In Afghanistan, a mechanical arm ships with most computers attached to its side. It can be contrlled by webpage authors using specific PHP commands.
The most common application is grabbing the readers head, ramming it into the screen that is displaying the advertisement in full screen. Depending on the company, the arm can push the readers face all the way into the glass monitor. In a newer proposed version, a brick wall is assembled by the arm with the advertisement, next to the readers chair, and he/she is lifted by a huge robotic arm powered by a 600hp v8 engine, and smashed into the wall displaying the ad, at 165 mph.
These developments could pave the way for future technologies that include a machine that tattoos a companys logos on a users forehead permenantly, and another that prints out ads on a brick, opens the users mouth and shoves it down his throat.
In a related news, advertisement technologies are funded by spamming companies, tobbacco companies and companies whose products are not selling well, but the might have a lot of capital on their hands. Prof George Smith of Columbia University doesnt think theres a link.
Halflife + CS showed that FPS games can be more than just better motion, weapons and effects. Halflife itself introduced a more immersing storyline than say quake and doom, and counterstrike just hit right on the nail of the adolescent desire for competition. Its violence for sure, but theres more, it tends to a persons sense of competition, strategy and planning the way sports do. Counterstrike is also a completely multiplayer game, unlike unreal where people get sick of the game by playing against the bots. Counterstrike brought the clan culture to the masses where players spend certain times of their days just practising for a real showdown, such a social element really improves the quality of the game.
And unlike quake3 and unreal, the clutter and fancy effects are removed to present a simple and very realistic game, just the minimum that even during its beta stages didnt require a $400 video card. Over time the rules were tweaked to balance the strength of the players to push competition and interest in the game. I doubt other developers cared so much about these things before halflife + cs.
One of the gripes about both quake versions was that it was too dark and grey. The constant cave-like walls, so ID presented the very colorful quake3. But the point was some realism. Boys just didnt want to play something like the sims, there had to be violence. Counterstrike now has a culture developed around it, with international matches and so many clans duking it out in every timezone. Now sierra has built an industry momentum and old halflife copies are still selling at the same price. Dethroning this will take effort in areas other than just technology and fancy radeon and geforce effects. It has to be an integral package with a story, an appropriate realism and gameplay tuned for competition.
"Sorry man, the single most important technical innovation of open-source is complete and utter customizabillity. Whatever you need, it either exists or anybody can add it."
I understand choice. i like using my slackware at home, yet keeping a knoppix CD for repairs and redhat for server installations.. the choice of KDE and GNOME, choice of bootloaders and irc clients, browsers..
Choice was why I first tried Linux, and FreeBSD, and minix and plan9.
Choice works great for the two of us and most other visitors to slashdot, it doesnt quite work for the hundereds of millions out there. Some are content with Linux in its current market state, giving so much to the geek community, but it would be nice if I could use it on my mothers computer. My customes have 3 apps that are win32-only, and I just have to suggest they spend $100 each on windows, and I'll just maintain them against viruses, spyware and reinstall it once every 4 months. THEY can benefit from that lack of choice, and more standards against it. We would be selfish to think Linux is good enough for us, who cares about the unknowing mother of 2 who bought a compaq desktop and has to pay a techie $100 to install drivers for her. Maybe I am being selfish in wanting more apps for Linux, more rampant use of this OS and its interfaces, dumbed down to make it more popular.
I'm happy with Linux right now, for myself. Theres a chance I'd be using THIS version of X if such a standard dumbed down version ever came out. Thats because I use remote desktops and a custom window manager too. But I might develop for the other X, to reach a bigger crowd. Once again I'm tempted to use BeOS's example.
Heh you beat me with the long reply, no contest there.
You, and other posters here have made a common point, that the flexibility built into UNIX is good. I dont argue that. Youre also saying going otherwise will be difficult. Another replier before you made the point that we're a different market, unlike the people who want their windows dumbed down, we dont.
Linux sure did the right thing, like UNIX to model itself for this crowd. Doing so, disabled it for that crowd, the bigger one, the ones who pay for their OS, and their antivirus, and their spyware remover etc.
I'm just having the same worries some Linux promoters are having, that we've reached the ceiling of THIS crowd (at the horror of the BSD fans) and we're not entering the market of that crowd. But see, linux for the average user and his grandma will do wonderful things. Take OSX for example. Came out of the very texty FreeBSD. Looks quite pretty now and runs under the users of photoshop, maya etc. Its found its desktop market, and companies will flock to build software for it since there are users who will buy it.
Now the linux user community is about that size or bigger, but unwilling to spend. That means fewer games and apps. We cannot coax sierra to release counterstrike for Linux. Being greedy and selfish, I cannot but help to dream of a time when all aps run natively on Linux, and I dont even have to use wine or the likes. I would use Linux on the computers of all my clients, and not worry of the BSOD the next day. Linux will finally be global, along with its jobs, apps, etc. Thats the logical step after having conquered all of server and embedded markets.
Now there are many suggestions on how to get there. We are happy with the current setting, except for my eternal belief theres a small percentage of performance that can be juiced out by redesigning X. I know its negligible, and performance isnt quite the biggest reason I want to see a rigid 'dumbed down' desktop. But most anything that gets Linux out to the masses(not the geek masses) is worth a try, or discussion. I WANT to use Linux for my grandma, and I cannot right now.
I hope you see that I'm personally happy with the current setup of Linux, I use it and recommend it. But both OSX and BeOS have shown some possibilities, and Microsoft has shown the possibility of using a standard interface, but GUI and developers interface, for most of the worlds computers.
I understand that because thats the way I manage my servers from home. I am also responsible for setting up VPN connections from clients laptops in europe to our Windows 2000 servers... the ideas the same.
We're sacrificing more than just this section of the market if we can fork the X code to this. Imagine all the KDE/GNOME improvements to the Linux desktop, in effect we would be in square one.
But the current X architecture is deadlocked. I really believe the X team will soon release a lite fork that will quickly be the default installation for most desktops. Sure we could replace the RPM, or even change the X binary. I would hate to see all the software based on X unusable, or even to move them under a wrapper, but in the Linux community, people can replace functions and recompile really fast. If the memory footprint is decreased, syscalls reduced, more hardware accelerators enabled, this is a great deal for all the potential desktop users who cannot be convinced with a server windowing system.
>If X is so bad and bloated, explain to my why I'm >getting better framerate on Neverwinter Nights >under X11/Linux than under the slim, fast and >optimized Windows system, with my puny GF4-MX?
I wish I knew. Try reinstalling windows. One thing I can tell you for sure is that it would have run faster on BeOS and might run faster on OSX. If the framerate difference is over 30%, somethings wrong with your windows installation/drivers.
The following two dont agree: (1) >I honestly think that if you did all that you >talk about you wouldn't gain a thing speed wise. (2) >I agree however that the windows manager layout >introduces inefficiencies and inconsistencies, >but you do get flexibility.
Add network code to this inefficiency. And then the feature set not imlpemented in core X code that say the Radeon or Geforce provides. Newer nvidia drivers allow the speedup of window painting in blocks of pixels, and I know for a fact its not implemented in X. Redesigning the architecture to for instance let driver programmers replace more functions in X, should make things faster. So should moving the PAINTING parts of the driver along with all its accelerator functions to kernel space.
>As for the nice, simple and fast MacOS/X display, >I've tried it several times and I like X11 >better. More choice, more flexibility, and yes, >more stability (although the zoom feature is >neat).
Youre talking about choice and so are so many other people out there. Choice was how we ended up trying Linux remember? Ive always been a big proponent of choice, even over 'life'.
But if you look at the bigger issue, choice doesnt help us all that much in some cases. We have pushed the flexibility of X to a rediculous extent. Built so many layers. We have the linux kernel, then X, then kde, then evolution, then its themes. And each click or window moving transcends into ALL these layers with risks and bugs collected over. The code is clean now, but it could be faster.
Yet heres the single biggest problem. Lack of simple standards. Standards are the direct opposite of choice. Standards help in hidden ways to give you choice later. If IBM could release websphere as a single installer for any distribution, we could replace our redhat server with gentoo. If a single standard display faced us on the monitor, many more people would flock to linux. All the nice eyecandy KDE gives us right now shows us the enormous possibilities, but it neither helps us nor KDE. The bulk of users are still paying Microsoft $100 every two years and sticking with Windows. We did something wrong somewhere.
But I keep getting flamed that X is good enough.. its certainly not, for a desktop system. Its overly bloated, although switching to version 4 improved things and building more hooks that can use video drivers' speedups.. Beside removing the networking code, and optimising it for my duron, theres also the window manager layer there. I'm now strongly against it..
Should we have an option of incorporating the window manager at compile time, that should improve things too. And then the internationalization is a mess and thats improved too. This is true of Linux in general as well where people still see VT100 and have to remap their keys for functionality. Thats legacy bloatware X could do without.
Now if you move the video driver into the Linux kernel, replacing say the experimental framebuffer drivers, we would (1) have a great platform for console games with really good driver support, (2)make the X leaner and more general. This also removes the need for starting lots of code in userspace, imagine different X servers in different virtual consoles switching as fast as virtual consoles.
I would personally go with the QT interface with motif and gtk wrappers on TOP of it for porting older apps. By now X should no longer be called X since its so different. I would go with an optimised architecture rather than the legacy one incorporating the fonts and video card accelerators into it (many of these are too fragmented and in modules for X4)
He sounds like the former BeOS CEO. Still at it.
on
If I Had My Own Distro...
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Only BeOS was more sophisticated with the GUI glued into the kernel. It was the most beautiful OS I had ever seen (havent seen OSX yet) and it somehow didnt make it. Lycoris Xandros Lindows etc are trying to push for the desktop but underneath its all Linux. With that comes the painful lack of standards, not even installation or LSB standards, and all the mess. Each of these distros is an island in itself with its community, packages, interface etc. You cant put ones package and install it on another, or take a user of one of these distros, put her on another and expect her to feel at home, and we're talking about the same OS. Anyone who even dreamed of porting J2EE or websphere to slackware say, knows this.
All these new OS companies are falling apart because of the inherent lack of a few things in Linux. RedHat, SuSE and Linus could help here, SuSE did chip in with their LSB, but it was obviously a bad investment. If a company like RedHat can be confident of their success, and create good industry standards without fearing being overthrown, the Linux desktop can finally take off. People could choose one distro, click n run any app developed by some teenager in his basement and it will work just fine. This will move far more users from Windows to Linux.
The BSDs could have done this but they seperated much longer ago. FreeBSD remains the biggest and have quite a clean system on their hands, ready for any major changes or making inroads in the industry.. but the same resolve that gives them the energy to build the most robust OS doesnt let them risk changing the direction of BSD too fast, for BSD is now a culture, and not of being a desktop OS of the masses. Thats why the author here chose FreeBSD. Apple can simply port OSX to x86 and be over with it, dangling it out like darwin is just rubbing salt on the pains of the already desperate crowd.
All the while the geekdom is sick of dual booting and cleaning spyware from the crashing windows installation. Linux is very very big out there, its almost made it. But it has such a long way to go to really reach the stratosphere.. or rather on everyones computer. It was this hope that pushed the tens of thousands of developers to code for the Free OS from version 0.01 to 2.4.20.(and all its associated GNU tools). We're not there yet.
I wonder what I'm doing in my windows partition now. I could be writing this in Linux+opera....
There was a GNU project that did that, but I think if you know the workings of your company you can easily run a postgresql database and serve business off it. Reporting tools like crystal reports work well with it being an SQL database, and you can use QT on linux to make simple interfaces for most anything.
Be sure to document everything as you go and restrict permissions for every user, if you go ahead with this, and consider releasing it opensource.
Hey this plankton came from cloud No 9, came with a tiny harp.
Real video games now!! comanche here I come
on
Micro-Helicopter Fun
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· Score: 4, Funny
Thats really cool what I just saw. I think my priorities have been reshuffled now, I need to save up for this.
Then buy a couple with rubber-band missles and do a real lanparty. Better yet small ink canisters to really mess up the opponent on his chair if his copter cant stop yours.
Or even strap on a teeny camera with a bluetooth transmitter and send it...... places......
I wonder if the libc code can be transferred to the coprocessors memory during boot, at least larger functions, then just passing data to it with running programs.
Another idea is to send the driver code of all installed hardware to the coprocessor, and just communicating with it in a standard way. The coprocessor takes the driver overhead. I dont think trying this with the AGP for instance is a good idea, but should work well with winmodems or CDROMS, which freeze the entire system sometimes.
Yet another, the Java JIT compiler compiles the code in one processor then executes it in another. These could be reality if theres no PCI bus between the processors, better still if the processors are mounted on the same die, like the Power64, only each with their own IO.
You dont ask that question in geek circles. Why is always an afterthought, when youve made your creation and need to make money off it. Same applies to good scientists.
People have beowulfed PDAs, emulated IA-64 on 386s and created VPNs in VPNs with no WHY in sight.
Well then use knoppix. I have a PC with no free hdd space running Win98. But I personally keep needing Linux, knoppix works real beautiful and fast, and best of all no virus/spyware worries there. It ALWAYS works.
Most popular apps for Linux is already installed on Knoppix, I'm tempted to think IR controllers are also installed. You need to check it out. But I must warn you, the laptop has to be within 4 feet of the TV to work. The IR range of computers is much lesser than that of remotes.
Hmm, I wonder if I can make linux-based remotes and sell them.
I have been looking for a very low cost x86 microcontroller or board for developing simple thin clients for education in poorer countries. So far all offerings are more expensive than traditional desktops including all the incarnations of PC-104 that Ive come across.
This thing is $500+ and openbricks link is broken. I wish elan-486 was still around, I cant even find a distributor to send me a single sample of any elans. And I really have to check out geode, wish someone would offer a complete system on a board with flash and bios etc.
Well with 1.5 litre pet bottles Ive launched rockets quite high. I never measured how high, but way farther than anyone could throw. We even tried a payload of a parachute that would open, but we gave up on that, with water as propellant, the payload weight can be significant even for small rockets.
I honestly believe rockets can be built with high pressure cylinders pumping out to larger containers of water with a small exhaust. If its made large enough, with the proper materials and pressure locks etc, and made multistage, I think it could reach impressive heights. Still I'd be skeptical about an attempt to reach orbit.
I remember at 117 Gev we had some higgs boson marks, but the results were just beneath the standard deviation. Now we have to wait till 2004 or 2005 till the commecement of the LHC to be sure.
But the LEP results were close, and many scientists and nonscientists like myself are convinced we have it in that range. At least some neutrinos do have mass.
I never started this as a war between Linux and FreeBSD. I can see you are strongly biased one way. But my point is FreeBSD and Linux combined make for 6 different packet filtering tools. This does not help network administrators. The reason why:q! command in vi still works is because it was standardized in UNIX a long time ago and never changed.
Of you still have a lot against Linux, well just take FreeBSD then. I hope we can use pf 7 years from now.
Just like Linux, ipfwadm, then ipchains and iptables. Now FreeBSD ipfw, ipfilter now pf. This is by the way in addition to cisco IOS that you have to keep in mind which is similar but not the same.
Hope noone comes up with NEW features later that demands new architectures.
I am against such experiments or the birth of a single GM human. But, just like abortion, once he's born, I would allow him all human rights rather than try and dehumanize him.
We have quite a lot of variation in our species thankfully. Think of all the races, adaptations and cultures out there. Although the CREATION of such a human should be disallowed, once he's born, he's still one of us.
Being very much against equal opportunity of any kind, I would be fine with not being allowed in an Ivy league college full of GM students. If a GM coder makes far better drivers and apps than me, I would not blame him for my not finding work in the market, just as I wouldnt blame a smart immigrant from India. You gotta be a good sport in any competition including the ones in life.. and dehumanization of any potential GM humans is wrong.
And then, parents really shouldnt want to produce GM kids, for they wont be their kids. They will be science's children. Plus the so many possibilities of mistakes in the engineering process, just not worth trying. And then, we have been evolved and fine tuned beyond any skill and science for survival on this planet, no GM human can exceed in these qualities... outside of a linear match (like using Arnold Schwarzeneggers sperms and Jennifer Lopez's eggs, which isnt quite GManipulation)
Everyone has to remember, we are against the manipulation of the human genes, not of any humans who might have this. Just as we're against chemical weapons being used against civilians, not their deformed kids born later. All men are created equal, whatever the method or creator.
I used to love unixware before I discovered Linux. Even inside the company its already dead. But this thing, derived from the original UNIX (sysv?) was a monster in its day. Now we have yet another UNIX variant rotting on someones shelf somewhere.
We should all be contacting IBM NOT to buy SCO not for the lowest price.
And by the way we need the SCO's CEO name and home address. Lets target the flames properly, not out aloud on the net where it will just give the community a bad name. For this reason we should stop referring to "SCO", rather its CEO's name.
I would only buy SCO just to have the pleasure of firing everyone without reference letters.
I use a $70 800x600 camera called EZ-camera by I think ezonics. It takes CF cards and is PRETTY robust. Its taken rain on it and many many falls.. I suppose is made of only surface mount devices.
Just get a cheap one and try it out in the field. Should at least last a few times to be worth its price. Good thing cheaper is also simpler to learn, assuming YOU will be the one to transfer the pics.
So will parents be selling babyteeth now? Heck, some heath programs should allow them to save one tooth in a cell bank from where later it could be used to grow spare body parts.
I wonder why its not possible to turn two stem cells into an egg and a sperm, fertilize and continue the cycle for a limitless supply. I understand if its split into an egg and sperm, there will be genetic variations from the original, not to mention it will be like marrying your identical twin, with bad results.. but maybe the resulting egg can be zapped and its nucleus replaced with another cell like in Dollys case.
For now.. all babies will be encouraged to join little boxing rinks, for some financial boost to their parents.
Slashdot Mirror
In Afghanistan, a mechanical arm ships with most computers attached to its side. It can be contrlled by webpage authors using specific PHP commands.
The most common application is grabbing the readers head, ramming it into the screen that is displaying the advertisement in full screen. Depending on the company, the arm can push the readers face all the way into the glass monitor. In a newer proposed version, a brick wall is assembled by the arm with the advertisement, next to the readers chair, and he/she is lifted by a huge robotic arm powered by a 600hp v8 engine, and smashed into the wall displaying the ad, at 165 mph.
These developments could pave the way for future technologies that include a machine that tattoos a companys logos on a users forehead permenantly, and another that prints out ads on a brick, opens the users mouth and shoves it down his throat.
In a related news, advertisement technologies are funded by spamming companies, tobbacco companies and companies whose products are not selling well, but the might have a lot of capital on their hands. Prof George Smith of Columbia University doesnt think theres a link.
Halflife + CS showed that FPS games can be more than just better motion, weapons and effects. Halflife itself introduced a more immersing storyline than say quake and doom, and counterstrike just hit right on the nail of the adolescent desire for competition. Its violence for sure, but theres more, it tends to a persons sense of competition, strategy and planning the way sports do. Counterstrike is also a completely multiplayer game, unlike unreal where people get sick of the game by playing against the bots. Counterstrike brought the clan culture to the masses where players spend certain times of their days just practising for a real showdown, such a social element really improves the quality of the game.
And unlike quake3 and unreal, the clutter and fancy effects are removed to present a simple and very realistic game, just the minimum that even during its beta stages didnt require a $400 video card. Over time the rules were tweaked to balance the strength of the players to push competition and interest in the game. I doubt other developers cared so much about these things before halflife + cs.
One of the gripes about both quake versions was that it was too dark and grey. The constant cave-like walls, so ID presented the very colorful quake3. But the point was some realism. Boys just didnt want to play something like the sims, there had to be violence. Counterstrike now has a culture developed around it, with international matches and so many clans duking it out in every timezone. Now sierra has built an industry momentum and old halflife copies are still selling at the same price. Dethroning this will take effort in areas other than just technology and fancy radeon and geforce effects. It has to be an integral package with a story, an appropriate realism and gameplay tuned for competition.
"Sorry man, the single most important technical innovation of open-source is complete and utter customizabillity. Whatever you need, it either exists or anybody can add it."
I understand choice. i like using my slackware at home, yet keeping a knoppix CD for repairs and redhat for server installations.. the choice of KDE and GNOME, choice of bootloaders and irc clients, browsers..
Choice was why I first tried Linux, and FreeBSD, and minix and plan9.
Choice works great for the two of us and most other visitors to slashdot, it doesnt quite work for the hundereds of millions out there. Some are content with Linux in its current market state, giving so much to the geek community, but it would be nice if I could use it on my mothers computer. My customes have 3 apps that are win32-only, and I just have to suggest they spend $100 each on windows, and I'll just maintain them against viruses, spyware and reinstall it once every 4 months. THEY can benefit from that lack of choice, and more standards against it. We would be selfish to think Linux is good enough for us, who cares about the unknowing mother of 2 who bought a compaq desktop and has to pay a techie $100 to install drivers for her. Maybe I am being selfish in wanting more apps for Linux, more rampant use of this OS and its interfaces, dumbed down to make it more popular.
I'm happy with Linux right now, for myself. Theres a chance I'd be using THIS version of X if such a standard dumbed down version ever came out. Thats because I use remote desktops and a custom window manager too. But I might develop for the other X, to reach a bigger crowd. Once again I'm tempted to use BeOS's example.
Heh you beat me with the long reply, no contest there.
You, and other posters here have made a common point, that the flexibility built into UNIX is good. I dont argue that. Youre also saying going otherwise will be difficult. Another replier before you made the point that we're a different market, unlike the people who want their windows dumbed down, we dont.
Linux sure did the right thing, like UNIX to model itself for this crowd. Doing so, disabled it for that crowd, the bigger one, the ones who pay for their OS, and their antivirus, and their spyware remover etc.
I'm just having the same worries some Linux promoters are having, that we've reached the ceiling of THIS crowd (at the horror of the BSD fans) and we're not entering the market of that crowd. But see, linux for the average user and his grandma will do wonderful things. Take OSX for example. Came out of the very texty FreeBSD. Looks quite pretty now and runs under the users of photoshop, maya etc. Its found its desktop market, and companies will flock to build software for it since there are users who will buy it.
Now the linux user community is about that size or bigger, but unwilling to spend. That means fewer games and apps. We cannot coax sierra to release counterstrike for Linux. Being greedy and selfish, I cannot but help to dream of a time when all aps run natively on Linux, and I dont even have to use wine or the likes. I would use Linux on the computers of all my clients, and not worry of the BSOD the next day. Linux will finally be global, along with its jobs, apps, etc. Thats the logical step after having conquered all of server and embedded markets.
Now there are many suggestions on how to get there. We are happy with the current setting, except for my eternal belief theres a small percentage of performance that can be juiced out by redesigning X. I know its negligible, and performance isnt quite the biggest reason I want to see a rigid 'dumbed down' desktop. But most anything that gets Linux out to the masses(not the geek masses) is worth a try, or discussion. I WANT to use Linux for my grandma, and I cannot right now.
I hope you see that I'm personally happy with the current setup of Linux, I use it and recommend it. But both OSX and BeOS have shown some possibilities, and Microsoft has shown the possibility of using a standard interface, but GUI and developers interface, for most of the worlds computers.
I understand that because thats the way I manage my servers from home. I am also responsible for setting up VPN connections from clients laptops in europe to our Windows 2000 servers... the ideas the same.
We're sacrificing more than just this section of the market if we can fork the X code to this. Imagine all the KDE/GNOME improvements to the Linux desktop, in effect we would be in square one.
But the current X architecture is deadlocked. I really believe the X team will soon release a lite fork that will quickly be the default installation for most desktops. Sure we could replace the RPM, or even change the X binary. I would hate to see all the software based on X unusable, or even to move them under a wrapper, but in the Linux community, people can replace functions and recompile really fast. If the memory footprint is decreased, syscalls reduced, more hardware accelerators enabled, this is a great deal for all the potential desktop users who cannot be convinced with a server windowing system.
>If X is so bad and bloated, explain to my why I'm >getting better framerate on Neverwinter Nights >under X11/Linux than under the slim, fast and >optimized Windows system, with my puny GF4-MX?
I wish I knew. Try reinstalling windows.
One thing I can tell you for sure is that it would have run faster on BeOS and might run faster on OSX. If the framerate difference is over 30%, somethings wrong with your windows installation/drivers.
The following two dont agree:
(1)
>I honestly think that if you did all that you >talk about you wouldn't gain a thing speed wise.
(2)
>I agree however that the windows manager layout >introduces inefficiencies and inconsistencies, >but you do get flexibility.
Add network code to this inefficiency. And then the feature set not imlpemented in core X code that say the Radeon or Geforce provides. Newer nvidia drivers allow the speedup of window painting in blocks of pixels, and I know for a fact its not implemented in X. Redesigning the architecture to for instance let driver programmers replace more functions in X, should make things faster. So should moving the PAINTING parts of the driver along with all its accelerator functions to kernel space.
>As for the nice, simple and fast MacOS/X display, >I've tried it several times and I like X11 >better. More choice, more flexibility, and yes, >more stability (although the zoom feature is >neat).
Youre talking about choice and so are so many other people out there. Choice was how we ended up trying Linux remember? Ive always been a big proponent of choice, even over 'life'.
But if you look at the bigger issue, choice doesnt help us all that much in some cases. We have pushed the flexibility of X to a rediculous extent. Built so many layers. We have the linux kernel, then X, then kde, then evolution, then its themes. And each click or window moving transcends into ALL these layers with risks and bugs collected over. The code is clean now, but it could be faster.
Yet heres the single biggest problem. Lack of simple standards. Standards are the direct opposite of choice. Standards help in hidden ways to give you choice later. If IBM could release websphere as a single installer for any distribution, we could replace our redhat server with gentoo. If a single standard display faced us on the monitor, many more people would flock to linux. All the nice eyecandy KDE gives us right now shows us the enormous possibilities, but it neither helps us nor KDE. The bulk of users are still paying Microsoft $100 every two years and sticking with Windows. We did something wrong somewhere.
But I keep getting flamed that X is good enough.. its certainly not, for a desktop system. Its overly bloated, although switching to version 4 improved things and building more hooks that can use video drivers' speedups.. Beside removing the networking code, and optimising it for my duron, theres also the window manager layer there. I'm now strongly against it..
Should we have an option of incorporating the window manager at compile time, that should improve things too. And then the internationalization is a mess and thats improved too. This is true of Linux in general as well where people still see VT100 and have to remap their keys for functionality. Thats legacy bloatware X could do without.
Now if you move the video driver into the Linux kernel, replacing say the experimental framebuffer drivers, we would (1) have a great platform for console games with really good driver support, (2)make the X leaner and more general. This also removes the need for starting lots of code in userspace, imagine different X servers in different virtual consoles switching as fast as virtual consoles.
I would personally go with the QT interface with motif and gtk wrappers on TOP of it for porting older apps. By now X should no longer be called X since its so different. I would go with an optimised architecture rather than the legacy one incorporating the fonts and video card accelerators into it (many of these are too fragmented and in modules for X4)
Only BeOS was more sophisticated with the GUI glued into the kernel. It was the most beautiful OS I had ever seen (havent seen OSX yet) and it somehow didnt make it. Lycoris Xandros Lindows etc are trying to push for the desktop but underneath its all Linux. With that comes the painful lack of standards, not even installation or LSB standards, and all the mess. Each of these distros is an island in itself with its community, packages, interface etc. You cant put ones package and install it on another, or take a user of one of these distros, put her on another and expect her to feel at home, and we're talking about the same OS. Anyone who even dreamed of porting J2EE or websphere to slackware say, knows this.
All these new OS companies are falling apart because of the inherent lack of a few things in Linux. RedHat, SuSE and Linus could help here, SuSE did chip in with their LSB, but it was obviously a bad investment. If a company like RedHat can be confident of their success, and create good industry standards without fearing being overthrown, the Linux desktop can finally take off. People could choose one distro, click n run any app developed by some teenager in his basement and it will work just fine. This will move far more users from Windows to Linux.
The BSDs could have done this but they seperated much longer ago. FreeBSD remains the biggest and have quite a clean system on their hands, ready for any major changes or making inroads in the industry.. but the same resolve that gives them the energy to build the most robust OS doesnt let them risk changing the direction of BSD too fast, for BSD is now a culture, and not of being a desktop OS of the masses. Thats why the author here chose FreeBSD. Apple can simply port OSX to x86 and be over with it, dangling it out like darwin is just rubbing salt on the pains of the already desperate crowd.
All the while the geekdom is sick of dual booting and cleaning spyware from the crashing windows installation. Linux is very very big out there, its almost made it. But it has such a long way to go to really reach the stratosphere.. or rather on everyones computer. It was this hope that pushed the tens of thousands of developers to code for the Free OS from version 0.01 to 2.4.20.(and all its associated GNU tools). We're not there yet.
I wonder what I'm doing in my windows partition now. I could be writing this in Linux+opera....
There was a GNU project that did that, but I think if you know the workings of your company you can easily run a postgresql database and serve business off it. Reporting tools like crystal reports work well with it being an SQL database, and you can use QT on linux to make simple interfaces for most anything.
Be sure to document everything as you go and restrict permissions for every user, if you go ahead with this, and consider releasing it opensource.
Hey this plankton came from cloud No 9, came with a tiny harp.
Thats really cool what I just saw. I think my priorities have been reshuffled now, I need to save up for this.
Then buy a couple with rubber-band missles and do a real lanparty. Better yet small ink canisters to really mess up the opponent on his chair if his copter cant stop yours.
Or even strap on a teeny camera with a bluetooth transmitter and send it...... places......
I wonder if the libc code can be transferred to the coprocessors memory during boot, at least larger functions, then just passing data to it with running programs.
Another idea is to send the driver code of all installed hardware to the coprocessor, and just communicating with it in a standard way. The coprocessor takes the driver overhead. I dont think trying this with the AGP for instance is a good idea, but should work well with winmodems or CDROMS, which freeze the entire system sometimes.
Yet another, the Java JIT compiler compiles the code in one processor then executes it in another. These could be reality if theres no PCI bus between the processors, better still if the processors are mounted on the same die, like the Power64, only each with their own IO.
Or even running the JVM instead of init.
With a minimal kernel, this could be quite small.
You dont ask that question in geek circles. Why is always an afterthought, when youve made your creation and need to make money off it. Same applies to good scientists.
People have beowulfed PDAs, emulated IA-64 on 386s and created VPNs in VPNs with no WHY in sight.
Well then use knoppix. I have a PC with no free hdd space running Win98. But I personally keep needing Linux, knoppix works real beautiful and fast, and best of all no virus/spyware worries there. It ALWAYS works.
Most popular apps for Linux is already installed on Knoppix, I'm tempted to think IR controllers are also installed. You need to check it out. But I must warn you, the laptop has to be within 4 feet of the TV to work. The IR range of computers is much lesser than that of remotes.
Hmm, I wonder if I can make linux-based remotes and sell them.
I have been looking for a very low cost x86 microcontroller or board for developing simple thin clients for education in poorer countries. So far all offerings are more expensive than traditional desktops including all the incarnations of PC-104 that Ive come across.
This thing is $500+ and openbricks link is broken. I wish elan-486 was still around, I cant even find a distributor to send me a single sample of any elans. And I really have to check out geode, wish someone would offer a complete system on a board with flash and bios etc.
Well with 1.5 litre pet bottles Ive launched rockets quite high. I never measured how high, but way farther than anyone could throw. We even tried a payload of a parachute that would open, but we gave up on that, with water as propellant, the payload weight can be significant even for small rockets.
I honestly believe rockets can be built with high pressure cylinders pumping out to larger containers of water with a small exhaust. If its made large enough, with the proper materials and pressure locks etc, and made multistage, I think it could reach impressive heights. Still I'd be skeptical about an attempt to reach orbit.
I remember at 117 Gev we had some higgs boson marks, but the results were just beneath the standard deviation. Now we have to wait till 2004 or 2005 till the commecement of the LHC to be sure.
But the LEP results were close, and many scientists and nonscientists like myself are convinced we have it in that range. At least some neutrinos do have mass.
I never started this as a war between Linux and FreeBSD. I can see you are strongly biased one way. But my point is FreeBSD and Linux combined make for 6 different packet filtering tools. This does not help network administrators. The reason why
Of you still have a lot against Linux, well just take FreeBSD then. I hope we can use pf 7 years from now.
Just like Linux, ipfwadm, then ipchains and iptables. Now FreeBSD ipfw, ipfilter now pf. This is by the way in addition to cisco IOS that you have to keep in mind which is similar but not the same.
Hope noone comes up with NEW features later that demands new architectures.
I am against such experiments or the birth of a single GM human. But, just like abortion, once he's born, I would allow him all human rights rather than try and dehumanize him.
We have quite a lot of variation in our species thankfully. Think of all the races, adaptations and cultures out there. Although the CREATION of such a human should be disallowed, once he's born, he's still one of us.
Being very much against equal opportunity of any kind, I would be fine with not being allowed in an Ivy league college full of GM students. If a GM coder makes far better drivers and apps than me, I would not blame him for my not finding work in the market, just as I wouldnt blame a smart immigrant from India. You gotta be a good sport in any competition including the ones in life.. and dehumanization of any potential GM humans is wrong.
And then, parents really shouldnt want to produce GM kids, for they wont be their kids. They will be science's children. Plus the so many possibilities of mistakes in the engineering process, just not worth trying. And then, we have been evolved and fine tuned beyond any skill and science for survival on this planet, no GM human can exceed in these qualities... outside of a linear match (like using Arnold Schwarzeneggers sperms and Jennifer Lopez's eggs, which isnt quite GManipulation)
Everyone has to remember, we are against the manipulation of the human genes, not of any humans who might have this. Just as we're against chemical weapons being used against civilians, not their deformed kids born later. All men are created equal, whatever the method or creator.
I used to love unixware before I discovered Linux. Even inside the company its already dead. But this thing, derived from the original UNIX (sysv?) was a monster in its day. Now we have yet another UNIX variant rotting on someones shelf somewhere.
We should all be contacting IBM NOT to buy SCO not for the lowest price.
And by the way we need the SCO's CEO name and home address. Lets target the flames properly, not out aloud on the net where it will just give the community a bad name. For this reason we should stop referring to "SCO", rather its CEO's name.
I would only buy SCO just to have the pleasure of firing everyone without reference letters.
I use a $70 800x600 camera called EZ-camera by I think ezonics. It takes CF cards and is PRETTY robust. Its taken rain on it and many many falls.. I suppose is made of only surface mount devices.
Just get a cheap one and try it out in the field. Should at least last a few times to be worth its price. Good thing cheaper is also simpler to learn, assuming YOU will be the one to transfer the pics.
So will parents be selling babyteeth now? Heck, some heath programs should allow them to save one tooth in a cell bank from where later it could be used to grow spare body parts.
I wonder why its not possible to turn two stem cells into an egg and a sperm, fertilize and continue the cycle for a limitless supply. I understand if its split into an egg and sperm, there will be genetic variations from the original, not to mention it will be like marrying your identical twin, with bad results.. but maybe the resulting egg can be zapped and its nucleus replaced with another cell like in Dollys case.
For now.. all babies will be encouraged to join little boxing rinks, for some financial boost to their parents.