As far as I can tell, the memory does NOT support "Instant Access". The main feature of MRAM is that it always retains it's content, plus it has very low power consumption. There is nothing to indicate that it's access times will be any less than DRAM (particularly DRAM in five years).
As an 8-year old geek larvae, reruns of the original Star Trek are what first brought me into the sci-fi fold. I would anxiously await every saturday when I got the chance to join the crew of the Enterprise, particularly Spock (my favorite), as they ran into some of the most creative societies, creatures, and people ever to be seen on television. Only Babylon 5 could match the original trek in terms of artistic vision.
I've watched ST:TNG and DS9 from beginning to end. Both were different in tone from the original, but I still appreciated them. Voyager at first seemed to be the rebirth of the original spirit of trek, a grand exploration of the limitless posibilities of space. In it's defense, the show had a good first few seasons. Then the idiots at Paramount decided to dump Kes, an interesting unique character, in favor of Seven. It was shortly after this that I stopped watching the show. The mysterious malevolence that made the Borg collective the ultimate villain was shattered by Seven's constant "revelations." Ugh.
I hope the new trek changes this. By going back to the early days, the galaxy is once again wide open and safe for the sense of wonder. Let's hope that they stick to Gene Roddenbery's vision this time.
In reading the article, I ran into something unusual, though: If the series starts after First Contact, and runs until just before the original series, it would have to cover 200 years. I plan on watching the final episode via holodeck.
You're absolutely right. While hard-core SF is my preference, I've always loved Star Wars, mainly because it's very, very good Fantasy/Adventure in a neat SF setting.
Is it just me, or does this seem awfully reminiscent of the "spies" in Orwell's 1984? The children in that novel were brainwashed by the government into joining a youth club, "The Spies", closely monitering their parents for any possible anti-state leanings. One of the main character's friends was turned in by his own daughter for talking in his sleep!
What makes WAVE even worse is that beyond achieving the aims of an opressive regime, it makes cash on the side. This is an obvious attempt by corporate america to further invade PUBLIC schools. By offering incentives to schools, such as cash, computers, TVs, etc. for-profit ventures like the Channel-One network and N2H2 (with their Bess censorware) are already brainwashing children with their corporate propaganda. "People who are different might kill you." "Anything remotely sexual is evil." "Buying Nike products will give your miserable life new meaning."
And what individuals are targeted by this project? Not those students who may have real psychological disorders that should be diagnosed and treated by proffesionals, but the already persecuted and severely misunderstood Geeks, Punks, Goths, and free thinkers in general.
The scary thing is that my school has already been victimized, not by violence, but by the two ventures I mentioned earlier, Channel One and Bess. Both of these were resisted by the students AND Faculty, but were still handed down by the district administration. If WAVE were to enter the Saginaw Public Schools, I could at least take comfort in the fact that my school is populated by free-thinking students who know the constitution well, the program wouldn't make much progress. Most young geeks don't have this luxery.
The constitution doesn't contain a word about at what age it takes effect. I doubt that any court would allow keeping children as slaves, since "the 13th ammendment doesn't apply to those under voting age". I hope that they would have the same respect for the first and fourth.
This is what I and many other geeks have long been praying for! The Star Wars universe is the perfect setting for a massively multiplayer RPG. Just think of the romance of being a lone smuggler or bounty hunter, a heroic rebel, or a tyranical imperial governor. In a world populated by fantasy RPGs, it's about time for sci-fi to strike back!
Yes, it's quite obvious that the so-called "source license" isn't going to be helpful unless you have huge sums of cash to pay the exorbitant licensing fee, and even then, you won't have the freedom to take wince code where you want it. Actually, this isn't extremely new, I know some windows programmers who get the code to certain parts of the win32 API on their MSDN disks. The simple fact is, however, that just because you can look at the code doesn't mean it's open source.
You can, however, get closer to true freedom by degrees. For example, Sun's license might be summed up this way: "All developers are equal, those that work for Sun are simply more equal than others." Or Trolltech's: "You can change Qt, but you can only distribute your changes as patches." But even these licenses allow you to make changes, they just restrict what you can use them for and how they can be distributed. As I understand it, the so called "source release" of wince wouldn't even allow that. You can see shoddy spaghetti code, but unless you're an imperial drone working in Redmond, you're powerless to improve it.
Does Microsoft actually think they'll fool programmers with this announcement? Doubtful. More likely, their targeting this BS at corporate execs in consumer electronics firms and other businesses. Thanks to the efforts of our pal ESR, and his many compatriots, open-source/free software is finally getting buzzword-style recognition, even among suits. MS is basically trying to trick executive types into thinking that wince is open-source and freeload off of the hacker community without stealing a line of code.
From a business standpoint, I think the only way MS has a chance at surviving in the embedded market is to release wince free-as-in-beer. Linux, NetBSD and the like make sense in embedded systems not only for technical reasons, but also for the fact that a $0 OS in a $1-$200 device makes a lot of sense. Even PalmOS is considerably cheaper to license than wince.
Of course, we should all take this with a grain of salt. As it stands, this is %100 vaporware, and a "leak" from inside Redmond doesn't really mean the situation has changed since say, a month ago.
UNIX, the OS of the past, present, and future
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The End of Unix?
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It's my position that the same strengths that made UNIX a great OS in the 1970's will make it a great family of OSes well into the future. What are those strengths, you ask? Well, read on and find out.
1. UNIX kills at networking Always has, always will. As the story mentioned, the 'net was built on UNIX, and continues to run on it. The Internet, the TCP/IP protocol... UNIX has the home feild advantage here, and I don't see any signs of an upset in the future.
2. UNIX has superior reliability UNIX was originally created by a telco company, and was made what it is today with some very significant help from universities. When a phone grid goes down, or valuable academic information is lost, it can be devastating. Therefore, UNIX was coded for rock-solid stability. This, along with reason #1, is why UNIX runs most servers. As we move into the new era of embedded devices, reliability once again takes center stage. There is a preexisting standard of reliability for home appliances, and people aren't going to care if they can browse the web from their toaster if there's a driver conflict with the heating filaments. I happen to know that UNIX exceeds these standards, since I trust my Linux/BSD boxes much more than I trust my frequently misbehaving kitchen.
3. UNIX is modular While most Unices are based on monolithic kernels, UNIX is still one of the most modular OSes out there. The UNIX design philosophy has always been one of small, fast, interchangeable programs over large, clumsy ones. Therefore, UNIX can be trimmed down to exactly what you need it for. A microcontroller for say, a pacemaker, may only need a kernel and a single user-space daemon. A PDA needs a suite of productity applications. A desktop needs more. A server needs the server program itself, but not most of the overhead found on desktops or even PDAs. UNIX can be adjusted to the needs of all but the most rudimentary computing devices.
4. UNIX is scalable This ties in with the last question. If UNIX can run on all the platforms mentioned, that also means that developers can write software that works across all of them. It also means that users can enjoy a common interface on all computers.
5. UNIX is open While not all Unices are open-source, many are. All the conventional open-source arguments apply here (all bugs are shallow, development is fast, reliability is increased, and hey, freedom's cool!). If UNIX is replaced in the future, it will almost certainly be by another open-source OS, otherwise it will be virtually impossible to compete on a technological or political basis.
6. UNIX reinvents itself UNIX isn't a killer OS on microcomputers because it was a great OS in the era of minicomputers. It's an awesome OS today because it reinvented itself for the times. Since UNIX is in most cases an open platform, new features can be added whenever a hacker has a really neat idea. The BSD guys did it with TCP/IP. The X consortium did it with X windows. Tim Berners-Lee did it with the web. Better yet, someone can start from scratch and create a new UNIX clone with all the features of it's predecessor and none of it's overhead. Linus Torvalds and friends did this with Linux. Using absolutely no kernel code from other Unices, the flagship version of UNIX was built outside the "conventional" UNIX family. If Microkernels are as important as some people say they are, it will be done again with HURD. It is this continuous cycle of evolution, punctuated by revolution, that will drive UNIX into ever increasing dominance.
I, for one, am thrilled that Kubric's magnum opus will see the light of day, particularly after the disapointing eyes wide shut. Besides giving us a deep look into the psychology of war with A Clockwork Orange, Stanley also directed one of the most monumental sci-fi films of all time, the classic 2001.
OK, so most of 2001's appeal was in the novel by the brilliant Arthur C. Clarke, which the movie served as a companion for more than a stand alone peice. Still, the collaboration between Clarke and Kubric was one of the first to explore what happens when a well-meaning but unrestricted artificial intelligence experiences a moral conflict. It filled a niche between the stereotipical "evil monster" image and Asimov's perfect servants that had never been seen before.
As a result of Kubric's experience with Clarke, and his own natural genius, I imagine that A.I. will continue to probe the dark reaches of computer psychology, revealing many moral questions we never thought to ask. Whether Spielberg can live up to Kubric's vision remains to be seen.
If indeed RealNetworks does include WMF support in Realplayer for Linux, it will be valuable for convenience, since Real and Quicktime both have much better streaming codecs.
On the issue of open-source, even if Real doesn't release the code for their player or codecs, the fact that they are running on Linux/glibc may provide a unique oportunity for reverse engineering of the compression scheme. I don't have much experience in this area, but as I understand it, intercepting and logging the calls made to the kernel and the C libraries may allow wizard programmers to figure out what actually goes on when we watch streaming videos. A GPL'ed clone wouldn't be far off then.
First, it's my understanding that the method by which genetic weapons work is pretty independent of their host organism. A cold infects a bacteria and a human in the same way: by inserting it's own DNA inside the nucleus of a host cell, transforming the cell into a short-lived virus factory. Having the human genome publicly available doesn't mean that mad scientists now have the tools they need to create Satan bugs, they've had these tools all along.
What the human genome data is useful for is understanding more about how the human body works. Beyond this, there are practical applications as well: not in creating external parasites, but rather in modifying humans, and humans only. For example, gene therapy in embryos could remove many hereditary diseases like diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and even some forms of cancer. In the long term, more advanced uses could include tweaking the immune system as a whole, making it more adaptable and effective against the increasing pantheon of diseases.
Here's the controvertial part: the human genome project, while virtually useless for biological warfare, can be used to speed up evolution enourmously. While many conservatives I know are markedly against this, I support engineering for the sake of general improvement. Down the road, it will be possible to engineer humans to be smarter, stronger, etc. When combined with cybernetics and nanorobotics, this represents a chance for betterment unrivaled through all history.
P.S. Your comment on Patents/Copyrights was interesting. It's my position that it should be illegal to patent or copyright organisms and/or genetic material. This sort of thing is SCIENCE, NOT INDUSTRY. I take the same position on software and conventional engineering. Freedom of information is essential to further technological progress.
It's my belief that KDE 2.0 has great potential to become the ultimate desktop environment on UN*X. This is due to the fact that it takes KDE's traditional strengths, and expands upon them with some GNOME-like wizardry and delicious eye-candy.
First, let's take a look at what KDE is already doing right. The KDE apps are elegant, simple, and extremely well-designed. KDE has been responsible for many non-hacker people I know switching to and staying with Linux. Unfortunately, the ease of use and superiority of design that were present in KDE 1.x came at the expense of GNOME's extreme customizability.
From what I've seen in Krash, it appears that the KDE team is working on this. K should now be themeable down to the widget level, and with a considerably more user-friendly theming interface than GNOME. Anyone for a real KDE aqua theme?
Of course, I'm aware that with Eazel, Nautilus, etc. GNOME is working from the other end to bring more ease of use to the already ultra-versatile platform they've built, but from all indications K will deliver the best of both words several months before GNOME will.
I'd like to applaud Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair for this decision. It makes absolute sense for this momentous scientific data to be freely available, since it is enormously significant for innovative, progressive, life-saving research, and it is near useless for detrimental purposes.
Definately a good thing. The embedded market, while potentially one of Linux'es greatest strengths, also has the potential to be a fragmentation threat. This sort of cooperation is an excellent safegaurd against forking. Hopefully, this will bring Lineo, Cygnus, and all the other embedded API players together before they move to far apart.
BTW, it's the APIs I'm worried about, not the kernel. The interoperability of the core kernel across no less than 9 platforms has convinced me that Linus, Alan, and all the other kernel developers can do portability very well.
I am sorry, Mr. Coward, but I must disagree with your opinion on this matter with all of the strength my body and mind can muster. To give you a perspective on why I believe you are absolutely and completely wrong, consider this example from US history:
With the passing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th ammendments at the end of the civil war, minority citizens had the right to vote for the first time in history. Of course, many southern politicians weren't too happy about this, and "Jim Crow" laws were enacted to prevent African Americans from voting. One of the measures used was the pole tax, which required people to pay before voting (much like your proposed $1000 source code license), preventing many poor black farmers from voting. The second was literacy testing, aimed to keep uneducated southern blacks from voting. In many elections, these tests were even administered in a foreign language to discourage voting by undesirable individuals. I'm afraid your statements indicate your obvious attitude of contemp for end-users, who often turn out to be very smart, if inexperienced, people.
Your model of development would lead to a seperation of Linux users: the rich, corporate developers, and the poor, dumb lusers. You forget that the reason that Linux became a truly bueatiful OS in the first place was not because there was VC backing it. Linux became sucessful because the real brilliant and selfless programmers wanted to make the best darn operating system they could, and they wanted to share it. Many of these brilliant people didn't have $1000 to spend to participate in the community. Even today, I'm serious about Linux development, but as an unemployed high school student, I can't afford an overpriced source license.
In conclusion, Mr. Coward, I really don't care to recieve your marketing advice. Linux is not a product to be sold. It is a technological marvel and an instrument of freedom. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that we want technical superiority and a healthy community of cooperating users and developers, not obscene profit margins and hoardes of faceless customers to be the cogs in our machine.
Sincerely, Craig Chasseur
P.S. Even if our dear Linus wanted to make Linux proprietary, he couldn't. The GPL doesn't allow the software or any subsequent versions or modifications to be re-licensed (Thank God). If he wanted to make a proprietary OS, he'd have to start from scratch, giving up 9 years of the most incredible development effort on Earth.
P.P.S. I hope your comment on Gates and Ballmer was a joke. Gates hasn't written a line of code since 1983, and his only achievement in software design was to buy the rights to a CP/M knock-off named QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System, later renamed MS-DOS) for $50,000
So, M$ is taking credit for something that UN*X has had for decades. I suspect that this may be only the first story about their cloning old UN*X technology into W2K (they put support for mount points in there too, I hear).
Ignoring the damage this might do to a few idiots that believe everything M$ tells them (and I do know a few), this does illustrate an important point: Win2K is 10 to 20 years behind the development curve of other OSes. M$ is just now struggling to incorporate features that have been in UN*X since just about forever, because the rebirth of the UN*X design philosophy in Linux now represents a serious threat to the continued existence of the empire. The fact is that while Microsoft tries to catch up with long existing design features, Linux and the BSDs have been making very significant advances in things like process management, SMP utilization, scalability (1 OS instead of 3), ultra-high performance kernel-level web servers (khttpd), and the list goes on.
By the way, geeky technical things aren't all that M$ has to work on. The Windows GUI still sucks large portions of **edited for the kiddies** when compared to KDE, GNOME, the classic MacOS GUI, or Aqua. Heck, I'd rather use FVWM!
OK, so I know that this doesn't mean we can all start stamping out OpenRISC processors in our basements, but the idea of "Open-source Hardware" is still very powerful. It creates an entirely new species of hacker: the hobbyist chip engineer. Of course, you won't always be able to test your neat hardware designs (or could you? very low level emulation?), but for those who have access to fab plants (I know you're out there), this could be a very fun project.
Also, this further commoditizes the chip market. I think we've all benefited from the feirce competition between Intel and AMD, considering that things like sub-$1000 computers, SIMD instructions in end user chips, and of course dramtatically lower prices on x86 procs wouldn't be here yet if not for this rivalry. Still, to compete with Intel, AMD had to do huge ammounts of internal engineering to duplicate the functionality of Intel's chips. Not so with OpenRISC. Instead of wasting time cloning other developers' features, engineers will simply add their own, speeding up the advance of the design much more. Prices will also be considerably lower due to (duh) lower R&D costs. It like the difference between NT and Solaris competing against each other, versus the Linux distros cooperating for mutual benefit.
One question, though, is the OpenRISC specification going to be released GNU-style (no proprietary extensions allowed, ever) or BSD-style (just give us credit and you can fragment it like a FAT partition with your corporate crap)?
P.S. Don't get me wrong, I love the BSD's and use them daily, but I think the GPL is a much better license.
Just thought I'd share a couple of ideas with you about what I think the ideal features of a PDA are, and what samsung got right (plus a few things they got wrong).
First, a PDA should definately run Linux, or maybe NetBSD. These are pretty much the 2 most scalable OSes out there (at least in the downward direction) that don't sacrifice any of the functionality or compatibility you get on larger systems. Having a unified platform between the desktop and the handheld is important for developers, and neither wince or PalmOS does this.
Plus, Linux is extremely stable, which is very important in the embedded market. Think if you're on a vacation and your PDA fails. "Darn honey, my handheld just crashed. I've lost the road map, our music for the car, the photos we took at the grand canyon, and my notes for my meeting on Monday." Not a good thing.
Secondly, the interface should not be a "desktop-clone". Multiple cascading menus are far too much clutter for a PDA screen. The UI should be simple and intuitive and targeted for handheld applications, not desktop ones. PalmOS does a very good job of this. Wince does not. It's my opinion that PDAs should use some version of X so that development is easy, but none of the current window managers are going to do very well on such a small screen, so a new interface is necessary.
Thirdly, the device should have advanced multimedia and productivity capabilities. It should have things like an MP3 and movie player. It should have a word processor and a spreadsheet. It should definately have a graphical web browser. Wince has these things, PalmOS doesn't. It's my belief that a Linux PDA should have all of these applications, but they should have a much simpler interface than their desktop cousins.
This is soooooo cool. Just think, being able to carry a bunch of ultra-useful linux utilities around in your pocket. Hey, it even has X, if that's your thing.
One problem, though. Where can I get one of these things?
In a suprise announcement today, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos announced that his company has acquired patents to two of their innovative business models: Selling books and using credit cards.
During a press conference, Bezos declared, "We here at Amazon pride ourselves on being an intelligent, innovative group of people. We don't think it's fair that companies like Barnes & Noble and Visa can profit from the hard work we put into developing our business model."
Concurrent with the patent announcement, Amazon.com has opened lawsuits against the aforementioned companies, as well as Borders, Media Play, the locally owned bookstore down your street, MasterCard, and every retailer that uses "stolen credit-card technology" developed by amazon. Amazon is also seeking legal action against all public libraries in the US, citing that "those media pirates (librarians) have been illegally giving out copies of books for years. They have no respect for the rights Amazon has to printing-press technology developed by our own engineer, Gutenberg."
In an effort to further prevent privacy, evilretailempire.com, I mean, Amazon.com, has applied for a patent on the Latin language. An Amazon.com press release stated "We recognized that linguistic technologies derived from our Latin product like English, Spanish, French, and German are very widely used today. We don't wish to make these languages illegal, we simply ask that people pay a very reasonable royalty fee to Amazon.com whenever they speak one of these languages." Exact pricing details were not announced, but it has been leaked that Amazon will charge on a per-word basis.
I think that it would indeed be benificial for Linux if Microsoft were to port their products to the OS. IF they were actually decent peices of software, and you didn't really care about freedom.
The fact is that there are extremely competent replacements for all MS products available for Linux, most of which are free and open source. Netscape is a faster, more stable, and more secure browser than IE. GCC blows VC/VC++ away in terms of efficiency in both compiling and execution (and if you want to talk programming, Perl and Python are two cross-platform open-source tools that Microsoft can't hold a candle to). As for server software, the argument is over, Apache, SAMBA, etc. are the absolute best servers available for any platform. StarOffice is free as in beer, and offers pretty much all features of office, plus more, with the added advantage of full file compatibility with existing data. In fact, while your windows applications may not be protable into Linux, virtually all of your data makes that transition perfectly.
As for GUIs, I don't think that a Microsoft proprietary Linux GUI would be a good thing at all. The fact is that X, especially when extended by GTK and Qt, is a far more robust graphics environment than Win32.
It's obvious that from a technical standpoint, a Microsoft GUI would be inferior. But what about ease of use? Well, if I wanted a super-easy desktop, I wouldn't have MS design it, I'd probably pick Apple (several apple employees are working on a linux desktop in fact). If you're used to windows already, though, you'll find that KDE is by default configured to be very accomodating to you. Of course, when you get a little more comfortable, you can start to use the more advanced features of KDE or GNOME that simply aren't available on any non-UN*X system.
As I said in a previous post, however, a full port of the Win32 APIs along with DirectX, etc. would be useful in that it would make the task of reverse engineering much easier, making WINE an amazing killer app.
There are basically three ways to look at a port of Office for Linux: Technical, Financial, and Political.
First, Technical. MS has for quite some time ported it's more popular end user applications, like Office, Works, and IE, to MacOS. With the radical redesign of OSX, it would make sense from a technical standpoint to make an OSX-specific port (probably with Carbon, since that would take the least effort). Mac users would be tempted to try alternatives like Appleworks if MS didn't have an office product that didn't use the OS9 emulation mode (I'm not sure if the aqua widgets are used in emulation, anyone know?). Anyway, writing an OSX port would involve doing a lot of UN*X-ish code. This means that after the initial effort of doing an OSX version of Office, it would be a relatively small effort to do versions for other Unices, including Linux.
Next, the financial standpoint. Would it be profitable to do a Linux port? Well, Linux is growing far faster than any other OS on the planet, and already has over 10 million users. Of course, MS knows there are plenty of users out there, but are they potential office customers? Considering the animosity that many Linux users, myself included, have towards the empire, it may be difficult to get people to make the switch from StarOffice, Applixware, or whatever else they're using.
Which brings me to the final veiw, political. I know I'm not alone in saying that I believe wholeheartedly in Open Source. I also believe that partial source licenses, like the "Community Source" license Sun uses, aren't enough, but they're better than nothing. Even so, I will be using StarOffice until the KDE or GNOME office suites become more mature. The political landscape looks like this now: Linux has 2 "free beer" office suites with partially open-source. They are both extremely full-featured and usable, possibly even more so than MS Office. There's one more closed source office on the way (Corel), and 2 GPL'ed ones in the pipe. Functionally, StarOffice and Applixware can both hold their own against Office, and politics shift the balance in favor of former.
In my opinion, the Linux community does not want or need office. What I'd like to see is a port of all the Win32 APIs and DirectX to Linux. This would signal the start of a massive reverse engineering project that would end with WINE outperforming windows on all it's own apps (but don't tell MS;)).
OK, so the 700MHz version is less than a centimeter squared? Sweet (gargling due to drool here). Think about this, the chip is ultra cheap and ultra small, so why not do a Crusoe-based SMP system? C'mon, you know you want a PDA with quad processors. What about a laptop with 16?
If you're reading TM, I encourage you to develop SMP-enabled crusoes. There may be a bigger market for them than you think.
As a fellow Michigan resident, I sympathize with what is happening in Holland, which seems to be one of the most hardcore (forgive the wordplay) conservative towns in this mostly Republican state. I am a liberal socialist myself, and I am very disturbed by what is happening in many Michigan public institutions.
My school district, the Saginaw Public Schools, uses a Bess blocking server (you can find Bess' numerous failings catalouged at Censorware). Not only does the NT-based server have about 20% downtime, it also severely slows our shared T1 down. Ordinary web browsing is often barely usable due to overblocking (I wonder what's obscene about kernel.org?), and a quick look at IE3's history (yes, you read that right, the district doesn't allow "unauthorized" software installations) shows that several URLs including XXX are being frequently accessed by some students. Despite numerous complaints on behalf of staff and students, the service still blocks many educational resources. I, for example, can't use babelfish on my Spanish homework (OK, so I workaround that by going to altavista.co.uk, but that's not exactly something students district-wide have thought of.
Worse yet, my local library, where my mother is employed, is considering installing blocking software. As an unpaid computer maintenance volunteer, I have some say on the machines. I've got Netscape on them, but the network is still 100% NT4-based (I hate buearacracy). Does it matter that erotica and graphic violence are included in the pages of the books prominently displayed on the "New Books" shelf? Apparantly not, as there are rumors of state legislation promoting the use of blocking software in Libraries and Schools pending.
I call on other Michiganders out there (particularly those of you who are of voting age;)) to write your representatives in Lansing and encourage them to do just the opposite: Ban censorship in public libraries and schools! Viva libertad!
Mmm... Garlic and Herb. 100% daily value of various nutrients. Edible with only one (or possibly zero, with adequate planning) hand. Hey, any food that is that (presumably) tasty, and doesn't take me away from coding sounds good to me.
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As far as I can tell, the memory does NOT support "Instant Access". The main feature of MRAM is that it always retains it's content, plus it has very low power consumption. There is nothing to indicate that it's access times will be any less than DRAM (particularly DRAM in five years).
As an 8-year old geek larvae, reruns of the original Star Trek are what first brought me into the sci-fi fold. I would anxiously await every saturday when I got the chance to join the crew of the Enterprise, particularly Spock (my favorite), as they ran into some of the most creative societies, creatures, and people ever to be seen on television. Only Babylon 5 could match the original trek in terms of artistic vision.
I've watched ST:TNG and DS9 from beginning to end. Both were different in tone from the original, but I still appreciated them. Voyager at first seemed to be the rebirth of the original spirit of trek, a grand exploration of the limitless posibilities of space. In it's defense, the show had a good first few seasons. Then the idiots at Paramount decided to dump Kes, an interesting unique character, in favor of Seven. It was shortly after this that I stopped watching the show. The mysterious malevolence that made the Borg collective the ultimate villain was shattered by Seven's constant "revelations." Ugh.
I hope the new trek changes this. By going back to the early days, the galaxy is once again wide open and safe for the sense of wonder. Let's hope that they stick to Gene Roddenbery's vision this time.
In reading the article, I ran into something unusual, though: If the series starts after First Contact, and runs until just before the original series, it would have to cover 200 years. I plan on watching the final episode via holodeck.
You're absolutely right. While hard-core SF is my preference, I've always loved Star Wars, mainly because it's very, very good Fantasy/Adventure in a neat SF setting.
Is it just me, or does this seem awfully reminiscent of the "spies" in Orwell's 1984? The children in that novel were brainwashed by the government into joining a youth club, "The Spies", closely monitering their parents for any possible anti-state leanings. One of the main character's friends was turned in by his own daughter for talking in his sleep!
What makes WAVE even worse is that beyond achieving the aims of an opressive regime, it makes cash on the side. This is an obvious attempt by corporate america to further invade PUBLIC schools. By offering incentives to schools, such as cash, computers, TVs, etc. for-profit ventures like the Channel-One network and N2H2 (with their Bess censorware) are already brainwashing children with their corporate propaganda. "People who are different might kill you." "Anything remotely sexual is evil." "Buying Nike products will give your miserable life new meaning."
And what individuals are targeted by this project? Not those students who may have real psychological disorders that should be diagnosed and treated by proffesionals, but the already persecuted and severely misunderstood Geeks, Punks, Goths, and free thinkers in general.
The scary thing is that my school has already been victimized, not by violence, but by the two ventures I mentioned earlier, Channel One and Bess. Both of these were resisted by the students AND Faculty, but were still handed down by the district administration. If WAVE were to enter the Saginaw Public Schools, I could at least take comfort in the fact that my school is populated by free-thinking students who know the constitution well, the program wouldn't make much progress. Most young geeks don't have this luxery.
The constitution doesn't contain a word about at what age it takes effect. I doubt that any court would allow keeping children as slaves, since "the 13th ammendment doesn't apply to those under voting age". I hope that they would have the same respect for the first and fourth.
This is what I and many other geeks have long been praying for! The Star Wars universe is the perfect setting for a massively multiplayer RPG. Just think of the romance of being a lone smuggler or bounty hunter, a heroic rebel, or a tyranical imperial governor. In a world populated by fantasy RPGs, it's about time for sci-fi to strike back!
Yes, it's quite obvious that the so-called "source license" isn't going to be helpful unless you have huge sums of cash to pay the exorbitant licensing fee, and even then, you won't have the freedom to take wince code where you want it. Actually, this isn't extremely new, I know some windows programmers who get the code to certain parts of the win32 API on their MSDN disks. The simple fact is, however, that just because you can look at the code doesn't mean it's open source.
You can, however, get closer to true freedom by degrees. For example, Sun's license might be summed up this way: "All developers are equal, those that work for Sun are simply more equal than others." Or Trolltech's: "You can change Qt, but you can only distribute your changes as patches." But even these licenses allow you to make changes, they just restrict what you can use them for and how they can be distributed. As I understand it, the so called "source release" of wince wouldn't even allow that. You can see shoddy spaghetti code, but unless you're an imperial drone working in Redmond, you're powerless to improve it.
Does Microsoft actually think they'll fool programmers with this announcement? Doubtful. More likely, their targeting this BS at corporate execs in consumer electronics firms and other businesses. Thanks to the efforts of our pal ESR, and his many compatriots, open-source/free software is finally getting buzzword-style recognition, even among suits. MS is basically trying to trick executive types into thinking that wince is open-source and freeload off of the hacker community without stealing a line of code.
From a business standpoint, I think the only way MS has a chance at surviving in the embedded market is to release wince free-as-in-beer. Linux, NetBSD and the like make sense in embedded systems not only for technical reasons, but also for the fact that a $0 OS in a $1-$200 device makes a lot of sense. Even PalmOS is considerably cheaper to license than wince.
Of course, we should all take this with a grain of salt. As it stands, this is %100 vaporware, and a "leak" from inside Redmond doesn't really mean the situation has changed since say, a month ago.
It's my position that the same strengths that made UNIX a great OS in the 1970's will make it a great family of OSes well into the future. What are those strengths, you ask? Well, read on and find out.
1. UNIX kills at networking
Always has, always will. As the story mentioned, the 'net was built on UNIX, and continues to run on it. The Internet, the TCP/IP protocol... UNIX has the home feild advantage here, and I don't see any signs of an upset in the future.
2. UNIX has superior reliability
UNIX was originally created by a telco company, and was made what it is today with some very significant help from universities. When a phone grid goes down, or valuable academic information is lost, it can be devastating. Therefore, UNIX was coded for rock-solid stability. This, along with reason #1, is why UNIX runs most servers. As we move into the new era of embedded devices, reliability once again takes center stage. There is a preexisting standard of reliability for home appliances, and people aren't going to care if they can browse the web from their toaster if there's a driver conflict with the heating filaments. I happen to know that UNIX exceeds these standards, since I trust my Linux/BSD boxes much more than I trust my frequently misbehaving kitchen.
3. UNIX is modular
While most Unices are based on monolithic kernels, UNIX is still one of the most modular OSes out there. The UNIX design philosophy has always been one of small, fast, interchangeable programs over large, clumsy ones. Therefore, UNIX can be trimmed down to exactly what you need it for. A microcontroller for say, a pacemaker, may only need a kernel and a single user-space daemon. A PDA needs a suite of productity applications. A desktop needs more. A server needs the server program itself, but not most of the overhead found on desktops or even PDAs. UNIX can be adjusted to the needs of all but the most rudimentary computing devices.
4. UNIX is scalable
This ties in with the last question. If UNIX can run on all the platforms mentioned, that also means that developers can write software that works across all of them. It also means that users can enjoy a common interface on all computers.
5. UNIX is open
While not all Unices are open-source, many are. All the conventional open-source arguments apply here (all bugs are shallow, development is fast, reliability is increased, and hey, freedom's cool!). If UNIX is replaced in the future, it will almost certainly be by another open-source OS, otherwise it will be virtually impossible to compete on a technological or political basis.
6. UNIX reinvents itself
UNIX isn't a killer OS on microcomputers because it was a great OS in the era of minicomputers. It's an awesome OS today because it reinvented itself for the times. Since UNIX is in most cases an open platform, new features can be added whenever a hacker has a really neat idea. The BSD guys did it with TCP/IP. The X consortium did it with X windows. Tim Berners-Lee did it with the web. Better yet, someone can start from scratch and create a new UNIX clone with all the features of it's predecessor and none of it's overhead. Linus Torvalds and friends did this with Linux. Using absolutely no kernel code from other Unices, the flagship version of UNIX was built outside the "conventional" UNIX family. If Microkernels are as important as some people say they are, it will be done again with HURD. It is this continuous cycle of evolution, punctuated by revolution, that will drive UNIX into ever increasing dominance.
I, for one, am thrilled that Kubric's magnum opus will see the light of day, particularly after the disapointing eyes wide shut. Besides giving us a deep look into the psychology of war with A Clockwork Orange, Stanley also directed one of the most monumental sci-fi films of all time, the classic 2001.
OK, so most of 2001's appeal was in the novel by the brilliant Arthur C. Clarke, which the movie served as a companion for more than a stand alone peice. Still, the collaboration between Clarke and Kubric was one of the first to explore what happens when a well-meaning but unrestricted artificial intelligence experiences a moral conflict. It filled a niche between the stereotipical "evil monster" image and Asimov's perfect servants that had never been seen before.
As a result of Kubric's experience with Clarke, and his own natural genius, I imagine that A.I. will continue to probe the dark reaches of computer psychology, revealing many moral questions we never thought to ask. Whether Spielberg can live up to Kubric's vision remains to be seen.
If indeed RealNetworks does include WMF support in Realplayer for Linux, it will be valuable for convenience, since Real and Quicktime both have much better streaming codecs.
On the issue of open-source, even if Real doesn't release the code for their player or codecs, the fact that they are running on Linux/glibc may provide a unique oportunity for reverse engineering of the compression scheme. I don't have much experience in this area, but as I understand it, intercepting and logging the calls made to the kernel and the C libraries may allow wizard programmers to figure out what actually goes on when we watch streaming videos. A GPL'ed clone wouldn't be far off then.
A couple of clarifications to my original post:
First, it's my understanding that the method by which genetic weapons work is pretty independent of their host organism. A cold infects a bacteria and a human in the same way: by inserting it's own DNA inside the nucleus of a host cell, transforming the cell into a short-lived virus factory. Having the human genome publicly available doesn't mean that mad scientists now have the tools they need to create Satan bugs, they've had these tools all along.
What the human genome data is useful for is understanding more about how the human body works. Beyond this, there are practical applications as well: not in creating external parasites, but rather in modifying humans, and humans only. For example, gene therapy in embryos could remove many hereditary diseases like diabetes, sickle cell anemia, and even some forms of cancer. In the long term, more advanced uses could include tweaking the immune system as a whole, making it more adaptable and effective against the increasing pantheon of diseases.
Here's the controvertial part: the human genome project, while virtually useless for biological warfare, can be used to speed up evolution enourmously. While many conservatives I know are markedly against this, I support engineering for the sake of general improvement. Down the road, it will be possible to engineer humans to be smarter, stronger, etc. When combined with cybernetics and nanorobotics, this represents a chance for betterment unrivaled through all history.
P.S. Your comment on Patents/Copyrights was interesting. It's my position that it should be illegal to patent or copyright organisms and/or genetic material. This sort of thing is SCIENCE, NOT INDUSTRY. I take the same position on software and conventional engineering. Freedom of information is essential to further technological progress.
It's my belief that KDE 2.0 has great potential to become the ultimate desktop environment on UN*X. This is due to the fact that it takes KDE's traditional strengths, and expands upon them with some GNOME-like wizardry and delicious eye-candy.
First, let's take a look at what KDE is already doing right. The KDE apps are elegant, simple, and extremely well-designed. KDE has been responsible for many non-hacker people I know switching to and staying with Linux. Unfortunately, the ease of use and superiority of design that were present in KDE 1.x came at the expense of GNOME's extreme customizability.
From what I've seen in Krash, it appears that the KDE team is working on this. K should now be themeable down to the widget level, and with a considerably more user-friendly theming interface than GNOME. Anyone for a real KDE aqua theme?
Of course, I'm aware that with Eazel, Nautilus, etc. GNOME is working from the other end to bring more ease of use to the already ultra-versatile platform they've built, but from all indications K will deliver the best of both words several months before GNOME will.
I'd like to applaud Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair for this decision. It makes absolute sense for this momentous scientific data to be freely available, since it is enormously significant for innovative, progressive, life-saving research, and it is near useless for detrimental purposes.
Wow, some politicians did something smart.
Definately a good thing. The embedded market, while potentially one of Linux'es greatest strengths, also has the potential to be a fragmentation threat. This sort of cooperation is an excellent safegaurd against forking. Hopefully, this will bring Lineo, Cygnus, and all the other embedded API players together before they move to far apart.
BTW, it's the APIs I'm worried about, not the kernel. The interoperability of the core kernel across no less than 9 platforms has convinced me that Linus, Alan, and all the other kernel developers can do portability very well.
I am sorry, Mr. Coward, but I must disagree with your opinion on this matter with all of the strength my body and mind can muster. To give you a perspective on why I believe you are absolutely and completely wrong, consider this example from US history:
With the passing of the 13th, 14th, and 15th ammendments at the end of the civil war, minority citizens had the right to vote for the first time in history. Of course, many southern politicians weren't too happy about this, and "Jim Crow" laws were enacted to prevent African Americans from voting. One of the measures used was the pole tax, which required people to pay before voting (much like your proposed $1000 source code license), preventing many poor black farmers from voting. The second was literacy testing, aimed to keep uneducated southern blacks from voting. In many elections, these tests were even administered in a foreign language to discourage voting by undesirable individuals. I'm afraid your statements indicate your obvious attitude of contemp for end-users, who often turn out to be very smart, if inexperienced, people.
Your model of development would lead to a seperation of Linux users: the rich, corporate developers, and the poor, dumb lusers. You forget that the reason that Linux became a truly bueatiful OS in the first place was not because there was VC backing it. Linux became sucessful because the real brilliant and selfless programmers wanted to make the best darn operating system they could, and they wanted to share it. Many of these brilliant people didn't have $1000 to spend to participate in the community. Even today, I'm serious about Linux development, but as an unemployed high school student, I can't afford an overpriced source license.
In conclusion, Mr. Coward, I really don't care to recieve your marketing advice. Linux is not a product to be sold. It is a technological marvel and an instrument of freedom. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that we want technical superiority and a healthy community of cooperating users and developers, not obscene profit margins and hoardes of faceless customers to be the cogs in our machine.
Sincerely,
Craig Chasseur
P.S. Even if our dear Linus wanted to make Linux proprietary, he couldn't. The GPL doesn't allow the software or any subsequent versions or modifications to be re-licensed (Thank God). If he wanted to make a proprietary OS, he'd have to start from scratch, giving up 9 years of the most incredible development effort on Earth.
P.P.S. I hope your comment on Gates and Ballmer was a joke. Gates hasn't written a line of code since 1983, and his only achievement in software design was to buy the rights to a CP/M knock-off named QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System, later renamed MS-DOS) for $50,000
So, M$ is taking credit for something that UN*X has had for decades. I suspect that this may be only the first story about their cloning old UN*X technology into W2K (they put support for mount points in there too, I hear).
Ignoring the damage this might do to a few idiots that believe everything M$ tells them (and I do know a few), this does illustrate an important point: Win2K is 10 to 20 years behind the development curve of other OSes. M$ is just now struggling to incorporate features that have been in UN*X since just about forever, because the rebirth of the UN*X design philosophy in Linux now represents a serious threat to the continued existence of the empire. The fact is that while Microsoft tries to catch up with long existing design features, Linux and the BSDs have been making very significant advances in things like process management, SMP utilization, scalability (1 OS instead of 3), ultra-high performance kernel-level web servers (khttpd), and the list goes on.
By the way, geeky technical things aren't all that M$ has to work on. The Windows GUI still sucks large portions of **edited for the kiddies** when compared to KDE, GNOME, the classic MacOS GUI, or Aqua. Heck, I'd rather use FVWM!
OK, so I know that this doesn't mean we can all start stamping out OpenRISC processors in our basements, but the idea of "Open-source Hardware" is still very powerful. It creates an entirely new species of hacker: the hobbyist chip engineer. Of course, you won't always be able to test your neat hardware designs (or could you? very low level emulation?), but for those who have access to fab plants (I know you're out there), this could be a very fun project.
Also, this further commoditizes the chip market. I think we've all benefited from the feirce competition between Intel and AMD, considering that things like sub-$1000 computers, SIMD instructions in end user chips, and of course dramtatically lower prices on x86 procs wouldn't be here yet if not for this rivalry. Still, to compete with Intel, AMD had to do huge ammounts of internal engineering to duplicate the functionality of Intel's chips. Not so with OpenRISC. Instead of wasting time cloning other developers' features, engineers will simply add their own, speeding up the advance of the design much more. Prices will also be considerably lower due to (duh) lower R&D costs. It like the difference between NT and Solaris competing against each other, versus the Linux distros cooperating for mutual benefit.
One question, though, is the OpenRISC specification going to be released GNU-style (no proprietary extensions allowed, ever) or BSD-style (just give us credit and you can fragment it like a FAT partition with your corporate crap)?
P.S. Don't get me wrong, I love the BSD's and use them daily, but I think the GPL is a much better license.
Just thought I'd share a couple of ideas with you about what I think the ideal features of a PDA are, and what samsung got right (plus a few things they got wrong).
First, a PDA should definately run Linux, or maybe NetBSD. These are pretty much the 2 most scalable OSes out there (at least in the downward direction) that don't sacrifice any of the functionality or compatibility you get on larger systems. Having a unified platform between the desktop and the handheld is important for developers, and neither wince or PalmOS does this.
Plus, Linux is extremely stable, which is very important in the embedded market. Think if you're on a vacation and your PDA fails. "Darn honey, my handheld just crashed. I've lost the road map, our music for the car, the photos we took at the grand canyon, and my notes for my meeting on Monday." Not a good thing.
Secondly, the interface should not be a "desktop-clone". Multiple cascading menus are far too much clutter for a PDA screen. The UI should be simple and intuitive and targeted for handheld applications, not desktop ones. PalmOS does a very good job of this. Wince does not. It's my opinion that PDAs should use some version of X so that development is easy, but none of the current window managers are going to do very well on such a small screen, so a new interface is necessary.
Thirdly, the device should have advanced multimedia and productivity capabilities. It should have things like an MP3 and movie player. It should have a word processor and a spreadsheet. It should definately have a graphical web browser. Wince has these things, PalmOS doesn't. It's my belief that a Linux PDA should have all of these applications, but they should have a much simpler interface than their desktop cousins.
This is soooooo cool. Just think, being able to carry a bunch of ultra-useful linux utilities around in your pocket. Hey, it even has X, if that's your thing.
One problem, though. Where can I get one of these things?
In a suprise announcement today, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos announced that his company has acquired patents to two of their innovative business models: Selling books and using credit cards.
During a press conference, Bezos declared, "We here at Amazon pride ourselves on being an intelligent, innovative group of people. We don't think it's fair that companies like Barnes & Noble and Visa can profit from the hard work we put into developing our business model."
Concurrent with the patent announcement, Amazon.com has opened lawsuits against the aforementioned companies, as well as Borders, Media Play, the locally owned bookstore down your street, MasterCard, and every retailer that uses "stolen credit-card technology" developed by amazon. Amazon is also seeking legal action against all public libraries in the US, citing that "those media pirates (librarians) have been illegally giving out copies of books for years. They have no respect for the rights Amazon has to printing-press technology developed by our own engineer, Gutenberg."
In an effort to further prevent privacy, evilretailempire.com, I mean, Amazon.com, has applied for a patent on the Latin language. An Amazon.com press release stated "We recognized that linguistic technologies derived from our Latin product like English, Spanish, French, and German are very widely used today. We don't wish to make these languages illegal, we simply ask that people pay a very reasonable royalty fee to Amazon.com whenever they speak one of these languages." Exact pricing details were not announced, but it has been leaked that Amazon will charge on a per-word basis.
Two Comments:
1. Let's not forget that you should be able to run the Mac GUI on top of MS-DOS, as in Office Space.
2. OK, so the "virtual reality file manager" hasn't been implemented yet, but you actually can use doom as a Linux process manager.
I think that it would indeed be benificial for Linux if Microsoft were to port their products to the OS. IF they were actually decent peices of software, and you didn't really care about freedom.
The fact is that there are extremely competent replacements for all MS products available for Linux, most of which are free and open source. Netscape is a faster, more stable, and more secure browser than IE. GCC blows VC/VC++ away in terms of efficiency in both compiling and execution (and if you want to talk programming, Perl and Python are two cross-platform open-source tools that Microsoft can't hold a candle to). As for server software, the argument is over, Apache, SAMBA, etc. are the absolute best servers available for any platform. StarOffice is free as in beer, and offers pretty much all features of office, plus more, with the added advantage of full file compatibility with existing data. In fact, while your windows applications may not be protable into Linux, virtually all of your data makes that transition perfectly.
As for GUIs, I don't think that a Microsoft proprietary Linux GUI would be a good thing at all. The fact is that X, especially when extended by GTK and Qt, is a far more robust graphics environment than Win32.
It's obvious that from a technical standpoint, a Microsoft GUI would be inferior. But what about ease of use? Well, if I wanted a super-easy desktop, I wouldn't have MS design it, I'd probably pick Apple (several apple employees are working on a linux desktop in fact). If you're used to windows already, though, you'll find that KDE is by default configured to be very accomodating to you. Of course, when you get a little more comfortable, you can start to use the more advanced features of KDE or GNOME that simply aren't available on any non-UN*X system.
As I said in a previous post, however, a full port of the Win32 APIs along with DirectX, etc. would be useful in that it would make the task of reverse engineering much easier, making WINE an amazing killer app.
There are basically three ways to look at a port of Office for Linux: Technical, Financial, and Political.
;)).
First, Technical. MS has for quite some time ported it's more popular end user applications, like Office, Works, and IE, to MacOS. With the radical redesign of OSX, it would make sense from a technical standpoint to make an OSX-specific port (probably with Carbon, since that would take the least effort). Mac users would be tempted to try alternatives like Appleworks if MS didn't have an office product that didn't use the OS9 emulation mode (I'm not sure if the aqua widgets are used in emulation, anyone know?). Anyway, writing an OSX port would involve doing a lot of UN*X-ish code. This means that after the initial effort of doing an OSX version of Office, it would be a relatively small effort to do versions for other Unices, including Linux.
Next, the financial standpoint. Would it be profitable to do a Linux port? Well, Linux is growing far faster than any other OS on the planet, and already has over 10 million users. Of course, MS knows there are plenty of users out there, but are they potential office customers? Considering the animosity that many Linux users, myself included, have towards the empire, it may be difficult to get people to make the switch from StarOffice, Applixware, or whatever else they're using.
Which brings me to the final veiw, political. I know I'm not alone in saying that I believe wholeheartedly in Open Source. I also believe that partial source licenses, like the "Community Source" license Sun uses, aren't enough, but they're better than nothing. Even so, I will be using StarOffice until the KDE or GNOME office suites become more mature. The political landscape looks like this now: Linux has 2 "free beer" office suites with partially open-source. They are both extremely full-featured and usable, possibly even more so than MS Office. There's one more closed source office on the way (Corel), and 2 GPL'ed ones in the pipe. Functionally, StarOffice and Applixware can both hold their own against Office, and politics shift the balance in favor of former.
In my opinion, the Linux community does not want or need office. What I'd like to see is a port of all the Win32 APIs and DirectX to Linux. This would signal the start of a massive reverse engineering project that would end with WINE outperforming windows on all it's own apps (but don't tell MS
OK, so the 700MHz version is less than a centimeter squared? Sweet (gargling due to drool here). Think about this, the chip is ultra cheap and ultra small, so why not do a Crusoe-based SMP system? C'mon, you know you want a PDA with quad processors. What about a laptop with 16?
If you're reading TM, I encourage you to develop SMP-enabled crusoes. There may be a bigger market for them than you think.
As a fellow Michigan resident, I sympathize with what is happening in Holland, which seems to be one of the most hardcore (forgive the wordplay) conservative towns in this mostly Republican state. I am a liberal socialist myself, and I am very disturbed by what is happening in many Michigan public institutions.
My school district, the Saginaw Public Schools, uses a Bess blocking server (you can find Bess' numerous failings catalouged at Censorware). Not only does the NT-based server have about 20% downtime, it also severely slows our shared T1 down. Ordinary web browsing is often barely usable due to overblocking (I wonder what's obscene about kernel.org?), and a quick look at IE3's history (yes, you read that right, the district doesn't allow "unauthorized" software installations) shows that several URLs including XXX are being frequently accessed by some students. Despite numerous complaints on behalf of staff and students, the service still blocks many educational resources. I, for example, can't use babelfish on my Spanish homework (OK, so I workaround that by going to altavista.co.uk, but that's not exactly something students district-wide have thought of.
Worse yet, my local library, where my mother is employed, is considering installing blocking software. As an unpaid computer maintenance volunteer, I have some say on the machines. I've got Netscape on them, but the network is still 100% NT4-based (I hate buearacracy). Does it matter that erotica and graphic violence are included in the pages of the books prominently displayed on the "New Books" shelf? Apparantly not, as there are rumors of state legislation promoting the use of blocking software in Libraries and Schools pending.
I call on other Michiganders out there (particularly those of you who are of voting age ;)) to write your representatives in Lansing and encourage them to do just the opposite: Ban censorship in public libraries and schools! Viva libertad!
Mmm... Garlic and Herb. 100% daily value of various nutrients. Edible with only one (or possibly zero, with adequate planning) hand. Hey, any food that is that (presumably) tasty, and doesn't take me away from coding sounds good to me.
Hey Scott, GPL the recipe!