Um, we are getting a bit off topic but I will reply anyway. I never said I wished for the web circa 1994 merely that I liked the layout circa 1994. Your point about search engines is moot because it is precisely the bad organization of stuff within a web site that prevents search engines from doing their job (flash, database driven backends etc.). --- /totally off topic/ The nice thing about the early web was that all it had was content with "blink" tags as the most offensive piece of "eye candy". In other words, signal to noise ratio was high. The down side was that the signal itself was pretty low. Now the signal is higher but signal to noise is awful and getting worse. What is worst is that "signal" has seemingly saturated but noise is still growing. This is why I said that the web is degenerating.
I do not mean to flame but it is exactly the sites where "experience is the content" that draw the ire of people like myself. You either have info on your site or you don't. Many people like the web design circa 1994 (grey background, black text, blue links). The mere existence of sites where "experience is the content" is why people like me say that the web is in a state of decay, if not already commecialized into oblivion.
>> Here's a few events I can see happening in the near future:
>> 1000 monkeys at 1000 type writers code perfect operating system: 2010
>> CowboyNeal becomes world president due to Slashdot poll becoming legally binding: 2014
>> Mozilla 1.0 released: 2018
>> Timelines of the Future proven inaccurate: 1823
>>99% of Slashdot comment submitters use "Preview" button before submitting: 2793
You forgot:
Flaming the writer of the/. feature: price^H^H^H^H^Htimeless
Weight _is_ a vector. Weight _is_ a type of
force. Remember, mass is a number, weight is
a vector.
I think when they say weight of gravity they
mean that gravitons or grabity waves have
non-linear dynamics, i.e. they interact with
themselves and Einstein equations are needed to
deal with this self-consistently. But the simplest
way to correct Newtonian gravity is to analyze
corrections from gravity interacting with itself,
which could be worded as measuring weight of
gravity.
1. We are indeed made up of a lot of water but
that need not be the case for things elsewhere
in the universe.
2. Water has many unique properties but none
of these may be needed by lifeform X.
3. Supernovae create abundant iron. Are we to
presume that lifeforms near supernovae are
iron based?
4. Blood? Why does lifeform X need blood? Are we
now presuming anatomy?
To take a slightly pessimistic view, in a few
hundred years humans may have driven themselves
to extinction leaving behind smart silicon-based
computers. Now you've got a race that needs no
blood and uses primarily copper and silicon to
replicate. Water may still be important for
some industial purposes but not in as large
quantities.
1. Bugs are an inconvinience to your customers.
Late delivery is an inconvinience too. Balance
as appropriate.
2. There ain't no such thing as a useless feature.
3. Redesigning code is good sometimes but must be
done in parallel with active development of old
code. If you want to redesign your code be prepared
to double your R&D budget.
4. Slow (or large) code is an inconvinience to
your customers. Late delivery is an inconvinience
too. Balance as appropriate.
5. If you already plan to throw in the kitchen
sink, chances are your customers' requests will
be planned for before those requests are made
(see #2).
6. see #1.
Most coders consider bugs inexcusable, but
he is not a coder. This guy is a marketoid.
I do however emphatically agree with him on #2.
Bloatware is a myth. From bash to emacs, from
MS Word to Openoffice, users make apps popular
based on features not tight code. How many
people regularly use ash, teco (or ed), or wordstar.
(Ash _is_ useful for some recovery cases but you've
got to be a masochist to use it regularly.)
No, Intel basically dropped the bomb and announced
that they have achieved the holy grail by finding
a better insulator than silicon dioxide and they
claim this new material is "manufacturable", which
I take to mean "fits within current process without
too much investment". If true this is a fundamental
thing and not at all fluff.
As I understand it, packet switching is akin to
a post-office system, i.e. the idea is as old as
society. What does it matter who remade it into
digital form?
With free/open software you need to hire people
who know what they are doing. That has several
disadvantages:
1. Harder to retain => more pay, less leverage.
2. Who wants employees who are notably smarter
than their boss?
I think the latter one is the real reason OSS/FS
has a tough road ahead in corporate environment.
OSS/FS is built on meritocracy while corporations
are usually based on seniority. Can you spell
clash of cultures?
That is the point though... As someone who got
his high-school education not in the US, I felt
like I wasted 4 years of college. School should
be packed with math from grade 1. Don't teach
people science at all in school, just give them
solid foundation in math. By the time they get out
of high-school, kids MUST know vector calculus,
ODEs, PDEs, analytic geometry, some functional
analysis and complex number theory. Once they
get to college, tell them that all this math has
physical reality corresponding to it.
The point is that all physics has a pattern to it.
At the top is Hamiltonian dynamics, then
quantum, E&M, and relativity follow easily.
Teaching physics should be done by mapping math
already ingrained in students' minds to real
world, not via learning math as needed in parallel
with physics.
I am a physics grad student. I think you are
wrong. I think physics should be taught at grad
level from the start. It would be nice if we
didn't have intro sequence, but rather grad
level semester of mechanics, followed by two
grad level semesters of quantum, two semesters
of grad level thermo/stat. mech., two semesters
to throroughly cover Jackson's E&M, and a few
lab courses to illustrate that all this math
has a corresponding reality. In two years you
could have a physicist ready for grad school.
We do need to focus our physics curriculum, namely
we need to push graduate level courses into
undergrad domain.
I hope that the US realizes the broader picture.
I have spoken to people from Iran and they say
that this current situation with America being the
victim of someone on their side is a boost to
moderates in their country. They can point to
Bin Laden (whom Iranian hate anyways) and say to
the hard-liners: you're just like that beast.
On the other hand, nuking Afghanistan will likely
create more terrorists than it kills.
Well, what ever book you are reading, it is wrong.
Stalin deported the Chechens in 1944, before the
end of the WWII. Indeed, many Chechens, looking
back, say that this deportation was only possible
because their male population was at the front
lines fighting the Germans, leaving women and children
undefended.
The war in Chechnya today is different. It is
waged as a means to intimidate other would be
separatist republics, it is waged to enable
passage of laws that eliminate civil freedoms,
it is waged to enable the army to pillage and
rape, it is waged to take population's mind off
of bad economic conditions. As a purely accidental
byproduct, it does have an effect of combatting
terrorism. People like Basaev (a major warlord)
are not even denying that they went through
training in Afghanistan. Killing off most males
in Chechnya would indeed go along way toward
combatting terrorism. I am not supporting this
way of doing things but I acknowledge that
total genocide does solve a problem. In Stalin's
words: if there is a person then there is a problem
when there is no person there is no problem either.
I think it is true that most people do not RTFM.
Therefore for most people all options should be
available in a non-text form. This leads to GUI,
and especially hierarchical toolbars. When
entering a complicated maze, which would you
rather have: a document telling you to turn right
then left then right then straight then...
or each turn be labelled?
As for coding, GUI programs should be less buggy
in principle, provided that the infrastructure
(foundation classes, e.g. MFC or QT or GTK) is
well done. The reason is that GUI allows less
degrees of freedom for user input: you know that
a slider will return numerical value in a given
range. I hate coding command line stuff (including
allowing users to enter parameters via edit boxes)
because that makes me think about crazy stuff a
user might enter.
I think many people lay out the GUI first as a way
to plan their app. That way they can restrict the
user as much as possible and make coding core
functionality easier.
Well, I always thought that Free software and
business model are incompatible. That does not
mean something is wrong. Simply, free software is
charity.
Software standards are the standards of today's
technology so all industry players must have
equal access to all software. Experience shows
that only an open license guarantees it. Hence
the real business model is for hardware vendors
to sponsor software development whose products
would be open and free, thus leveling the playing
field.
We already have this model and it is a success.
W3C develops a lot of software by itself and it
is an industry sponsored group. Their software is
open. IBM bailing out SUSE may start a trend where
distinguished projects get industry support and
survive on that. KDE league and the Gnome
Foundation seem to be trying this approach too.
I believe that if your goal is to level the
playing field then you will always have to accept
the price that the poorest user can afford
(often zero). It's charity not business but it is
perfectly viable.
So why is it so hard to find screenshots of
Productive? I won't even think about a product
until I see it in action. Any plans to release
a demo for Linux (e.g. a movie of someone using
your product to do common things)? Any plans to
have a checklist of features of Office XP vs.
Productive (a la OpenOffice)?
Slashdot Mirror
Um, we are getting a bit off topic but I will
reply anyway. I never said I wished for the web
circa 1994 merely that I liked the layout circa
1994. Your point about search engines is moot
because it is precisely the bad organization of
stuff within a web site that prevents search
engines from doing their job (flash, database
driven backends etc.).
---
/totally off topic/
The nice thing about the early web was that all
it had was content with "blink" tags as the most
offensive piece of "eye candy". In other words,
signal to noise ratio was high. The down side was
that the signal itself was pretty low. Now the
signal is higher but signal to noise is awful
and getting worse. What is worst is that "signal"
has seemingly saturated but noise is still growing.
This is why I said that the web is degenerating.
I do not mean to flame but it is exactly the
sites where "experience is the content" that
draw the ire of people like myself. You either
have info on your site or you don't. Many people
like the web design circa 1994 (grey background,
black text, blue links). The mere existence of sites
where "experience is the content" is why people
like me say that the web is in a state of decay,
if not already commecialized into oblivion.
Those who don't understand usenet are bound to
reinvent it poorly...
This case is indeed looks good except that
beige face plates on cd-rom and the like
look out of place. What kind of air does this
case move?
>> Here's a few events I can see happening in the near future:
/. feature: price^H^H^H^H^Htimeless
>> 1000 monkeys at 1000 type writers code perfect operating system: 2010
>> CowboyNeal becomes world president due to Slashdot poll becoming legally binding: 2014
>> Mozilla 1.0 released: 2018
>> Timelines of the Future proven inaccurate: 1823
>>99% of Slashdot comment submitters use "Preview" button before submitting: 2793
You forgot:
Flaming the writer of the
Hmm, methinks someone just discovered/reinvented
functional languages.
Presumably because bandwidth is becoming more
of a problem, esp. with how P4 is designed.
gipsy + colonoscopy
That took 1 minute of trying. Guess not that
hard of a pursuit.
Weight _is_ a vector. Weight _is_ a type of
force. Remember, mass is a number, weight is
a vector.
I think when they say weight of gravity they
mean that gravitons or grabity waves have
non-linear dynamics, i.e. they interact with
themselves and Einstein equations are needed to
deal with this self-consistently. But the simplest
way to correct Newtonian gravity is to analyze
corrections from gravity interacting with itself,
which could be worded as measuring weight of
gravity.
1. We are indeed made up of a lot of water but
that need not be the case for things elsewhere
in the universe.
2. Water has many unique properties but none
of these may be needed by lifeform X.
3. Supernovae create abundant iron. Are we to
presume that lifeforms near supernovae are
iron based?
4. Blood? Why does lifeform X need blood? Are we
now presuming anatomy?
To take a slightly pessimistic view, in a few
hundred years humans may have driven themselves
to extinction leaving behind smart silicon-based
computers. Now you've got a race that needs no
blood and uses primarily copper and silicon to
replicate. Water may still be important for
some industial purposes but not in as large
quantities.
I hope his code is as unbloated as his answers.
Coolest interview to date.
Here's my take on his comments:
1. Bugs are an inconvinience to your customers.
Late delivery is an inconvinience too. Balance
as appropriate.
2. There ain't no such thing as a useless feature.
3. Redesigning code is good sometimes but must be
done in parallel with active development of old
code. If you want to redesign your code be prepared
to double your R&D budget.
4. Slow (or large) code is an inconvinience to
your customers. Late delivery is an inconvinience
too. Balance as appropriate.
5. If you already plan to throw in the kitchen
sink, chances are your customers' requests will
be planned for before those requests are made
(see #2).
6. see #1.
Most coders consider bugs inexcusable, but
he is not a coder. This guy is a marketoid.
I do however emphatically agree with him on #2.
Bloatware is a myth. From bash to emacs, from
MS Word to Openoffice, users make apps popular
based on features not tight code. How many
people regularly use ash, teco (or ed), or wordstar.
(Ash _is_ useful for some recovery cases but you've
got to be a masochist to use it regularly.)
No, Intel basically dropped the bomb and announced
that they have achieved the holy grail by finding
a better insulator than silicon dioxide and they
claim this new material is "manufacturable", which
I take to mean "fits within current process without
too much investment". If true this is a fundamental
thing and not at all fluff.
As I understand it, packet switching is akin to
a post-office system, i.e. the idea is as old as
society. What does it matter who remade it into
digital form?
Aa far as I could tell 14.5 hours is with two
batteries. The real number is 7 hours per
battery, i.e. not too impressive though good.
Actually it looks like a slightly polished
golf cart. I wonder if this car could double as
a caddy.
With free/open software you need to hire people
who know what they are doing. That has several
disadvantages:
1. Harder to retain => more pay, less leverage.
2. Who wants employees who are notably smarter
than their boss?
I think the latter one is the real reason OSS/FS
has a tough road ahead in corporate environment.
OSS/FS is built on meritocracy while corporations
are usually based on seniority. Can you spell
clash of cultures?
That is the point though... As someone who got
his high-school education not in the US, I felt
like I wasted 4 years of college. School should
be packed with math from grade 1. Don't teach
people science at all in school, just give them
solid foundation in math. By the time they get out
of high-school, kids MUST know vector calculus,
ODEs, PDEs, analytic geometry, some functional
analysis and complex number theory. Once they
get to college, tell them that all this math has
physical reality corresponding to it.
The point is that all physics has a pattern to it.
At the top is Hamiltonian dynamics, then
quantum, E&M, and relativity follow easily.
Teaching physics should be done by mapping math
already ingrained in students' minds to real
world, not via learning math as needed in parallel
with physics.
I am a physics grad student. I think you are
wrong. I think physics should be taught at grad
level from the start. It would be nice if we
didn't have intro sequence, but rather grad
level semester of mechanics, followed by two
grad level semesters of quantum, two semesters
of grad level thermo/stat. mech., two semesters
to throroughly cover Jackson's E&M, and a few
lab courses to illustrate that all this math
has a corresponding reality. In two years you
could have a physicist ready for grad school.
We do need to focus our physics curriculum, namely
we need to push graduate level courses into
undergrad domain.
I hope that the US realizes the broader picture.
I have spoken to people from Iran and they say
that this current situation with America being the
victim of someone on their side is a boost to
moderates in their country. They can point to
Bin Laden (whom Iranian hate anyways) and say to
the hard-liners: you're just like that beast.
On the other hand, nuking Afghanistan will likely
create more terrorists than it kills.
Well, what ever book you are reading, it is wrong.
Stalin deported the Chechens in 1944, before the
end of the WWII. Indeed, many Chechens, looking
back, say that this deportation was only possible
because their male population was at the front
lines fighting the Germans, leaving women and children
undefended.
The war in Chechnya today is different. It is
waged as a means to intimidate other would be
separatist republics, it is waged to enable
passage of laws that eliminate civil freedoms,
it is waged to enable the army to pillage and
rape, it is waged to take population's mind off
of bad economic conditions. As a purely accidental
byproduct, it does have an effect of combatting
terrorism. People like Basaev (a major warlord)
are not even denying that they went through
training in Afghanistan. Killing off most males
in Chechnya would indeed go along way toward
combatting terrorism. I am not supporting this
way of doing things but I acknowledge that
total genocide does solve a problem. In Stalin's
words: if there is a person then there is a problem
when there is no person there is no problem either.
I think it is true that most people do not RTFM.
Therefore for most people all options should be
available in a non-text form. This leads to GUI,
and especially hierarchical toolbars. When
entering a complicated maze, which would you
rather have: a document telling you to turn right
then left then right then straight then...
or each turn be labelled?
As for coding, GUI programs should be less buggy
in principle, provided that the infrastructure
(foundation classes, e.g. MFC or QT or GTK) is
well done. The reason is that GUI allows less
degrees of freedom for user input: you know that
a slider will return numerical value in a given
range. I hate coding command line stuff (including
allowing users to enter parameters via edit boxes)
because that makes me think about crazy stuff a
user might enter.
I think many people lay out the GUI first as a way
to plan their app. That way they can restrict the
user as much as possible and make coding core
functionality easier.
Anniversary? Dunno.
I do know that Bin Laden's associates from
previous WTC thingy or some other similar thing
were about to be sentenced tomorrow.
Well, I always thought that Free software and
business model are incompatible. That does not
mean something is wrong. Simply, free software is
charity.
Software standards are the standards of today's
technology so all industry players must have
equal access to all software. Experience shows
that only an open license guarantees it. Hence
the real business model is for hardware vendors
to sponsor software development whose products
would be open and free, thus leveling the playing
field.
We already have this model and it is a success.
W3C develops a lot of software by itself and it
is an industry sponsored group. Their software is
open. IBM bailing out SUSE may start a trend where
distinguished projects get industry support and
survive on that. KDE league and the Gnome
Foundation seem to be trying this approach too.
I believe that if your goal is to level the
playing field then you will always have to accept
the price that the poorest user can afford
(often zero). It's charity not business but it is
perfectly viable.
So why is it so hard to find screenshots of
Productive? I won't even think about a product
until I see it in action. Any plans to release
a demo for Linux (e.g. a movie of someone using
your product to do common things)? Any plans to
have a checklist of features of Office XP vs.
Productive (a la OpenOffice)?