in the pit of fools who predict the exciting so as to get fame and media attention. Twit.
P.S. Just don't get me started on how genetic algorithms and neural nets are going to save the world of AI, because they probably aren't.
Be clients and Linux servers would be a fine combination.
There's not doubt that Be has some big features that Linux lacks (large file support, and HFS support would be two).
I've been playing with MacOS X Server recently - and that's a pretty neat system too.
/etc files put in a friendly database format. They should have used LDAP for the database, but what they've got (NetInfo) looks pretty good. And, no, it's nothing like the NT registry, before you mention it :)
Nice stable BSD base, but with all the crap from the
I was playing with WindowMaker too - boy has Linux got some work to do to catch up...