The Unix method of storing configuration information iis apalling. You have to manually parse text files (no standard APIs to do so). You have to maintain a complete lock on the file while you're writing new values (so other processes have to WAIT or risk corruption).
Here's the standard Unix API for parsing configuration files: grep -r [keyword]/path/to/configuration/files
Sorry, but the lock on configuration files is utter bullshit.
On a Unix system I can change configuration information on services, on system information, on anything that would be held by registry values on a Windows machine, and do it without affecting those services. (Hint, if you're worried about it, copy the configuration file, change the copied file, then restart the service using the new file.)
There is no standard layout for configurtion information. The location of the config files etc is different on different versions of Unix and even on different distributions of Linux.
There shouldn't be a standard layout for configuration information. You should be able to configure your computer the way you want. And if you want, you can put all those configuration files in one location.
Finally, self-destructing registries and self-changing registry values have been a problem for years.
That's the problem with having different applications write registry values to the same hives, or to the same registry keys.
Having all system registry values in one location means that a corrupt registry isn't just going to take down a web-server, it can take down the whole system.
Recovering from a corrupt configuration file is quick and easy. Recovering from a corrupt registry is--if you're lucky--just a butt-load of work reinstalling the old registry, and monitoring all the services that might have been affected by the change.
And yeah MS wants in your PC, but Apple owns your pc everytime you update. Good for the goose is good for the gander. But apple is *SPECIAL*
Maybe you should think about getting a cert for Apple products.
Once upon a time, there was something called "Windows Update." You can think of Software update running in the same way as the old Windows Update. No one worried about Windows Update because it worked for the computer owner/admin--who ultimately controlled their system. With Windows Update, if you wanted to install an update, you could, if not, you didn't. But Microsoft never had a say in what was going to be installed--they only suggested what they thought should be installed.
Or to put it another way, Apple's software update doesn't let Apple own anything anymore than doing a 'make install,' or installing an RPM does.
Software update is simply an easy interface to allow you to install software that Apple has compiled. (If it sounds familiar, it should; it's the same thing you do every time you install a program in Windows.)
You know you've been working with MS products too long when you think you've got to wait two years to put an OS on a production system. Two years? I'd be working with FreeBSD 3.4, OpenBSD 2.5, Mac OS 9.0, and Mandrake 7.0. (I'm using the latest versions of all of these on systems I administer at work.)
Two years is good advice for Microsoft products; we've still got those Win2K machines around. They'll get upgraded when Wine has worked out all the kinks. (The company has too much invested in other software to do anything but.)
All human behavior is motivated by one thing, the will to power. It is all governing, and omnipresent all the time... The Will to Power is human nature.
If you have taken the time to read Ayn Rand, thats great. But I suggest you move yourself to the next level. I once thought as you, but it times to get rid of this morality system to which you hold dear. Nietzsche will provide you with a greater understanding of life.
You invoke Nietzsche as if he was being prescriptive about his philosophies. I've seen too many people try to follow the words of Nietzsche as if he were meaning them as an end in themselves. Let me describe it in a metaphor:
Nietzsche leads a poor young man out of the house he once thought was all there was. Nietzsche leads him into the open world, with an endless deep blue sky above, and a lonely horizon all around. It's terrifying and exhilerating. He feels a new sense of power, like he's finally seen the truth. Having seen that the old house is just a small brokedown shack that his father, his grandfather & greatgrandfather also lived in, he burns the house down. He runs from door to door of the other little shanties, trying to burn them too, screaming between closed shutters, pounding on doors. He wants everyone to see the "truth" that he's found.
But burning the little house down doesn't change anything, it doesn't give him any more truth than he had before he saw the little house from the outside.
He could just have well left the little shanty standing. He could have walked back into the shanty--now knowing that the world he thought was "real" and "truth" doesn't exist, but rather is one amongst many realities and truths. But deep down, he still believes that there can only be one truth, he cannot live with the difference between the absence of "truth" outside the shanty, and the "truth" that is inside the shanty. He could just as well have gone back in. He could have been able to open and close the door any time, now knowing that the little shanty is not all there is--but that there are billions of little shanties that are all different. The irony is, his new truth becomes the absence of truth that exists outside the shanty; truth still exists just as much as it did before, only now, it is the absence of what was truth to him before.
Nietzsche was only being descriptive of the world he saw. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche describes the Apollonian and the Dionysian. He does not put one at odds with the other, nor does he say that one is more true than the other, he describes the two forces. Neither is good, neither is bad, neither is the truth. They represent parts of a whole, a perspective of the world more lucid than either alone provides. It is easy to mistake Nietzsche as being prescriptive, or saying that we should be doing something, when, in fact, he merely describes the world we are terrified to look at.
To interpret what Nietzsche as saying we should view human existence without the Apollinian moralities would be as foolhearty as trying to say that any morality is anything more than a synthetic lattice placed over the chaos all around us. It doesn't mean that the morality is any less meaningful, any less real than it was before, it's just a way to view that morality in perspective. I've seen too many people pervert the ideas of Nietzsche because they couldn't get past the idea that he wasn't trying to create a new religion, he wasn't trying to shepherd a flock.
I cannot believe I am reading this in this condescending tone. This is the old nature or nurture argument.
I don't think this has anything to do with nature vs. nurture. Really, what we're talking about is the fact that there is no "nature" to begin with. No natural, no human nature, no oversimple way of describing something far too complex for the human mind to describe in a single volume, much less a single word. The fact that the nature vs. nurture debate has been going on so long is just a product of that. It's easy to start thinking abstract ideas like nature or government are actually real entities.
Nature does not "do" anything you are right, but it is a system of behavior of living things. All living things strive to grow.
No, I'm sorry, nature describes an interpretation of behavior of living things. What is natural, what is nature are not the same for any two people because they are not real. It's funny that you invoke Nietzsche in one paragraph, and then refer to nature as a universal system in another.
Your little mind that you perceive to be completely under your control is hardly so. Your body's first goal is to survive, then to reproduce. The goals are acheived by you striving to be better than anyone else.
Why?
Why are there many people simply content with what they have? Why are there so many people who don't need to strive, that don't need to achieve? Why are there "slackers," if striving and achieving is a natural tendency inherent in all people? Why are there celibates? Why is there fasting? I can go on and on finding things that fall outside the scope of that generalization, but I don't want to mire this in some off-course debate.
It is the excess reproduction of living things that causes food shortages.
I'd say that's one factor amongst many that cause shortfalls. But because that's the most visible contributing factor, it doesn't mean that we should start killing off people. The world you describe--the world of wolf packs, fishes, predators and prey haven't created anything; they are the same things that they were 200 generations ago. We are not. Without the structure of morality, a system where people ascribed to the same beliefs--there would be no population problem for people because people would have died out long ago.
The Apollonian system that lets us believe that all human life is worth preserving is the same set of rules and guidelines that built the society you can be so comfortable in. It is the same system that gives you the luxury of theorizing about who should live and who should die.
It is unfortunate you do not see that the population problem is simply humans behaving like every other living thing.
I see at the heart of this, an argument that really is concerned about human beings--all human beings. I wish that it were as easy as burning down all the shanties, I wish it were as easy as "letting the blood flow," but it's not. The system of morality, of perception has brought our weak little species this far. Burning it down won't solve the problem, learning to live in a world where everyone understands that their reality, their good, their truth, their understanding are just their own cast reflection, is the first step.
Also Vietnam is an exception, but at the time, the French cared about Vietnam due to its abundant supply of natural rubber.
But, when you make statements like "Nothing really starts wars EVER other than competition for natural resources." It's my job to prove you wrong. Wars do start for other reasons. Vietnam is the most readily available example, certainly not exclusive.
Once again, in my defense against the socialist onslaught, I am not a Nazi...
The world is full of contradictions and unbeleivable ironies. I find it interesting that you've lionized Nietzsche and demonized "Socialism." I find it interesting that, in what I can interpret from your writing there's a dichotomy between Socialism and the freedom fighters in which the Socialists are the bad guys and the freedom fighters are the good guys. And in places where there are only bad guys and good guys--if you're not for me, you're against me.
Just try to conceive for a moment that there is a group of others, neither socialist nor freedom fighters. These people don't swallow generalized ideologies whole, nor do they deomonize them as evil. Imagine that this group doesn't believe in either system.
I find stark parallels between the ideologies you espoused in your first post, and the ideologies espoused by the NAZI party. It's funny that both of them should be derived from about the same place: a mistaken understanding of Nietszche. No, I don't think you're a NAZI, a facist, a consumer, a capitalist, a voter, or any other stupid label. I think you are a person.
Socialism is no different than nazism. They both steal, they both keep people chained in bondage to the state. The sooner we throw away our vicious tools of control, the sooner we can live a more peaceful life on this planet.
I hope that we may find that peace too, but I don't think that it is through bloodletting.
The only problem with this is that the technology used to grow more food in less space relies on fossil fuels as well. I'm not talking about tractors and combines, but the fertilizers and pesticides.
Scary what one can justify simply by invoking the Other. Here, the other is a weaker theif of "our" natural resources. And as in all dichotomies built out of the Other, "us" is the stronger, is the better, is the rightful owner of everything we can forcibly take.
As I observe nationalism swell in the US, I see more and more of these haunting reflections of worldview of Nazi Germany. It's a scary time to be here. The US seems on the brink of meltdown from within, and it's this idiot capitalist quasi neo-Marxist/darwinist pseudo theory of "survival of the fittest" at the heart of it all.
Here, it's the greediest that go the furthest, it's those who have no morality that gain the most. From the self-serving fool who stole the presidency, to Bill Gates, Enron and beyond, the most "powerful" in this country are those who cheated their way into power.
You sound like you've read too many Ayn Rand books, so let's get this out of the way first:
Socialism != morality behavior != need
The world doesn't boil down to economic theories. The reasons one does something can range beyond the one dimensional decimals of capitalism.
Of course, as socialists, they don't understand nature.
The implicit idea here, is that you understand nature and "Socialists" (whatever that means to you) don't. This is, of course, silly since nature is nothing but a reified idea. (I'll let you in on a secret, little guy, there is no "nature.")
Nature always forces shortages on populations, the result of this is natural selection, competition.
Nature doesn't do anything. Let's go over it again--nature is a reified idea which you've obviously gotten confused about. Life does not exist without death, that much we agree about, but that's not "nature." Think about it for a second: populations force shortages upon other populations, or environmental conditions force shortages on populations. The detail is the key. To arbitrarily group these two distinct causes into something called "natural" is the fault of your logic.
But for all their clammoring about nature, they can't for a second realize the real problem in this world is we keep too many people alive who otherwise should die.
I'll let this speak for itself. It's good insight into the lunacy of this worldview (so pervasive in the United States right now). Once people start talking about who should be alive and who should be dead, we're not too far from mechanized genocide.
Nothing really starts wars EVER other than competition for natural resources.
This statement is just as outrageous as the rest of the tripe you've written, but why don't you tell me a little about how you perceive every religious war ever fought, every war about ideologies. How was Vietnam was a competition for natural resources? I'm sure you've got your own domino theory.
Virtual PC, A commercial PC emulator already exists for the Mac; publishing, graphics, games, all these can be run right on your mac, right now.
But, Virtual PC just means running Windows inside your Mac. PC users ready to switch just want to get away from all the problems that Windows is. I mean, if I wanted to run windows, I'd by a PC, right?
The real answer is the one that Wine provides. If Apple would just invest in Wine (Open Source Windows Emulator for Linux, not the shiny-happy drink), the last stumbling block to widespread adoption at the end-user level would finally be overcome.
Wine doesn't make its user deal with Windows--just install and run the applications you want to use. No "Control" Panels, or "My" Computer messes to deal with. Just work with the applications you bought and you still want to use.
Bundling a single package with X on X, Wine (w/ OS X specific customizations, or using Linux Libs) & options for installing Micro$oft DLLs from your old Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP (or better yet, licensing the product & shipping it with OS X) would really kick bill the wanker's ass.
I don't see anywhere in that document that discusses how much easier it is to configure an NT
system than, say, Linux.easily configurable
for who?
Personally, I have a lot easier time configuring my system the way I want via text files than I ever did trying to get inefficient point-and-click dialogues to work.
If "easily" means that you don't have to understand what you're doing, then you're damn right Windows is easy to configure.
Olympia, Washington's Capital High School is implementing a program which utilizes donated equipment to run linux. This is a public school, so there's hope...
Slashdot Mirror
Are you for real?
What, do you think a computer is kind of like a TV with a keyboard attached? If it switches web-sites quicker, it's a more powerful computer.
Pure genius.
JEEBUS HELP ME!
Here's the standard Unix API for parsing configuration files: /path/to/configuration/files
There shouldn't be a standard layout for configuration information. You should be able to configure your computer the way you want. And if you want, you can put all those configuration files in one location.grep -r [keyword]
Sorry, but the lock on configuration files is utter bullshit.
On a Unix system I can change configuration information on services, on system information, on anything that would be held by registry values on a Windows machine, and do it without affecting those services. (Hint, if you're worried about it, copy the configuration file, change the copied file, then restart the service using the new file.)
Finally, self-destructing registries and self-changing registry values have been a problem for years.
That's the problem with having different applications write registry values to the same hives, or to the same registry keys.
Having all system registry values in one location means that a corrupt registry isn't just going to take down a web-server, it can take down the whole system.
Recovering from a corrupt configuration file is quick and easy. Recovering from a corrupt registry is--if you're lucky--just a butt-load of work reinstalling the old registry, and monitoring all the services that might have been affected by the change.
Once upon a time, there was something called "Windows Update." You can think of Software update running in the same way as the old Windows Update. No one worried about Windows Update because it worked for the computer owner/admin--who ultimately controlled their system. With Windows Update, if you wanted to install an update, you could, if not, you didn't. But Microsoft never had a say in what was going to be installed--they only suggested what they thought should be installed.
Or to put it another way, Apple's software update doesn't let Apple own anything anymore than doing a 'make install,' or installing an RPM does.
Software update is simply an easy interface to allow you to install software that Apple has compiled. (If it sounds familiar, it should; it's the same thing you do every time you install a program in Windows.)
You know you've been working with MS products too long when you think you've got to wait two years to put an OS on a production system. Two years? I'd be working with FreeBSD 3.4, OpenBSD 2.5, Mac OS 9.0, and Mandrake 7.0. (I'm using the latest versions of all of these on systems I administer at work.)
Two years is good advice for Microsoft products; we've still got those Win2K machines around. They'll get upgraded when Wine has worked out all the kinks. (The company has too much invested in other software to do anything but.)
It's funny that you invoke Nietzsche in one paragraph, and then refer to nature as a universal system in another. Why? Why are there many people simply content with what they have? Why are there so many people who don't need to strive, that don't need to achieve? Why are there "slackers," if striving and achieving is a natural tendency inherent in all people? Why are there celibates? Why is there fasting? I can go on and on finding things that fall outside the scope of that generalization, but I don't want to mire this in some off-course debate. I'd say that's one factor amongst many that cause shortfalls. But because that's the most visible contributing factor, it doesn't mean that we should start killing off people. The world you describe--the world of wolf packs, fishes, predators and prey haven't created anything; they are the same things that they were 200 generations ago. We are not. Without the structure of morality, a system where people ascribed to the same beliefs--there would be no population problem for people because people would have died out long ago.
The Apollonian system that lets us believe that all human life is worth preserving is the same set of rules and guidelines that built the society you can be so comfortable in. It is the same system that gives you the luxury of theorizing about who should live and who should die.
I see at the heart of this, an argument that really is concerned about human beings--all human beings. I wish that it were as easy as burning down all the shanties, I wish it were as easy as "letting the blood flow," but it's not. The system of morality, of perception has brought our weak little species this far. Burning it down won't solve the problem, learning to live in a world where everyone understands that their reality, their good, their truth, their understanding are just their own cast reflection, is the first step. But, when you make statements like "Nothing really starts wars EVER other than competition for natural resources." It's my job to prove you wrong. Wars do start for other reasons. Vietnam is the most readily available example, certainly not exclusive. The world is full of contradictions and unbeleivable ironies. I find it interesting that you've lionized Nietzsche and demonized "Socialism." I find it interesting that, in what I can interpret from your writing there's a dichotomy between Socialism and the freedom fighters in which the Socialists are the bad guys and the freedom fighters are the good guys. And in places where there are only bad guys and good guys--if you're not for me, you're against me.Just try to conceive for a moment that there is a group of others, neither socialist nor freedom fighters. These people don't swallow generalized ideologies whole, nor do they deomonize them as evil. Imagine that this group doesn't believe in either system.
I find stark parallels between the ideologies you espoused in your first post, and the ideologies espoused by the NAZI party. It's funny that both of them should be derived from about the same place: a mistaken understanding of Nietszche. No, I don't think you're a NAZI, a facist, a consumer, a capitalist, a voter, or any other stupid label. I think you are a person.
I hope that we may find that peace too, but I don't think that it is through bloodletting.The only problem with this is that the technology used to grow more food in less space relies on fossil fuels as well. I'm not talking about tractors and combines, but the fertilizers and pesticides.
As I observe nationalism swell in the US, I see more and more of these haunting reflections of worldview of Nazi Germany. It's a scary time to be here. The US seems on the brink of meltdown from within, and it's this idiot capitalist quasi neo-Marxist/darwinist pseudo theory of "survival of the fittest" at the heart of it all.
Here, it's the greediest that go the furthest, it's those who have no morality that gain the most. From the self-serving fool who stole the presidency, to Bill Gates, Enron and beyond, the most "powerful" in this country are those who cheated their way into power.
You sound like you've read too many Ayn Rand books, so let's get this out of the way first:
The world doesn't boil down to economic theories. The reasons one does something can range beyond the one dimensional decimals of capitalism. The implicit idea here, is that you understand nature and "Socialists" (whatever that means to you) don't. This is, of course, silly since nature is nothing but a reified idea. (I'll let you in on a secret, little guy, there is no "nature.") Nature doesn't do anything. Let's go over it again--nature is a reified idea which you've obviously gotten confused about. Life does not exist without death, that much we agree about, but that's not "nature."Think about it for a second: populations force shortages upon other populations, or environmental conditions force shortages on populations. The detail is the key. To arbitrarily group these two distinct causes into something called "natural" is the fault of your logic. I'll let this speak for itself. It's good insight into the lunacy of this worldview (so pervasive in the United States right now).
Once people start talking about who should be alive and who should be dead, we're not too far from mechanized genocide. This statement is just as outrageous as the rest of the tripe you've written, but why don't you tell me a little about how you perceive every religious war ever fought, every war about ideologies.
How was Vietnam was a competition for natural resources? I'm sure you've got your own domino theory.
Right, forgot to put that in the post.
The x86 emulation layer exists already as well. Open source. The only problem is the clock time eaten emulating the processor commands and the os.
But hell, with the next generation mac coming out soon, the hardware will probably have enough throughput to do it.
And that's what I'm talking about.
Virtual PC, A commercial PC emulator already exists for the Mac; publishing, graphics, games, all these can be run right on your mac, right now.
But, Virtual PC just means running Windows inside your Mac. PC users ready to switch just want to get away from all the problems that Windows is. I mean, if I wanted to run windows, I'd by a PC, right?
The real answer is the one that Wine provides. If Apple would just invest in Wine (Open Source Windows Emulator for Linux, not the shiny-happy drink), the last stumbling block to widespread adoption at the end-user level would finally be overcome.
Wine doesn't make its user deal with Windows--just install and run the applications you want to use. No "Control" Panels, or "My" Computer messes to deal with. Just work with the applications you bought and you still want to use.
Bundling a single package with X on X, Wine (w/ OS X specific customizations, or using Linux Libs) & options for installing Micro$oft DLLs from your old Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP (or better yet, licensing the product & shipping it with OS X) would really kick bill the wanker's ass.
for who?
Personally, I have a lot easier time configuring my system the way I want via text files than I ever did trying to get inefficient point-and-click dialogues to work.
If "easily" means that you don't have to understand what you're doing, then you're damn right Windows is easy to configure.
Olympia, Washington's Capital High School is implementing a program which utilizes donated equipment to run linux. This is a public school, so there's hope...