I took me an hour to learn every rule in chess when I was in grade 2, but I have never mastered it. I't took me days to figure out all of the rules to Civilization, but I seem to have mastered it. After all these years, chess is still interesting. Sometimes the simple games are the most enduring.
While it doesn't run embedded Linux, the D-Link Di-704 has been available for over six months. It doesn't have a built-in modem, but it does have support for an external modem (through an async port), and for cable or DSL devices (through an ethernet port). NAT, Firewall, DHCP, even a 4 port 10/100 switch! And my Linux machines all like it.
American citizens so inclined could always immigrate to Canada where we don't have any guns, but at least we're still free.
Clearly all the shouting and all the guns in the World haven't made the USA any more free. Freedom in any society comes from less force and more talk. If you don't have the patience for that maybe you should just stick to hunting gazelle on the savannah with sticks.
One day it might sink into the American psyche that a man with guns is not a man with freedom, he is just a man with guns.
I suspect that we will see Linux more often on little machines requiring OSes. It's the ideal choice really -- Linux can be freely hacked until it is very small, fast, and compatible. It has proven to be reliable, and with the RT Linux stuff starting to get more mature I imagine that it will gain more ground with embedded systems too, though unfortunately at the expense of the QNX people (QNX is neat).
It will probably also run nicely on on the X-Box.:)
Alternately, the industry could decide to never settle with RAMBUS EVER.
I thought about that and looked up the stock information on Rambus. Of particular interest is their SEC report. Right now their stock price is good, but in reality they are losing money, and that probably explains a lot about the continuous lawsuits. Their own report says they have enough cash for 12 months of operations. RAMBUS needs to keep having people pay it royalties to stay alive. I suppose if a lot of the memory makers refuse to pay, get injunctions to back that up, then drag out the case for a couple of years they could really put the hurt-lock on the RAMBUS, perhaps even drive it out of business.
True, they haven't. But in these days, you don't have to win your legal cases to win. The threat of continuous litigation by a rich, relentless corporation is standard practice in the US for getting a settlement. It has already forced Samsung to settle.
Example:
RAMBUS: You owe us royalties on these memory products.
Samsung: Yeah right!
RAMBUS: Yes. This patent says so. Pay up.
Samsung: That patent is bullshit. See you in court, asshole.
RAMBUS: That maybe true, but because of our superior market capitalization we now have more money than God. We will sue you over and over until we win, or you are bankrupt.
Samsung: We can take it.
RAMBUS: I'll bet your shareholders think differently...
Samsung: Who do I make the cheque out to?
Stockholders hate seeing large legal expenses drag down the bottom line on their quarterlies -- most corporations do not budget for it. The fact that Samsung and Elpida have settled puts pressure on the lawyers from Micron and Hyundai to stop wasting money and settle.
RAMBUS has a seemingly endless supply of vague patents to sue technology companies over. Every time they win a case because of stupid US patent law, they gain the confidence and precedent to continue to come up with bolder schemes to suck even more money from technology companies.
This is exactly what happens when the staff of a technology company is 50% lawyers. I suspect that this is only the beginning of a era of corporations who produce nothing, design nothing, contribute nothing, but profit from continuous litigiousness, all because of stupid US law and legal practice.
It's a huge blow to progress in general (RAMBUS RAM is a good example). Someone has to stop this kind of thing before dozens of companies are all trying the same thing, wrecking the technology market because of greed.
I don't think that Corel is going to bounce back like Apple did after Microsoft was done giving them money. I think that Corel is going to become a puppet organization that Microsoft keeps around as a source of ammunition in their continuing fight against anti-trust action: "Look Janet, we're not abusing our power as a monopolist by proping up a dying competitor. Really!"
I didn't mean to say that it hasn't happened before. The largest I've ever seen was over 2000 posts. Besides, this one isn't going to break 1000 anyway.
I think Novell has known for years that the current evolution of their product line is probably doomed. Normally a company which has been around as long as Novell doesn't miss that kind of thing. I suspect that Novell is probably moving away from their proprietary Netware products, and is beginning to focus more on network management stuff.
Never underestimate the laziness of a sysadmin. Easy, fast, large scale network management is in great demand these days, but is largely untapped. This is reason why Microsoft is getting into it, and I suspect that Novell will too.
I think email has been in common use long enough to qualify as an English word in it's own right. I think it has risen above the existence of a mere compound non-word. Therefore it should be written "email" and not "e-mail".
You would do this because your PC is substantially faster and more capable than a game console (no matter what Sony says). You're simplifing it's operation for inexperienced users.
What I want to know is can this be done with an MS XBox?"
It's not just that the solutions are simple, they are simple and right under our noses.
What bugs me about statements like this is how some hack thinks that is able to sum up the progression an entire industry with a single statement. If the problems are so damned easy to solve, then why doesn't he get out there and solve them all himself?
Any academic who thinks that developing the technology and methodology to power some seamless cyberfuture is simplistic must obviously know something that the millions of coders, technicians, engineers, and scientists who have steadily worked on this cybertopia for the last 50 years do not.
What does he suppose that all the developers of the world are doing with their time anyway? Surely he didn't think that we intended to just sit around and play Quake.
Intuitive means Star Trek computers. Those strange looking keypads aside, Star Trek computers are the model of interface perfection.
I long for the day I can sit in front of my computer and say:
"Computer, what do I have on the books for today?"
or,
"Computer, obtain and install all of the current patches and revisions for yourself. Give me a report when you are done."
or my favourite,
"Computer tell me why this scanner isn't working."
A good UI is the lack of it. When it comes to a user interface, less is definately more. Most users want to be able to use their computers without having to jump through hoops. They care not for complicated menus, or cluttered toolbars, jumbles of icons, and they certainly aren't literate enough for a command line.
The day the end-user can talk to his computer like he talks to his co-workers is the day that that the UI battle is won.
Microsoft won't do it because they can't profit from it.
Buddy Microsoft guy here is so completely corporate he's almost a cartoon.
This is the old, out-dated style of business thinking clashing with the new style of business-think. I have this argument with my father all the time (an IT executive at a big corp) and I think even he is beginning to grok it. Maybe a bit of topic, but what the hell.
Microsoft (and most of the large IT players right now) are old-style business thinkers. Their product strategy is simple: devise product, patent product, sell product, defend product.
These companies exist only for profit. They never seek opinions or approval from their industry peers - why would they - they are trying to drive their peers out of the marketplace. They act nice to the customer not because they respect him, but because they need his loyalty. They act nice their hackers not because they like them, but because they don't want their competitors to have them. They contribute to the common good only in return for taxation benefits. Their only contributions to education and knowledge are certification programs designed to perpetuate the product and generate even more profit.
The easiest road to profit is control. Control of the product, control of the marketplace, control of the consumer. Monopolies an excellent way of maintaining this control. Microsoft is almost the ultimate corporation this way -- they maintain absolute control over their product, develop their own standards, and sell to a clientle that is not educated enough to know any better. Microsoft has acheived what most companies can only dream of -- total control of their market.
Without competition there is no challenge to the product. If the money is rolling in why on Earth would you invest more money in making the product better? From Microsoft's point of view, Windows is already the perfect product -- it generates profit. Subsequent versions of Windows do not have to be better or more stable, they just have to sell.
Successful old-style business thinkers to nothing to advance knowledge, because they don't have to and it isn't profitable. Windows 2000 is really nothing more then a nicer looking NT4. A server operating system with plug and play, a server operating system with Direct X, a server operating system that went to market with 60000 possible bugs, but I'll bet the shadow under the mousepointer works great. Style over substance, because the product is already 'perfect'.
The problem Microsoft faces now, and what all of the old style business thinkers face, is the unsustainability of this style of thinking. Growth can't go on forever, and neither can intellectual stagnation. One day, a group of people are going to come along, who can't be bought, who can't be sued, and who make things, not for profit, but because they can. Because it needs to be made. Because it advances knowledge. Because it is cool. They don't need to amass multi-billion dollar fortunes to pay for their computer bits and beer. They make their money helping others to use their product, something that should be done anyway. In the OS world, these new-style business thinkers are those "Linux Zealots". And one day, without ever launching a lawsuit, or a hostile take-over, they will topple these greedy, arrogant companies. Microsoft will either change, or it will die.
Microsoft guys, if you are still reading this thread, this is your fate. Start thinking like people rather than corporations before it is too late. Get off your asses, and tell your boss that you want to port Office over Linux, that you want to give it away free, and that you want to open source it. Then the rest of us can hack it, make it faster, and get rid of that damn talking paperclip.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly all the shouting and all the guns in the World haven't made the USA any more free. Freedom in any society comes from less force and more talk. If you don't have the patience for that maybe you should just stick to hunting gazelle on the savannah with sticks.
One day it might sink into the American psyche that a man with guns is not a man with freedom, he is just a man with guns.
It will probably also run nicely on on the X-Box. :)
I thought about that and looked up the stock information on Rambus. Of particular interest is their SEC report. Right now their stock price is good, but in reality they are losing money, and that probably explains a lot about the continuous lawsuits. Their own report says they have enough cash for 12 months of operations. RAMBUS needs to keep having people pay it royalties to stay alive. I suppose if a lot of the memory makers refuse to pay, get injunctions to back that up, then drag out the case for a couple of years they could really put the hurt-lock on the RAMBUS, perhaps even drive it out of business.
Example:
RAMBUS: You owe us royalties on these memory products.
Samsung: Yeah right!
RAMBUS: Yes. This patent says so. Pay up.
Samsung: That patent is bullshit. See you in court, asshole.
RAMBUS: That maybe true, but because of our superior market capitalization we now have more money than God. We will sue you over and over until we win, or you are bankrupt.
Samsung: We can take it.
RAMBUS: I'll bet your shareholders think differently...
Samsung: Who do I make the cheque out to?
Stockholders hate seeing large legal expenses drag down the bottom line on their quarterlies -- most corporations do not budget for it. The fact that Samsung and Elpida have settled puts pressure on the lawyers from Micron and Hyundai to stop wasting money and settle.
I don't think I follow you on this one.
This is exactly what happens when the staff of a technology company is 50% lawyers. I suspect that this is only the beginning of a era of corporations who produce nothing, design nothing, contribute nothing, but profit from continuous litigiousness, all because of stupid US law and legal practice.
It's a huge blow to progress in general (RAMBUS RAM is a good example). Someone has to stop this kind of thing before dozens of companies are all trying the same thing, wrecking the technology market because of greed.
Perhaps this is an attempt to generate more than a 1000 posts on an individual slashdot article.
Never underestimate the laziness of a sysadmin. Easy, fast, large scale network management is in great demand these days, but is largely untapped. This is reason why Microsoft is getting into it, and I suspect that Novell will too.
Maybe they should just turf it.
What I want to know is can this be done with an MS XBox?"
What bugs me about statements like this is how some hack thinks that is able to sum up the progression an entire industry with a single statement. If the problems are so damned easy to solve, then why doesn't he get out there and solve them all himself?
Any academic who thinks that developing the technology and methodology to power some seamless cyberfuture is simplistic must obviously know something that the millions of coders, technicians, engineers, and scientists who have steadily worked on this cybertopia for the last 50 years do not.
What does he suppose that all the developers of the world are doing with their time anyway? Surely he didn't think that we intended to just sit around and play Quake.
I long for the day I can sit in front of my computer and say:
"Computer, what do I have on the books for today?"
or,
"Computer, obtain and install all of the current patches and revisions for yourself. Give me a report when you are done."
or my favourite,
"Computer tell me why this scanner isn't working."
A good UI is the lack of it. When it comes to a user interface, less is definately more. Most users want to be able to use their computers without having to jump through hoops. They care not for complicated menus, or cluttered toolbars, jumbles of icons, and they certainly aren't literate enough for a command line.
The day the end-user can talk to his computer like he talks to his co-workers is the day that that the UI battle is won.
Buddy Microsoft guy here is so completely corporate he's almost a cartoon.
This is the old, out-dated style of business thinking clashing with the new style of business-think. I have this argument with my father all the time (an IT executive at a big corp) and I think even he is beginning to grok it. Maybe a bit of topic, but what the hell.
Microsoft (and most of the large IT players right now) are old-style business thinkers. Their product strategy is simple: devise product, patent product, sell product, defend product.
These companies exist only for profit. They never seek opinions or approval from their industry peers - why would they - they are trying to drive their peers out of the marketplace. They act nice to the customer not because they respect him, but because they need his loyalty. They act nice their hackers not because they like them, but because they don't want their competitors to have them. They contribute to the common good only in return for taxation benefits. Their only contributions to education and knowledge are certification programs designed to perpetuate the product and generate even more profit.
The easiest road to profit is control. Control of the product, control of the marketplace, control of the consumer. Monopolies an excellent way of maintaining this control. Microsoft is almost the ultimate corporation this way -- they maintain absolute control over their product, develop their own standards, and sell to a clientle that is not educated enough to know any better. Microsoft has acheived what most companies can only dream of -- total control of their market.
Without competition there is no challenge to the product. If the money is rolling in why on Earth would you invest more money in making the product better? From Microsoft's point of view, Windows is already the perfect product -- it generates profit. Subsequent versions of Windows do not have to be better or more stable, they just have to sell.
Successful old-style business thinkers to nothing to advance knowledge, because they don't have to and it isn't profitable. Windows 2000 is really nothing more then a nicer looking NT4. A server operating system with plug and play, a server operating system with Direct X, a server operating system that went to market with 60000 possible bugs, but I'll bet the shadow under the mousepointer works great. Style over substance, because the product is already 'perfect'.
The problem Microsoft faces now, and what all of the old style business thinkers face, is the unsustainability of this style of thinking. Growth can't go on forever, and neither can intellectual stagnation. One day, a group of people are going to come along, who can't be bought, who can't be sued, and who make things, not for profit, but because they can. Because it needs to be made. Because it advances knowledge. Because it is cool. They don't need to amass multi-billion dollar fortunes to pay for their computer bits and beer. They make their money helping others to use their product, something that should be done anyway. In the OS world, these new-style business thinkers are those "Linux Zealots". And one day, without ever launching a lawsuit, or a hostile take-over, they will topple these greedy, arrogant companies. Microsoft will either change, or it will die.
Microsoft guys, if you are still reading this thread, this is your fate. Start thinking like people rather than corporations before it is too late. Get off your asses, and tell your boss that you want to port Office over Linux, that you want to give it away free, and that you want to open source it. Then the rest of us can hack it, make it faster, and get rid of that damn talking paperclip.