The thing is, I can still remember the late eighties when Compaq and ALR were the only two names in high-end, reliable computing for things like CAD and stuff.
I'm convinced that your problems are because Compaq's Presario line is intended as cheap, cute, "Mom & the kids" type machines, much like HP Pavilions and the like. Such models tend to be flaky and made from questionable hardware. Back in the Deskpro's heyday, you got a much more reliable machine -- and paid top dollar for it too.
Too bad the only software you define as being "of consequence" munches memory like a cookie monster in a Keebler factory. My laptop has only 32MB and runs X + apps (XEmacs, TeXmacs, even Mozilla!) comfortably. Screen's a little small, though...
Most of CS hasn't changed since the eighties. Processors have been made faster, and applications became more complex and feature-encrusted, but most of the theory has been the same for years if not decades. What does change is the languages and the buzzwords, but if you have your theory down pat these aren't terribly hard to pick up. (Except COBOL. And Visual Basic. Ugh.) You can learn CS on a 386 running MINIX, and then turn around and use that knowledge to build complex systems on modern machines. And most wizards do in fact learn more from hacking on code in their spare time than they do from college. But college CS courses establish the foundation, and can start high school computer kiddies on the way to becoming good professional coders. (Notice I said can; it apparently didn't help this girl I knew who thought a "compiler" was a magical C++-crunching chip in her machine.)
Remember, this is Sony we're talking about. When it comes to consumer electronics they have God-like powers beyond the comprehension of mortal men. Expect the PlayStation 4 to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time.
Re:Are there Free X-Servers for Windows.
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Xfree 4.0.2 has Win32 as a possible target. It uses DirectX to do the final rendering. Can't find any binaries, though... anybody care to build some?
In particular, I like the part about patents being distinguished by technique and not application, so you don't necessarily get a new patent just for writing down some existing art and pencilling "...but on a web page" on the end.
It reminds me of the Fortune Cookie Game, you know: "You are bound to find happiness and success... in bed!"
I'm sick of "The Mentor's" trite little "Hacker Manifesto". If you'd have posted a Zero Wing joke, it would have been far more meaningful than this tired piece of crap from someone who wouldn't know a real hacker if he were suckerpunched by one. This little piece uses "hacker" in the l33t h4x0r sense, not the "curious computer guy" sense. It has no relevance to the article, or to the book being discussed.
How unfortunate that ESR did not mention Scheme in his list of languages. GIMP and Guile have gone a long way to bringing this small, powerful, easy-to-use language to the casual hacker, and its usage is growing.
The Bill of Rights are a series of amendments to the Constitution. Legally they have as much force as the Constitution itself. The Bill of Rights is in especially high regard because it's almost considered integral to the Constitution; had the Bill of Rights not been drafted, the Constitution itself would not likely have been ratified.
Of course you won't find the "Scientific Creationists" postulating a fallible God or long-term teams of fallible angels. But it makes for
interesting speculation. B-)
What you will find them argue is that at one time, everything WAS a perfect implementation. Mankind is to blame for everything that's wrong in the world, including the fact that carnivores kill and eat other animals, and the eventual heat-death of the universe. These things came about when Eve bit the apple. In Creationism it wasn't just the fall of man but the fall of EVERYTHING, brought about by man. So actually we're in a state of DE-evolution which will continue until Christ's second coming.
Earlier today under that article about the XML book I was ranting about how XML was pretty bloated for an RPC language, and how a Scheme-like syntax would be better.:)
I still feel that way. I respect ESR and everything, but I do think he's trying to pander to the suits, acting as a self-appointed "marketing guy" for the free software world. XML has been buzzworded, Scheme has not, so he's gonna heap praise on XML stuff.
I looked at the XML-RPC spec. It looks very compact and easy to implement... for an angle-bracket language.:)
I agree, XML isn't a magical solution for everything. XML is a plenty useful language, especially when it comes to documents. I'm also keeping my eyes on the possibilities for XHTML. But using it as a message-passing/RPC protocol? Can we say "bloated"? I had this idea of doing message-passing and RPC by connecting to a remote TCP port which drops you into a tiny embedded LISP or Scheme interpreter. You invoke your procedures in a Scheme-form-like syntax, e.g., "(func arg1 arg2...)" and it returns the result as an atom or a list. It's cross-platform and it's arguably easier to parse than the angle-bracket-laden XML syntax.
Seriously, all it will take is a segment on CNN about how Osama bin Laden uses Linux to organize his evil terrorist plots and suddenly policymakers will feel an overwhelming need to keep this renegade OS in check. Such a wag-the-dog type scenario would be such a boon to Microsoft that I wouldn't put it past them to spread that kind of FUD, and help in the engineering of such a smear campaign.
Actually I believe that's a videogame mangled-English reference and didn't originate from Jeff K.'s pea-sized brain. Kinda like the perennial fave "A Winner Is You".
If you're using Linux, Radeon is arguably a better choice. Open specs, free (as in speech) drivers. It's also a (slightly) better performer than the GF2 in 32-bit land. I'm using a CVS snapshot of the new X server with Radeon-enabled DRI right now. It's pretty sweet. Quake doesn't run on my set up fast enough yet, but GL-enabled Doom sure is nice!
There's the LISP way which lets you cobble together aggregate structures off the cuff. In LISP (and Scheme, a favorite of mine) you can cons together lists of items without any formalization at all of what's inside them. Such formalization is necessary in both object- and table-oriented structures. Just as long as function foo knows what function bar passed to it, everything's ok.
Of course LISP can do objects (CLOS) and tables (alists, or Scheme vectors) too.
I read your paper. I found it elucidated things which were right on the tip of my tongue. There's More Than One Way To Do It, as Larry Wall said, and the best way is whatever lets you get the job done fastest and best, not what some buzzword ideology foists upon you.
Which brings us to the Perl way, stuffing everything into a string and then parsing it for regexes...
As soon as Microsoft supports IPv6 in Windows and Internet Explorer, everything else will fall into place. Until then, most of us will just have to sigh and dream.
I also have the same problems with LILO on my first drive, but I switched to GRUB anyway. I guess the problem is really an installer deficiency. When they display that error message it should provide an "Aww, fuck it, install the damned thing anyway" option for those of us with l33t Swiss-army-knife bootloaders.:) GRUB can mount various partition types and boot Linux, BSD, and Hurd kernels anywhere on the disk(s).
It's an AMD Athlon system with a VIA chipset. The actual model number escapes me and I haven't got the docs for it handy. The drives are an IBM 16.8GB and a Quantum Fireball 30.0GB. I am trying to install on the first partition (slice) of the IBM drive, and when I try to create a disklabel for the slice, is when the error message pops up.
I'm grabbing an ISO of NetBSD right now, to see if I have any better luck.
I'm an open-minded guy. I use Linux, love Linux, but decided it would be cool to give FreeBSD a try.
Unfortunately, the damned thing won't even install on my second hard disk. Something about the boot code not recognizing it or something. With Linux and GRUB, I could install put-near anywhere.
Any BSDophiles got any tips?
<l33t-Mac-weenie>
Yeah, right, the IBM PC brought real computing power to the masses the way McDonald's brings real wholesome food to the masses. If the PC had remained proprietary, everyone would have bought Macintoshes instead, and the world would be a Much Better Place(tm).
</l33t-Mac-weenie>
I guess you can actually argue a case for something like this. However, I would have much rather seen cheap, high-performance Lisp machines proliferate.
Yes but there's a danger here, and that is that if someone can reverse-engineer the PlayStation, that means it's possible to determine how the machine works without shelling out big bucks to Sony. This means that their entire business model, which consists of losing money on the consoles while sticking it to developers in licensing fees just so they can find out what makes the damned thing tick, collapses and they'd be forced to develop a MORE secure, MORE proprietary console in order to keep going, or risk their console turning into an open commodity like the PC. Given the fact that the PlayStation 2 is their first step in their master plan to conquer the world of broadcast and online media, I don't think they're going to let that happen. So, Sony will continue to treat reverse engineering of their hardware as a serious crime, regardles of what the law actually says.
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The thing is, I can still remember the late eighties when Compaq and ALR were the only two names in high-end, reliable computing for things like CAD and stuff.
I'm convinced that your problems are because Compaq's Presario line is intended as cheap, cute, "Mom & the kids" type machines, much like HP Pavilions and the like. Such models tend to be flaky and made from questionable hardware. Back in the Deskpro's heyday, you got a much more reliable machine -- and paid top dollar for it too.
Well, there are those floppy disk condoms...
Too bad the only software you define as being "of consequence" munches memory like a cookie monster in a Keebler factory. My laptop has only 32MB and runs X + apps (XEmacs, TeXmacs, even Mozilla!) comfortably. Screen's a little small, though...
Most of CS hasn't changed since the eighties. Processors have been made faster, and applications became more complex and feature-encrusted, but most of the theory has been the same for years if not decades. What does change is the languages and the buzzwords, but if you have your theory down pat these aren't terribly hard to pick up. (Except COBOL. And Visual Basic. Ugh.) You can learn CS on a 386 running MINIX, and then turn around and use that knowledge to build complex systems on modern machines. And most wizards do in fact learn more from hacking on code in their spare time than they do from college. But college CS courses establish the foundation, and can start high school computer kiddies on the way to becoming good professional coders. (Notice I said can; it apparently didn't help this girl I knew who thought a "compiler" was a magical C++-crunching chip in her machine.)
Remember, this is Sony we're talking about. When it comes to consumer electronics they have God-like powers beyond the comprehension of mortal men. Expect the PlayStation 4 to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time.
Xfree 4.0.2 has Win32 as a possible target. It uses DirectX to do the final rendering. Can't find any binaries, though... anybody care to build some?
"These are not the body thetans you're looking for..."
I'm sick of "The Mentor's" trite little "Hacker Manifesto". If you'd have posted a Zero Wing joke, it would have been far more meaningful than this tired piece of crap from someone who wouldn't know a real hacker if he were suckerpunched by one. This little piece uses "hacker" in the l33t h4x0r sense, not the "curious computer guy" sense. It has no relevance to the article, or to the book being discussed.
is that done with Arbiters? Awwwwwwww yeaaah.
^_^
How unfortunate that ESR did not mention Scheme in his list of languages. GIMP and Guile have gone a long way to bringing this small, powerful, easy-to-use language to the casual hacker, and its usage is growing.
The Bill of Rights are a series of amendments to the Constitution. Legally they have as much force as the Constitution itself. The Bill of Rights is in especially high regard because it's almost considered integral to the Constitution; had the Bill of Rights not been drafted, the Constitution itself would not likely have been ratified.
Or so "they" say.
Earlier today under that article about the XML book I was ranting about how XML was pretty bloated for an RPC language, and how a Scheme-like syntax would be better. :)
:)
I still feel that way. I respect ESR and everything, but I do think he's trying to pander to the suits, acting as a self-appointed "marketing guy" for the free software world. XML has been buzzworded, Scheme has not, so he's gonna heap praise on XML stuff.
I looked at the XML-RPC spec. It looks very compact and easy to implement... for an angle-bracket language.
I agree, XML isn't a magical solution for everything. XML is a plenty useful language, especially when it comes to documents. I'm also keeping my eyes on the possibilities for XHTML. But using it as a message-passing/RPC protocol? Can we say "bloated"? I had this idea of doing message-passing and RPC by connecting to a remote TCP port which drops you into a tiny embedded LISP or Scheme interpreter. You invoke your procedures in a Scheme-form-like syntax, e.g., "(func arg1 arg2 ...)" and it returns the result as an atom or a list. It's cross-platform and it's arguably easier to parse than the angle-bracket-laden XML syntax.
Seriously, all it will take is a segment on CNN about how Osama bin Laden uses Linux to organize his evil terrorist plots and suddenly policymakers will feel an overwhelming need to keep this renegade OS in check. Such a wag-the-dog type scenario would be such a boon to Microsoft that I wouldn't put it past them to spread that kind of FUD, and help in the engineering of such a smear campaign.
Actually I believe that's a videogame mangled-English reference and didn't originate from Jeff K.'s pea-sized brain. Kinda like the perennial fave "A Winner Is You".
If you're using Linux, Radeon is arguably a better choice. Open specs, free (as in speech) drivers. It's also a (slightly) better performer than the GF2 in 32-bit land. I'm using a CVS snapshot of the new X server with Radeon-enabled DRI right now. It's pretty sweet. Quake doesn't run on my set up fast enough yet, but GL-enabled Doom sure is nice!
There's the LISP way which lets you cobble together aggregate structures off the cuff. In LISP (and Scheme, a favorite of mine) you can cons together lists of items without any formalization at all of what's inside them. Such formalization is necessary in both object- and table-oriented structures. Just as long as function foo knows what function bar passed to it, everything's ok.
Of course LISP can do objects (CLOS) and tables (alists, or Scheme vectors) too.
I read your paper. I found it elucidated things which were right on the tip of my tongue. There's More Than One Way To Do It, as Larry Wall said, and the best way is whatever lets you get the job done fastest and best, not what some buzzword ideology foists upon you.
Which brings us to the Perl way, stuffing everything into a string and then parsing it for regexes...
As soon as Microsoft supports IPv6 in Windows and Internet Explorer, everything else will fall into place. Until then, most of us will just have to sigh and dream.
I also have the same problems with LILO on my first drive, but I switched to GRUB anyway. I guess the problem is really an installer deficiency. When they display that error message it should provide an "Aww, fuck it, install the damned thing anyway" option for those of us with l33t Swiss-army-knife bootloaders. :) GRUB can mount various partition types and boot Linux, BSD, and Hurd kernels anywhere on the disk(s).
It's an AMD Athlon system with a VIA chipset. The actual model number escapes me and I haven't got the docs for it handy. The drives are an IBM 16.8GB and a Quantum Fireball 30.0GB. I am trying to install on the first partition (slice) of the IBM drive, and when I try to create a disklabel for the slice, is when the error message pops up.
I'm grabbing an ISO of NetBSD right now, to see if I have any better luck.
I'm an open-minded guy. I use Linux, love Linux, but decided it would be cool to give FreeBSD a try. Unfortunately, the damned thing won't even install on my second hard disk. Something about the boot code not recognizing it or something. With Linux and GRUB, I could install put-near anywhere. Any BSDophiles got any tips?
<l33t-Mac-weenie>
Yeah, right, the IBM PC brought real computing power to the masses the way McDonald's brings real wholesome food to the masses. If the PC had remained proprietary, everyone would have bought Macintoshes instead, and the world would be a Much Better Place(tm).
</l33t-Mac-weenie>
I guess you can actually argue a case for something like this. However, I would have much rather seen cheap, high-performance Lisp machines proliferate.
Yes but there's a danger here, and that is that if someone can reverse-engineer the PlayStation, that means it's possible to determine how the machine works without shelling out big bucks to Sony. This means that their entire business model, which consists of losing money on the consoles while sticking it to developers in licensing fees just so they can find out what makes the damned thing tick, collapses and they'd be forced to develop a MORE secure, MORE proprietary console in order to keep going, or risk their console turning into an open commodity like the PC. Given the fact that the PlayStation 2 is their first step in their master plan to conquer the world of broadcast and online media, I don't think they're going to let that happen. So, Sony will continue to treat reverse engineering of their hardware as a serious crime, regardles of what the law actually says.