When financial interests kick in, the whole of open, democratic,
honest discussion is lost.
This is currently happening in scientific research. Also, it happened a
long ago in software industry which had started in a purely scientific
open source form. Fortunately we have lately realized that it is better to
get back to the open source model. That is, in software. Do you think the
same should apply to discussions? It's pretty weird to argue "free
software, free as in speech" if speech isn't going to be free anymore.
The next step is probably that the open discussion is only reserved to
those who can pay for it, others will have to do with biased AOLized
knowledge.
Win9x and XP Home don't allow multi processors, so they would not gain
any
benefit from this, right?
You are so right! After the introduction of Hyperthreading, Win9x and XP
Home are no longer the perfect, stable, reliable OSes that take full
advantage of the hardware.
Considering the clock ranges from 600 to 1000 MHz, how low power
requirements they have compared to sux86, and how nice laptops Toshiba
makes (at least they used to), I hate to see this technology limited to
'embedded' devices only. Does someone seriously need a faster laptop?
Apache is doing a thing or two besides just calling "Passenger index.html,
please contact gate 80". There are other, faster httpds around that focus
on this simple task, for example Boa.
(the joke works much better in Finnish)
- Unbelievable data storage capacity (X-Rays wavelength is around
1/10000
of the one for blue light - this means 10000 times more data or 200TB per
side).
1/n of the wavelength would mean an increase of the order n^2: The area
of each bit can be reduced into 1/n^2 of the original. In fact your idea
isn't as ridiculous as the current moderation tells (+3, Funny).
The change in RMS's voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing,
powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high Sun, and
the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Gnomes stopped
their ears.
Think about it. Compare to 'windows' in its simplicity if you like. We
want to create a unified GNU/Linux desktop operating system and not play
around with fancy names. (Designed for X Windows, anyone?:-)
I'm drooling for an open-design PPC system. Something as
generic and clonable as the current x86 family, but using G4 or better,
and modern interrupts, interfaces etc. Current machines from Apple have
nothing to do with this idea - but one of these from
Merlancia is on my wishlist.
My pipedream (gnome specific): Imagine a panel inside gnomecc named
gnomecc->Desktop->Display which allowed you to reconfigure X without
restarting the session or the X server. It'd take more than just a
standardized way of changing the config file to do this.
There is already the xvidtune utility (included in XFree86) that lets
you change some of the video parameters on the fly. Therefore what you
describe should be quite possible.
Now, I realize that this might be impossible to implement without breaking
several other things, but I just wanted to throw the possibility out
there.
IMHO one of the great things about text config files in unix, is that
they can be edited either directly or with custom tools. The application
never gets to know how the config was edited, as long as it works. So in
principle it can be done without breaking anything.
The only such tool I've used is Linuxconf, but it's rather limited and
doesn't seem to work properly. Now I'm back to editing by hand and with
scripts of my own.
One problem behind XFree86 is that there's usually a single main config
file owned by root, although I believe it is possible to use personal
XF86Configs. (Never tried this - no need on my personal system.)
Nevetheless, I could also argue that configuring X is not something
that users should do. The system should be installed properly to fit the
hardware in the first place. Those who want to tweak the performance for
movie playback or such, probably need to have root access anyway. This
might be one reason why your suggestion has not been implemented.
I agree that Unix configuration can be a bit hairy, but one thing I've
always liked about it over that of Windows is a certain openness,
democracy, or equality.
What's advanced to one is trivial to another.
Many people here complain that unix is elitist, but at least it doesn't
make assumptions about your level of expertise. There are many situations
where a beginner needs to configure something that happens to be under
'advanced'. It's very discouraging to give the idea that you must be 1337
to use those options. Also it's impossible to split people simply into
beginners and experts because an expert in one field is a beginner in
another.
I guess it goes naturally in the whole of OSS and unix philosophy. If you
need to fix something, there are guides to there even if the path proves
difficult. In Windows things are decided for you, and if something is
decided 'difficult' the system reminds you that it takes some black magic
and you probably shouldn't do it.
So, whatever the silver bullet to config is, let there be an option to
hack the files with emacs. Because computing is not black magic which
should be hidden behind candy houses.
no braces {} for blocks,
no ";" to end the statement.
Whitespace mandatory.
Yukk,
Puke.
So you don't like whitespace and line breaks. Then why the heck are you
indenting your code? You have such fine {;} operators, you can write every
program in one line.;-)
Somebody wrote Perl? I thought it grew by itself, out of the stray code
that had leaked inside hot mainframes from unterminated cables. Python, on
the other hand, was designed...
A.I. is one of the few Real Sci Fi movies out there.
Perhaps because I happen to like the styles of Clarke and Kubrick (not
really referring to 2001), and I hate it when some flashy adventure, set
in futuristic or fantastic surroundings, is called scifi. SF is about
science and philosophy, not about future or technology as such.
I was
particularly annoyed when, at the end scenes, people started laughing when
the aliens appeared. There's obviously something hilarious about the idea
of other intelligent beings besides humans, and I didn't get the joke.
Some day they might come, you won't be laughing then:-)
Slashdot Mirror
This is currently happening in scientific research. Also, it happened a long ago in software industry which had started in a purely scientific open source form. Fortunately we have lately realized that it is better to get back to the open source model. That is, in software. Do you think the same should apply to discussions? It's pretty weird to argue "free software, free as in speech" if speech isn't going to be free anymore.
The next step is probably that the open discussion is only reserved to those who can pay for it, others will have to do with biased AOLized knowledge.
I don't think it has anything to do with timing, because at 333 MHz the wavelength of signals is around 1 m.
1G = 10^9 = 1,000,000,000. I bet Linux is cheaper.
this article without the obligatory Beowulf comments?
You are so right! After the introduction of Hyperthreading, Win9x and XP Home are no longer the perfect, stable, reliable OSes that take full advantage of the hardware.
Oh, hmm.. wait..
Considering the clock ranges from 600 to 1000 MHz, how low power requirements they have compared to sux86, and how nice laptops Toshiba makes (at least they used to), I hate to see this technology limited to 'embedded' devices only. Does someone seriously need a faster laptop?
One form of alumimium oxide is commonly known as Ruby, which as we know is a language somewhat like Python...
Apache is doing a thing or two besides just calling "Passenger index.html, please contact gate 80". There are other, faster httpds around that focus on this simple task, for example Boa. (the joke works much better in Finnish)
1/n of the wavelength would mean an increase of the order n^2: The area of each bit can be reduced into 1/n^2 of the original. In fact your idea isn't as ridiculous as the current moderation tells (+3, Funny).
That would be cool, considering that M$ isn't even 99.0 % compatible with itself.
The change in RMS's voice was astounding. Suddenly it became menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high Sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Gnomes stopped their ears.
Think about it. Compare to 'windows' in its simplicity if you like. We want to create a unified GNU/Linux desktop operating system and not play around with fancy names. (Designed for X Windows, anyone? :-)
I'm drooling for an open-design PPC system. Something as generic and clonable as the current x86 family, but using G4 or better, and modern interrupts, interfaces etc. Current machines from Apple have nothing to do with this idea - but one of these from Merlancia is on my wishlist.
There is already the xvidtune utility (included in XFree86) that lets you change some of the video parameters on the fly. Therefore what you describe should be quite possible.
Lando already did that for you.
IMHO one of the great things about text config files in unix, is that they can be edited either directly or with custom tools. The application never gets to know how the config was edited, as long as it works. So in principle it can be done without breaking anything.
The only such tool I've used is Linuxconf, but it's rather limited and doesn't seem to work properly. Now I'm back to editing by hand and with scripts of my own.
One problem behind XFree86 is that there's usually a single main config file owned by root, although I believe it is possible to use personal XF86Configs. (Never tried this - no need on my personal system.)
Nevetheless, I could also argue that configuring X is not something that users should do. The system should be installed properly to fit the hardware in the first place. Those who want to tweak the performance for movie playback or such, probably need to have root access anyway. This might be one reason why your suggestion has not been implemented.
What's advanced to one is trivial to another.
Many people here complain that unix is elitist, but at least it doesn't make assumptions about your level of expertise. There are many situations where a beginner needs to configure something that happens to be under 'advanced'. It's very discouraging to give the idea that you must be 1337 to use those options. Also it's impossible to split people simply into beginners and experts because an expert in one field is a beginner in another.
I guess it goes naturally in the whole of OSS and unix philosophy. If you need to fix something, there are guides to there even if the path proves difficult. In Windows things are decided for you, and if something is decided 'difficult' the system reminds you that it takes some black magic and you probably shouldn't do it.
So, whatever the silver bullet to config is, let there be an option to hack the files with emacs. Because computing is not black magic which should be hidden behind candy houses.
no ";" to end the statement.
Whitespace mandatory.
Yukk,
Puke.
So you don't like whitespace and line breaks. Then why the heck are you indenting your code? You have such fine {;} operators, you can write every program in one line. ;-)
PHP == pointy haired programmer ?
Somebody wrote Perl? I thought it grew by itself, out of the stray code that had leaked inside hot mainframes from unterminated cables. Python, on the other hand, was designed...
At least it doesn't have the associations with East Germany.
Obligatory comment down here:
A.I. is one of the few Real Sci Fi movies out there. Perhaps because I happen to like the styles of Clarke and Kubrick (not really referring to 2001), and I hate it when some flashy adventure, set in futuristic or fantastic surroundings, is called scifi. SF is about science and philosophy, not about future or technology as such.
I was particularly annoyed when, at the end scenes, people started laughing when the aliens appeared. There's obviously something hilarious about the idea of other intelligent beings besides humans, and I didn't get the joke. Some day they might come, you won't be laughing then :-)
It's 2002. The current century is still in its early part... ;-)
It's an ingenious book and a great movie, please don't ruin it my making it a big cliché, in the land of Redmond where shadows lie.