Of course, technically you're right. But what about the expression, "think big?" There's a vernacular precedent for using adjectives as nouns. And it certainly makes sense to nearly every English-speaker who hears it. There's no need to call anyone "a fucking moron." Think broad.
Absolutely. People need to recognize that some software is only going to come from companies, in exchange for cold, hard, cash. It's fantastic that we can get a complete operating system for free. But not all software can be developed by hackers across the Internet.
'Applications' like Office or Quake3 are developed in a very non-hacker way. Anyone who's ever put out a large shrinkwrapped product knows that it's important to have a power structure for decision making. Graphics people need to interact with designers and programmers and technical writers. A game has to have a release date, and there's a finite limit on how long development can take. Games are designed to max out hardware, so Moore's law makes them obsolete within a year.
Developing the kernel is very different. The only real users of the kernel are more hackers--the ones who write programs which run on the kernel--so we don't need marketing, packaging, phone support, or formal documentation. And kernel development time is literally infinite. There are version releases, but there's no need to "get it out the door." The kernel is designed to be as minimal as possible, hardware-wise. Therefore the kernel is much less affected by Moore's law.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Accept the fact that there is some software you MUST PAY FOR. And go pay for it!
Linux gamers need to butch up and stop using Windows for games. I was at the Loki Hack contest with 20 other Linux hackers / gamers... I asked how many had Windows, nearly 100% replied, "Yes, but just to run games." We're never going to get good games on Linux if we keep buying them for Windows.
I know many Linux users are willing to boycott productivity tools like MS Office, but they're afraid to do the same thing for games. Step up to the plate, boys!
To paraphrase Larry Niven, "User-friendliess times power is a constant."
Niven was quick to point out, however, that the "constant" can change-- that 'K' is different for different environments. The idea is really that "user-friendliness and power are inversely related." Increasing one decreases the other.
For example, the mouse increases user-friendliness, while the keyboard increases power. Making a small, isolated change from a keyboard shortcut to a mouse shortcut results in a decrease in power and an increase in usability. We can tinker with the left-hand numbers all we want, but we're not going to make signifigant changes in the overall system.
It takes a massive restructuring, along the lines of the 'paradigm shift,' to change the 'K' value. This is exactly what a 'killer app' does--it increases the usability and the power of the computer. Visicalc, WordStar, the Macintosh, Netscape. Microsoft can tweak IE all they want, but their effors can't change the basic 'K' constant of the Web.
Linux needs a killer app to make it really worthwhile. Usability testing is great, kernel speed is great, but they fall out in the wash.
And don't get me started on the 30,000 tiny buttons sitting along the toolbar(s) in MS Word. If it takes a "tooltip" to explain what the icon represents, then the icon is a failure.
Correction: if it takes a "tooltip" to understand an icon the second time, then the icon is a failure.
An icon on a toolbar is an abbrev. Abbrevs are impossible to understand unless 1) you understand the underlying concept, and 2)you've had the abbrev explained at least once.
Why does a floppy disk icon mean SAVE? It could mean LOAD. It could mean millions of things. If you had never seen that icon before, would you know what it did (without a tooltip)?
A picture is worth a thousand words. An icon is worth about two.
Was wondering the same thing. Twenty gets you forty, the original Hotmail site had the same security hole--and probably a few more. Microsoft does TRY.
The problem is, getting rid of security holes is like protecting the President. Doesn't matter how many times you do your job perfectly--the bad guys only have to beat you ONCE. It's just a matter of percentages.
Oh, yes. I've actually suggested we do something similar at our company. We send out HTML emails to our customers. The URL in the IMG tag doesn't have to be an image at all--it can be a CGI page which redirects to an image. Throw a couple of parameters (like a user-id) into the URL, and the CGI page can record exactly when users open the email. Nifty, eh? I never thought of capturing the IP address directly (not something we're interested in) but it would obviously be possible.
...except for the shipping charges. I agree that the 37k lines of source may be a waste of trees, but it is easier to flip through a book sometimes.
A good companion to this book is Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment. I found myself wondering exactly why some kernel routines were implemented the way they were, until I read up on them in APUE. It's important to understand the "user" interface to the kernel when you're reading this book.
Knowledge of stuff like assembly language (GNU's version of course) and low-level stuff like IRQs/interrupts, memory segmentation, and device IO is important--like the review says, he doesn't go into those details. Higher-level stuff like scheduling, file-system calls, and IPC is dealt with very well.
...it's business. Capitalism. We villify these megacorporations and laud smaller companies like Red Hat. But the only way for a small company to become a big one is by doing exactly the sort of stuff that AOL and Microsoft do--cater to the idiots of the world, every blessed one of them. It's the same in every industry. Did anyone else raise an eyebrow a few years back when Sun and Oracle et al. formed a group called "Anyone But Microsoft"? Does anyone think a world ruled by Larry Ellison would be better than one ruled by Bill Gates? It's important to recognize that the same ideal is present at ALL levels of business: make money, lots of it. Anyone who follows this ideal is as much of a bastard as Gates. Hell, Bill got his start by being one of the very first to claim that he could actually own the software he (or people in his company) wrote, back in the days of Apple I's. He wasn't a billionaire then. It's not an issue of magnitude. It's an issue of purpose.
Our new WinCoder software makes coding as easy as speaking! The WinCoder package comes with a special "development microphone" which connects to your PC through your sound card. Simply speak clearly into the microphone and request your program.
For example:
"Computer, make me a Linux device driver for my PCI BleeduxEdge video card!"
"I want a program which automatically spies on my ex-wife!"
"Show me eight thousand different pictures of Natalie Portman pouring grits down her pants!"
...And as easy as that, you've got a program! No more typing! No more reference manuals! No more staying up all night trying to finish a project! We guarantee massive throughput--less than thirty words per program! Ports to any OS--Unix, Windows, Macs, and even PalmPilots!
How it works: your program request is digitized and sent to a special warped-space cage where an infinite numbers of moneys type at an infinite number of computers. A special program-matching application identifies the monkeycode which most closely matches your request, and returns that program to you. The entire process takes an infinitely small amount of time!
Expensive / proprietary Unix workstations long held the high-end graphics market, and Macs the low-end. Win32 is becoming the dominant platform, but it's not there yet. This could be a great arena for Linux to shine. Remember how long Macs hung around simply because they did graphics well? If Linux could get its GUI problems straightened out, it could emerge as the digital artist's machine of choice. I know that 90% of graphical designers who are now forced to work on Win32 long for the days of Macs...
Why do we call GUI components like buttons and edit boxes "widgets?" Because they're supposed to be completely interchangeable and identical.
After your brain has seen a few dozen Win32 style buttons (grey, with a little beveled edge, Arial font with the hotkey underlined) you don't have to "see" the buttons anymore. Your brain recognizes them without even looking. Which is why it can be difficult to move to another GUI environment--your brain has to learn to recognize the new widgets.
Websites like Sony's are a good place to use skins, because Sony is trying to show off a high-tech look and feel. I don't do any WORK on Sony's website. I do work within Netscape, however, and so I need to be able to recognize exactly what the Back button will look like.
It seems to me that the only real advantage FreeNet has over the existing HTTP protocol is that it's difficult to track down either
who wrote it or
where it's stored
I can see this being useful for the sort of free speech governments and corporations want to stamp out. But given that the Web is already very entrenched despite numerous flaws, how do you expect your FreeNet protocol to "compete?" Wouldn't a system which integrates with the Web (a method for hiding existing sites in the same manner you hide your FreeNet nodes) rather than competing with it have a better chance of surviving?
If I were going to run a big web site with a mainframe, why would I want to subdivide it into multiple mini-servers? I'm thrilled the iron giants can run Linux, and if I need their processing power, I'd just run a single copy of it.
Is the point that ISPs can consolidate all of their servers into a few mainframes? Couldn't they have done that before, without subdividing the mainframe?
There was an article in Wired a while ago which mentions that the reason Iridium was struggling was because they failed to predict how widespread regular cell phone service would become. They had figured (back in the early nineties when they began) that cell phones wouldn't ever be useful outside of major cities, because of how many towers would have to be constructed. As it happens, for whatever reasons, the towers were indeed constructed and so the predicted user base for Iridium (i.e. anyone outside of a city) disappeared.
If a guy at a flea market sells something illegal, is the owner / operator of the flea market responsible? This is an honest question (I don't know the legal issue) but it seems to me that if the cops were to bust anyone, it would be the individual selling the merchandise. Can you imaging the FBI shutting down the entire market (a large percentage of which is perfectly legal stuff) and arresting the owner of the market?
The real reason Nintendo and Sega are suing Yahoo is because they can't get their hands on the actual criminals. Tough luck for them! Too bad technology has gotten to the point where officers can't bust in on a physical location and catch all of these dastardly criminals red-handed. Looks like law enforcement has got some catching up to do. And personally, I'd put my money on the pimple-faced kid selling the games.
It's not Microsoft, and it's not TSR, and it's not WoTC/Hasbro. It's business. The nature of business is to destroy the competition. These companies are simply better at it than others are. Remember the days of the "Anyone but Microsoft" coalition? Who thinks that a market dominated by Sun or Oracle would be better than what we have now? Don't blame the companies, blame the business.
Let's do a little comparison of a few intellectual-rights licenses:
Linux:
Can distribute the core product: YES
Can modify the core product: YES
Can write add-on products: YES
Microsoft:
Can distribute the core product: NO
Can modify the core product: NO
Can write add-on products: YES
D&D 3rd Edition:
Can distribute the core product: NO
Can modify the core product: NO
Can write add-on products: YES
And WoTC has the balls to compare their license to Linux's? Perhaps it's less restrictive than previous D&D licenses, but it sure as hell ain't open source.
I didn't say that we should remove the capability for X clients to run from X servers on other hosts, I said that we should also include the ability to run completely on one host without wasting any time with talking back and forth to itself.
I don't have any complaints, personally, about how fast my Xfree86 system runs, but then I don't stress it very much. This is one of those "it shouldn't work that way!" sort of optimization-thoughts, and I'm glad to know people are already working on it.
The design of the X Server sticks to the original multiuser-server philosophy that everything runs on the server, and the client is practically nonexistent. At the time "GUI" (tm) came out, people were used to telnetting and running processes on central boxen. The X Server design maintained the status quo.
But jesus, are we still in the days of VAX? Big servers are great and it's useful for people to share them, but everyone ALSO has a decent desktop box. Why on earth do we need our computer to talk to itself through networking calls just to render a window?
If we're going to keep up the desktop-user push, we have to make the windowing environment better. Does anyone have any figures for how much slower the X server system is than a direct windowing API? If it's a signifigant speed issue (and I imagine it is), we're going to have to do something about it.
How difficult would it be to abstract communication layer of the X server so that if it were running locally, it used direct calls, and if remotely, then by networking like it does now? Best of Both Worlds.
Hackers aren't stock traders, and stock traders won't even TALK to geeks, so where are these players getting their information? It's all hype based entirely on the fact that it's an IT company related (in some distant way) to the Internet and e-commerce. Anyone with Caldera stock should sell NOW.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, technically you're right. But what about the expression, "think big?" There's a vernacular precedent for using adjectives as nouns. And it certainly makes sense to nearly every English-speaker who hears it. There's no need to call anyone "a fucking moron." Think broad.
Personally, I just read the binaries. Once you get used to it, UUENCODED pr0n can be very satisfying.
It's in Heinlein, though I don't think it's explicitly stated this way. It's more directly stated in Arthur Clarke's _Imperial Earth_. Great book.
Absolutely. People need to recognize that some software is only going to come from companies, in exchange for cold, hard, cash. It's fantastic that we can get a complete operating system for free. But not all software can be developed by hackers across the Internet.
'Applications' like Office or Quake3 are developed in a very non-hacker way. Anyone who's ever put out a large shrinkwrapped product knows that it's important to have a power structure for decision making. Graphics people need to interact with designers and programmers and technical writers. A game has to have a release date, and there's a finite limit on how long development can take. Games are designed to max out hardware, so Moore's law makes them obsolete within a year.
Developing the kernel is very different. The only real users of the kernel are more hackers--the ones who write programs which run on the kernel--so we don't need marketing, packaging, phone support, or formal documentation. And kernel development time is literally infinite. There are version releases, but there's no need to "get it out the door." The kernel is designed to be as minimal as possible, hardware-wise. Therefore the kernel is much less affected by Moore's law.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Accept the fact that there is some software you MUST PAY FOR. And go pay for it!
Linux gamers need to butch up and stop using Windows for games. I was at the Loki Hack contest with 20 other Linux hackers / gamers... I asked how many had Windows, nearly 100% replied, "Yes, but just to run games." We're never going to get good games on Linux if we keep buying them for Windows.
I know many Linux users are willing to boycott productivity tools like MS Office, but they're afraid to do the same thing for games. Step up to the plate, boys!
...can I run the Mac GUI instead of XFree on my Linux box?
Yeah, yeah, free software and all, long live KDE and Gnome, but Mac does GUIs well. If they sold their GUI alone as a windowmanager, I'd snap it up.
To paraphrase Larry Niven, "User-friendliess times power is a constant."
Niven was quick to point out, however, that the "constant" can change-- that 'K' is different for different environments. The idea is really that "user-friendliness and power are inversely related." Increasing one decreases the other.
For example, the mouse increases user-friendliness, while the keyboard increases power. Making a small, isolated change from a keyboard shortcut to a mouse shortcut results in a decrease in power and an increase in usability. We can tinker with the left-hand numbers all we want, but we're not going to make signifigant changes in the overall system.
It takes a massive restructuring, along the lines of the 'paradigm shift,' to change the 'K' value. This is exactly what a 'killer app' does--it increases the usability and the power of the computer. Visicalc, WordStar, the Macintosh, Netscape. Microsoft can tweak IE all they want, but their effors can't change the basic 'K' constant of the Web.
Linux needs a killer app to make it really worthwhile. Usability testing is great, kernel speed is great, but they fall out in the wash.
And don't get me started on the 30,000 tiny buttons sitting along the toolbar(s) in MS Word. If it takes a "tooltip" to explain what the icon represents, then the icon is a failure.
Correction: if it takes a "tooltip" to understand an icon the second time, then the icon is a failure.
An icon on a toolbar is an abbrev. Abbrevs are impossible to understand unless 1) you understand the underlying concept, and 2)you've had the abbrev explained at least once.
Why does a floppy disk icon mean SAVE? It could mean LOAD. It could mean millions of things. If you had never seen that icon before, would you know what it did (without a tooltip)?
A picture is worth a thousand words. An icon is worth about two.
Was wondering the same thing. Twenty gets you forty, the original Hotmail site had the same security hole--and probably a few more. Microsoft does TRY.
The problem is, getting rid of security holes is like protecting the President. Doesn't matter how many times you do your job perfectly--the bad guys only have to beat you ONCE. It's just a matter of percentages.
Oh, yes. I've actually suggested we do something similar at our company. We send out HTML emails to our customers. The URL in the IMG tag doesn't have to be an image at all--it can be a CGI page which redirects to an image. Throw a couple of parameters (like a user-id) into the URL, and the CGI page can record exactly when users open the email. Nifty, eh? I never thought of capturing the IP address directly (not something we're interested in) but it would obviously be possible.
Wonder if this could be exploited further?
...except for the shipping charges. I agree that the 37k lines of source may be a waste of trees, but it is easier to flip through a book sometimes.
A good companion to this book is Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment. I found myself wondering exactly why some kernel routines were implemented the way they were, until I read up on them in APUE. It's important to understand the "user" interface to the kernel when you're reading this book.
Knowledge of stuff like assembly language (GNU's version of course) and low-level stuff like IRQs/interrupts, memory segmentation, and device IO is important--like the review says, he doesn't go into those details. Higher-level stuff like scheduling, file-system calls, and IPC is dealt with very well.
...it's business. Capitalism. We villify these megacorporations and laud smaller companies like Red Hat. But the only way for a small company to become a big one is by doing exactly the sort of stuff that AOL and Microsoft do--cater to the idiots of the world, every blessed one of them. It's the same in every industry. Did anyone else raise an eyebrow a few years back when Sun and Oracle et al. formed a group called "Anyone But Microsoft"? Does anyone think a world ruled by Larry Ellison would be better than one ruled by Bill Gates? It's important to recognize that the same ideal is present at ALL levels of business: make money, lots of it. Anyone who follows this ideal is as much of a bastard as Gates. Hell, Bill got his start by being one of the very first to claim that he could actually own the software he (or people in his company) wrote, back in the days of Apple I's. He wasn't a billionaire then. It's not an issue of magnitude. It's an issue of purpose.
Our new WinCoder software makes coding as easy as speaking! The WinCoder package comes with a special "development microphone" which connects to your PC through your sound card. Simply speak clearly into the microphone and request your program.
For example:
"Computer, make me a Linux device driver for my PCI BleeduxEdge video card!"
"I want a program which automatically spies on my ex-wife!"
"Show me eight thousand different pictures of Natalie Portman pouring grits down her pants!"
...And as easy as that, you've got a program! No more typing! No more reference manuals! No more staying up all night trying to finish a project! We guarantee massive throughput--less than thirty words per program! Ports to any OS--Unix, Windows, Macs, and even PalmPilots!
How it works: your program request is digitized and sent to a special warped-space cage where an infinite numbers of moneys type at an infinite number of computers. A special program-matching application identifies the monkeycode which most closely matches your request, and returns that program to you. The entire process takes an infinitely small amount of time!
Order yours today!
Expensive / proprietary Unix workstations long held the high-end graphics market, and Macs the low-end. Win32 is becoming the dominant platform, but it's not there yet. This could be a great arena for Linux to shine. Remember how long Macs hung around simply because they did graphics well? If Linux could get its GUI problems straightened out, it could emerge as the digital artist's machine of choice. I know that 90% of graphical designers who are now forced to work on Win32 long for the days of Macs...
On a related link: MacOs X for Linux?
Why do we call GUI components like buttons and edit boxes "widgets?" Because they're supposed to be completely interchangeable and identical.
After your brain has seen a few dozen Win32 style buttons (grey, with a little beveled edge, Arial font with the hotkey underlined) you don't have to "see" the buttons anymore. Your brain recognizes them without even looking. Which is why it can be difficult to move to another GUI environment--your brain has to learn to recognize the new widgets.
Websites like Sony's are a good place to use skins, because Sony is trying to show off a high-tech look and feel. I don't do any WORK on Sony's website. I do work within Netscape, however, and so I need to be able to recognize exactly what the Back button will look like.
Now i'm going to have to stop using the Winigma(tm) crypto program I just bought...
who wrote it or
where it's stored
I can see this being useful for the sort of free speech governments and corporations want to stamp out. But given that the Web is already very entrenched despite numerous flaws, how do you expect your FreeNet protocol to "compete?" Wouldn't a system which integrates with the Web (a method for hiding existing sites in the same manner you hide your FreeNet nodes) rather than competing with it have a better chance of surviving?
If I were going to run a big web site with a mainframe, why would I want to subdivide it into multiple mini-servers? I'm thrilled the iron giants can run Linux, and if I need their processing power, I'd just run a single copy of it.
Is the point that ISPs can consolidate all of their servers into a few mainframes? Couldn't they have done that before, without subdividing the mainframe?
There was an article in Wired a while ago which mentions that the reason Iridium was struggling was because they failed to predict how widespread regular cell phone service would become. They had figured (back in the early nineties when they began) that cell phones wouldn't ever be useful outside of major cities, because of how many towers would have to be constructed. As it happens, for whatever reasons, the towers were indeed constructed and so the predicted user base for Iridium (i.e. anyone outside of a city) disappeared.
If a guy at a flea market sells something illegal, is the owner / operator of the flea market responsible? This is an honest question (I don't know the legal issue) but it seems to me that if the cops were to bust anyone, it would be the individual selling the merchandise. Can you imaging the FBI shutting down the entire market (a large percentage of which is perfectly legal stuff) and arresting the owner of the market?
The real reason Nintendo and Sega are suing Yahoo is because they can't get their hands on the actual criminals. Tough luck for them! Too bad technology has gotten to the point where officers can't bust in on a physical location and catch all of these dastardly criminals red-handed. Looks like law enforcement has got some catching up to do. And personally, I'd put my money on the pimple-faced kid selling the games.
It's not Microsoft, and it's not TSR, and it's not WoTC/Hasbro. It's business. The nature of business is to destroy the competition. These companies are simply better at it than others are. Remember the days of the "Anyone but Microsoft" coalition? Who thinks that a market dominated by Sun or Oracle would be better than what we have now? Don't blame the companies, blame the business.
Linux:
Can distribute the core product: YES
Can modify the core product: YES
Can write add-on products: YES
Microsoft:
Can distribute the core product: NO
Can modify the core product: NO
Can write add-on products: YES
D&D 3rd Edition:
Can distribute the core product: NO
Can modify the core product: NO
Can write add-on products: YES
And WoTC has the balls to compare their license to Linux's? Perhaps it's less restrictive than previous D&D licenses, but it sure as hell ain't open source.
I didn't say that we should remove the capability for X clients to run from X servers on other hosts, I said that we should also include the ability to run completely on one host without wasting any time with talking back and forth to itself.
I don't have any complaints, personally, about how fast my Xfree86 system runs, but then I don't stress it very much. This is one of those "it shouldn't work that way!" sort of optimization-thoughts, and I'm glad to know people are already working on it.
The design of the X Server sticks to the original multiuser-server philosophy that everything runs on the server, and the client is practically nonexistent. At the time "GUI" (tm) came out, people were used to telnetting and running processes on central boxen. The X Server design maintained the status quo.
But jesus, are we still in the days of VAX? Big servers are great and it's useful for people to share them, but everyone ALSO has a decent desktop box. Why on earth do we need our computer to talk to itself through networking calls just to render a window?
If we're going to keep up the desktop-user push, we have to make the windowing environment better. Does anyone have any figures for how much slower the X server system is than a direct windowing API? If it's a signifigant speed issue (and I imagine it is), we're going to have to do something about it.
How difficult would it be to abstract communication layer of the X server so that if it were running locally, it used direct calls, and if remotely, then by networking like it does now? Best of Both Worlds.
Hackers aren't stock traders, and stock traders won't even TALK to geeks, so where are these players getting their information? It's all hype based entirely on the fact that it's an IT company related (in some distant way) to the Internet and e-commerce. Anyone with Caldera stock should sell NOW.