The point is, there is no reason that Linux and musicains shouldn't mix.
Soo... you use RCA plugs on your equipment, right? Does that make you an "RCA Plug Musician"? Or, are you perhaps a "Cakewalk Musician"? "Windows Musician"? "Sound Blaster Live 128 Musician"?
Doesn't it start sounding kind of... weak... after a while?
I'm a penguin fan and all, but there are some things that should not be mixed. Like....
Water and oil.
Acids and Alkali
Nucular [sic] weapons and George Bush.
Linux and Musicians!
Music is not about the tool, particularly tools that aren't themselves musical. I mean, you *could* say: "ViolinMusician" but "LinuxMusician" comes across to me like "GasEngineMusician" or "Cassette Tape Musician".
Just dumb. Sorry. (It's late, Saturday, and I've had a few drinks. So sue me, or as Apple Computer would say, sosumi!)
On one hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, once worked with one other architecture, and has gone nowhere else.
On the other hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, and now works on everything from calculators and old gaming consoles to some of the largest supercomputing clusters in the world.
Anybody who says that Linux isn't inherently more robust and flexible at the critical core areas is living their life under a rock.
I just don't get Flash. The only good thing about it is all the flash ads that I don't have to see<snip>
We're just starting to experiment with flash-based training for our software, and so far, we're incredibly pleased.
Of course, we aren't using anything from Macromedia, we're instead using Qarbon which allows you to turn a screen-shot into a flash animation with reasonable bandwidth requirements and amazing pizazz...
We posted a "Viewlet" to our website, and got a sale that paid for it within just a few days! We bought the software, and had our first sample video in 20 minutes, including install time.
Incredible.
And, the reviews we're getting from trainees is just wonderfully positive.
I encourage you to try the link above; you'll be amazed.
Oh, and I'm not affiliated in any way with Qarbon...
The way I feel about it is this: I can sit in a cubicle doing what is essentially rearranging random ones and zeros into non-random order to create something of value (although most of my time is actually spent doing documentation, reports, supervision, meetings etc). OR I can take a bunch of raw pieces of wood and create something that is not only beautiful, but allows a musician to create even more beauty and music.
You aren't seeing the whole picture.
As an independent consultant, I get to see the people whose lives I make easier. I get to hear about the hours of time saved because I automated a previously manual task.
And these aren't just "people", they're teachers. They're good people, and I am freinds with quite a few of them.
I work at home, or at my office, or wherever I like (since it's mostly web-based stuff I'm doing anyway)
SSL is not the one stop security shop people think it is.
Sure, it's not. Neither are locks on doors on houses.
To secure your house, you must: 1) Lock the door. 2) Lock the windows. 3) Notify your neighbors when you'll be out of town 4) Turn on lights 5) Turn on alarm system 6) Lock fence gates... etc...
But HOW MUCH GOOD IS 2-6 IF YOUR FRONT DOOR IS UNLOCKED?!?!?
Don't assume that SSL is all that's needed. But don't pretend that it isn't needed.
Not all of NASA, mind you. But, if I may criticize, (and I may, it's my right to do so) it seems that NASA has been blowing it for a full generation.
Ever since the shuttle boondoggle, where we were promised all manner of stuff, and instead, ended up with *that* thing... A wasteful, expensive, heavy, obsolete white elephant of a space craft that tried to be everything to everybody and ended up doing nothing well.
Who's gonna get excited by a space program that perpetuates a lie? We've spend billions to keep 30-year-old rust-bucket space technology working that should have been scrapped before it was ever completed.
Now, other countries (China, India, etc) are moving in to fill the vacuum left behind by 30 years of neglect on the part of NASA. The best thing we could do is to disband it, and rebuild a *real* space program, and one that allowed (encouraged?) private enterprise participation.
There's money to be made on space, if our benevolent govt will allow it.
It'll be at least a century before one of these things actually do anything useful.
What's sad is that it may well take that long.
However, the best thing we could do to promote the sky elevator is to develop and build nonotube-based structures here on Earth.
For example, if you were to rebuild the Golden-gate bridge in San Fransisco with nano-tube cables instead of steel cables, would they even be visible from the shore?
An impressive, previously infeasible structure, such as a bridge spanning the entrance to the Mediteranean, or across the English Channel would do much to get everybody used to the idea that something like this could, in fact, be done.
Also, projects like this would give us opportunities to answer questions about its durability, relability and safety in a large number of circumstances.
Building a space elevator with nanotubes as the first project is fundamentally stupid. Build something more reasonable first!
Re:Conservation of angular momentum is the fatal f
on
Space Elevators Going Up
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
There is one problem that doesn't seem to be addressed -- the problem of imparting the necessary angular momentum to the elevator car as it rises.
From which follows two full screens of "sky elevator is falling" whining, ending in this choice quote:
Any object lifted to the sky station is going to "steal" angular momentum from the sky station, and once you let go of anything, you will never get back that angular momentum, and there will be no way to straighten out the tether again.
Swing your yo-yo around your body. Then, swing faster. Notice how the yo-yo catches up after a few rotations?
Funny, isn't it?
The beanstalk *would* lose some angular momentum as the elevator platform rises to the top. It would tilt to an angle, and lose a bit of altitude. But, the bottom end is tied to the Earth, which would be busy pulling the whole shebang forward, back towards a balance.
Eventually, the elevator would catch up, just like your yo-yo. There'd be a very real threshold for the amount of angular momentum you could use. Also, that angular momentum would be regained when the elevator car comes back *down*...
Best bet would be to have two strings, one for cars going up and one for cars going down, say, a thousand miles apart.
Then, the equations would almost always be nearly matched, and you could start moving several cars a week, instead of just 2 cars a month. You *know* that the weight of a car would be squat compared to the weight of the string itself, so several cars at once should not be a problem.
I picture X cars climbing, X cars dropping. The two strings would be arched in a giant pointed loop, bowing away from each other.
Things are tight fisted because Sun wants a solid, CONSISTANT platform. This was a MAJOR REASON for the lawsuit that they fought and WON against Microsoft and their VM implementation
And, open-source software would be inconsistent because.......?
Eh, wait a minute. These are all *successful* projects, that are consistent?
If Sun were to open Java sources, it would be trivial to introduce a license (EG: GPL) that would largely offset forking of the codebase. Their best bet would be to pull a "QT" - open the source as GPL, then sell commercial licenses.
However my point is that as a company you have to pay attention to more and more rules. If you don't then you end up in a situation like the present one Microsoft finds themselves in.
Except that a company is not an individual. MS Japan is more than likely a separate corporate entity from (and with strong contractual ties to) MS Redmond.
MS India, same thing. It's a different legal entity, with its own charter, etc. with the only stipulation being heavy contractual obligations to the parent company.
If 50 people in Japan can come up with a clear legal strategy in Japan, why couldn't 50 people in Japan come up with a clear legal strategy in Japan with strong contractual ties to Redmond?
This will have zero effect on MS Redmond, but does smear the name of MS even more.
Microsoft is in 200x what IBM was in 197x. In 30 years, maybe MS will be the good guy again, too!
Oh, and this might be strange coming from a perl coder but 1/4 the lines does not make the code better, just makes it shorter.
With 75% less content, there is 75% less of a chance of mis-typing something since there is 75% less typed. While there are plenty of types of bugs other than typos, this does significantly reduce the odds for bugs.
Also, if there is less code to look through, aren't you more likely to catch a fundamental flaw?
And HTML in the code is ugly, hackful, and confusing. Good coding style attempts to reduce the number of problems you solve at a given time to as close to 1 as possible. Trying to consider appearance as well as logic is only a recipe for security holes and bugs.
I all but refuse to write code with HTML in it, preferring to use a template engine such as PHPlib or php-template. (the latter being compiled as a module into PHP, makes templates faster than if the code was interspersed with the HTML!)
What finally worked for me was aggressively working my personal network of IT people I had met over the years. After only about a month of that, I had two offers to choose from, both for jobs that had never been published in any newspaper or website.
Truth has been told here!
I'd mod this up, but it's already +5, so I'll reply.
In all my years as an adult, I've never once gone to a "job board" or a "head hunter". I've always worked as a consultant, and I've always worked by referral and personal contact.
Job placement agencies give you meniality. Direct contact and referrals get you the gravy jobs that pay nicely, where the people you work for appreciate your efforts. These jobs are *never* in a newspaper or online site. They are filled by somebody competent with a positive referral long before anybody gets desperate enough to post a job request!
It's the idle conversations after a conference; the golf game last Saturday; the phone call between friends at 8:30; the card club that meets on Thursdays. That is where names get passed around, cards get exchanged, notes get written on napkins, and carefully folded and kept in the wallet.
Maybe it's just me. But every time I sit down and promise myself to write a new script all tidy and clean in python, about five minutes into it I'm muttering "if this were perl I coulda been DONE by now" and quickly revert back to old faithful.
Funny. I feel the same way about PHP. It's routine for me to take some broken, busted stuff written in Perl or c or whatever, and redo it in PHP in 1/4 the lines.
As Jethro Tull once said:
"You know what you like, and you like what you know".
I can "do" Perl, but it brings me much grief to do so. While I find PHP consistently readable and understandable, pretty much no matter who wrote it.
Oh, and BTW, since I've taken the time to "get" regex, I don't even find it ugly. The earlier example about $stuffinParen or whatever was hideous, and not nearly as understandable to me as the simple, concise, original example. Einstein once said:
"Everything should be made as simple as possible -- but no simpler!".
I dunno too much about hypochondria other than the obvious "everybody knows" stuff...
But some years ago, when I had far less experience than today, I had a "compu-chondriac".
Among other things, I fix computers - and he would have me come out every month (I'd guess shortly after their general assistance check came in from the state) to have me rebuild the computer.
I'm all for personal education, and I recommended many times some books (X for dummies, etc) which he never bought, or at least, I don't remember seeing these books anywhere, and he seemed to rellish referring to me as "my programmer".
So, every month, I showed up at his very humble home, spent a few hours, and reformatted and reloaded the thoroughly hosed operating system. (This was quite a few years go, we're talking DOS 5.x and Win 3.1)
Then I was asked to go help buy a computer monitor. He spent enough time being "indecisive" that my consultancy fees were far more than the cost of the monitor. However, he did not ultimately BUY a monitor, and I felt that I could not in good faith continue servicing him.
I don't mind billing a healthy hourly rate, but self-pride makes me at least try to ensure that the customer is getting a "fair deal".
Why did he call me? Was it ego? Loneliness? Boredom? Preparation for murder? Megalomania?
I don't know and will never know. One of the strangest professional relationships I've ever had.
I keep a windows box with Quicken around for that.
Dunno about you, but some time ago, I put a version of Quicken5 for DOS on a Linux system in FreeDos using DosEMU. I can now access this instantaneously via SSH from any computer in the world on the Internet, with a very high degree of security.
Supposition: Mac users actually buy software, Linux users demand stuff for free.
Bzzzzzzt!
In a twist of irony, Linux systems can be DAMNED EXPENSIVE. It's just not spent on boxed software. Your "enterprise ready" application frequently runs on a 'nix, and it's seldom cheap.
Your "mission-critical" server that runs your business often requires a full or part-time admin with a starting wage of around $40,000. That admin (if he's any good) writes various scripts to automate most of his job. That's money spent on software, and maintenance.
In that environment, spending a thousand or two for some software really can make sense, if it saves significant time for your admin. I certainly have spent some money over the years...
Given the ancient hardware nasa still seems to be using on their machines (still essentially powered by '91 era powerpc's) i doubt that the source will be THAT impressive.
In my experience, the opposite is true. Older code is generally leaner, more stable, and much tighter than newer code.
Crap code tends to get weeded out, and good code tends to stick. Witness many of the key parts of Unix which have remained largely unchanged for decade(s).
Why change what is clearly working well?
There's a perception in the computing industry that "old==bad" and "new==good". But in many areas, the opposite is clearly true.
Security algorithms, for example. Only when an encryption algorithm has been out for a while, beaten up, tested, reviewed, and studied by many peers will people begin to trust it.
There's always the risk of a short-cut to decrypting any algorithm, so, in general, the older ones are nearly always better.
But let's put it to the test... You're getting a pacemaker on which your life will depend. Do you prefer the 15 year old software that has an installed base of many thousands, or the new stuff that just came out last month?
I think a problem in BT is the lack of compiled clients for linux.
But that isn't a problem, really. I've used BT quite a bit on Linux. You can limit the # of uploads and the upload bandwidth. Presumably, with ulimit or something similar, the same could be done for CPU/RAM.
If I allowed 10 connections, 50 MB of disk space, and 10 Kbps maxupload, even using Python, it'd run much less than 5% CPU time of my dedicated 600 Mhz celeron router/firewall system. I'd never notice 10 Kbps on my 1500/384 DSL. Yet, if thousands/million of people offered meager numbers like this to the world, getting package updates would be a SNAP.
Assume that in my 50 MB of cache disk space were 5-10 packages. Heck, the way BT works, the files don't even need to be complete files! I could, for example, share parts of the Kernel package. Have the files being shared in my cache be based on popularity - so that more popular files get cached in more servers, and rotate out the less popular ones.
With a system like this, the everybody on earth could conceivably update their systems simultaneously and everybody would *still* get a decent amount of bandwidth.
The only issue is that there are trackers capable of handling that many connections, but this problem pales when compared to trying to do it all with FTP,
As I sit here, getting packages at a mightily slow 8 k/sec via Fedora's Red Hat Network, I wonder why this must be.
Why don't tools like yum, up2date, and apt incorporate BitTorrent concepts to download packages and files?
If there was an option when installing Fedora or Debian to "share XX Mbytes at YY kbps" I'd be perfectly happy to donate 50 MB of disk space and 5-10 Kbps of bandwidth to the cause. That's be anough to reliably provide a few packages for redistribution.
Multiply that by the number of Linux installs, and you have a lightning-quick package delivery system.
Imagine apt-get or up2date ALWAYS able to saturate your broadband connection when doing an update!
Why is nobody doing this? Security isn't an issue, since BT uses SHA1. Source isn't an issue since BT is open source. Isn't the RHN stuff already written in PYTHON?!?!?
Even more extreme, imagine if the fake skin covering a portion of your face (which is attached with careful glues/snaps/etc.) looked entirely realistic?
Are you suggesting that this guy has hope, after all?
Slashdot Mirror
The point is, there is no reason that Linux and musicains shouldn't mix.
Soo... you use RCA plugs on your equipment, right? Does that make you an "RCA Plug Musician"? Or, are you perhaps a "Cakewalk Musician"? "Windows Musician"? "Sound Blaster Live 128 Musician"?
Doesn't it start sounding kind of... weak... after a while?
LinuxMusician.com!?!?!?
I'm a penguin fan and all, but there are some things that should not be mixed. Like....
Water and oil.
Acids and Alkali
Nucular [sic] weapons and George Bush.
Linux and Musicians!
Music is not about the tool, particularly tools that aren't themselves musical. I mean, you *could* say: "ViolinMusician" but "LinuxMusician" comes across to me like "GasEngineMusician" or "Cassette Tape Musician".
Just dumb. Sorry. (It's late, Saturday, and I've had a few drinks. So sue me, or as Apple Computer would say, sosumi!)
-Ben
On one hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, once worked with one other architecture, and has gone nowhere else.
On the other hand, we have an O/S that works with X86, and now works on everything from calculators and old gaming consoles to some of the largest supercomputing clusters in the world.
Anybody who says that Linux isn't inherently more robust and flexible at the critical core areas is living their life under a rock.
I just don't get Flash. The only good thing about it is all the flash ads that I don't have to see<snip>
We're just starting to experiment with flash-based training for our software, and so far, we're incredibly pleased.
Of course, we aren't using anything from Macromedia, we're instead using Qarbon which allows you to turn a screen-shot into a flash animation with reasonable bandwidth requirements and amazing pizazz...
We posted a "Viewlet" to our website, and got a sale that paid for it within just a few days! We bought the software, and had our first sample video in 20 minutes, including install time.
Incredible.
And, the reviews we're getting from trainees is just wonderfully positive.
I encourage you to try the link above; you'll be amazed.
Oh, and I'm not affiliated in any way with Qarbon...
The way I feel about it is this: I can sit in a cubicle doing what is essentially rearranging random ones and zeros into non-random order to create something of value (although most of my time is actually spent doing documentation, reports, supervision, meetings etc).
OR I can take a bunch of raw pieces of wood and create something that is not only beautiful, but allows a musician to create even more beauty and music.
You aren't seeing the whole picture.
As an independent consultant, I get to see the people whose lives I make easier. I get to hear about the hours of time saved because I automated a previously manual task.
And these aren't just "people", they're teachers. They're good people, and I am freinds with quite a few of them.
I work at home, or at my office, or wherever I like (since it's mostly web-based stuff I'm doing anyway)
Perhaps you should re-evaluate your focus?
SSL is not the one stop security shop people think it is.
... etc...
Sure, it's not. Neither are locks on doors on houses.
To secure your house, you must:
1) Lock the door.
2) Lock the windows.
3) Notify your neighbors when you'll be out of town
4) Turn on lights
5) Turn on alarm system
6) Lock fence gates
But HOW MUCH GOOD IS 2-6 IF YOUR FRONT DOOR IS UNLOCKED?!?!?
Don't assume that SSL is all that's needed. But don't pretend that it isn't needed.
Not all of NASA, mind you. But, if I may criticize, (and I may, it's my right to do so) it seems that NASA has been blowing it for a full generation.
Ever since the shuttle boondoggle, where we were promised all manner of stuff, and instead, ended up with *that* thing... A wasteful, expensive, heavy, obsolete white elephant of a space craft that tried to be everything to everybody and ended up doing nothing well.
Who's gonna get excited by a space program that perpetuates a lie? We've spend billions to keep 30-year-old rust-bucket space technology working that should have been scrapped before it was ever completed.
Now, other countries (China, India, etc) are moving in to fill the vacuum left behind by 30 years of neglect on the part of NASA. The best thing we could do is to disband it, and rebuild a *real* space program, and one that allowed (encouraged?) private enterprise participation.
There's money to be made on space, if our benevolent govt will allow it.
-Ben
It'll be at least a century before one of these things actually do anything useful.
What's sad is that it may well take that long.
However, the best thing we could do to promote the sky elevator is to develop and build nonotube-based structures here on Earth.
For example, if you were to rebuild the Golden-gate bridge in San Fransisco with nano-tube cables instead of steel cables, would they even be visible from the shore?
An impressive, previously infeasible structure, such as a bridge spanning the entrance to the Mediteranean, or across the English Channel would do much to get everybody used to the idea that something like this could, in fact, be done.
Also, projects like this would give us opportunities to answer questions about its durability, relability and safety in a large number of circumstances.
Building a space elevator with nanotubes as the first project is fundamentally stupid. Build something more reasonable first!
There is one problem that doesn't seem to be addressed -- the problem of imparting the necessary angular momentum to the elevator car as it rises.
From which follows two full screens of "sky elevator is falling" whining, ending in this choice quote:
Any object lifted to the sky station is going to "steal" angular momentum from the sky station, and once you let go of anything, you will never get back that angular momentum, and there will be no way to straighten out the tether again.
Swing your yo-yo around your body. Then, swing faster. Notice how the yo-yo catches up after a few rotations?
Funny, isn't it?
The beanstalk *would* lose some angular momentum as the elevator platform rises to the top. It would tilt to an angle, and lose a bit of altitude. But, the bottom end is tied to the Earth, which would be busy pulling the whole shebang forward, back towards a balance.
Eventually, the elevator would catch up, just like your yo-yo. There'd be a very real threshold for the amount of angular momentum you could use. Also, that angular momentum would be regained when the elevator car comes back *down*...
Best bet would be to have two strings, one for cars going up and one for cars going down, say, a thousand miles apart.
Then, the equations would almost always be nearly matched, and you could start moving several cars a week, instead of just 2 cars a month. You *know* that the weight of a car would be squat compared to the weight of the string itself, so several cars at once should not be a problem.
I picture X cars climbing, X cars dropping. The two strings would be arched in a giant pointed loop, bowing away from each other.
Neat, eh?
Things are tight fisted because Sun wants a solid, CONSISTANT platform. This was a MAJOR REASON for the lawsuit that they fought and WON against Microsoft and their VM implementation
And, open-source software would be inconsistent because.......?
Inconsistent, like Apache?
or, perhaps, MySQL?
I get it. You mean inconsistent like this, this, or this?
Oh, the above aren't languages, like php or perl?
Eh, wait a minute. These are all *successful* projects, that are consistent?
If Sun were to open Java sources, it would be trivial to introduce a license (EG: GPL) that would largely offset forking of the codebase. Their best bet would be to pull a "QT" - open the source as GPL, then sell commercial licenses.
However my point is that as a company you have to pay attention to more and more rules. If you don't then you end up in a situation like the present one Microsoft finds themselves in.
Except that a company is not an individual. MS Japan is more than likely a separate corporate entity from (and with strong contractual ties to) MS Redmond.
MS India, same thing. It's a different legal entity, with its own charter, etc. with the only stipulation being heavy contractual obligations to the parent company.
If 50 people in Japan can come up with a clear legal strategy in Japan, why couldn't 50 people in Japan come up with a clear legal strategy in Japan with strong contractual ties to Redmond?
This will have zero effect on MS Redmond, but does smear the name of MS even more.
Microsoft is in 200x what IBM was in 197x. In 30 years, maybe MS will be the good guy again, too!
Oh, and this might be strange coming from a perl coder but 1/4 the lines does not make the code better, just makes it shorter.
With 75% less content, there is 75% less of a chance of mis-typing something since there is 75% less typed. While there are plenty of types of bugs other than typos, this does significantly reduce the odds for bugs.
Also, if there is less code to look through, aren't you more likely to catch a fundamental flaw?
And HTML in the code is ugly, hackful, and confusing. Good coding style attempts to reduce the number of problems you solve at a given time to as close to 1 as possible. Trying to consider appearance as well as logic is only a recipe for security holes and bugs.
I all but refuse to write code with HTML in it, preferring to use a template engine such as PHPlib or php-template. (the latter being compiled as a module into PHP, makes templates faster than if the code was interspersed with the HTML!)
What finally worked for me was aggressively working my personal network of IT people I had met over the years. After only about a month of that, I had two offers to choose from, both for jobs that had never been published in any newspaper or website.
Truth has been told here!
I'd mod this up, but it's already +5, so I'll reply.
In all my years as an adult, I've never once gone to a "job board" or a "head hunter". I've always worked as a consultant, and I've always worked by referral and personal contact.
Job placement agencies give you meniality. Direct contact and referrals get you the gravy jobs that pay nicely, where the people you work for appreciate your efforts. These jobs are *never* in a newspaper or online site. They are filled by somebody competent with a positive referral long before anybody gets desperate enough to post a job request!
It's the idle conversations after a conference; the golf game last Saturday; the phone call between friends at 8:30; the card club that meets on Thursdays. That is where names get passed around, cards get exchanged, notes get written on napkins, and carefully folded and kept in the wallet.
That is where the real recruitment occurs.
Maybe it's just me. But every time I sit down and promise myself to write a new script all tidy and clean in python, about five minutes into it I'm muttering "if this were perl I coulda been DONE by now" and quickly revert back to old faithful.
Funny. I feel the same way about PHP. It's routine for me to take some broken, busted stuff written in Perl or c or whatever, and redo it in PHP in 1/4 the lines.
As Jethro Tull once said:
"You know what you like, and you like what you know".
I can "do" Perl, but it brings me much grief to do so. While I find PHP consistently readable and understandable, pretty much no matter who wrote it.
Oh, and BTW, since I've taken the time to "get" regex, I don't even find it ugly. The earlier example about $stuffinParen or whatever was hideous, and not nearly as understandable to me as the simple, concise, original example. Einstein once said:
"Everything should be made as simple as possible -- but no simpler!".
I dunno too much about hypochondria other than the obvious "everybody knows" stuff...
But some years ago, when I had far less experience than today, I had a "compu-chondriac".
Among other things, I fix computers - and he would have me come out every month (I'd guess shortly after their general assistance check came in from the state) to have me rebuild the computer.
I'm all for personal education, and I recommended many times some books (X for dummies, etc) which he never bought, or at least, I don't remember seeing these books anywhere, and he seemed to rellish referring to me as "my programmer".
So, every month, I showed up at his very humble home, spent a few hours, and reformatted and reloaded the thoroughly hosed operating system. (This was quite a few years go, we're talking DOS 5.x and Win 3.1)
Then I was asked to go help buy a computer monitor. He spent enough time being "indecisive" that my consultancy fees were far more than the cost of the monitor. However, he did not ultimately BUY a monitor, and I felt that I could not in good faith continue servicing him.
I don't mind billing a healthy hourly rate, but self-pride makes me at least try to ensure that the customer is getting a "fair deal".
Why did he call me? Was it ego? Loneliness? Boredom? Preparation for murder? Megalomania?
I don't know and will never know. One of the strangest professional relationships I've ever had.
It's a troll because you are a frothing at the mouth, <SNIP> BLAH BLAH BLAH </SNIP>Linux zealot.
Oh really?
I always thought that I was fairly well balanced on these kinds of things. Notice the continuation of my thread that's been modded insightful.
So.... why is this modded as TROLL!?!?!
Tell me how this post is a troll?
/. editors really out to promote Windows????
Are the
I keep a windows box with Quicken around for that.
Dunno about you, but some time ago, I put a version of Quicken5 for DOS on a Linux system in FreeDos using DosEMU. I can now access this instantaneously via SSH from any computer in the world on the Internet, with a very high degree of security.
Nice. Very, very NICE.
Lessee:
1) It's Windows. Forget "open".
2) It's Windows. Forget "stable".
3) It's Windows. Forget "drivers" without a dozen driver install disks...
4) It's Windows. Forget "Source code".
5) It's Windows... most apps won't run without registry editing and all kinds of other crap.
Oh, and did I mention... It's Windows?!?!?
Supposition: Mac users actually buy software, Linux users demand stuff for free.
Bzzzzzzt!
In a twist of irony, Linux systems can be DAMNED EXPENSIVE. It's just not spent on boxed software. Your "enterprise ready" application frequently runs on a 'nix, and it's seldom cheap.
Your "mission-critical" server that runs your business often requires a full or part-time admin with a starting wage of around $40,000. That admin (if he's any good) writes various scripts to automate most of his job. That's money spent on software, and maintenance.
In that environment, spending a thousand or two for some software really can make sense, if it saves significant time for your admin. I certainly have spent some money over the years...
It's just a different way of doing software.
Given the ancient hardware nasa still seems to be using on their machines (still essentially powered by '91 era powerpc's) i doubt that the source will be THAT impressive.
In my experience, the opposite is true. Older code is generally leaner, more stable, and much tighter than newer code.
Crap code tends to get weeded out, and good code tends to stick. Witness many of the key parts of Unix which have remained largely unchanged for decade(s).
Why change what is clearly working well?
There's a perception in the computing industry that "old==bad" and "new==good". But in many areas, the opposite is clearly true.
Security algorithms, for example. Only when an encryption algorithm has been out for a while, beaten up, tested, reviewed, and studied by many peers will people begin to trust it.
There's always the risk of a short-cut to decrypting any algorithm, so, in general, the older ones are nearly always better.
But let's put it to the test... You're getting a pacemaker on which your life will depend. Do you prefer the 15 year old software that has an installed base of many thousands, or the new stuff that just came out last month?
I think a problem in BT is the lack of compiled clients for linux.
But that isn't a problem, really. I've used BT quite a bit on Linux. You can limit the # of uploads and the upload bandwidth. Presumably, with ulimit or something similar, the same could be done for CPU/RAM.
If I allowed 10 connections, 50 MB of disk space, and 10 Kbps maxupload, even using Python, it'd run much less than 5% CPU time of my dedicated 600 Mhz celeron router/firewall system. I'd never notice 10 Kbps on my 1500/384 DSL. Yet, if thousands/million of people offered meager numbers like this to the world, getting package updates would be a SNAP.
Assume that in my 50 MB of cache disk space were 5-10 packages. Heck, the way BT works, the files don't even need to be complete files! I could, for example, share parts of the Kernel package. Have the files being shared in my cache be based on popularity - so that more popular files get cached in more servers, and rotate out the less popular ones.
With a system like this, the everybody on earth could conceivably update their systems simultaneously and everybody would *still* get a decent amount of bandwidth.
The only issue is that there are trackers capable of handling that many connections, but this problem pales when compared to trying to do it all with FTP,
As I sit here, getting packages at a mightily slow 8 k/sec via Fedora's Red Hat Network, I wonder why this must be.
Why don't tools like yum, up2date, and apt incorporate BitTorrent concepts to download packages and files?
If there was an option when installing Fedora or Debian to "share XX Mbytes at YY kbps" I'd be perfectly happy to donate 50 MB of disk space and 5-10 Kbps of bandwidth to the cause. That's be anough to reliably provide a few packages for redistribution.
Multiply that by the number of Linux installs, and you have a lightning-quick package delivery system.
Imagine apt-get or up2date ALWAYS able to saturate your broadband connection when doing an update!
Why is nobody doing this? Security isn't an issue, since BT uses SHA1. Source isn't an issue since BT is open source. Isn't the RHN stuff already written in PYTHON?!?!?
Even more extreme, imagine if the fake skin covering a portion of your face (which is attached with careful glues/snaps/etc.) looked entirely realistic?
Are you suggesting that this guy has hope, after all?
Another nasty one to search for is reg.dat... the Windows registry file.
Here, you can get registered names, phone numbers, software keys, and all kinds of other scary stuff...
I tried it once, and was shocked at how many I found it in just a few seconds...