I've been watching a LOT of movies in the past year (I've been setting up a DVD player while I work out at the gym). I've been catching up on a lot of "classics", as well as more recent movies. You know what? This is heresy, but...
Movies are WAY WAY better now than they were in the past.
I mean everything. Writing, directing, acting -- especially acting -- is all far better. When you really start watching a lot of movies, and really comparing them, you just can't help but notice how much overacting, mooning at the camera, making speeches, all this CRAPOLA that movies stars were "expected" to do. Actors actually ACT these days -- by that, I mean they try and genuinely act like a real person in whatever the scene is.
I think the reason we think movies are so bad is higher expectations. Today's movie that we think is crap would be HUGE in the old days.
Over the years, a few US states and many individual school districts have experimented with one-student-one-computer, to general positive results
Care to link to these positive results? I've only seen studies that show how overall useless, if not negative, computers are in the classroom, especially when you give them to students. They get broken easily, they're generally used in non-educational ways, and they're a big distraction. I doubt you can find some clear, unambiguous gains for students with laptops.
The only problem with this is that now we need to put surgeries on the top floor of hospitals. Then there's the problem of having to wait for a lightning storm. Let's not even get into the extra staff you need to turn the big wheel and lift the operating table through the roof.
I suppose we'll also see extra insurance needed for the wear and tear on the surgeon's voicebox when he yells, "Liiiiiife! Liiiiiiife DO YOU HEAR ME!? GIVE MY CREATION........... LIIIIIIIIIIFE!!"
And it's educational, too! Who doesn't charge their rent on a credit card? It's good, sound personal fiscal policy, the kind of lesson that I want my children to learn!
They'd either discredit it (as conspiracy theorists believe), or they'd grab all the patents on it and jettison it.
Sheesh. Exactly how are they supposed to "discredit" something that would (presumably) be demonstratable? How much were they able to stop people from trying the experiments when Pons and Fleischman announced their results?
Second, even if they could "grab" all the patents on it, what moron in charge of an oil company would just jettison something that would make them 100 times what they earn in oil profits? And give them a PR boost from every quarter?
I do extraordinary things everyday of my life, is just that I don't need to spend 15 millions on it to have a selfmasturbation...
I highly doubt you ever do extraordinary things. No one so bitter and jealous that someone else might be doing something you can't do, would be capable of doing something extraordinary even once in their life, much less every day.
And no, taking drugs is not doing something extraordinary. Making your hair a weird color is not doing something extraordinary. Piercing your body is not doing something extraordinary.
Personally, if someone is fortunate enough to go to space in whatever way they can, I say, "Good for you!" Why should I be jealous of someone's good fortune?
If the batteries are damaged, how does one shut them down?
Doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem. You could give each battery unit its own "acclerometer fuse", which basically breaks the internal wiring in the case of a crash.
No offence but given OpenBSD's security record I think I'd take Theo's views over yours.
No one said it was insecure. I said OpenSSH was horribly written and poorly documented. Don't take my word for it, go look for yourself and see how many comments are in it.
Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work well. All it proves is that Theo took enough care to make it secure. But it's obvious that he doesn't give a damn about anyone else being able to understand it.
As far as I'm aware, there is no non-OpenBSD version. But have you looked at it, personally? I have. If Theo takes pride in that piece of crap, then he should take a look sometime at what well documented source code looks like. Hint: It's not a short comment at the top of each subroutine.
It shows. (No offense to any of them who may read this... but seriously, your code sucks.)
It's not just web developers. Look at the average OSS application. Hell, look at 'ssh', one of the fundamental tools sometime. It's unbelievably bad uncommented spaghetti crap.
The problem with software is that it's easy for anybody to jump in and do it... and it shows.
I would be pretty concerned if the government asked my son to explore dark alleys at 3am, just to figure out if drug deals are going on in that part of town.
I think there's a wee bit of safety difference between exploring dark alleys at 3am and surfing the net.
Asking children to do something like that is a form of indoctrination, making the implication that "ratting" to the government is grand thing to do.
So you're saying that you'll teach your children to ignore any crimes they see and just bury their head in the sand? If they see a little old lady being beaten, they should just stay out of it and not "rat" to the government on the criminal? I'm sure your children will turn out to be fine citizens.
Isn't the same thing happening in the USA, with all the fuss surrounding Janet Jackson's nipple? And it wasn't even "sexually obscene"...
No. The difference is that government is not banning nudity from society, only from what is considered public airwaves. It's the same theory that allows banning, say, explicit sex on a billboard, while still allowing sexually explicit DVDs to be sold. Public places are supposed to be "safe zones" that minimally offend the majority of people (of course, that line ebbs and flows as society changes).
He started whispering. "They could be a lot cheaper." He must be having a tough month.
Sheesh, why are we asking the sales guy what it costs to develop something that he doesn't have the first idea about how it works or what it takes to develop?
Having worked in the medical industry, I can tell you that the documentation and testing are what costs a lot of money, not just the raw cost of the parts. Any change to the system (either hardware or software) requires a lot of documentation, paper trails and analyses. It's NOT like your typical software shop where you throw stuff out into the world, collect bug reports, and fix them. There are lots of hidden costs.
Not to say that medical companies don't make a lot of money (they do), but it's just silly to argue that these devices should be sold at the same 5% markup as Joe's PC Shack down the street.
L4Linux (a Linux server running on the L4 microkernel), for example, is only about 4% slower [tudos.org] than Linux
The problem with this statistic is that it's where microkernel advocates consistently lie (including, alas, AST). 4% DOING WHAT??. Usually, that means it's 4% slower doing a single process test. Show me a test with dozens, if not hundreds of processes like you see on PRODUCTION servers, because that's where microkernels typically fall flat on their faces.
Look at the keyword "fundamental" here, THAT's the myth and the fact that several people, AST being one of them, have proven that there is no such "fundamental" difference is the "fact" here.
AST himself said at the site the poster above linked to, "In this paper we argue that for most computer users, reliability is more important than performance and discuss four current research projects striving to improve operating system reliability."
If performance is exactly the same or better than monolithic kernels, as you claim, why would AST make an issue that reliability is more important than it, unless performance WAS an issue? Why wouldn't he write a paper titled, "Having your cake and eating it too... better performance AND better reliability. Why microkernels have won the war."
The answer is because they AREN'T and NEVER will be for general purposes. Sure, you can find isolated tests or isolated projects where they might do better (and the cost of doing better is generally insane complexity), but it's just foolish to argue that they're anywhere close in performance in the general case.
Look, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Show me the big database servers running on microkernels. Show me the big web servers. Show me big mail servers. And show me how the performance compares to the monolithic kernel operating system on the same hardware.
Sure, microkernels "work", but who cares? I can get DOS to "work". Show me something that works *better*. Or to put it another way, when microkernels are truly better, you won't need to sell everyone, they'll sell themselves. So far, they haven't for general purpose operating systems that care about performance.
It's a widely-believed myth, mainly due to the poor performance of bloated first-generation microkernels
No, it's a widely-proven fact. Now, it may be possible to have a decent performing microkernel, but to dismiss performance problems as a "myth" is disengenious at best.
some people are actually devoting much of their time to solving these problems.
Exactly. "solving", implying that performance problems are hardly a solved issue. Now, I'm not here to knock microkernels -- they certainly have their place, and the advantages may end up outweighing the performance problems (as high level languages did with assembly language), but microkernel advocates really need to get over their oversensitivity on the issue. Screaming "myth" when everone's experience is to the contrary does your movement no good.
Advocates ought to be saying, "Yes, microkernels are slower than monolithic kernels and probably always will be due to their nature, but with care the cost can be minimized, and we believe the clear benefits outweight the cost.
Performance problems are a well-known fundamental problem with microkernel architectures that use user-mode processes. If you're interested in the subject, there are lots (and lots) of discussions about it (hint: your instincts above are wrong). Google is your friend.
Why would multiple users be using it at a time? The main use case for NTFS is recovery and people who need access to their files on dual boot laptops and desktops.
I agree that this probably won't get heavy use, but the developers shouldn't scream about how fast it is if that's not truly a consideration (and it's not truly a consideration if they're running it in user mode).
Unless I missed it, I notice the performance numbers are only single process. I'm suspicious of this because user-mode filesystems (as under microkernel operation systems) typically crash and burn performance-wise under simultaneous load, not under single-user use.
I know that user-mode is easier to debug, but they really should turn this into a kernel module.
I agree with you for the most part, except the designers did a lot of the programming as well at that point in history. I imagined the scenerio more as:
Adolescent-mentality Designer (thinking): Man, that stripper is hot. You know what'd be funny, is if you shoot the stripper and she screams while money goes flying. Bwahaha!
He implements it, and the other adolescent-mentality designers think it's a laugh riot as well. I suppose the disturbing thing is more the dehumanized mentality of the money flying that gets me.
You're right. People here know the difference between a game and reality. You were probably looking for the 'man hating dykes who think everything is misogynistic' room. Its down the hall to your right.
Slashdot really is endlessly entertaining when these subjects come up. First of all, I'm male. Second of all, the point isn't that it wasn't reality (hence the reason I tried it to see what actually happens), it's the fact that someone put it in the game and thought it was funny that was disturbing. It was obviously someone's fantasy, and that's a part of his psyche that I really could have done without exploring.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been watching a LOT of movies in the past year (I've been setting up a DVD player while I work out at the gym). I've been catching up on a lot of "classics", as well as more recent movies. You know what? This is heresy, but...
Movies are WAY WAY better now than they were in the past.
I mean everything. Writing, directing, acting -- especially acting -- is all far better. When you really start watching a lot of movies, and really comparing them, you just can't help but notice how much overacting, mooning at the camera, making speeches, all this CRAPOLA that movies stars were "expected" to do. Actors actually ACT these days -- by that, I mean they try and genuinely act like a real person in whatever the scene is.
I think the reason we think movies are so bad is higher expectations. Today's movie that we think is crap would be HUGE in the old days.
Over the years, a few US states and many individual school districts have experimented with one-student-one-computer, to general positive results
Care to link to these positive results? I've only seen studies that show how overall useless, if not negative, computers are in the classroom, especially when you give them to students. They get broken easily, they're generally used in non-educational ways, and they're a big distraction. I doubt you can find some clear, unambiguous gains for students with laptops.
The only problem with this is that now we need to put surgeries on the top floor of hospitals. Then there's the problem of having to wait for a lightning storm. Let's not even get into the extra staff you need to turn the big wheel and lift the operating table through the roof.
I suppose we'll also see extra insurance needed for the wear and tear on the surgeon's voicebox when he yells, "Liiiiiife! Liiiiiiife DO YOU HEAR ME!? GIVE MY CREATION ........... LIIIIIIIIIIFE!!"
And it's educational, too! Who doesn't charge their rent on a credit card? It's good, sound personal fiscal policy, the kind of lesson that I want my children to learn!
They'd either discredit it (as conspiracy theorists believe), or they'd grab all the patents on it and jettison it.
Sheesh. Exactly how are they supposed to "discredit" something that would (presumably) be demonstratable? How much were they able to stop people from trying the experiments when Pons and Fleischman announced their results?
Second, even if they could "grab" all the patents on it, what moron in charge of an oil company would just jettison something that would make them 100 times what they earn in oil profits? And give them a PR boost from every quarter?
I do extraordinary things everyday of my life, is just that I don't need to spend 15 millions on it to have a selfmasturbation...
I highly doubt you ever do extraordinary things. No one so bitter and jealous that someone else might be doing something you can't do, would be capable of doing something extraordinary even once in their life, much less every day.
And no, taking drugs is not doing something extraordinary. Making your hair a weird color is not doing something extraordinary. Piercing your body is not doing something extraordinary.
Personally, if someone is fortunate enough to go to space in whatever way they can, I say, "Good for you!" Why should I be jealous of someone's good fortune?
"Bar-ba-ra! Bar-ba-ra! Use the English Bone China cup! And if it's not hot enough, I'll throw it on the floor!"
If the batteries are damaged, how does one shut them down?
Doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem. You could give each battery unit its own "acclerometer fuse", which basically breaks the internal wiring in the case of a crash.
No offence but given OpenBSD's security record I think I'd take Theo's views over yours.
No one said it was insecure. I said OpenSSH was horribly written and poorly documented. Don't take my word for it, go look for yourself and see how many comments are in it.
Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't work well. All it proves is that Theo took enough care to make it secure. But it's obvious that he doesn't give a damn about anyone else being able to understand it.
OpenSSH is well documented and quite clean.
As far as I'm aware, there is no non-OpenBSD version. But have you looked at it, personally? I have. If Theo takes pride in that piece of crap, then he should take a look sometime at what well documented source code looks like. Hint: It's not a short comment at the top of each subroutine.
It shows. (No offense to any of them who may read this... but seriously, your code sucks.)
It's not just web developers. Look at the average OSS application. Hell, look at 'ssh', one of the fundamental tools sometime. It's unbelievably bad uncommented spaghetti crap.
The problem with software is that it's easy for anybody to jump in and do it... and it shows.
I would be pretty concerned if the government asked my son to explore dark alleys at 3am, just to figure out if drug deals are going on in that part of town.
I think there's a wee bit of safety difference between exploring dark alleys at 3am and surfing the net.
Asking children to do something like that is a form of indoctrination, making the implication that "ratting" to the government is grand thing to do.
So you're saying that you'll teach your children to ignore any crimes they see and just bury their head in the sand? If they see a little old lady being beaten, they should just stay out of it and not "rat" to the government on the criminal? I'm sure your children will turn out to be fine citizens.
50 bucks for a cotton swab anyone?
Um, you're comparing medical care services to development of medical devices. Completely different industries.
Isn't the same thing happening in the USA, with all the fuss surrounding Janet Jackson's nipple? And it wasn't even "sexually obscene"...
No. The difference is that government is not banning nudity from society, only from what is considered public airwaves. It's the same theory that allows banning, say, explicit sex on a billboard, while still allowing sexually explicit DVDs to be sold. Public places are supposed to be "safe zones" that minimally offend the majority of people (of course, that line ebbs and flows as society changes).
He started whispering. "They could be a lot cheaper." He must be having a tough month.
Sheesh, why are we asking the sales guy what it costs to develop something that he doesn't have the first idea about how it works or what it takes to develop?
Having worked in the medical industry, I can tell you that the documentation and testing are what costs a lot of money, not just the raw cost of the parts. Any change to the system (either hardware or software) requires a lot of documentation, paper trails and analyses. It's NOT like your typical software shop where you throw stuff out into the world, collect bug reports, and fix them. There are lots of hidden costs.
Not to say that medical companies don't make a lot of money (they do), but it's just silly to argue that these devices should be sold at the same 5% markup as Joe's PC Shack down the street.
L4Linux (a Linux server running on the L4 microkernel), for example, is only about 4% slower [tudos.org] than Linux
The problem with this statistic is that it's where microkernel advocates consistently lie (including, alas, AST). 4% DOING WHAT??. Usually, that means it's 4% slower doing a single process test. Show me a test with dozens, if not hundreds of processes like you see on PRODUCTION servers, because that's where microkernels typically fall flat on their faces.
To deny the realness and power of addiction is to blame the addict.
Huh? Unless you catch some airborne disease or something, why in the world would I NOT blame the addict??
Look at the keyword "fundamental" here, THAT's the myth and the fact that several people, AST being one of them, have proven that there is no such "fundamental" difference is the "fact" here.
AST himself said at the site the poster above linked to, "In this paper we argue that for most computer users, reliability is more important than performance and discuss four current research projects striving to improve operating system reliability."
If performance is exactly the same or better than monolithic kernels, as you claim, why would AST make an issue that reliability is more important than it, unless performance WAS an issue? Why wouldn't he write a paper titled, "Having your cake and eating it too... better performance AND better reliability. Why microkernels have won the war."
The answer is because they AREN'T and NEVER will be for general purposes. Sure, you can find isolated tests or isolated projects where they might do better (and the cost of doing better is generally insane complexity), but it's just foolish to argue that they're anywhere close in performance in the general case.
Look, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Show me the big database servers running on microkernels. Show me the big web servers. Show me big mail servers. And show me how the performance compares to the monolithic kernel operating system on the same hardware.
Sure, microkernels "work", but who cares? I can get DOS to "work". Show me something that works *better*. Or to put it another way, when microkernels are truly better, you won't need to sell everyone, they'll sell themselves. So far, they haven't for general purpose operating systems that care about performance.
It's a widely-believed myth, mainly due to the poor performance of bloated first-generation microkernels
No, it's a widely-proven fact. Now, it may be possible to have a decent performing microkernel, but to dismiss performance problems as a "myth" is disengenious at best.
some people are actually devoting much of their time to solving these problems.
Exactly. "solving", implying that performance problems are hardly a solved issue. Now, I'm not here to knock microkernels -- they certainly have their place, and the advantages may end up outweighing the performance problems (as high level languages did with assembly language), but microkernel advocates really need to get over their oversensitivity on the issue. Screaming "myth" when everone's experience is to the contrary does your movement no good.
Advocates ought to be saying, "Yes, microkernels are slower than monolithic kernels and probably always will be due to their nature, but with care the cost can be minimized, and we believe the clear benefits outweight the cost.
That's at least a debatable statement.
Any sources or references for that?
Performance problems are a well-known fundamental problem with microkernel architectures that use user-mode processes. If you're interested in the subject, there are lots (and lots) of discussions about it (hint: your instincts above are wrong). Google is your friend.
Why would multiple users be using it at a time? The main use case for NTFS is recovery and people who need access to their files on dual boot laptops and desktops.
I agree that this probably won't get heavy use, but the developers shouldn't scream about how fast it is if that's not truly a consideration (and it's not truly a consideration if they're running it in user mode).
Unless I missed it, I notice the performance numbers are only single process. I'm suspicious of this because user-mode filesystems (as under microkernel operation systems) typically crash and burn performance-wise under simultaneous load, not under single-user use.
I know that user-mode is easier to debug, but they really should turn this into a kernel module.
I can only assume you meant the first episode of Duke Nukem 3D.
Yeah, I meant to type the first 3D Duke Nukem, but I forgot the 3D part. :) Of course, we haven't actually SEEN a true-3D Duke Nukem yet...
I agree with you for the most part, except the designers did a lot of the programming as well at that point in history. I imagined the scenerio more as:
Adolescent-mentality Designer (thinking): Man, that stripper is hot. You know what'd be funny, is if you shoot the stripper and she screams while money goes flying. Bwahaha!
He implements it, and the other adolescent-mentality designers think it's a laugh riot as well. I suppose the disturbing thing is more the dehumanized mentality of the money flying that gets me.
You're right. People here know the difference between a game and reality. You were probably looking for the 'man hating dykes who think everything is misogynistic' room. Its down the hall to your right.
Slashdot really is endlessly entertaining when these subjects come up. First of all, I'm male. Second of all, the point isn't that it wasn't reality (hence the reason I tried it to see what actually happens), it's the fact that someone put it in the game and thought it was funny that was disturbing. It was obviously someone's fantasy, and that's a part of his psyche that I really could have done without exploring.