I read with considerable distaste about your recent "success" in the courts against parody site "PETA.ORG". I consider free expression, particularly on the internet, to be of paramount importance, so as far as I am concerned, your "success" is the worlds "failure".
I have never given your site much thought one way or another (nor the parody site, for that matter) but from now on, for what it's worth, I am actively AGAINST you.
Now please excuse me. I don't often eat MEAT but today I've decided to have STEAK for lunch.
It may not be possible to implement an algorithm in a practical matter using today's hardware. But that does not make the algorithm erroneous. And since we're talking about music compression software, shouldn't it be "algorythm" anyhow?:)
Let me begin by thanking you for the Slackware distro. It is the one I first tried, when I new absolutely nothing about Linux/UNIX and it is the one I continue to use to this day. I have a WC subscription (I wonder what the merger will do to that?) and use Slackware for all sorts of purposes. Right now, I am within arms length of a general-purpose PC, a firewall, a small web server, a nameserver, and a mail server, all running Slackware 7.
One additional thing that I would ask for on a Slackware CD would be a selection of TAGFILEs. It would be nice to select a tagfile suited for a specific function. Say I were building a router, or a firewall, or a development box or a web-appliance for my Granny, it would be a help if I could select from a list of appropriate tagfiles.
Do you think that the future might include enhancements to the 'setup' program allowing a selection of basic installation configurations like this?
A (by no means complete) list of suggestions your enjoyment.
Most of these books are the initial books of a trilogy or series. If you enjoy a book, then you will probably enjoy the series. One exception: Don't waste your time reading Rama the XXIX Meets Godzilla or any of the other horrible sequels to Rendezvous.
Isaac Asimov
I, Robot
Foundation
Arthur C. Clarke
2001: A Space Odyssey
Rendezvous with Rama
Fountains of Paradise
Songs of distant earth
Robert L. Forward
The dragon's egg
The flight of the drasgonfly
Joe Haldeman
The forever war*
Robert A. Heinlein
The door into summer
Friday
The puppet masters
Red planet
The rolling Stones
Space cadet
Starman Jones
Starship Troopers*
Stranger in a strange land
Tunnel in the sky
Frank Herbert
Dune
Keith Laumer
The complete bolo
Larry Niven
The integral trees
Neutron star
Ringworld
Tales of Known Space
Gerard K. O'Neill
The high frontier
Frederik Pohl
Gateway
Vernor Vinge
The peace war
If you read Heinlein's Starship Troopers then you must read Haldeman's Forever war to get a balanced perspective.
I've listed a large number by Heinlein. These books are mostly targeted towards the youthful reader.
..whats the point of building and launching these colonies from the moon when it is simpler and more energy efficient to build them on the moon in the first place?
The advantage of an orbital habitat is that you have controllable "gravity". You can live at 1G to keep your bones strong, and ride the elevator up to a micro-gravity environment to manufacture foamed-titanium widgits or wotnot. And travel from one habitat to another does not require burning fuel to get up out of a gravity-well.
The moon is a fixed 1/6th(ish) G. You can stay healthy by exercising in an expensive centrifuge, but you can't manufacture any super-pure semi-conductors or anything else that requires a micro-gravity environment. And to travel from the moon to anywhere else requires you climb out of a gravity well 1/6G deep.
This article lauds the benefits to be realized from making your music freely available for download via the net. So what if there IS a benefit? Should people be forced to make their music available for download against their will?
If you have a shop selling widgets and you refuse to unlock the door and let customers in, well you are an idiot, and probably not making as much money as you could. But do the customers have a right to break down your door to get in? Should they break the door down and help themselves to free samples of your merchandise (against your will) just because it is widely accepted that free samples promote sales?
I think that an artist should have the right to decide for themselves whether they want to make their music available for free download (and bank on increased sales as a result). Or to only sell to customers who donate a pint of blood as well as paying the money (and watch sales plummet).
It's their choice to make and they should be allowed to make the "wrong" choice if that looks "right" to them.
Well, actually it is "Under Construction" - and it probably always will be. But it works/plays, and sounds good.
It plays MPEG files (off the HD or CD), and regular audio CD's. It will serve the MPEG files via Apache to any similar box on my LAN. It will also play MPEG files served by Apache from any other box on my LAN. It can be controlled via a client on any machine on my LAN. I'm working on LIRC support, but I only just started, so nothing to show yet.
The OS is Slackware 4.0 and I'll upgrade that as soon as the Slackware 7.0 disks get to me (any day!)
Now all I need is the money to upgrade the HD so I can have all my 40 Gbytes of MPEG files online at once, plus maybe another 20 Gbytes for future additions. And a filesystem that doesn't fall over.
Do you think that some school administrator somewhere will hand out questionnaires, and ask the students to fill them in? Do you think they would accept the responses at face value?
No.
Some administrator will sit quietly, somewhere, and say "What about Student X? Are they involved in drugs? They sure look the type, so I'll tick this box. And did you get a load of their parents last week? I'd call that "disfunctional" for sure, so I'll tick this one too!" Students will be rated according to the answers some administrator THINKS apply to them. The rating and even the fact that they HAVE BEEN rated will not see the light of day.
Then one day they will raise their voice when someone ticks them off, and the cops will get called immediately. A quiet word (about their rating indicating a tendancy towards violence, etc) will get whispered in a policeman's ear, and the student won't even know why they're getting such a hard time over nothing!
Todays browser is trying to be a Jack of all Trades but ends up as Master of None. Now, apart from being a (poor) web browser, it does mail (poorly), news (poorly), web-page design (poorly), and also is a (poor) Instant Messenger and (poor) IRC client as well? Yuk! Just about the only thing these monstrocities do well is bloat up your HD.
Please call me back when it can control the spin-cycle on my dryer and microwave me a cheese sandwich as well.
"We shouldn't be forced to become nerds just to use computers, as much as we do not have to become mechanics to drive cars."
This may be a true statement; we don't want to require people to become mechanics to drive cars. But we do want them to become motorists and to learn how to drive, pass a test on their knowledge of the rules of the road and demonstrate an ability to control the vehicle.
We certainly don't expect anyone who can barely find the ignition switch after a lengthy search, and only figures out which way to turn it on their second attempt, to run their computer without experiencing the exhileration of disaster on a frequent basis.
I always seem to bust the pile-up with <100w so I never bothered to acquire a linear. Better still, wait until the rare DX calls me and begs for my QSL info...
Also, I don't dim my own lights and crash my server.
There's nothing wrong with cool. In fact, it's critical. I don't really want a machine boxed up in plywood and duct tape. We buy pretty cars, live in pretty houses and wear pretty clothes and eat pretty food, because the asthetics (IOW coolth) are important. And any good design should be able to incorporate excellent functionality and good looks.
Besides - everyone knows that your car goes faster if you paint a black stripe down the side!
Are these things built in such a way that they can be upgraded? If I bought one of these things (not that I have the cash), I'd want to be able to upgrade it's sensor-pack and/or it's On Board Computer when new versions come out.
Suppose my kids fell in love with Rover. Then, a new OBC came out supporting educational software that would play "A-B-C" type games with the kids. Or new long-range I/R eyeballs hit the market. I wouldn't want to replace the faithful old Rover that we've all come to love. I'd just want to give him an upgrade!
Maybe years go by, and rusty old Rover has learned to relate to my family. Then the new Penguin chassis comes on the market. I might want to keep old Rover's knowledge alive by downloading it into the new Tux model.
Right now they are only toys. Yes, they're sort of neato, and it sure one-ups the neighbors. But the price is too high.
But a few years from now, what useful features will have been incorporated? eee-Banking? Cell-phone? Voice activated PDA? "Rover! Pay my phone-bill. And remind me to check the oil in the car. And tell my wife that I'll be home late. Oh, and are there any new articles on SlashDot? Also, fetch this stick!"
I dunno - these things could turn out to be very useful!
Once they'd "embraced and extended" the kernel enough, they could slap on the Redmond GUI and call it NT-2002 or something. Complaints about the GPL, etc, would be met by an avalanche of lawyers....
What worries me is the possibility of an MS-Linux++ distribution to follow the Linux version of Office. Then they could "embrace and extend" (iow: "copy and corrupt") the Linux kernel - and wouldn't hundreds of millions of Microsoft Minions support their efforts?
It's 1985 and you're told to write a piece of software. It's design life is given to you as 5-6 years. So are you going to make it Y2K compliant? Of COURSE NOT, since that increases cost/time to deployment. You get fired that way.
Then the beancounters decide NOT to replace it as planned but to keep it for 250% the original planned lifespan to save a buck. And then it's 1999 and suddenly this is a BUG?
Slashdot Mirror
I just sent them this:
That'll show 'em! ;)
It may not be possible to implement an algorithm in a practical matter using today's hardware. But that does not make the algorithm erroneous. And since we're talking about music compression software, shouldn't it be "algorythm" anyhow? :)
Let me begin by thanking you for the Slackware distro. It is the one I first tried, when I new absolutely nothing about Linux/UNIX and it is the one I continue to use to this day. I have a WC subscription (I wonder what the merger will do to that?) and use Slackware for all sorts of purposes. Right now, I am within arms length of a general-purpose PC, a firewall, a small web server, a nameserver, and a mail server, all running Slackware 7.
One additional thing that I would ask for on a Slackware CD would be a selection of TAGFILEs. It would be nice to select a tagfile suited for a specific function. Say I were building a router, or a firewall, or a development box or a web-appliance for my Granny, it would be a help if I could select from a list of appropriate tagfiles.
Do you think that the future might include enhancements to the 'setup' program allowing a selection of basic installation configurations like this?
Thanks again.....
"Geek-o"
Most of these books are the initial books of a trilogy or series. If you enjoy a book, then you will probably enjoy the series. One exception: Don't waste your time reading Rama the XXIX Meets Godzilla or any of the other horrible sequels to Rendezvous.
If you read Heinlein's Starship Troopers then you must read Haldeman's Forever war to get a balanced perspective.
I've listed a large number by Heinlein. These books are mostly targeted towards the youthful reader.
..whats the point of building and launching these colonies from the moon when it is simpler and more energy efficient to build them on the moon in the first place?
The advantage of an orbital habitat is that you have controllable "gravity". You can live at 1G to keep your bones strong, and ride the elevator up to a micro-gravity environment to manufacture foamed-titanium widgits or wotnot. And travel from one habitat to another does not require burning fuel to get up out of a gravity-well.
The moon is a fixed 1/6th(ish) G. You can stay healthy by exercising in an expensive centrifuge, but you can't manufacture any super-pure semi-conductors or anything else that requires a micro-gravity environment. And to travel from the moon to anywhere else requires you climb out of a gravity well 1/6G deep.
This article lauds the benefits to be realized from making your music freely available for download via the net. So what if there IS a benefit? Should people be forced to make their music available for download against their will?
If you have a shop selling widgets and you refuse to unlock the door and let customers in, well you are an idiot, and probably not making as much money as you could. But do the customers have a right to break down your door to get in? Should they break the door down and help themselves to free samples of your merchandise (against your will) just because it is widely accepted that free samples promote sales?
I think that an artist should have the right to decide for themselves whether they want to make their music available for free download (and bank on increased sales as a result). Or to only sell to customers who donate a pint of blood as well as paying the money (and watch sales plummet).
It's their choice to make and they should be allowed to make the "wrong" choice if that looks "right" to them.
Well, actually it is "Under Construction" - and it probably always will be. But it works/plays, and sounds good.
It plays MPEG files (off the HD or CD), and regular audio CD's. It will serve the MPEG files via Apache to any similar box on my LAN. It will also play MPEG files served by Apache from any other box on my LAN. It can be controlled via a client on any machine on my LAN. I'm working on LIRC support, but I only just started, so nothing to show yet.
The OS is Slackware 4.0 and I'll upgrade that as soon as the Slackware 7.0 disks get to me (any day!)
Now all I need is the money to upgrade the HD so I can have all my 40 Gbytes of MPEG files online at once, plus maybe another 20 Gbytes for future additions. And a filesystem that doesn't fall over.
Do you think that some school administrator somewhere will hand out questionnaires, and ask the students to fill them in? Do you think they would accept the responses at face value?
No.
Some administrator will sit quietly, somewhere, and say "What about Student X? Are they involved in drugs? They sure look the type, so I'll tick this box. And did you get a load of their parents last week? I'd call that "disfunctional" for sure, so I'll tick this one too!" Students will be rated according to the answers some administrator THINKS apply to them. The rating and even the fact that they HAVE BEEN rated will not see the light of day.
Then one day they will raise their voice when someone ticks them off, and the cops will get called immediately. A quiet word (about their rating indicating a tendancy towards violence, etc) will get whispered in a policeman's ear, and the student won't even know why they're getting such a hard time over nothing!
Todays browser is trying to be a Jack of all Trades but ends up as Master of None. Now, apart from being a (poor) web browser, it does mail (poorly), news (poorly), web-page design (poorly), and also is a (poor) Instant Messenger and (poor) IRC client as well? Yuk! Just about the only thing these monstrocities do well is bloat up your HD.
Please call me back when it can control the spin-cycle on my dryer and microwave me a cheese sandwich as well.
"We shouldn't be forced to become nerds just to use computers, as much as we do not have to become mechanics to drive cars."
This may be a true statement; we don't want to require people to become mechanics to drive cars. But we do want them to become motorists and to learn how to drive, pass a test on their knowledge of the rules of the road and demonstrate an ability to control the vehicle.
We certainly don't expect anyone who can barely find the ignition switch after a lengthy search, and only figures out which way to turn it on their second attempt, to run their computer without experiencing the exhileration of disaster on a frequent basis.
I always seem to bust the pile-up with <100w so I never bothered to acquire a linear. Better still, wait until the rare DX calls me and begs for my QSL info...
;-)
Also, I don't dim my own lights and crash my server.
QRO: Last resort of the LID!
73, de Gus, Eight Papa Six Sly Mongoose
There's nothing wrong with cool. In fact, it's critical. I don't really want a machine boxed up in plywood and duct tape. We buy pretty cars, live in pretty houses and wear pretty clothes and eat pretty food, because the asthetics (IOW coolth) are important. And any good design should be able to incorporate excellent functionality and good looks.
Besides - everyone knows that your car goes faster if you paint a black stripe down the side!
Are these things built in such a way that they can be upgraded? If I bought one of these things (not that I have the cash), I'd want to be able to upgrade it's sensor-pack and/or it's On Board Computer when new versions come out.
Suppose my kids fell in love with Rover. Then, a new OBC came out supporting educational software that would play "A-B-C" type games with the kids. Or new long-range I/R eyeballs hit the market. I wouldn't want to replace the faithful old Rover that we've all come to love. I'd just want to give him an upgrade!
Maybe years go by, and rusty old Rover has learned to relate to my family. Then the new Penguin chassis comes on the market. I might want to keep old Rover's knowledge alive by downloading it into the new Tux model.
Can do?
Right now they are only toys. Yes, they're sort of neato, and it sure one-ups the neighbors. But the price is too high.
But a few years from now, what useful features will have been incorporated? eee-Banking? Cell-phone? Voice activated PDA? "Rover! Pay my phone-bill. And remind me to check the oil in the car. And tell my wife that I'll be home late. Oh, and are there any new articles on SlashDot? Also, fetch this stick!"
I dunno - these things could turn out to be very useful!
Little Green Men might nuke us.
I would...
...the first 5 days of each year above 70 degrees are holidays!
So what do I do on January 6th???
Or do you mean the first five days of each week?
I suspect that if someone did build one it would not have The Penguin at it's heart. :-(
A cooler for the pitcher of rum punch.....
...then hang him high!
Uh, on second thought, once you had engineered a on brain, the subject would immediately cease to be an MS-Minion at all!
I guess we'll just have to go back to adding centipede DNA to the chicken material (chicken stock?) to produce birds with 100 drumsticks!
Of course, my personal preference is breasts, but I'd settle for a way to make them larger instead of more numerous...
Once they'd "embraced and extended" the kernel enough, they could slap on the Redmond GUI and call it NT-2002 or something. Complaints about the GPL, etc, would be met by an avalanche of lawyers....
What worries me is the possibility of an MS-Linux++ distribution to follow the Linux version of Office. Then they could "embrace and extend" (iow: "copy and corrupt") the Linux kernel - and wouldn't hundreds of millions of Microsoft Minions support their efforts?
If you replace all the Sun tools with their GNU equivilents, would the OS suddenly be GNU/Solaris? No. So why GNU/Linux? No.
The kernel is the OS, and all the tools in the world from some other source don't change the origin of the kernel.
Jealousy is an ugly thing.
It's 1985 and you're told to write a piece of software. It's design life is given to you as 5-6 years. So are you going to make it Y2K compliant? Of COURSE NOT, since that increases cost/time to deployment. You get fired that way.
Then the beancounters decide NOT to replace it as planned but to keep it for 250% the original planned lifespan to save a buck. And then it's 1999 and suddenly this is a BUG?
Get wise.