Primary reason why I like it as it uses UDP protocol for packet transmission.
That is REALLY effective in utilizing multiple connections to the same locations for redundancy, with varying weights, for example if you use something like Quagga for BGP routing management.
I am trolled for pointing out the obvious problem why drivers are such a problem for Linux, and these issues do not just plague drivers in the Video Card realm.
That is fine, if you do not want to listen to me, and think Patents, DMCA Act and Copyrights have nothing to do with this and closed hardware is a positive direction for driver development, great.
You believe that.
Troll away.
But if it isn't a problem, and I am trolling, then why do we have these guys undertaking a truly herculean task of building a card from scratch because:
1) ATI/Nvidia drivers are crap.
2) Closed hardware due to patents and copyrights and the DMCA act hamper driver development.
http://www.opengraphics.org
All 300 members of this mailing list cannot be trolls.
Oh please, there was more to the article than that.
This idea that these companies can't be bothered with Linux because it is a nich market is crapola.
Linux hasn't been a niche market since IBM started pumping billions into Linux development circles in the later 1990's.
Besides Patents, Copyrights and DMCA, I will also tell many of you here that there IS another reason why these companies will not produce Linux Drivers.
Microsoft controls the licensing on Direct X 3D with harsh prejudice.
What do you think would happen to a vendors ability to write DIrect 3D drivers for its next generation hardware if they produced equivalent or even suprerior Linux drivers?
Pick one, they are all the reason why Linux has poor driver support.
If ATI or NVidia would publish there specs on hardware, we wouldn't have a problem.
I for one think BOTH companies are pathetic and do more harm than good writing the crap they put out for Linux in the first place.
If they would open the hardware so we could get a register by register description of what is going on, far BETTER software engineers would be working on excellent drivers, far exceeding those WindowsXP currently enjoys.
If that would happen, then the only thing seperating the driver quality would be the OS implementation and Linux would kick Windows arse.
The biggest problem with these companies is that they are so full of themselves, they HONESTLY believe that they are THE BEST and the only people who could possible write video drivers for thier hardware.
The reality is they are probably the worst and write the software under duress of timelines and contractual intellectual property rules that prevent the highest quality drivers and people from working on the problem.
Hardware is fairly straightforward to build 80 percent of the speed ups in hardware come from process and fabrication technology. The other 20% is clever hardware and gate arrangements.
I mean if I remember right, such things as latches, memory cells...etc are just the same circuit pattern repeated for th emost part.
I am not so sure the community wants THE fastest card.
I would be happy with three cards:
1) Super High End using PCI Xpress with complete Support for 3D..particularly OpenGL not so much Direct X.
$500 Plus, with 256/512 DDR3.
I think we should split the graphics market and purposely NOT support Direct X. Primarily, because THAT is the primary reason we do NOT have a decent card for Linux NOW.
2) MidRange Card with 3D support in the AGP 8x/4x/2x spaces. OpenGL.
Same with lower clock speeds, DDR3
$250
3) 2D SDRAM PCI card with contracts with board makers for such thing as blade servers and servers who need minmal video support.
$50-100 dollars.
But Direct X is way too encumbered with Microsoft, and I think it would hamper development.
How do we deal with the fact that over the past 100 years we have had time to build GAS fuel/support infrastructure to a convienant level?
I think it will take conservatively half that amount of time till every 7/11 is a EVT quick stop.
Training new Technicians. Converting EVERY Gas station to a EVT stop. (Thats a LOT of stations.) Manufacturing plants/parts for the Power source.
2) The car...well the car has a lot of the same issues as the power.
How well does it work in hot/cold environments? How far can the motors really go? Safety Regulations need to be revamped for this technoloy. With no past history, we start from scratch.
These are justa couple issues, that I see could amount to about 30 years and about a trillion dollars to make it all happen. (Everyone Drives EVT's and they are just as convienant to use as liquid fueled or GAS cars.)
I just do not see how such a wide spread adoption could happen in a really short time, it is really a people issue in my opinion.
My point is that people I think are not putting into perspective what it takes to build the support structures required to support a pure EVT economy.
It will take a very long time, and it will cost a great deal.
I would also like to point out that ANY technology we select for an alternative to get from A -> B will have this problem.
Just as long as I am not/was not the fetus, or mass of cells whatever you destroy to extract them.
I came pretty close to being that fetus/clump of cells, as my mom was 40 when she had me and she almost decided she just couldn't handle a kid at 40 years old.
Now I am a clump of cells that went to college, and employ people with family supporting jobs.
My other problem with this has to do with the ever so slippery slope of eugenics, and human experimentation, and why we are doing it. (i.e. CASH)
It reminds me of a favorite Bablyon 5 episode. A brilliant scientist discovers a way to allow humans to live forever, from the extract of the brain fluids in another human being. The procedure kills the person, but it allows immortality.
This scientist was an outcast because she would not accept ANY limits to where or how her research would proceed. In the end, when she was caught and judged to be executed for her crimes. She proclaimed: "My ultimate triumph will be after I die. You will all kill each other to live forever and that will be my revenge."
After verifying the results of her experiments, the government authority sent a ship to pick up the research. Unfortunately, the Vorlons sent a ship to destroy the vessel before the research could be sent back to earth.
When asked why the Vorlon said: "Humanity is not ready for immortality..."
As it is, we cannot agree if the fetus is a clump of cells or something more...
It USE to be that everyone argued is was just a clump of cells. After all it was very tiny, and we couldn't do much about it.
But now, now as we advance, this definition, if there is one keeps changing. As we advance our perception of what it means to be ultimately human continues to get smaller, and smaller.
We are now fast approaching an understanding of genetics and biology that is leading us to conclude that DNA sequences are actually what define us to be human.
Even now, we can take steps before the fetus or clump of cells is born, to do corrective surgery, or genetic therapy.
Yet, it still can be aborted on demand.
Now, if a life is worth saving at this stage to be considered a human being which we can perform huma medical techniques on, is that what the definition of a human being is at the moment?
I am all for advancement of medical research, but we need to seriously think about what it means to be a human being.
I don't know what it means to be stuck in a chair, or paralyzed. But, I am not willing to trade my humanity for government approved breeding programs in factories for spare parts taken from human or not human potential that will never be, or whatever we decide at the moment to rationalize or justify what we do.
How far are we willing to go to correct our own personal hells?
I think what I am getting at is who is going to ultimately play God when this research allows us to grow hearts, organs...etc? Who gets a new heart and who doesn't?
If you have a great answer to this, I would like to here at what point does a clump of cells become a human being with rights.
The other problem I have with this is, health care in general.
I use to work in a Biotech company. If you would here some of the pretty frank discussions in private, leather covered board rooms about drugs and research directives, I think many here would be shocked and awed.
Some of the directives I have heard around a pretty popular drug was, "We do not want or are interested in a cure for heart disease, it would kill our market. We need a ball and chain a person needs to take on a daily basis or else they die to correct disease. Lets keep focused people."
We now have lipitor as a direct result of this sort of research directive.
I hope everyone here doesn't think this (CURES for diseases or ailments vs TREATMENTS) will be widely applied to anybody but the very rich and powerful.
"If we get life extension that really works, it will probably work only for genetically modified humans. "
I would like to change the above JUST a little:
"If we get life extension that really works, it will probably work only for genetically modified humans who own 98% of societies industrial and scientific base."
You forgot the rich part there. This is very much apparent already. The ruling class or elite do NOT see the same doctors that everyone on slashdot sees.
I would further say that trends that support the parent poster:
Ask CEO's about outsourcing of the scientific industrial base that is starting to happen they usually reply:
"Americans are just not good enough in science and math and are not graduating enough qualified people, so we have to go over seas."
This is of course, a diversion. Even if the US DID put out higher quality PhD's and 4 year degree people, it just wouldn't matter.
The standard of living in the US is too high, and the markets US companies are penetrating are too low to sustain US wages.
This happened with the hard industrial base of our country, now it is starting to happen to the scientific industrial base...not just software engineers, but Biotech...everything.
I won't insult your intelligence, unlike the people who are on the ballot this voting year, that we are not putting out enough scientific or professional people from 4 year degree colleges.
We are, and they are sitting in the unemployment lines by the hundreds of thousands waiting for a job.
Don't be fooled. It is all about share price and the emerging eastern markets.
It is really that simple. You cannot employ people at almost 10-50 times a higher rate than your target market to produce a increase in profits and share price.
For those of you waiting for, more than 2 years now for a job with a 4 year degree, it isn't because you are not unemployed because:
The economy is bad. Your not educated enough. Your not talented enough.
It is because your living in a country where the standard of living is too costly to employ you.
It is really that simple.
This is the dawn of a new era: Wear education really has much less value. What is more valuable is cheaper labor, increased profitability and share price.
With the internet, companies can instantly do research of any means anywhere on the globe.
The affects this will have will be catastrophic.
For one, it many people in the scientific fields didn't mind going to debt to the tune of $50K for a 4 year degree because they knew a nice pay rate was waiting to repay it back when they got out of college.
That is no longer the case.
I have noticed that more and more people are starting to pour back into the trades....(plumbers, electricians, utility workman) because you cannot outsource those sorts of job and they do not require a $50K debt load to learn after 4 years.
Unfortunately, I have no clue what to do about it.
" Issues that caused me to switch to KDE circa Redhat 8..."
Yes I gave my response to switching, but that is not the subject of my response.
I am not advocating that YOU or anyone else switch desktops...I am giving you MY reasons based on the maintainers of the distros continuing and WORSENING problems with GNOME.
I hope I am entitled to have my own reasons for switching? Fundamentally I also state I am worried about CHOICE here as well.
"But gtkmm wraps that so you don't have to look at it! Now, some anonymous coward who isn't me pointed to a web page that says that gtkmm isn't as good as Qt. That's entirely possible. My point was that you don't have to care that GNOME APIs are C, as long as you have a good wrapper. The other anonymous guy says that gtkmm isn't a good wrapper. So, he might have shot holes in my point. But you didn't even seem to get the point; I pointed out that with a good wrapper you won't have to look at GObject directly, and you looked at it again and compared it to a toothbrush."
I compared it to a toothbrush because a C wrapper doesn't replace fundamental language contructions such as the Standard Template Library in C++ just by adding a "wrapper".
It isn't the same.
I hope you are not suggesting you get the same benefits of C++ in C and that THIS MAN:
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/homepage.html
wasted his time because he could have just used a bunch of wrappers for standard C to implement OOD/OOP techniques or facilities.
I think your REALLY reaching here.
You are trying to turn this into a screaming match about switching desktops.
Keep to the topic matter of what the parent thread is about. "Slackware Likely to Drop GNOME".
"Oh that's brilliant, change desktops because you disapprove of one guy. I guess no one should buy Macs because Steve Jobs is kind of annoying.
A free clue for you: GNOME does not depend on Mono, nor Mono on GNOME.
This is a non-reason."
I never said GNOME or MONO depend on each other. What I did say is he split the attention of the GNOME desktop community and as a result diverted precious resources from finishing the work on GNOME Desktop.
"The tools are there, but they don't all start with a "K" (or even a "G").
KDevelop? Anjuta. KDesigner? GLADE. (I'm guessing. I googled KDesigner and it didn't find anything for me. What's KDesigner?)
Maybe you like the KDE tools better. Heck, they might even BE better. But this is a non-reason for you to change your personal desktop."
Well, I have built GNOME and KDE applications. I am sorry, I do not agree the tools you cite are equivalent.
I never said anything about switching desktops either. I am adressing the issues the distro maintainer has with building GNOME and maintaining it due to the fact it doesn't have very good build tools like KDE.
"Oh that's really brilliant, base your choice of a desktop on something like this. Here's a clue, it's easy to wrap C so you can call it from any language; the GNOME guys willingly put up with the lack-of-features in C to make it easier for everyone else to interface to GNOME in any language at all. You can do object-oriented programming in any language, and the GNOME stuff is decently OO. Just get a C++ wrapper like gtkmm and you are there."
I guess we do not agree here. I cited a small section of the GObject library which I think demonstrates: You can clean a bathroom with a toothbrush, but would you?
Issues that caused me to switch to KDE circa Redhat 8...
1) Miguel de Icaza.
I will never forgive him for beginning work on Mono, fracturing the limited number of developers for the GNOME Desktop. Setting it back probably years behind KDE. For What? A Microsoft red herring planted there strategically to insure any Linux Desktop application framework built on Mono could be stopped easily using copyright, DMCA and patent law....SHOULD it become too popular.
2) The Lack of decent or equivalent KDE development tools. KDevelop? KDesigner? KCacheGrind? KDevelop Assistant? The list is endless and the above applications will squash anything the GNOME community has like a grape to develop fine bugfree native Linux applications.
If you do not have a coherent development framework how the hell can you develop anything decent? No wonder the Distro/End User GNOME community is fundamentally stressed out. These sorts of complaints do not exist in the KDE community.
There are different ones.:-)
But they do not involve resorting to talk out in the open about dumping a desktop linux initiative such as GNOME. This is VERY serious.
The last gaffe that happened of this sort was xfree86....which is now relegated to the dust bin of history. But, AT LEAST it was reborn better than ever!
Perhaps, what is required....is a FORK of the GNOME Desktop project? A fork of GNOME may breath new life into addressing some of its ill's...one of which is listed below...
3) The Object Oreintation Thingy. I am really sorry if a lot of the GNOME developers think OOD when it comes to the GUI apps is so passe' I think GObject library is a throw back to the stone age, personally. I mean for Christ sake, if your going to reinvent the Object Oreintation of your GUI framework just because you cannot/do not/will not learn C++, you get the build complexity we keep reading about that is killing the GNOME release cycles.
This is a CLUE: Adopt, understand and learn how to build a OOD/OOP conceptual framework for your interfaces and DUMP GObject. Stop reinventing what C++ already gives you. With that RANT I present Exhibit A:
I really FEEL for you if you have to deal with the kind of crap above.
4) Finally, though I am not a GNOME fan by any means, I would hate to see the distro's...drop GNOME. It is too early to decide on a Linux Desktop architecture, per se, because there are not enough mature options out there. If you cut too many options out too early you kill a lot of innovation. That is something I feel will happen if distro's start telling people we are not supporting GNOME, if you want it go somewhere else and get the RPM's....and GOOD LUCK! We need options to fight Microsoft when they start excercising their massive patent portfolio. Which IS going to happen by the way when they start running out of money....which won't be too far off into the future. Most American companies in the software biz can't innovate their way out of a paper bag, so expect Microsoft to radically step up the Patent attacks in early 2006.
" Click Here For More Information About SCOsource
SCOsource Creates UNIX Licensing Programs The charter of SCOsource is to manage its UNIX® System intellectual property, create new and innovative licensing programs to meet the changing demands of today's market, and to protect its intellectual property assets."..but nothing of course about building innovative products...
What the hell has the US software and technology sectors become?
1) As more technology moves off shore, how do you suppose we support our military? It takes mega wads of cash to support 3-4 carrier groups.
Without the BEST research facilities in the world, America will not be able to project power or secure the wests interests.
I do not see that as a long term good thing. The Chinese government doesn't permit freedom of will, and it only does so on the premises it needs dollars and cash to enforce its iron will and placate the population.
China has PLANS, and some of them will intersect in very dangerous ways with the soverienty of the West. Taiwan is just one example, but there are many many more with respect to Japan, and the Pacific rim.
2) History has not seen or provided us with a point of reference to exactly what will happen when a totalitarian regime is cash infused with the resources as large as China's to do as it wills. Both with manpower and economic power.
Soviet Russia was always a Tiger, with much more Roar than bite because poor infrastructure and very little cash meant it could not sustain a military fight of any length of time, conventionally speaking.
What would happen if China achieves the financial base to do so?
It is common knowledge that military planners in China are perfectly "OK" with a planned invasion of the US mainland, if ONLY 1 Billion casualties are sufferred.
Conquoring the mainland of the US would be more than worth the cost.
3) The Chinese actually have a dual purpose plan in dealing with the West. The Chinese government has looked at how the Soviet Union failed to conquor the west....and they realize that military force is just one part of true strength.
Economic might is the other.
They will not make the same mistake THIS TIME in dealing with Western powers as Soviet Russia did.
I DO NOT believe that China is proping up the US dollar by buying enourmous amounts of US Treastury bills out of the kindess of its heart.
All CHina has to do is STOP BUYING our government treasury bills at a certain critical mass and our entire economy will come crashing down too its knees.
4) Finally, if you have manufacturing capacity to make extremely high tech goods, AS WELL AS the research and R&D facilities then you can form your own economic world economy, quite nicely, without input from the West.
When this happens, China will be a world unto its own. Nothing will stop a country militarily or economically if it researches and produces all of its own goods and technology.
This has yet come to pass, but everything else is falling into the MASTER PLAN.
What that plan is, is to bring about what Chinese leaders call the "Age of the Golden Dragon". In this age, every country in the world is a satellite nation and province of CHina.
Me? No thanks, I don't like my town square with tanks in it thank you very much.
Your entire essay of "SO WHAT" is typical of the lack of foresight and dangerous games that are happening with future of Western culture.
Also, if you look at how China is investing that money, they are propping up US securities as well.
That makes me wonder, if China fails to buy US government securities, because of a banking collapse, what will that do to the value of our dollar with a record 384 Billion deficit?
I am afraid most people are missing the true grandeur of exactly what this means.
The distance to transmit this information is instantaneous between any two quantum states. That means if two particles are both at opposite ends of the know universe, one change in another is instantaneously transmitted across the entire Universe to any other particle coupled in a dual state.
The conversation if totally uncrackable too.
The seeming problem of circuits to carry information at the speed of light is shattered for all intensive purposes.
You now have a form of communication, any advanced galatic civilization would use, to coordinate and rule whole galaxies, for example that is immune to the vast distances of space.
I thought I would bring this up because SETI is spending huge amounts of money on totally impractical things like "LASERS" that supposedly are being used by advanced civilzations for communication, because in SETI's expertise "Its the only possible way it could be done is by using electromagnetic radiation."
Another possibility of course is gravitational waves. I am wondering if:
Anyone with half a brain who is in Astronomy and knows the issues realize Lasers won't cut the distances required for practical communication.
I think the whole thing is quaint.
If there is a big civilization out there....who can raverse the stars, they will know how to defeat the vast distances required for communication and travel.
Simply because we have SETI people saying the distances are too big for space traveling ET's...then turn right around and tell us we should look for Lasers as a practical detection system must have recieved there PhD's from a crack jack box.
Slashdot Mirror
I love it....
I should have been committed a long time ago...
LOL.
-Hack
Primary reason why I like it as it uses UDP protocol for packet transmission.
That is REALLY effective in utilizing multiple connections to the same locations for redundancy, with varying weights, for example if you use something like Quagga for BGP routing management.
Works fabulously and the config is trivial.
-Hack
I am trolled for pointing out the obvious problem why drivers are such a problem for Linux, and these issues do not just plague drivers in the Video Card realm.
That is fine, if you do not want to listen to me, and think Patents, DMCA Act and Copyrights have nothing to do with this and closed hardware is a positive direction for driver development, great.
You believe that.
Troll away.
But if it isn't a problem, and I am trolling, then why do we have these guys undertaking a truly herculean task of building a card from scratch because:
1) ATI/Nvidia drivers are crap.
2) Closed hardware due to patents and copyrights and the DMCA act hamper driver development.
http://www.opengraphics.org
All 300 members of this mailing list cannot be trolls.
-Hackus
Oh please, there was more to the article than that.
This idea that these companies can't be bothered with Linux because it is a nich market is crapola.
Linux hasn't been a niche market since IBM started pumping billions into Linux development circles in the later 1990's.
Besides Patents, Copyrights and DMCA, I will also tell many of you here that there IS another reason why these companies will not produce Linux Drivers.
Microsoft controls the licensing on Direct X 3D with harsh prejudice.
What do you think would happen to a vendors ability to write DIrect 3D drivers for its next generation hardware if they produced equivalent or even suprerior Linux drivers?
Care to guess?
-Hack
DMCA
Copyright Law
Patents
Pick one, they are all the reason why Linux has poor driver support.
If ATI or NVidia would publish there specs on hardware, we wouldn't have a problem.
I for one think BOTH companies are pathetic and do more harm than good writing the crap they put out for Linux in the first place.
If they would open the hardware so we could get a register by register description of what is going on, far BETTER software engineers would be working on excellent drivers, far exceeding those WindowsXP currently enjoys.
If that would happen, then the only thing seperating the driver quality would be the OS implementation and Linux would kick Windows arse.
The biggest problem with these companies is that they are so full of themselves, they HONESTLY believe that they are THE BEST and the only people who could possible write video drivers for thier hardware.
The reality is they are probably the worst and write the software under duress of timelines and contractual intellectual property rules that prevent the highest quality drivers and people from working on the problem.
-Hack
WoW!!!!
I hope the licensing server and your bank account can scale along with the computing requirements!!!
-Hack
"but the 50,000 price tag is out of reach of most pet owners.."
along with most very advanced genetic therapies currently enjoyed by the super rich for cancer and aging.
-Hack
Oh I don't know.
Hardware is fairly straightforward to build 80 percent of the speed ups in hardware come from process and fabrication technology. The other 20% is clever hardware and gate arrangements.
I mean if I remember right, such things as latches, memory cells...etc are just the same circuit pattern repeated for th emost part.
I am not so sure the community wants THE fastest card.
I would be happy with three cards:
1) Super High End using PCI Xpress with complete Support for 3D..particularly OpenGL not so much Direct X.
$500 Plus, with 256/512 DDR3.
I think we should split the graphics market and purposely NOT support Direct X. Primarily, because THAT is the primary reason we do NOT have a decent card for Linux NOW.
2) MidRange Card with 3D support in the AGP 8x/4x/2x spaces. OpenGL.
Same with lower clock speeds, DDR3
$250
3) 2D SDRAM PCI card with contracts with board makers for such thing as blade servers and servers who need minmal video support.
$50-100 dollars.
But Direct X is way too encumbered with Microsoft, and I think it would hamper development.
-Hack
Some issues I see that are not being discussed:
1) Ok so we decide to do electric.
How do we deal with the fact that over the past 100 years we have had time to build GAS fuel/support infrastructure to a convienant level?
I think it will take conservatively half that amount of time till every 7/11 is a EVT quick stop.
Training new Technicians.
Converting EVERY Gas station to a EVT stop.
(Thats a LOT of stations.)
Manufacturing plants/parts for the Power source.
2) The car...well the car has a lot of the same issues as the power.
How well does it work in hot/cold environments? How far can the motors really go?
Safety Regulations need to be revamped for this technoloy. With no past history, we start from scratch.
These are justa couple issues, that I see could amount to about 30 years and about a trillion dollars to make it all happen.
(Everyone Drives EVT's and they are just as convienant to use as liquid fueled or GAS cars.)
I just do not see how such a wide spread adoption could happen in a really short time, it is really a people issue in my opinion.
My point is that people I think are not putting into perspective what it takes to build the support structures required to support a pure EVT economy.
It will take a very long time, and it will cost a great deal.
I would also like to point out that ANY technology we select for an alternative to get from A -> B will have this problem.
How do we address it?
What do you think?
-Hack
I would love stem cell research!
Just as long as I am not/was not the fetus, or mass of cells whatever you destroy to extract them.
I came pretty close to being that fetus/clump of cells, as my mom was 40 when she had me and she almost decided she just couldn't handle a kid at 40 years old.
Now I am a clump of cells that went to college, and employ people with family supporting jobs.
My other problem with this has to do with the ever so slippery slope of eugenics, and human experimentation, and why we are doing it. (i.e. CASH)
It reminds me of a favorite Bablyon 5 episode. A brilliant scientist discovers a way to allow humans to live forever, from the extract of the brain fluids in another human being. The procedure kills the person, but it allows immortality.
This scientist was an outcast because she would not accept ANY limits to where or how her research would proceed. In the end, when she was caught and judged to be executed for her crimes. She proclaimed: "My ultimate triumph will be after I die. You will all kill each other to live forever and that will be my revenge."
After verifying the results of her experiments, the government authority sent a ship to pick up the research. Unfortunately, the Vorlons sent a ship to destroy the vessel before the research could be sent back to earth.
When asked why the Vorlon said: "Humanity is not ready for immortality..."
As it is, we cannot agree if the fetus is a clump of cells or something more...
It USE to be that everyone argued is was just a clump of cells. After all it was very tiny, and we couldn't do much about it.
But now, now as we advance, this definition, if there is one keeps changing. As we advance our perception of what it means to be ultimately human continues to get smaller, and smaller.
We are now fast approaching an understanding of genetics and biology that is leading us to conclude that DNA sequences are actually what define us to be human.
Even now, we can take steps before the fetus or clump of cells is born, to do corrective surgery, or genetic therapy.
Yet, it still can be aborted on demand.
Now, if a life is worth saving at this stage to be considered a human being which we can perform huma medical techniques on, is that what the definition of a human being is at the moment?
I am all for advancement of medical research, but we need to seriously think about what it means to be a human being.
I don't know what it means to be stuck in a chair, or paralyzed. But, I am not willing to trade my humanity for government approved breeding programs in factories for spare parts taken from human or not human potential that will never be, or whatever we decide at the moment to rationalize or justify what we do.
How far are we willing to go to correct our own personal hells?
I think what I am getting at is who is going to ultimately play God when this research allows us to grow hearts, organs...etc? Who gets a new heart and who doesn't?
If you have a great answer to this, I would like to here at what point does a clump of cells become a human being with rights.
The other problem I have with this is, health care in general.
I use to work in a Biotech company. If you would here some of the pretty frank discussions in private, leather covered board rooms about drugs and research directives, I think many here would be shocked and awed.
Some of the directives I have heard around a pretty popular drug was, "We do not want or are interested in a cure for heart disease, it would kill our market. We need a ball and chain a person needs to take on a daily basis or else they die to correct disease. Lets keep focused people."
We now have lipitor as a direct result of this sort of research directive.
I hope everyone here doesn't think this (CURES for diseases or ailments vs TREATMENTS) will be widely applied to anybody but the very rich and powerful.
Medical
"If we get life extension that really works, it will probably work only for genetically modified humans. "
I would like to change the above JUST a little:
"If we get life extension that really works, it will probably work only for genetically modified humans who own 98% of societies industrial and scientific base."
You forgot the rich part there. This is very much apparent already. The ruling class or elite do NOT see the same doctors that everyone on slashdot sees.
-Hack
I would further say that trends that support the parent poster:
Ask CEO's about outsourcing of the scientific industrial base that is starting to happen they usually reply:
"Americans are just not good enough in science and math and are not graduating enough qualified people, so we have to go over seas."
This is of course, a diversion. Even if the US DID put out higher quality PhD's and 4 year degree people, it just wouldn't matter.
The standard of living in the US is too high, and the markets US companies are penetrating are too low to sustain US wages.
This happened with the hard industrial base of our country, now it is starting to happen to the scientific industrial base...not just software engineers, but Biotech...everything.
I won't insult your intelligence, unlike the people who are on the ballot this voting year, that we are not putting out enough scientific or professional people from 4 year degree colleges.
We are, and they are sitting in the unemployment lines by the hundreds of thousands waiting for a job.
Don't be fooled. It is all about share price and the emerging eastern markets.
It is really that simple. You cannot employ people at almost 10-50 times a higher rate than your target market to produce a increase in profits and share price.
For those of you waiting for, more than 2 years now for a job with a 4 year degree, it isn't because you are not unemployed because:
The economy is bad.
Your not educated enough.
Your not talented enough.
It is because your living in a country where the standard of living is too costly to employ you.
It is really that simple.
This is the dawn of a new era: Wear education really has much less value. What is more valuable is cheaper labor, increased profitability and share price.
With the internet, companies can instantly do research of any means anywhere on the globe.
The affects this will have will be catastrophic.
For one, it many people in the scientific fields didn't mind going to debt to the tune of $50K for a 4 year degree because they knew a nice pay rate was waiting to repay it back when they got out of college.
That is no longer the case.
I have noticed that more and more people are starting to pour back into the trades....(plumbers, electricians, utility workman) because you cannot outsource those sorts of job and they do not require a $50K debt load to learn after 4 years.
Unfortunately, I have no clue what to do about it.
-Hack
" Issues that caused me to switch to KDE circa Redhat 8..."
Yes I gave my response to switching, but that is not the subject of my response.
I am not advocating that YOU or anyone else switch desktops...I am giving you MY reasons based on the maintainers of the distros continuing and WORSENING problems with GNOME.
I hope I am entitled to have my own reasons for switching? Fundamentally I also state I am worried about CHOICE here as well.
"But gtkmm wraps that so you don't have to look at it! Now, some anonymous coward who isn't me pointed to a web page that says that gtkmm isn't as good as Qt. That's entirely possible. My point was that you don't have to care that GNOME APIs are C, as long as you have a good wrapper. The other anonymous guy says that gtkmm isn't a good wrapper. So, he might have shot holes in my point. But you didn't even seem to get the point; I pointed out that with a good wrapper you won't have to look at GObject directly, and you looked at it again and compared it to a toothbrush."
I compared it to a toothbrush because a C wrapper doesn't replace fundamental language contructions such as the Standard Template Library in C++ just by adding a "wrapper".
It isn't the same.
I hope you are not suggesting you get the same benefits of C++ in C and that THIS MAN:
http://www.research.att.com/~bs/homepage.html
wasted his time because he could have just used a bunch of wrappers for standard C to implement OOD/OOP techniques or facilities.
I think your REALLY reaching here.
You are trying to turn this into a screaming match about switching desktops.
Keep to the topic matter of what the parent thread is about. "Slackware Likely to Drop GNOME".
-Hack
"Oh that's brilliant, change desktops because you disapprove of one guy. I guess no one should buy Macs because Steve Jobs is kind of annoying.
A free clue for you: GNOME does not depend on Mono, nor Mono on GNOME.
This is a non-reason."
I never said GNOME or MONO depend on each other. What I did say is he split the attention of the GNOME desktop community and as a result diverted precious resources from finishing the work on GNOME Desktop.
"The tools are there, but they don't all start with a "K" (or even a "G").
KDevelop? Anjuta.
KDesigner? GLADE. (I'm guessing. I googled KDesigner and it didn't find anything for me. What's KDesigner?)
Maybe you like the KDE tools better. Heck, they might even BE better. But this is a non-reason for you to change your personal desktop."
Well, I have built GNOME and KDE applications. I am sorry, I do not agree the tools you cite are equivalent.
I never said anything about switching desktops either. I am adressing the issues the distro maintainer has with building GNOME and maintaining it due to the fact it doesn't have very good build tools like KDE.
"Oh that's really brilliant, base your choice of a desktop on something like this. Here's a clue, it's easy to wrap C so you can call it from any language; the GNOME guys willingly put up with the lack-of-features in C to make it easier for everyone else to interface to GNOME in any language at all. You can do object-oriented programming in any language, and the GNOME stuff is decently OO. Just get a C++ wrapper like gtkmm and you are there."
I guess we do not agree here. I cited a small section of the GObject library which I think demonstrates: You can clean a bathroom with a toothbrush, but would you?
-Hack
Issues that caused me to switch to KDE circa Redhat 8...
:-)
:-)
1) Miguel de Icaza.
I will never forgive him for beginning work on Mono, fracturing the limited number of developers for the GNOME Desktop. Setting it back probably years behind KDE. For What? A Microsoft red herring planted there strategically to insure any Linux Desktop application framework built on Mono could be stopped easily using copyright, DMCA and patent law....SHOULD it become too popular.
2) The Lack of decent or equivalent KDE development tools. KDevelop? KDesigner? KCacheGrind? KDevelop Assistant? The list is endless and the above applications will squash anything the GNOME community has like a grape to develop fine bugfree native Linux applications.
If you do not have a coherent development framework how the hell can you develop anything decent? No wonder the Distro/End User GNOME community is fundamentally stressed out. These sorts of complaints do not exist in the KDE community.
There are different ones.
But they do not involve resorting to talk out in the open about dumping a desktop linux initiative such as GNOME. This is VERY serious.
The last gaffe that happened of this sort was xfree86....which is now relegated to the dust bin of history. But, AT LEAST it was reborn better than ever!
Perhaps, what is required....is a FORK of the GNOME Desktop project? A fork of GNOME may breath new life into addressing some of its ill's...one of which is listed below...
3) The Object Oreintation Thingy. I am really sorry if a lot of the GNOME developers think OOD when it comes to the GUI apps is so passe' I think GObject library is a throw back to the stone age, personally. I mean for Christ sake, if your going to reinvent the Object Oreintation of your GUI framework just because you cannot/do not/will not learn C++, you get the build complexity we keep reading about that is killing the GNOME release cycles.
This is a CLUE: Adopt, understand and learn how to build a OOD/OOP conceptual framework for your interfaces and DUMP GObject. Stop reinventing what C++ already gives you. With that RANT I present Exhibit A:
#include
struct GTypeModule;
struct GTypeModuleClass;
gboolean g_type_module_use (GTypeModule *module);
void g_type_module_unuse (GTypeModule *module);
(ad naseum)
I really FEEL for you if you have to deal with the kind of crap above.
4) Finally, though I am not a GNOME fan by any means, I would hate to see the distro's...drop GNOME. It is too early to decide on a Linux Desktop architecture, per se, because there are not enough mature options out there. If you cut too many options out too early you kill a lot of innovation. That is something I feel will happen if distro's start telling people we are not supporting GNOME, if you want it go somewhere else and get the RPM's....and GOOD LUCK! We need options to fight Microsoft when they start excercising their massive patent portfolio. Which IS going to happen by the way when they start running out of money....which won't be too far off into the future. Most American companies in the software biz can't innovate their way out of a paper bag, so expect Microsoft to radically step up the Patent attacks in early 2006.
Don't ask how I know that year either.
I won't tell.
-hackus
Does anyone here reading Slashdot even have a cervix?
:-)
Sorry had to ask..
-Hack
Oh you mean the same NY Times we trust to report the made up news...excuse....news.
j m2 0040629.shtml
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/joelmowbray/
-Hack
Move your company out of the United States.
Hire local workers in that country.
File assests and capital in the original company and setup a fake front company in the US to deal with distribution.
First sign of trouble, fold, and reopen as a different company in countries that do software patents.
Large organizations are doing it in droves, I suggest you do the same.
-Hack
I quote:
..but nothing of course about building innovative products...
" Click Here For More Information About SCOsource
SCOsource Creates UNIX Licensing Programs
The charter of SCOsource is to manage its UNIX® System intellectual property, create new and innovative licensing programs to meet the changing demands of today's market, and to protect its intellectual property assets."
What the hell has the US software and technology sectors become?
-Hack
So what?
Think about this when you go to bed at night:
1) As more technology moves off shore, how do you suppose we support our military? It takes mega wads of cash to support 3-4 carrier groups.
Without the BEST research facilities in the world, America will not be able to project power or secure the wests interests.
I do not see that as a long term good thing. The Chinese government doesn't permit freedom of will, and it only does so on the premises it needs dollars and cash to enforce its iron will and placate the population.
China has PLANS, and some of them will intersect in very dangerous ways with the soverienty of the West. Taiwan is just one example, but there are many many more with respect to Japan, and the Pacific rim.
2) History has not seen or provided us with a point of reference to exactly what will happen when a totalitarian regime is cash infused with the resources as large as China's to do as it wills. Both with manpower and economic power.
Soviet Russia was always a Tiger, with much more Roar than bite because poor infrastructure and very little cash meant it could not sustain a military fight of any length of time, conventionally speaking.
What would happen if China achieves the financial base to do so?
It is common knowledge that military planners in China are perfectly "OK" with a planned invasion of the US mainland, if ONLY 1 Billion casualties are sufferred.
Conquoring the mainland of the US would be more than worth the cost.
3) The Chinese actually have a dual purpose plan in dealing with the West. The Chinese government has looked at how the Soviet Union failed to conquor the west....and they realize that military force is just one part of true strength.
Economic might is the other.
They will not make the same mistake THIS TIME in dealing with Western powers as Soviet Russia did.
I DO NOT believe that China is proping up the US dollar by buying enourmous amounts of US Treastury bills out of the kindess of its heart.
All CHina has to do is STOP BUYING our government treasury bills at a certain critical mass and our entire economy will come crashing down too its knees.
4) Finally, if you have manufacturing capacity to make extremely high tech goods, AS WELL AS the research and R&D facilities then you can form your own economic world economy, quite nicely, without input from the West.
When this happens, China will be a world unto its own. Nothing will stop a country militarily or economically if it researches and produces all of its own goods and technology.
This has yet come to pass, but everything else is falling into the MASTER PLAN.
What that plan is, is to bring about what Chinese leaders call the "Age of the Golden Dragon". In this age, every country in the world is a satellite nation and province of CHina.
Me? No thanks, I don't like my town square with tanks in it thank you very much.
Your entire essay of "SO WHAT" is typical of the lack of foresight and dangerous games that are happening with future of Western culture.
-Hack
Very Interesting.
You raised some good points.
Also, if you look at how China is investing that money, they are propping up US securities as well.
That makes me wonder, if China fails to buy US government securities, because of a banking collapse, what will that do to the value of our dollar with a record 384 Billion deficit?
Not a pretty thought.
-Hack
I am afraid most people are missing the true grandeur of exactly what this means.
d .h tml
The distance to transmit this information is instantaneous between any two quantum states. That means if two particles are both at opposite ends of the know universe, one change in another is instantaneously transmitted across the entire Universe to any other particle coupled in a dual state.
The conversation if totally uncrackable too.
The seeming problem of circuits to carry information at the speed of light is shattered for all intensive purposes.
You now have a form of communication, any advanced galatic civilization would use, to coordinate and rule whole galaxies, for example that is immune to the vast distances of space.
I thought I would bring this up because SETI is spending huge amounts of money on totally impractical things like "LASERS" that supposedly are being used by advanced civilzations for communication, because in SETI's expertise "Its the only possible way it could be done is by using electromagnetic radiation."
Another possibility of course is gravitational waves. I am wondering if:
http://www.ldolphin.org/vanFlandern/gravityspee
might provide us with a means of listening in on advanced civilzations.
-Hack
are stupid.
Anyone with half a brain who is in Astronomy and knows the issues realize Lasers won't cut the distances required for practical communication.
I think the whole thing is quaint.
If there is a big civilization out there....who can raverse the stars, they will know how to defeat the vast distances required for communication and travel.
Simply because we have SETI people saying the distances are too big for space traveling ET's...then turn right around and tell us we should look for Lasers as a practical detection system must have recieved there PhD's from a crack jack box.
-Hack
I have to agree about Total Annihilation. I love all the mods for that game.
Dungeon Keeper 2. What can I say I love to whip'em on down there in the torcher chamber...
Oh, and I love the Disco Inferno when someone hits the Jackpot or your creatures are just plain happy.
-gc
Hello Steve,
Get well soon. Speedy recovery and God Speed...
-Hack