Cold wraps: choice of turkey/ham/veggie, with a generous helping of Oreos, chips, and candy. Last year Microsoft heavily promoted their sponsorship of the lunch; perhaps it backfired when people were afraid to eat it... imagine so many great hackers "accidentally" taken out by a case of bad mayonnaise.
For those who are uniformed or unaware, QT is dual licensed:
Firstly, under a commercial license (which is ~$1000)
Secondly, under the GPL for non-commercial usage only
Technically it is triple-licensed, as it can also be used under the QPL -- this is what KDE does. The QPL is easier to combine with certain other free software licenses. See Peter Vandenabeele's answer to "Why did UserLinux decide to not include Qt" in the UserLinux FAQ.
evolution was not a beauty contest. ("Chicks dig muscular guys! I want to be muscular too!")
Bullshit it wasn't. Sexual selection (aka "mate choice") is now regarded as being at least as important as natural selection in determining which genes get passed down. Another poster mentioned the peacock's tail. This trait has been propagated precisely because it is anti-survival: the pea-hen recognizes that when a peacock can survive despite his huge tail, he must have exceptionally good genes indeed.
Being able to improvise a plan raised your survival chances a lot more.
Sorry, but the Homo sapien brain evolved far bigger and faster than any survival function can justify -- it grew uncontrollably for two million years before hitting on anything actually useful, like tool-making. Evolution is not far-sighted. Over-large brains are, in the short term, an evolutionary handicap; they require more energy to maintain, it's more vulnerable to damage, there's increased incidence of childbirth trauma, a longer development cycle, etc. It evolved as a "fitness indicator"; a mating ornament, like the peacock's tail. Fortuitously (or not), our brains eventually ended up being useful for something besides impressing girls/boys.
In the original ape, the male was about twice as big as the female, much more muscular and had bigger teeth and jaws. It was originally supposed to be, yes, the muscular jock that can defend his woman.
Actually, male apes are bigger to compete for a bigger share of the female pool. There is a direct relationship between monogamy and gender size differential. In purely monogamous species (think songbirds), male and female are about the same size. By contrast the bull elephant seal is many times larger than the cow; this is a result of many females opting to be in one male's large harem, creating an intense competition in which most males never mate at all, while the few that do sire all of the next generation's seals. The 10% size difference in humans puts us midway between ape and monkey on the monogamy scale -- again a result of female choice, so don't let your girlfriend bitch if you cheat on her once in a while;)
Admittedly some areas of sexual selection are still controversial, but to simply deny it is ignoring the past 30+ years of evolutionary thought; even Darwin acknowledged it. Try something like Geoffery Miller's "The Mating Mind" ; then check out Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson if you're interested.
Just use
AView for ASCII image rendering; then we just need MacroMedia to open up Flash for an AA-based plugin. Judging by BB I bet it could look pretty good.
If you want to experiment with developing your own OS without the Minix framework, check out the Flux OSkit. It provides a lot of low-level stuff to build on (threads, memory management, filesystem) and interfaces gluing to Linux/FreeBSD components.
OpenH323 (ohphone), Prism II chipset 802.11b card with Orinoco driver, and good ol' Linux OS... no probs even with an inefficient audio codec like G.711. Works great for video too, if you've got the horsepower.
I really appreciate the coverage these events receive on Slashdot, but for people who aren't already in Europe it is a little short-notice to make arrangements. What I have searched for in vain is a comprehensive calendar of every single event of interest to the Open Source / Open Standards / Creative Commons community -- from OSCON to LUG monthlies.
Here are a couple of useful Event links; if anybody has more please post or email eb.dnim@essej (sdrawkcab) - thank you!
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/views/open so urce/events.jsp
question: does the GPL or BSD license have to be agreed to for simply executing a binary created by source code released under the GPL or BSD license?
Yes. (1) If the software is copyright (not public domain) then you must use it under a license, or not at all (outside the provisions of "fair use", which no license can prohibit). (2) If the only license available to you is the GPL, then you must honor the GPL when using the code. However, the GPL is quite lenient and does not put any restrictions on any use, UNLESS you redistribute. BSD removes even those restrictions. But you are still using the software under a license, albeit a very free one.
question: how does "fair use" apply to software/source code?
TRON is more of an OS specificication than an OS; many vendors implement the TRON API in their RTOS, and many applications (in Japan) are developed for it. This project could be cool because it would enable companies to adopt Linux while maintaining compatibility with their legacy embedded apps -- provided this does not become a proprietary MontaVista technology. The benefit of Linux is the massive amount of hardware it will run on, and the all the development tools & libraries available.
Redhat's eCos already supports uITRON (Micro Industrial TRON, the most popular flavor) through a compatibility layer.
I briefly lead the software development effort for this chip at Lantronix, the heart of their XPort product. It's just a 186 with a bunch of I/O modules grafted onto it. Problem is, there's no place for a 16-bit chip in the embedded market right now. The thing costs $20-$25 and barely outperforms a $5-$10 8-bit CPU, whereas you can buy a 32-bit RISC powerhouse like the AMD Alchemy for the same price. Lantronix just got stuck with a bunch of bad technology, and it's trying to unload it with an overpiced product.
What does UnitedLinux have to offer as Yet Another Distribution? They aren't promoting any new ideas or technologies; their only selling point is to be a "single stable, uniform platform for application development, certification, and deployment" (UL FAQ). In other words, they offer no value unless they become a monopoly. Why on earth would we support a free kernel monopolized by a proprietary distribution? Far better to throw your support behind Gentoo, Debian, or Mandrake. We don't need another RedHat.
I have been looking at a Java-based hybrid modeling package called Ptolemy II, which does signal processing, graph theory, and linear algebra. The code looks really nice; I'm planning to use it for realtime systems analysis. Any experience with this?
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Cold wraps: choice of turkey/ham/veggie, with a generous helping of Oreos, chips, and candy. Last year Microsoft heavily promoted their sponsorship of the lunch; perhaps it backfired when people were afraid to eat it... imagine so many great hackers "accidentally" taken out by a case of bad mayonnaise.
Technically it is triple-licensed, as it can also be used under the QPL -- this is what KDE does. The QPL is easier to combine with certain other free software licenses. See Peter Vandenabeele's answer to "Why did UserLinux decide to not include Qt" in the UserLinux FAQ.
Bullshit it wasn't. Sexual selection (aka "mate choice") is now regarded as being at least as important as natural selection in determining which genes get passed down. Another poster mentioned the peacock's tail. This trait has been propagated precisely because it is anti-survival: the pea-hen recognizes that when a peacock can survive despite his huge tail, he must have exceptionally good genes indeed.
Being able to improvise a plan raised your survival chances a lot more.
Sorry, but the Homo sapien brain evolved far bigger and faster than any survival function can justify -- it grew uncontrollably for two million years before hitting on anything actually useful, like tool-making. Evolution is not far-sighted. Over-large brains are, in the short term, an evolutionary handicap; they require more energy to maintain, it's more vulnerable to damage, there's increased incidence of childbirth trauma, a longer development cycle, etc. It evolved as a "fitness indicator"; a mating ornament, like the peacock's tail. Fortuitously (or not), our brains eventually ended up being useful for something besides impressing girls/boys.
In the original ape, the male was about twice as big as the female, much more muscular and had bigger teeth and jaws. It was originally supposed to be, yes, the muscular jock that can defend his woman.
Actually, male apes are bigger to compete for a bigger share of the female pool. There is a direct relationship between monogamy and gender size differential. In purely monogamous species (think songbirds), male and female are about the same size. By contrast the bull elephant seal is many times larger than the cow; this is a result of many females opting to be in one male's large harem, creating an intense competition in which most males never mate at all, while the few that do sire all of the next generation's seals. The 10% size difference in humans puts us midway between ape and monkey on the monogamy scale -- again a result of female choice, so don't let your girlfriend bitch if you cheat on her once in a while ;)
Admittedly some areas of sexual selection are still controversial, but to simply deny it is ignoring the past 30+ years of evolutionary thought; even Darwin acknowledged it. Try something like Geoffery Miller's "The Mating Mind" ; then check out Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson if you're interested.
Just use AView for ASCII image rendering; then we just need MacroMedia to open up Flash for an AA-based plugin. Judging by BB I bet it could look pretty good.
If you want to experiment with developing your own OS without the Minix framework, check out the Flux OSkit. It provides a lot of low-level stuff to build on (threads, memory management, filesystem) and interfaces gluing to Linux/FreeBSD components.
OpenH323 (ohphone), Prism II chipset 802.11b card with Orinoco driver, and good ol' Linux OS... no probs even with an inefficient audio codec like G.711. Works great for video too, if you've got the horsepower.
http://www.openh323.org/
I really appreciate the coverage these events receive on Slashdot, but for people who aren't already in Europe it is a little short-notice to make arrangements. What I have searched for in vain is a comprehensive calendar of every single event of interest to the Open Source / Open Standards / Creative Commons community -- from OSCON to LUG monthlies.
n so urce/events.jsp
Here are a couple of useful Event links; if anybody has more please post or email eb.dnim@essej (sdrawkcab) - thank you!
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/views/ope
http://www.linux-events.de/Events
Yes. (1) If the software is copyright (not public domain) then you must use it under a license, or not at all (outside the provisions of "fair use", which no license can prohibit). (2) If the only license available to you is the GPL, then you must honor the GPL when using the code. However, the GPL is quite lenient and does not put any restrictions on any use, UNLESS you redistribute. BSD removes even those restrictions. But you are still using the software under a license, albeit a very free one.
question: how does "fair use" apply to software/source code?
See also this article in the local paper.
TRON is more of an OS specificication than an OS; many vendors implement the TRON API in their RTOS, and many applications (in Japan) are developed for it. This project could be cool because it would enable companies to adopt Linux while maintaining compatibility with their legacy embedded apps -- provided this does not become a proprietary MontaVista technology. The benefit of Linux is the massive amount of hardware it will run on, and the all the development tools & libraries available.
Redhat's eCos already supports uITRON (Micro Industrial TRON, the most popular flavor) through a compatibility layer.
Shameless plug: you can get an Alchemy Linux developer's kit from RedcellX. Don't know about the cost though.
I briefly lead the software development effort for this chip at Lantronix, the heart of their XPort product. It's just a 186 with a bunch of I/O modules grafted onto it. Problem is, there's no place for a 16-bit chip in the embedded market right now. The thing costs $20-$25 and barely outperforms a $5-$10 8-bit CPU, whereas you can buy a 32-bit RISC powerhouse like the AMD Alchemy for the same price. Lantronix just got stuck with a bunch of bad technology, and it's trying to unload it with an overpiced product.
What does UnitedLinux have to offer as Yet Another Distribution? They aren't promoting any new ideas or technologies; their only selling point is to be a "single stable, uniform platform for application development, certification, and deployment" (UL FAQ). In other words, they offer no value unless they become a monopoly. Why on earth would we support a free kernel monopolized by a proprietary distribution? Far better to throw your support behind Gentoo, Debian, or Mandrake. We don't need another RedHat.
I have been looking at a Java-based hybrid modeling package called Ptolemy II, which does signal processing, graph theory, and linear algebra. The code looks really nice; I'm planning to use it for realtime systems analysis. Any experience with this?