NOAA is using it, as far as I can tell, as a revenue stream -- It seems like you can pay them to set one up at your event or even buy one flat out. Too bad they don't open source it though -- lots of geeks could really do some amazing mods and addons for it.
Meh, I found the Outside "user experience" to be far too buggy, and if you're really fully engaged in just the looking upward part, you run the risk of wandering into an unsupported pile of sh|t -- not to mention dramatically increasing the likelihood of a fatal crash.
What was parent marked as troll? I think the quote pulled is spot-on; MS wants to redefine "open," and will not stop at pretty obvious bribery and underhanded tactics to do it, such as the OOXML debacle. "The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we[Microsoft] are moving towards."
Thanks for your battle plan, MS! It's too bad the Blender folks didn't pull a reverse-409 style scam and draw out a new round of Halloween-style Documents.
It can definitely be done well; NOAA/NASA's "Science on a Sphere" projector creates beautiful, seamless projections on a spherical screen (using 5 Linux boxes and and four projectors, but the project itself is closed source) http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/exhibits/footprints.html
True; and Walter Bender (whose recent departure and the hubub around it caused this Negroponte email in the first place) said that most of the failings of the Gnash implementation were due media codec licenses, not failings of gnash itself.
That being said, if you really need flash, install it! It works! It's even listed in the laptop.org wiki, as well as multiple threads and howtos at OLPCNews' forums; including a good tip on improving flash video performance: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=845.0
(sidenote: I just got back from a trip and used a custom mplayer build to watch movies for the whole flight - woot)
Hidden essids still don't work from the GUI (lack of GUI handles, not lack of ability) check the OLPCNews.com/forum for detailed instructions (also I think wiki.laptop.org has some), but essentially:
open a terminal su (sudo doesn't exist)/sbin/iwconfig etc0 mode managed essid ESSIDNAME (wait a few seconds usually)/sbin/dhclient eth0
it'll then try for a DHCP IP and either work or not.
Yeah, it sucks, but hey -- it's probably not a common use case for their actual target market.
The G1G1 was largely a disaster in logistics and customer support. Reportedly things are going much smoother in the actual countries outside the US.
WPA has been working for me - but only with the 703 releace candidate build (which kindly removed all my Activities, including Browse because it was a "clean" release. Whatever -- it was easy enough to restore them.
The slashdot article you link to is, to put it lightly, factually incorrect, and if you click through to OLPCNews.com you'll find two things -- an active anti-Windows-on-OLPC argument and a forum which has become one of the best resources outside of the wiki for olpc tips and tricks.
Exactly; You want something more functional and flexible than a phone, something with a qwerty keyboard (that's not thumb-sized), but not a overpowered brick. The real stickler is the price point, and of the commercial manufacturers, only Asus seems to be getting this at all. A $400 mini-note or whatever is pointless; for the same price you can get something dramatically more powerful for a few more pounds. I love portability, but I'm not going to take a huge hit in performance for a slight gain in lightness. I/will/ take a hit in performance for a slight gain in lightness if it's also cheaper, tho.
I've wanted something for years that was just an always-connected ssh terminal; and I think some of the mini-notebooks will do one step better than that. Now, if only more can make deals with cell carriers and include a gprs/edge/evdo connection with them...
(note: I have a G1G1 OLPC and love it's weight and portability!)
"sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks"
Except when the tubes are clogged and my emails take days to get through.
Really? People send each other news stories? Through email? And here I thought moving from making photocopies of the newspaper articles and mailing them through the postal system to using the fax machine was high tech!
Also; email's soooo 1990s. RSS, delicious for: tags and IM messages are how I keep up; mostly RSS.
Dear old media: I know things on the intarwebs change fast, but please try to keep up a bit better?
I'd argue that the only real way for Windows to fix this is to pull the equivalent of OS9->OSX -- drop legacy support except via a virtualized (and locked down/firewalled/etc.) XP machine. They'd have to work with and be nice to a lot of hardware and software writers and help people through the transition, but it's the only way Windows can get beyond their security problems. They're probably worried that such a massive shift and lack of legacy support would allow people to re-evaluate other systems on a more equal basis, which is true, but could be mitigated with a well-thought-out deployment, testing, and virtualized-legacy-support method.
I think MS is too addicted to legacy support as a hook to keep people using Windows (and the software industry and users are too complacent to expect the latest windows to run their win3.1 application perfectly). I'm sure the entire userbase would moan and groan, but eventually upgrade, and (if done well) everyone would end up being much happier with a more stable, faster, and secure system.
But I don't think MS could actually pull that off. They keep trying, halfheartedly.
Your radio analogy can go further -- this would be like a law that requires you to call a radio station and ask permission to listen to it before tuning it in on your radio dial. It's being broadcast widely and freely. If you don't want to share it, lock it down in any of the multiple possible ways available at differing levels of functionality and security. If someone starts tampering with those, well, that's what upside-downternet is for, now isn't it?
I set up my COO's home vista ultimate box. It has exciting peripherals installed like a printer and a USB hard drive, and software like Firefox. The rest was OEM provided/installed hardware/software. Now, perhaps something on this brand spanking new, insanely overpowered machine can't "handle" vista or has a buggy driver; but my frustration with Vista is beyond caring about it, and I've told them to use their support contract instead of me from now on.
I blame users for a lot of problems with MS in general. But there's something to be said for a system that manages that careful balance between providing security and not bugging the user so much about potential security threats that they get numbed into clicking OK over and over again. Vista, straight up, is crap. I'm a unfortunately expert Windows user and find Vista more frustrating than I can easily [You're writing negative thing about Windows Vista, allow or cancel?] express in writing. [Using punctuation in slashdot can be dangerous, allow or cancel?]
I'm sorry, no user should be harassed as much about security as Vista does, and no OS should crash so thoroughly and often as Vista does with just OEM-installed software installed.
Ubuntu's not perfect. 2008 will again not be the year of Linux on the desktop. When things break on Ubuntu they can get hairy to fix -- but there's an active community to help, built-in tools, effective logging, and materials to support debugging and tracing the problem to the underlying situation.
Mac does a good job. I just recommend everyone who's not into Linux move to Apple. It works, it's simple, it's pretty. Sure it's more expensive, but subtract the man hours you and/or your geeky nephew spend, anti-virus/adware subscriptions, and geeksquad visits and you're even.
How is this different from all other cell phones on the market, all tightly locked down against third-party software? Heck, my cell phone wants me to pay additional moneys to transfer data to and from it (fortunately, there's bitpim)
Well, it is Gygax; writer of The Village of Hommelet / Temple of Elemental Evil -- it just might be worth checking his entrails for gems and treasure...
(damn those giant frogs!)
We'll miss ya Gary. But not your fondness for fungi.
...is already doing this, but with the order by your check-in order instead of seat order. It used to be the cattle-call of the A/B/C lines, and you dreaded when that first damned person would leave their seat to get in line, forcing/everyone/ to do the same, so you end up standing in line instead of sitting in the waiting area. They fixed that by adding numbers to your group - A16, for example, instead of just A (anyone remember the reused color-coded plastic handout boarding passes??); and there are often pylons in the SW waiting area "holding the line" for you -- a genius upgrade. So the passengers provide the order to the line, and southwest continues their tradition of first-come, first-serve.
It seems like if this would reliably save the airlines time, it'd be easy to implement by following SW's example, except board by rows instead of check-in order.
I'd say it's an even deeper problem -- it's not really a marketplace. The competition is few and far between, and they're oligopolistic, and probably price-fixing. I mean, what's your alternative to a blackberry? So what if the service sucks -- is your employer going to... buy you an iPhone? [1] If Verizon pisses me off, I can switch to... AT&T, or some of the others if I don't mind roaming? People would vote with their wallets if there were candidates worth switching to.
[1] If so, let me forward you my resume for your consideration
You'd only be rolling around if you sold your shares immediately afterwards. Yahoo's been gaining ground by playing nice with open source and open standards; not something I imagine MS will continue to do. Short term profit? Yes. Long term prospects? Well, I hope you sold your shares for that short-term bump.
Slashdot Mirror
NOAA is using it, as far as I can tell, as a revenue stream -- It seems like you can pay them to set one up at your event or even buy one flat out. Too bad they don't open source it though -- lots of geeks could really do some amazing mods and addons for it.
And, don't forget Celestia, which has a great UI and lets you fly around the universe very nicely!
Meh, I found the Outside "user experience" to be far too buggy, and if you're really fully engaged in just the looking upward part, you run the risk of wandering into an unsupported pile of sh|t -- not to mention dramatically increasing the likelihood of a fatal crash.
What was parent marked as troll? I think the quote pulled is spot-on; MS wants to redefine "open," and will not stop at pretty obvious bribery and underhanded tactics to do it, such as the OOXML debacle. "The ISO standard Office Open XML is an example of the direction we[Microsoft] are moving towards."
Thanks for your battle plan, MS! It's too bad the Blender folks didn't pull a reverse-409 style scam and draw out a new round of Halloween-style Documents.
It can definitely be done well; NOAA/NASA's "Science on a Sphere" projector creates beautiful, seamless projections on a spherical screen (using 5 Linux boxes and and four projectors, but the project itself is closed source) http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/exhibits/footprints.html
better video of the sphere in action:
http://learners.gsfc.nasa.gov/mediaviewer/sphere2/
True; and Walter Bender (whose recent departure and the hubub around it caused this Negroponte email in the first place) said that most of the failings of the Gnash implementation were due media codec licenses, not failings of gnash itself.
That being said, if you really need flash, install it! It works! It's even listed in the laptop.org wiki, as well as multiple threads and howtos at OLPCNews' forums; including a good tip on improving flash video performance: http://olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=845.0
(sidenote: I just got back from a trip and used a custom mplayer build to watch movies for the whole flight - woot)
Hidden essids still don't work from the GUI (lack of GUI handles, not lack of ability) check the OLPCNews.com/forum for detailed instructions (also I think wiki.laptop.org has some), but essentially:
/sbin/iwconfig etc0 mode managed essid ESSIDNAME /sbin/dhclient eth0
open a terminal
su (sudo doesn't exist)
(wait a few seconds usually)
it'll then try for a DHCP IP and either work or not.
Yeah, it sucks, but hey -- it's probably not a common use case for their actual target market.
The G1G1 was largely a disaster in logistics and customer support. Reportedly things are going much smoother in the actual countries outside the US.
WPA has been working for me - but only with the 703 releace candidate build (which kindly removed all my Activities, including Browse because it was a "clean" release. Whatever -- it was easy enough to restore them.
The slashdot article you link to is, to put it lightly, factually incorrect, and if you click through to OLPCNews.com you'll find two things -- an active anti-Windows-on-OLPC argument and a forum which has become one of the best resources outside of the wiki for olpc tips and tricks.
Exactly; You want something more functional and flexible than a phone, something with a qwerty keyboard (that's not thumb-sized), but not a overpowered brick. The real stickler is the price point, and of the commercial manufacturers, only Asus seems to be getting this at all. A $400 mini-note or whatever is pointless; for the same price you can get something dramatically more powerful for a few more pounds. I love portability, but I'm not going to take a huge hit in performance for a slight gain in lightness. I /will/ take a hit in performance for a slight gain in lightness if it's also cheaper, tho.
I've wanted something for years that was just an always-connected ssh terminal; and I think some of the mini-notebooks will do one step better than that. Now, if only more can make deals with cell carriers and include a gprs/edge/evdo connection with them...
(note: I have a G1G1 OLPC and love it's weight and portability!)
"sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks"
Except when the tubes are clogged and my emails take days to get through.
Really? People send each other news stories? Through email? And here I thought moving from making photocopies of the newspaper articles and mailing them through the postal system to using the fax machine was high tech!
Also; email's soooo 1990s. RSS, delicious for: tags and IM messages are how I keep up; mostly RSS.
Dear old media: I know things on the intarwebs change fast, but please try to keep up a bit better?
Many cable locks are also pretty easy to pick with the old "turn while pulling to feel for changes" method.
Canceling your comcast service after the installation of camera hardware is a violation of the DMCA and PATRIOT acts; sorry.
I'd argue that the only real way for Windows to fix this is to pull the equivalent of OS9->OSX -- drop legacy support except via a virtualized (and locked down/firewalled/etc.) XP machine. They'd have to work with and be nice to a lot of hardware and software writers and help people through the transition, but it's the only way Windows can get beyond their security problems. They're probably worried that such a massive shift and lack of legacy support would allow people to re-evaluate other systems on a more equal basis, which is true, but could be mitigated with a well-thought-out deployment, testing, and virtualized-legacy-support method.
I think MS is too addicted to legacy support as a hook to keep people using Windows (and the software industry and users are too complacent to expect the latest windows to run their win3.1 application perfectly). I'm sure the entire userbase would moan and groan, but eventually upgrade, and (if done well) everyone would end up being much happier with a more stable, faster, and secure system.
But I don't think MS could actually pull that off. They keep trying, halfheartedly.
Your radio analogy can go further -- this would be like a law that requires you to call a radio station and ask permission to listen to it before tuning it in on your radio dial. It's being broadcast widely and freely. If you don't want to share it, lock it down in any of the multiple possible ways available at differing levels of functionality and security. If someone starts tampering with those, well, that's what upside-downternet is for, now isn't it?
I set up my COO's home vista ultimate box. It has exciting peripherals installed like a printer and a USB hard drive, and software like Firefox. The rest was OEM provided/installed hardware/software. Now, perhaps something on this brand spanking new, insanely overpowered machine can't "handle" vista or has a buggy driver; but my frustration with Vista is beyond caring about it, and I've told them to use their support contract instead of me from now on.
I blame users for a lot of problems with MS in general. But there's something to be said for a system that manages that careful balance between providing security and not bugging the user so much about potential security threats that they get numbed into clicking OK over and over again. Vista, straight up, is crap. I'm a unfortunately expert Windows user and find Vista more frustrating than I can easily [You're writing negative thing about Windows Vista, allow or cancel?] express in writing. [Using punctuation in slashdot can be dangerous, allow or cancel?]
I'm sorry, no user should be harassed as much about security as Vista does, and no OS should crash so thoroughly and often as Vista does with just OEM-installed software installed.
Ubuntu's not perfect. 2008 will again not be the year of Linux on the desktop. When things break on Ubuntu they can get hairy to fix -- but there's an active community to help, built-in tools, effective logging, and materials to support debugging and tracing the problem to the underlying situation.
Mac does a good job. I just recommend everyone who's not into Linux move to Apple. It works, it's simple, it's pretty. Sure it's more expensive, but subtract the man hours you and/or your geeky nephew spend, anti-virus/adware subscriptions, and geeksquad visits and you're even.
How is this different from all other cell phones on the market, all tightly locked down against third-party software? Heck, my cell phone wants me to pay additional moneys to transfer data to and from it (fortunately, there's bitpim)
Well, it is Gygax; writer of The Village of Hommelet / Temple of Elemental Evil -- it just might be worth checking his entrails for gems and treasure...
(damn those giant frogs!)
We'll miss ya Gary. But not your fondness for fungi.
...is already doing this, but with the order by your check-in order instead of seat order. It used to be the cattle-call of the A/B/C lines, and you dreaded when that first damned person would leave their seat to get in line, forcing /everyone/ to do the same, so you end up standing in line instead of sitting in the waiting area. They fixed that by adding numbers to your group - A16, for example, instead of just A (anyone remember the reused color-coded plastic handout boarding passes??); and there are often pylons in the SW waiting area "holding the line" for you -- a genius upgrade. So the passengers provide the order to the line, and southwest continues their tradition of first-come, first-serve.
It seems like if this would reliably save the airlines time, it'd be easy to implement by following SW's example, except board by rows instead of check-in order.
I'd say it's an even deeper problem -- it's not really a marketplace. The competition is few and far between, and they're oligopolistic, and probably price-fixing. I mean, what's your alternative to a blackberry? So what if the service sucks -- is your employer going to ... buy you an iPhone? [1] If Verizon pisses me off, I can switch to... AT&T, or some of the others if I don't mind roaming? People would vote with their wallets if there were candidates worth switching to.
[1] If so, let me forward you my resume for your consideration
Saves me from the y1m and y1b bugs I was worried about.
Yeah; but that reboot process is soooo slow...
You could've predicted this using C-x M-c M-Butterfly while editing emacs code inside emacs...
You'd only be rolling around if you sold your shares immediately afterwards. Yahoo's been gaining ground by playing nice with open source and open standards; not something I imagine MS will continue to do. Short term profit? Yes. Long term prospects? Well, I hope you sold your shares for that short-term bump.