Give them something they can use that works well with everything else. Ultimately it looks like Linux is getting there and may even have a chance of becoming a major desktop... I'm not as pessimistic as the article seems to be.
I hear you. I believe you. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop since 1999. And I have to admit, Mac OSX is calling pretty loudly to me. (I type this on a 10 year old iMac running 10.4 - it's wonderful)
Linux is great for servers. That's my bread and butter, and I won't switch to anything else anytime soon - CentOS/RHEL is a dream in this space.
But on my desktop? My 3 year old Dell Inspiron running Fedora Core is about to get the boot - to be replace by a Macbook Pro with OSX, Windows, and Linux all running under VMWare or Parallels!
(Now, if only the arrow keys worked right in a textarea box in Firefox!)
Ok, here's a few that come off the top of my head:
1) Multiple desktops. (I have 6, usually at least 4 with something on them) SOOO NICE when I'm busy working and somebody calls to "check on something" - I can hit Ctl-Tab to a clean desktop, take care of whatever, then Ctl-Tab right back to where I was, with nothing disturbed. W00t!
2) WAAYYYY more customizable.
3) Ability to run GUI programs locally or remotely over SSH. For example, I do web development on a dev server, and frequently have to hit LARGE reports. (50 MB or more) Remotely running the browser over SSH lets me keep a decent download time over a dinky (128Kbps upstream) connection - only the screen changes get propogated. If you buy enough software, you can do this for whole desktops on windows, but not just one program.
4) Use Konqueror to browse SMB, FTP, DAV, etc. right from the browser bar.
5) Archival copy/paste - when I copy/paste text, a history of what I copied is accessable on the task bar with a simple click. So, if I accidentally hit Ctl-C (instead of Ctl-V - right next to each other!) I can "recover" my copy from previous.
I'm sure that "power tools" exist for Windows for many of these tasks. But, since they aren't part of the base design, you know it's going to degrade your system stability, and cause conflicts and other weirds. Plus, you have to hunt them down.
With KDE, it's already in there....
Really, when I sit down in front of a Windows computer and try to get "real work" (tm) done, I feel claustrophobic!
According to everything I've seen, what you just said didn't apply in the case of Vista re-install limitations because the Vista limitation was on significant hardware changes. If your hardware didn't change, then this would not crop up.
What gets me is how easily they could come up with a scheme that would allow unlimited changes, including new motherboards, etc. with a single license, without any problems at all! This is not rocket science - it's computer science! Here's what I have in mind:
1) Assume that we have a function that produces a string that represents a hash of the detected hardware on the machine. This could be represented as a simple MD5 hash of whatever concatonated string of hardware is in the system. For the sake of this discussion, I'll write 'ABC' to indicate this hardware representation string. The important things about this function is that A) it detects the same hardware the same way consistently, and B) any change of the hardware will change this string to something new, with a very low likelyhood of hardware hash key collisions. This could be roughly approximated by running an MD5 hash of "lspci" on a Linux system... (USB devices would have to be ignored)
2) Assume that there's a license key (as you'd see it now) a group of letters and numbers. For the sake of this discussion, I'll write "123" to indicate this license key.
3) You install Vista on your computer, and get updates. Your hardware detection results in a hardware hash key of "ABC", and your license is "123". This information gets sent off to Microsoft as part of their "Genuine-er Advantage". They note this down in a database.
4) You change some hardware - add a new sound card to replace the one onboard, new video card, motherboard, whatever. so now the hardware hash key changes to "DEF". When you do updates, they note this down in a database.
5) It's all good, they don't bother you, nothing. You can change your hardware as much as you like, and it's not a problem.
HERE'S WHERE ANTIPIRACY COMES IN:
6) You lend the license key to a friend. He installs Vista on his computer, which generates a hardware hash key of 'XYZ'. He does updates, and Microsoft notes it down in a database.
7) When you go to update your computer (with the hardware hash of "DEF") then a flag is drawn. An "old" system is getting updates, after a new one did. This is strong evidence of there being TWO computer systems, not just one.
This would work fine until you have a VM. Once you have that, all bets are off, since there is no hardware for real, anyway.
I am sorry for you if you think improvement goes by numbers. Sounds same d***head argument that intel is doing bad since they haven't release any new faster processor in last 2 years (in GHz terms).
And, I'm sorry for you that you are so willing to spout without having any clue of what you speak. You could not possibly say this with a straight face if you had actually USED OSX.
IMHO, OSX didn't really come into its own until about 10.3. The difference between 10.2 and 10.3 is rather startling - the performance increase alone is just amazing. My ancient iMac probably doubled in performance going from 10.2 to 10.3, and there was probably another 20% improvement with 10.4. Not to mention that it's slicker, smoother, and better than ever.
Contrast that with Win XP which was passed by KDE on XWindows some years ago.
I'm going to start with some obvious information to establish why I think there's a real development going on here.
Historically, computing improvement has been achieved by layering the technology, so that each layer operates with a high degree of autonomy from the layer below it. Depending on your perspective, there are anywhere from 6 to dozens of layers within the computer you're using to read this.
This layering, called "abstraction" by most, has minimized the amount of complexity that needs to be managed at any one point, allowing us dumb people to work together and improve the whole by incrementally improving each part.
Even with a single "layer", there may be multiple internal layers. For example, much of the software I write is managed through a file abstraction layer that takes care of the details of converting a memory object to a file on disk. I do something simple like ($obj->FWrite($object)) and all the rest is managed for me.
Now, on to the point. There are major abstractions in use today. EG:
Hardware -> FirmWare -> Operating System -> Application ->
And there's a new, cross-system development now underway. Technologies like SOAP, XML, RPC, AJAX, and similar, related words describe a new layer of abstraction on top of the Application layer.
It's not a well-developed idea yet, and the foundational principles of this idea are now being explored. Yes, there are definitely specific implementations of this, but just like the Operating System developed after decades of exploration in designs, this next abstraction hasn't been well defined and/or commoditized yet. So far, any development in this area really requires a very specific implementation - code reuse is minimal.
IMHO, the best implementation of this new abstraction is probably XML/RPC. But it's honestly not much more than a transfer protocol.
So, yes. There will be a "Web O/S" - though we'll probably not call it such. It's closest cousin is called "Middleware" by IBM.
I'm CTO of a small but growing just-barely-post-startup. (EG: We're profitable, and growing fast)
For me, Oracle is a non-starter. It's big, expensive, and reportedly has a high management overhead. So why would I bother?
So far, I've seen massive growth easily and handily supported by PostgreSQL. It's been rock-solid, very stable, secure, and installation consisted of typing two commands:
yum install postgresql-server; service postgresql start;
We're experimenting with Slony PG clustering, with the intention of rolling that out over Christmas break. (when nobody's looking) Currently, we're snapshotting and mirroring databases hourly, but we want real-time failover...
Your argument is rather retarded, something like "do you still beat your wife?" style stuff. Your questions are something like:
Q1) Given that a legal system improves the lives of those involved, do you try to abide by the law? A1) Oh yes.
Q2) Have you ever driven a car at a speed greater than the posted legal speed limit? A2) Err...
Q3) Have you ever been a passenger in a car driven at a speed greater than the posted legal speed limit? A3) Err...
Q4) Have you ever nibbled on fruit or candy for sale at the local supermarket? A4) Err...
Q5) Have you ever seen a friend or partner nibble on fruit or candy for sale at the local supermarket, and not stopped them? A5) Err...
Q6) Have you ever parked your car in a metered parking spot and not put money in the meter because you would be "just a minute"? A6) Err...
Q7) Have you ever driven a car after drinking without first confirming that your blood alcohol was not above the legal limit? A7) Err...
Q8) Have you ever spit on the sidewalk, or performed any form of defacement of public property? A8) Err...
Q9) Have you ever claimed a deduction as a business expense that wasn't strictly a business expense, in order to reduce your tax bill? A9) Err...
Q10) Do you still insist that you really try to abide by the law? A10) Err... Yes?
Nobody is perfect, and everybody has done SOMETHING wrong, somewhere. What you should be asking are questions indication what people have done right. For example:
Q11) Have you ever purchased a copyrighted work from a store? A11) Yeah!
Q12) Have you ever purchased a copyrighted work from a store, even though the same material could be gotten for free by violating the copyrights? A12) Sure have!
Q13) If given the choice between copyrighted products available for free, and similar copyrighted products available with similar ease for a reasonable fee, would you purchase the copyrighted material? A13) Yes!
Your assessment certainly rings my libertarian inclinations rather loudly!
But I've come to realize something - people ARE stupid. Adding to that is the fact that now it's easily possible to build drugs that addict you with one single dose. And, there are countless such drugs! So there's a VERY TOUGH decision to make: do you allow 60% of your population to die, causing dramatic losses in economy, simply because they are too stupid to not take the killer drug, or do you attempt to control the damage to your population?
You're the guy in charge: what do you do? What do you do if you stand to lose 40% of your population? 20%? 10? 5?
Like most things, there is no right answer, and a black & white view of the world simply is just not sufficient to determine the best course of action. Then, there's the law of unintended consequences.
In the United States, a patient in "critical condition" cannot be refused by a hospital, for any reason. It's a "compassionate" law, and frankly, I can't give a strong argument against that - if I'm in critical condition, I don't want the hospital to put me on hold while I die of a heart attack in the lobby in order to make sure I can pay for the surgery afterward!
But, then, some poor guy gets all strung out on crack, overdoses, and is discovered by a friend, near death. So, the doctors at the hospital do their best to save the guy, and 2 weeks later manage to get him/her back up and out on the street, at tremendous expense. Since he's poor, there's no way he's going to pay the hospital back - now I am paying for this, since my private insurance DOES pay. The hospital raises all their rates in order to cover these losses.
Again, assuming you're the legal genius in charge, what do you do? Do you let hospitals kick out people who are dying if they are too poor? Do you make those who cover their own arses pay for the poor? or do you attempt to reign in the damage the deadbeats can do to themselves by illegalizing the things that cause the most damage to the poor?
In today's highly interconnected society, drug use is NOT a "victimless crime".
Lastly, you seem to say "supply and demand" to every other form of criminal behavior, as though that does it, and that people will inform themselves about the dangers of counterfeiting, and demand behavior to counteract it, if it's a problem.
And in this case, you are completely and totally right! In fact, it's already happened - where do you think the laws came from in the first place? The legal system is and was erected so that decent, hardworking people can get on with life without being victimized by leeches and counterfeitters. No system is perfect - but if you can really come up with something better, I recommend that you enact the social and political changes it would take to enact it.
You might improve the world, but you'll definitely learn something real along the way.
First, the car is not the point - it's only used to illustrate the reason why spelling can be so important in written communications!
Second off, my example is not dissing VW Rabbits - I drove one for years - nearly 20 years ago.
Lastly, my example doesn't indicate that I see cars as "fashion accessories", it indicates that SHE sees cars that way, which is probably accurate in many cases. I don't care much, or I wouldn't be driving a 9 year-old Saturn with > 150,000 miles on it when I can easily afford something nicer.
My interest is a little peaked, but they made no mention of details.
"Peaked", as best fits this sentence, means "having reached its climax; waning". As in, "Her interest in me peaked after I walked to my 1983 VW Diesel Rabbit".
Perhaps what you meant was "piqued"? The meaning here would be "provoked or aroused".
It's not just that spelling makes you look stupid in written communications - in cases such as this, it can actually cause your message to be strongly mis-interpreted!
I'm getting just sick and tired of hearing about "Web 2.0" as if there were *any* advance or defining characteristic thereto. So far, all I've seen of "Web 2.0" is some incremental advances in the quality and utility of websites using javascript. Neat and fast, but also easily done using "1.0" technologies such as flash or java.
So, it's somewhat faster - wow! This is going to change the world!!!??!?
This is a slew of buzzwords looking for meaning. Asking about Web 2.0 is like asking about god - ask 10 different people, and you'll get 10 different answers!
1998 called - and they want their meaningless hype back. Call me when there's some substance!
This is a CEO talking. He is incapable of really talking techie - so it should be no surprise that his answers sound very "fluffy". He is, after all, the CEO, charged with the task of maximizing the public image of his company.
He all but refuses to give advice where he's uniquely qualified to do so. (you have to really read between the lines to see that he does, in fact, answer the question, but in a VERY indirect way) He doesn't really comment much on any tech questions other than to paint pictures of daisies all over the question.
So, he's probably a good CEO - but these answers won't mean much to the tech types that/. is going to attract.
There's this thing called a pinhole camera, it's a relatively new advance.
And, folks, here's a case indicating the limits of moderation by the unwashed masses. A pinhole camera is the very oldest type of camera. Having no lens, it can be made with a box and (gasp!) a nail. It is known to have been known about by the Chinese somewhere in the 5th century B.C, and Aristotle in 4th century B.C. Oh, how a small bit of research in widely available knowledge could have saved the parent poster from looking like a dolt!
But this worthless (and incorrect) piece of wisdom gets moderated up by the clueless who don't take the time to understand what the !@# they're reading.
Just when I start to get hope for mankind, I see something like this...
Quit being so smug about your 1337 sk1llz and acknowledge that you, like many other dotcom bandwagoners, were just lucky enough to leverage the right skills at the right time and avoid being subsequently drowned by the millions of others trying (poorly) to pull the same stunt.
Most of the money I've made has been made SINCE the "dot com crash". In fact, I didn't really get serious until about 2001.
I've known many people who had exactly the start you describe with almost exactly the team you describe and most of the same attitude, and some of them got rich, while most of them sputtered along the margins of bankruptcy for years before declaring failure. There was no measure of integrity or skill that separated the rich from the poor at the end of that race; a few of them just plain got lucky, generally for reasons that could not understand until much later.
Success in a marketplace requires a few essentials:
1) A product that meets a need, with some kind of compelling advantage over competitors,
2) A market, and a marketing team to "get the word out" about the product,
3) Business infrastructure to support delivery of the product. This could be a rack of servers for a web-based business, or a pickup truck for a handyman. What does it take to deliver #1?
4) Clerical infrastructure (lawyers, accountants) to provide the legal and financial support of the business. Taxes must be paid, capital must be managed instead of blown. Inventory needs to be kept, and losses accounted for. Contracts must be legal and well written, where applicable.
Given these business rudiments, just about anybody can succeed. This applies to just about any size or scope of business, from a simple handyman in a pickup, to an enterprise software company. (I've done both) Sorry that your friends didn't realize this - and to be truthful, though they look very simple above, I could easily put together a 3 month seminar covering the above points in detail.
So let some of that hot air out of your head. The single example of your posh lifestyle does not constitute proof that laws of commerce that have stood for thousands of years are suddenly invalid.
It's not "hot air", it's simple, pure experience. And, I wouldn't call my lifestyle "posh" - just comforable. I can't quite yet afford that private plane I'm pining for (a Mooney, thank you!) - though I may soon be able to. I've run quite a number of businesses, in a number of marketplaces, both local and nationwide, ranging from poor to well off. To be honest, more than half have failed. Which doesn't detract from the fact that I've always supported myself and my family - whether I was doing VCR repair, buying and selling used goods, painting fences and mowing yards, hawking computers, consulting for an aircraft brokerage, or writing PHP software.
The computer industry was making billionaires 20 years before fast CPUs and Apache made PHP seem like anything other than the ridiculous shoehorned Perl bastardization that it is.) This is slashdot; we remember these things.
Those billionaires followed the same rules of business I laid out above. If they didn't follow them, they wouldn't have become billionaires. You and your friends might do well to pay heed. It's really not that difficult, though it's always scary during that shaky period before your new business passes the profit line... especially before the first big sale.
I write PHP code for a (very good) living, and have been doing so since PHP 3, around 1999. My wife and 5 children enjoy the 3,000 sq foot home, swimming pool, speedboat, and the 5 vehicles that writing PHP code has provided for us. My first mortgage payment was made just shy of 10 years ago... and the PHP code I write is production grade the moment I write it in many cases.
Oh, and I was burned by "non-production" grade code long ago, a la SQL injection. So, I've walked a few miles in my day, and learned a few hard lessons. I use structured code that prevents most common mistakes. EG: prepared statements for the database, standardized filters on input, using security wrappers to prevent many accidental security breaches, etc. The worst is using "Open Source" code out there - much of it is just horrible and usually fails one of my security audits. For example, SPAW is just awful. I even patched a few BIG security holes, and submitted them several times to the maintainer. As of the last time I checked, they still had not been applied.
So when do you plan on making your first mortgage payment?
The problem of speed derives from that: we haven't yet found a way to measure such allocations: you can't store attention in a warehouse. You need to continually attract the attention of Joe Consumer, who is distracted - sometimes frustrated - by the overwhelming abundance of similar companies vying for his attention, and therewith, his cash.
It's my belief that wikipedia and the like represent the very beginnings of a new type of economy - the much-vaulted but never-quite-explained economy of plenty, rather than scarcity. We still have an economy of scarcity - we still scratch and claw for stuff, just more of it. (Yes, I want my 3,000 sq foot home, my 4 vehicles, my speedboat, AND my private airplane, dang nabbit!)
But we really long ago passed the threshold of "comfortable" in the developed world - what's really needed is a fundamentally new way of looking at resource allocation. And no, I'm not talking about socialism. But the meaning of "wealth" is about to take a serious makeover.
Maybe if there was the reverse of a class action lawsuit where I could sue all 50001 companies at once.
Anybody can name any number of respondents in a trial. You don't even need to specify them at the time of file - just specify them as "John Does", so that you can specify them later as you get more information. Get a lawyer, and get started!
WARNING: This post sounds remarkably like something written in about 1998. It's still true.
The "digital marketplace" is fundamentally different than the standard "meatspace" environment. In cyberspace, product carries no mass. In many cases, intellectual property is "production grade" the moment it's written. EG: PHP code. There's no duplication cost, virtually non-existent distribution cost, and the result can be seen/used by millions overnight, if you have some servers to handle it.
Note: the servers to handle "millions" can be surprisingly cheap, and getting cheaper every day
So, while it takes an auto company years, and eleventy billion dollars to come out with a new line of cars, it takes maybe 2-5 guys consisting of a decent programmer, a few salespeople, and a book-keeper armed with a few thousand bux to develop a product usable by millions, even if they are working day jobs to pay rent.
So this means that the boom/bust cycle can happen in 2-3 years rather than 2-3 decades.
Re:Why home schooling is booming
on
School Bans 'Tag'
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· Score: 2, Informative
Does this charter school teach real science or 'intelligent design'? Does it teach things the parents would rather not discuss with their children, like sex ed?
Charter schools receive state funds, and so must teach to state standards in education. You can teach the material by any of various means, but it still has to be taught. Follow the money....
The only problem with both home schooling and charter schools is that parents, like everybody else, has their biases and they pass them on to their kids.
But, that happens anyway. You think 1 hour of class, 1 time per day, for 175 days is going to change the bias of 18 years of parental supervision? How many US adults who are graduates of the public education system still believe that womankind started a few thousand years ago when a guy in a white robe pulled out a rib? Heck, how many even believe that men have 1 less rib than women as a result? Ask around - you might be surprised.
We got away from home schooling years ago because it was better to teach if you knew what you were teaching. Not all parents really know their material, nor do all parents teach things that are.. questionable.
We got away from home schooling because of rampant illiteracy. It's a common, well-known statistic that children of college graduates are overwhelmingly more likely to be literate, do well in school, and go to college. So, what has really changed? So long as the option is open to all, and the state provides a good failsafe, then the only way to go is up. Or have you seen the statistics for public education in the USA against other "developed" countries? We're busy blowing it on education.
Such as the age of the universe, the bible is literal truth and intelligent design, blacks are a lesser race or any of hundreds of other biases.
See above. Charter schools are state funded, and must teach to state standards.
I'm not for public education quitting. I'm for parents actually involving themselves in school districts directly and the school districts paying attention.
Then we agree, even though it sounds like we're arguing. The charter schools are exactly a form of what you're talking about, since the school districts et al have generally been glacially slow in responding to the changing workplace. Charter schools are legal school districts, managed by the state, and overseen by state auditors. (At least in California)
The District, (I am an employee) is really hurting finacially because of "declining enrollment", especially chilling in light of the population growth of this city.
So encourage the district to compete! Put more attention into Oakdale and/or similar programs, and work on "child-led" and/or "individualized" learning options.
Competition has come - things will never be like they used to be, and it's not a bad thing!Charter schools and similar programs are busy decimating districts used to a monopoly marketplace - but there are key advantages that a district has over charters. For example, charter schools don't do well at sports programs. EG: Football/Basketball.
Oakdale should be a shining example of a program that's directly competetive with charters. But, from where I stand, it seems to be treated something like a necessary evil. For example, the teachers there have to share the use of computers that were ancient years ago - despite the immense time this wastes. A mere $400 per teacher would dramatically improve their lives - but they don't get it. If you can get an "in" with the powers that be, I can provide you with many resources to help you/them out.
Reply to this if you want to contact me in a more personal forum.
Why home schooling is booming
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School Bans 'Tag'
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Home schooling and other alternative education programs (EG: charter schools, distance education, etc) are growing at exponential rates, approaching 50% per year in many areas.
With absurdities like this, is it any wonder why?
Take a look at the new Los Angeles Unified Director - he wants to "crack down" on children, make them all wear "regulation uniforms", adopt a "zero tolerance" set of rules, etc. None of which encourage anything like creativity, individuality, or happiness. And so the march of students into alternative programs grows ever stronger every year.
In my own home town of Chico, CA, there's a newspaper piece a few times per year, something like "Where are all the kids?". The census demographics indicate that Chico has a young population, inclined to produce lots of children. So for years, they've braced for this tidal wave of kids, that never came. Enrollments are lower than ever, and they're dealing with some fairly serious budget shortfalls.
So, they closed down the most remote school - a small school with like 50-60 kids - with the idea of bussing the children to a larger school closer in to save operating costs. Guess what happened? The parents of the school that closed down got a charter and opened up their own alternative education program in the same building as the old school. And *that* school now has almost 100 students! Closing the school actually *cost* the district money since now they no longer get the funding from either the kids they already had, nor the additional kids now enrolled in the new educational program!
It's choice in action - I wonder how long it will be until they get a clue and start competing?
Slashdot Mirror
... it looks like Mac OSX is the winner!
Give them something they can use that works well with everything else. Ultimately it looks like Linux is getting there and may even have a chance of becoming a major desktop... I'm not as pessimistic as the article seems to be.
I hear you. I believe you. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop since 1999. And I have to admit, Mac OSX is calling pretty loudly to me. (I type this on a 10 year old iMac running 10.4 - it's wonderful)
Linux is great for servers. That's my bread and butter, and I won't switch to anything else anytime soon - CentOS/RHEL is a dream in this space.
But on my desktop? My 3 year old Dell Inspiron running Fedora Core is about to get the boot - to be replace by a Macbook Pro with OSX, Windows, and Linux all running under VMWare or Parallels!
(Now, if only the arrow keys worked right in a textarea box in Firefox!)
Until somebody makes a keygen that comes up with "your" key, or somebody just steals your key outright (not impossible in a dorm setting.)
Which might be a good way to identify
A) The keygen.
B) The dorm security leak.
Ok, here's a few that come off the top of my head:
1) Multiple desktops. (I have 6, usually at least 4 with something on them) SOOO NICE when I'm busy working and somebody calls to "check on something" - I can hit Ctl-Tab to a clean desktop, take care of whatever, then Ctl-Tab right back to where I was, with nothing disturbed. W00t!
2) WAAYYYY more customizable.
3) Ability to run GUI programs locally or remotely over SSH. For example, I do web development on a dev server, and frequently have to hit LARGE reports. (50 MB or more) Remotely running the browser over SSH lets me keep a decent download time over a dinky (128Kbps upstream) connection - only the screen changes get propogated. If you buy enough software, you can do this for whole desktops on windows, but not just one program.
4) Use Konqueror to browse SMB, FTP, DAV, etc. right from the browser bar.
5) Archival copy/paste - when I copy/paste text, a history of what I copied is accessable on the task bar with a simple click. So, if I accidentally hit Ctl-C (instead of Ctl-V - right next to each other!) I can "recover" my copy from previous.
I'm sure that "power tools" exist for Windows for many of these tasks. But, since they aren't part of the base design, you know it's going to degrade your system stability, and cause conflicts and other weirds. Plus, you have to hunt them down.
With KDE, it's already in there....
Really, when I sit down in front of a Windows computer and try to get "real work" (tm) done, I feel claustrophobic!
According to everything I've seen, what you just said didn't apply in the case of Vista re-install limitations because the Vista limitation was on significant hardware changes. If your hardware didn't change, then this would not crop up.
What gets me is how easily they could come up with a scheme that would allow unlimited changes, including new motherboards, etc. with a single license, without any problems at all! This is not rocket science - it's computer science! Here's what I have in mind:
1) Assume that we have a function that produces a string that represents a hash of the detected hardware on the machine. This could be represented as a simple MD5 hash of whatever concatonated string of hardware is in the system. For the sake of this discussion, I'll write 'ABC' to indicate this hardware representation string. The important things about this function is that A) it detects the same hardware the same way consistently, and B) any change of the hardware will change this string to something new, with a very low likelyhood of hardware hash key collisions. This could be roughly approximated by running an MD5 hash of "lspci" on a Linux system... (USB devices would have to be ignored)
2) Assume that there's a license key (as you'd see it now) a group of letters and numbers. For the sake of this discussion, I'll write "123" to indicate this license key.
3) You install Vista on your computer, and get updates. Your hardware detection results in a hardware hash key of "ABC", and your license is "123". This information gets sent off to Microsoft as part of their "Genuine-er Advantage". They note this down in a database.
4) You change some hardware - add a new sound card to replace the one onboard, new video card, motherboard, whatever. so now the hardware hash key changes to "DEF". When you do updates, they note this down in a database.
5) It's all good, they don't bother you, nothing. You can change your hardware as much as you like, and it's not a problem.
HERE'S WHERE ANTIPIRACY COMES IN:
6) You lend the license key to a friend. He installs Vista on his computer, which generates a hardware hash key of 'XYZ'. He does updates, and Microsoft notes it down in a database.
7) When you go to update your computer (with the hardware hash of "DEF") then a flag is drawn. An "old" system is getting updates, after a new one did. This is strong evidence of there being TWO computer systems, not just one.
This would work fine until you have a VM. Once you have that, all bets are off, since there is no hardware for real, anyway.
I am sorry for you if you think improvement goes by numbers. Sounds same d***head argument that intel is doing bad since they haven't release any new faster processor in last 2 years (in GHz terms).
And, I'm sorry for you that you are so willing to spout without having any clue of what you speak. You could not possibly say this with a straight face if you had actually USED OSX.
IMHO, OSX didn't really come into its own until about 10.3. The difference between 10.2 and 10.3 is rather startling - the performance increase alone is just amazing. My ancient iMac probably doubled in performance going from 10.2 to 10.3, and there was probably another 20% improvement with 10.4. Not to mention that it's slicker, smoother, and better than ever.
Contrast that with Win XP which was passed by KDE on XWindows some years ago.
I'm going to start with some obvious information to establish why I think there's a real development going on here.
Historically, computing improvement has been achieved by layering the technology, so that each layer operates with a high degree of autonomy from the layer below it. Depending on your perspective, there are anywhere from 6 to dozens of layers within the computer you're using to read this.
This layering, called "abstraction" by most, has minimized the amount of complexity that needs to be managed at any one point, allowing us dumb people to work together and improve the whole by incrementally improving each part.
Even with a single "layer", there may be multiple internal layers. For example, much of the software I write is managed through a file abstraction layer that takes care of the details of converting a memory object to a file on disk. I do something simple like ($obj->FWrite($object)) and all the rest is managed for me.
Now, on to the point. There are major abstractions in use today. EG:
Hardware ->
FirmWare ->
Operating System ->
Application ->
And there's a new, cross-system development now underway. Technologies like SOAP, XML, RPC, AJAX, and similar, related words describe a new layer of abstraction on top of the Application layer.
It's not a well-developed idea yet, and the foundational principles of this idea are now being explored. Yes, there are definitely specific implementations of this, but just like the Operating System developed after decades of exploration in designs, this next abstraction hasn't been well defined and/or commoditized yet. So far, any development in this area really requires a very specific implementation - code reuse is minimal.
IMHO, the best implementation of this new abstraction is probably XML/RPC. But it's honestly not much more than a transfer protocol.
So, yes. There will be a "Web O/S" - though we'll probably not call it such. It's closest cousin is called "Middleware" by IBM.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and reality.
In reality, there is.
I'm CTO of a small but growing just-barely-post-startup. (EG: We're profitable, and growing fast)
For me, Oracle is a non-starter. It's big, expensive, and reportedly has a high management overhead. So why would I bother?
So far, I've seen massive growth easily and handily supported by PostgreSQL. It's been rock-solid, very stable, secure, and installation consisted of typing two commands:
yum install postgresql-server;
service postgresql start;
We're experimenting with Slony PG clustering, with the intention of rolling that out over Christmas break. (when nobody's looking) Currently, we're snapshotting and mirroring databases hourly, but we want real-time failover...
Your argument is rather retarded, something like "do you still beat your wife?" style stuff. Your questions are something like:
Q1) Given that a legal system improves the lives of those involved, do you try to abide by the law?
A1) Oh yes.
Q2) Have you ever driven a car at a speed greater than the posted legal speed limit?
A2) Err...
Q3) Have you ever been a passenger in a car driven at a speed greater than the posted legal speed limit?
A3) Err...
Q4) Have you ever nibbled on fruit or candy for sale at the local supermarket?
A4) Err...
Q5) Have you ever seen a friend or partner nibble on fruit or candy for sale at the local supermarket, and not stopped them?
A5) Err...
Q6) Have you ever parked your car in a metered parking spot and not put money in the meter because you would be "just a minute"?
A6) Err...
Q7) Have you ever driven a car after drinking without first confirming that your blood alcohol was not above the legal limit?
A7) Err...
Q8) Have you ever spit on the sidewalk, or performed any form of defacement of public property?
A8) Err...
Q9) Have you ever claimed a deduction as a business expense that wasn't strictly a business expense, in order to reduce your tax bill?
A9) Err...
Q10) Do you still insist that you really try to abide by the law?
A10) Err... Yes?
Nobody is perfect, and everybody has done SOMETHING wrong, somewhere. What you should be asking are questions indication what people have done right. For example:
Q11) Have you ever purchased a copyrighted work from a store?
A11) Yeah!
Q12) Have you ever purchased a copyrighted work from a store, even though the same material could be gotten for free by violating the copyrights?
A12) Sure have!
Q13) If given the choice between copyrighted products available for free, and similar copyrighted products available with similar ease for a reasonable fee, would you purchase the copyrighted material?
A13) Yes!
First Post! Oh, wait... Damn!
Your assessment certainly rings my libertarian inclinations rather loudly!
But I've come to realize something - people ARE stupid. Adding to that is the fact that now it's easily possible to build drugs that addict you with one single dose. And, there are countless such drugs! So there's a VERY TOUGH decision to make: do you allow 60% of your population to die, causing dramatic losses in economy, simply because they are too stupid to not take the killer drug, or do you attempt to control the damage to your population?
You're the guy in charge: what do you do? What do you do if you stand to lose 40% of your population? 20%? 10? 5?
Like most things, there is no right answer, and a black & white view of the world simply is just not sufficient to determine the best course of action. Then, there's the law of unintended consequences.
In the United States, a patient in "critical condition" cannot be refused by a hospital, for any reason. It's a "compassionate" law, and frankly, I can't give a strong argument against that - if I'm in critical condition, I don't want the hospital to put me on hold while I die of a heart attack in the lobby in order to make sure I can pay for the surgery afterward!
But, then, some poor guy gets all strung out on crack, overdoses, and is discovered by a friend, near death. So, the doctors at the hospital do their best to save the guy, and 2 weeks later manage to get him/her back up and out on the street, at tremendous expense. Since he's poor, there's no way he's going to pay the hospital back - now I am paying for this, since my private insurance DOES pay. The hospital raises all their rates in order to cover these losses.
Again, assuming you're the legal genius in charge, what do you do? Do you let hospitals kick out people who are dying if they are too poor? Do you make those who cover their own arses pay for the poor? or do you attempt to reign in the damage the deadbeats can do to themselves by illegalizing the things that cause the most damage to the poor?
In today's highly interconnected society, drug use is NOT a "victimless crime".
Lastly, you seem to say "supply and demand" to every other form of criminal behavior, as though that does it, and that people will inform themselves about the dangers of counterfeiting, and demand behavior to counteract it, if it's a problem.
And in this case, you are completely and totally right! In fact, it's already happened - where do you think the laws came from in the first place? The legal system is and was erected so that decent, hardworking people can get on with life without being victimized by leeches and counterfeitters. No system is perfect - but if you can really come up with something better, I recommend that you enact the social and political changes it would take to enact it.
You might improve the world, but you'll definitely learn something real along the way.
First, the car is not the point - it's only used to illustrate the reason why spelling can be so important in written communications!
Second off, my example is not dissing VW Rabbits - I drove one for years - nearly 20 years ago.
Lastly, my example doesn't indicate that I see cars as "fashion accessories", it indicates that SHE sees cars that way, which is probably accurate in many cases. I don't care much, or I wouldn't be driving a 9 year-old Saturn with > 150,000 miles on it when I can easily afford something nicer.
Lighten up, man!
My interest is a little peaked, but they made no mention of details.
"Peaked", as best fits this sentence, means "having reached its climax; waning". As in, "Her interest in me peaked after I walked to my 1983 VW Diesel Rabbit".
Perhaps what you meant was "piqued"? The meaning here would be "provoked or aroused".
It's not just that spelling makes you look stupid in written communications - in cases such as this, it can actually cause your message to be strongly mis-interpreted!
Boy, I hear your music.
I'm getting just sick and tired of hearing about "Web 2.0" as if there were *any* advance or defining characteristic thereto. So far, all I've seen of "Web 2.0" is some incremental advances in the quality and utility of websites using javascript. Neat and fast, but also easily done using "1.0" technologies such as flash or java.
So, it's somewhat faster - wow! This is going to change the world!!!??!?
This is a slew of buzzwords looking for meaning. Asking about Web 2.0 is like asking about god - ask 10 different people, and you'll get 10 different answers!
1998 called - and they want their meaningless hype back. Call me when there's some substance!
This is a CEO talking. He is incapable of really talking techie - so it should be no surprise that his answers sound very "fluffy". He is, after all, the CEO, charged with the task of maximizing the public image of his company.
/. is going to attract.
He all but refuses to give advice where he's uniquely qualified to do so. (you have to really read between the lines to see that he does, in fact, answer the question, but in a VERY indirect way) He doesn't really comment much on any tech questions other than to paint pictures of daisies all over the question.
So, he's probably a good CEO - but these answers won't mean much to the tech types that
There's this thing called a pinhole camera, it's a relatively new advance.
And, folks, here's a case indicating the limits of moderation by the unwashed masses. A pinhole camera is the very oldest type of camera. Having no lens, it can be made with a box and (gasp!) a nail. It is known to have been known about by the Chinese somewhere in the 5th century B.C, and Aristotle in 4th century B.C. Oh, how a small bit of research in widely available knowledge could have saved the parent poster from looking like a dolt!
But this worthless (and incorrect) piece of wisdom gets moderated up by the clueless who don't take the time to understand what the !@# they're reading.
Just when I start to get hope for mankind, I see something like this...
How would you like me to contact you?
I'd indicated that if you wanted me to contact you, to reply, but your profile doesn't display any public information.
Quit being so smug about your 1337 sk1llz and acknowledge that you, like many other dotcom bandwagoners, were just lucky enough to leverage the right skills at the right time and avoid being subsequently drowned by the millions of others trying (poorly) to pull the same stunt.
Most of the money I've made has been made SINCE the "dot com crash". In fact, I didn't really get serious until about 2001.
I've known many people who had exactly the start you describe with almost exactly the team you describe and most of the same attitude, and some of them got rich, while most of them sputtered along the margins of bankruptcy for years before declaring failure. There was no measure of integrity or skill that separated the rich from the poor at the end of that race; a few of them just plain got lucky, generally for reasons that could not understand until much later.
Success in a marketplace requires a few essentials:
1) A product that meets a need, with some kind of compelling advantage over competitors,
2) A market, and a marketing team to "get the word out" about the product,
3) Business infrastructure to support delivery of the product. This could be a rack of servers for a web-based business, or a pickup truck for a handyman. What does it take to deliver #1?
4) Clerical infrastructure (lawyers, accountants) to provide the legal and financial support of the business. Taxes must be paid, capital must be managed instead of blown. Inventory needs to be kept, and losses accounted for. Contracts must be legal and well written, where applicable.
Given these business rudiments, just about anybody can succeed. This applies to just about any size or scope of business, from a simple handyman in a pickup, to an enterprise software company. (I've done both) Sorry that your friends didn't realize this - and to be truthful, though they look very simple above, I could easily put together a 3 month seminar covering the above points in detail.
So let some of that hot air out of your head. The single example of your posh lifestyle does not constitute proof that laws of commerce that have stood for thousands of years are suddenly invalid.
It's not "hot air", it's simple, pure experience. And, I wouldn't call my lifestyle "posh" - just comforable. I can't quite yet afford that private plane I'm pining for (a Mooney, thank you!) - though I may soon be able to. I've run quite a number of businesses, in a number of marketplaces, both local and nationwide, ranging from poor to well off. To be honest, more than half have failed. Which doesn't detract from the fact that I've always supported myself and my family - whether I was doing VCR repair, buying and selling used goods, painting fences and mowing yards, hawking computers, consulting for an aircraft brokerage, or writing PHP software.
The computer industry was making billionaires 20 years before fast CPUs and Apache made PHP seem like anything other than the ridiculous shoehorned Perl bastardization that it is.) This is slashdot; we remember these things.
Those billionaires followed the same rules of business I laid out above. If they didn't follow them, they wouldn't have become billionaires. You and your friends might do well to pay heed. It's really not that difficult, though it's always scary during that shaky period before your new business passes the profit line... especially before the first big sale.
Huh?
I write PHP code for a (very good) living, and have been doing so since PHP 3, around 1999. My wife and 5 children enjoy the 3,000 sq foot home, swimming pool, speedboat, and the 5 vehicles that writing PHP code has provided for us. My first mortgage payment was made just shy of 10 years ago... and the PHP code I write is production grade the moment I write it in many cases.
Oh, and I was burned by "non-production" grade code long ago, a la SQL injection. So, I've walked a few miles in my day, and learned a few hard lessons. I use structured code that prevents most common mistakes. EG: prepared statements for the database, standardized filters on input, using security wrappers to prevent many accidental security breaches, etc. The worst is using "Open Source" code out there - much of it is just horrible and usually fails one of my security audits. For example, SPAW is just awful. I even patched a few BIG security holes, and submitted them several times to the maintainer. As of the last time I checked, they still had not been applied.
So when do you plan on making your first mortgage payment?
The problem of speed derives from that: we haven't yet found a way to measure such allocations: you can't store attention in a warehouse. You need to continually attract the attention of Joe Consumer, who is distracted - sometimes frustrated - by the overwhelming abundance of similar companies vying for his attention, and therewith, his cash.
It's my belief that wikipedia and the like represent the very beginnings of a new type of economy - the much-vaulted but never-quite-explained economy of plenty, rather than scarcity. We still have an economy of scarcity - we still scratch and claw for stuff, just more of it. (Yes, I want my 3,000 sq foot home, my 4 vehicles, my speedboat, AND my private airplane, dang nabbit!)
But we really long ago passed the threshold of "comfortable" in the developed world - what's really needed is a fundamentally new way of looking at resource allocation. And no, I'm not talking about socialism. But the meaning of "wealth" is about to take a serious makeover.
Maybe if there was the reverse of a class action lawsuit where I could sue all 50001 companies at once.
Anybody can name any number of respondents in a trial. You don't even need to specify them at the time of file - just specify them as "John Does", so that you can specify them later as you get more information. Get a lawyer, and get started!
WARNING: This post sounds remarkably like something written in about 1998. It's still true.
The "digital marketplace" is fundamentally different than the standard "meatspace" environment. In cyberspace, product carries no mass. In many cases, intellectual property is "production grade" the moment it's written. EG: PHP code. There's no duplication cost, virtually non-existent distribution cost, and the result can be seen/used by millions overnight, if you have some servers to handle it.
Note: the servers to handle "millions" can be surprisingly cheap, and getting cheaper every day
So, while it takes an auto company years, and eleventy billion dollars to come out with a new line of cars, it takes maybe 2-5 guys consisting of a decent programmer, a few salespeople, and a book-keeper armed with a few thousand bux to develop a product usable by millions, even if they are working day jobs to pay rent.
So this means that the boom/bust cycle can happen in 2-3 years rather than 2-3 decades.
Get used to it - it's only going to accelerate from here. Ever heard of the technology singularity?
It's coming.
Does this charter school teach real science or 'intelligent design'? Does it teach things the parents would rather not discuss with their children, like sex ed?
Charter schools receive state funds, and so must teach to state standards in education. You can teach the material by any of various means, but it still has to be taught. Follow the money....
The only problem with both home schooling and charter schools is that parents, like everybody else, has their biases and they pass them on to their kids.
But, that happens anyway. You think 1 hour of class, 1 time per day, for 175 days is going to change the bias of 18 years of parental supervision? How many US adults who are graduates of the public education system still believe that womankind started a few thousand years ago when a guy in a white robe pulled out a rib? Heck, how many even believe that men have 1 less rib than women as a result? Ask around - you might be surprised.
We got away from home schooling years ago because it was better to teach if you knew what you were teaching. Not all parents really know their material, nor do all parents teach things that are.. questionable.
We got away from home schooling because of rampant illiteracy. It's a common, well-known statistic that children of college graduates are overwhelmingly more likely to be literate, do well in school, and go to college. So, what has really changed? So long as the option is open to all, and the state provides a good failsafe, then the only way to go is up. Or have you seen the statistics for public education in the USA against other "developed" countries? We're busy blowing it on education.
Such as the age of the universe, the bible is literal truth and intelligent design, blacks are a lesser race or any of hundreds of other biases.
See above. Charter schools are state funded, and must teach to state standards.
I'm not for public education quitting. I'm for parents actually involving themselves in school districts directly and the school districts paying attention.
Then we agree, even though it sounds like we're arguing. The charter schools are exactly a form of what you're talking about, since the school districts et al have generally been glacially slow in responding to the changing workplace. Charter schools are legal school districts, managed by the state, and overseen by state auditors. (At least in California)
The District, (I am an employee) is really hurting finacially because of "declining enrollment", especially chilling in light of the population growth of this city.
So encourage the district to compete! Put more attention into Oakdale and/or similar programs, and work on "child-led" and/or "individualized" learning options.
Competition has come - things will never be like they used to be, and it's not a bad thing!Charter schools and similar programs are busy decimating districts used to a monopoly marketplace - but there are key advantages that a district has over charters. For example, charter schools don't do well at sports programs. EG: Football/Basketball.
Oakdale should be a shining example of a program that's directly competetive with charters. But, from where I stand, it seems to be treated something like a necessary evil. For example, the teachers there have to share the use of computers that were ancient years ago - despite the immense time this wastes. A mere $400 per teacher would dramatically improve their lives - but they don't get it. If you can get an "in" with the powers that be, I can provide you with many resources to help you/them out.
Reply to this if you want to contact me in a more personal forum.
Home schooling and other alternative education programs (EG: charter schools, distance education, etc) are growing at exponential rates, approaching 50% per year in many areas.
With absurdities like this, is it any wonder why?
Take a look at the new Los Angeles Unified Director - he wants to "crack down" on children, make them all wear "regulation uniforms", adopt a "zero tolerance" set of rules, etc. None of which encourage anything like creativity, individuality, or happiness. And so the march of students into alternative programs grows ever stronger every year.
In my own home town of Chico, CA, there's a newspaper piece a few times per year, something like "Where are all the kids?". The census demographics indicate that Chico has a young population, inclined to produce lots of children. So for years, they've braced for this tidal wave of kids, that never came. Enrollments are lower than ever, and they're dealing with some fairly serious budget shortfalls.
So, they closed down the most remote school - a small school with like 50-60 kids - with the idea of bussing the children to a larger school closer in to save operating costs. Guess what happened? The parents of the school that closed down got a charter and opened up their own alternative education program in the same building as the old school. And *that* school now has almost 100 students! Closing the school actually *cost* the district money since now they no longer get the funding from either the kids they already had, nor the additional kids now enrolled in the new educational program!
It's choice in action - I wonder how long it will be until they get a clue and start competing?