I agree. The multiple-camera technique has been around since the mid-90s, AFAIK. First used in MTV videos, I think.
The method we are talking about sounds more like the method portrayed in Enemy of the State, as mentioned above. I saw an interview with the director, and he said everything mentioned in the movie comes from *declassified* information-- in other words "old news".
Yes, the tweening techniques have been around for awhile, too. I remember seeing at least 5 years ago a documentary on a project that combined a digital camera with GPS positioning data (and a gyroscope, I believe) to create a 3D model of a landscape. They showed a guy just walking around a park with a video camera and a laptop; he didn't even have to walk in a predermined path. NASA used this same technique for the 3D model of the Mars Rover landscape.
Hehe... some fun stuff there. I especially agree with your take on the limitations of trees. One of my pet peeves.
If you are into thinking about set mathematics, then you might enjoy reading from the guys at http://www.dbdebunk.com/. They also have some very pointed discussions about OOP and OODBMS.
> You don't even need OO
True enough. Abstracting a database layer in PHP is child's play, with or without OO. In fact, even if you use one of those shiny OO abstraction layers that are so popular in PHP now, you should really be doing some project-specific abstraction anyway. At least, for larger, complex projects.
What this does is a create a standard Gzipped tarfile of a directory tree, preserving attributes, etc... and naming this archived file with the date and time appended to the directory name.
Let's say this script is saved in/usr/local/bin as "myarch". I can be browsing anywhere, such as my/home/rycamor directory, and I can just enter "myarch mail" to archive the/home/rycamor/mail directory, saving it as/home/rycamor/mail_06-02-2002_1615.tar.gz (the command it executes is simply "tar -zpscf mail_06-02-2002_1615.tar.gz mail/*")
For any directory where you are doing something questionable, and you might want to create several backups as you go, this is a nice quick way to keep track of changes.
> I'd wager the farther back you go, the more individuals you'll find, and the farther ahead we go, the less individuals inventing on their own.
The thesis (which claims that potential inventions and discoveries are getting more complex, thus precluding lone discoverers) only takes into account some of the factors involved, while ignoring significant others. One significant factor: the discoveries that have been made put significantly more ability into the hands of the lone thinker.
Think about it; these days, I can access literally milllions of research documents on any subject I want, even without being a member of said university or institution. I can perform an amazing quantity of scientific computation and modeling using cheap used computers and free software. I can communicate cheaply and instantly with almost anyone. Tools of all kinds are comparatively cheaper than they have ever been. Just spend some time at a local Home Depot, Lowe's Hardware, or Radio Shack (if you are in the U.S.)
Throughout history, we have seen naysayers of this sort. Every generation has a prophet saying we have reached the end of human capability in one area or another, and they are consistently proved wrong. I'm waiting to see the next one.
I think some of the reasons we don't see more lone inventors are due more to social factors, bad education, government, etc... Let's face it: in the U.S. and many other parts of the world, we are increasingly living in a society which punishes individual accomplishment, while rewarding those who "play by the rules" (meaning: those who know how to manipulate the government grant system, or who have the best lobbyists and lawyers).
Another point about lone inventors: Even in the past, no inventor just stayed by him/herself in a room. They were always interacting with other thinkers, sharing theories, etc..., even if just on an informal basis. So, the whole argument is somewhat mis-characterized anyway.
Or another way to say it is "to improperly take for granted". (http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/begs.html)
That is what I was trying to say. Many people try to assert something about freedom or rights simply by taking an aspect of it for granted. "I have a right to x, because I need it". (Nowadays most civil rights are evaluated in terms of relative need, rather than moral principle).
Thus I argue that any assertion about freedom that doesn't apply the "non-itiation of force" principle simply begs the question.
I was not talking about the GPL. I have no argument with it. It is what it is. I use quite a lot of GPL software, and quite a lot of BSD software, and very little proprietary software.
Yes, I am very much against trivial software patents, ridiculous copy-protection requirements, etc...
But I simply don't understand a philosophy that says I don't have freedom if I use software without source, or that it is somehow morally wrong to release a binary without giving out the source.
That is what RMS seems to be saying. If he is not saying this, then I see no logical inconsistency.
My freedom or liberty gives me the ability to choose whether I use proprietary or "free" software. This freedom or liberty also gives me the choice whether to release source with my software, or just distribute as a binary. This freedom doesn't allow me the right to prevent others from talking about my software, or to prevent others from writing similar software, etc... I force no one, I expect no one to force me.
If RMS agrees with this, then I wish he would spend more energy on the issues of improper government control, rather than the whole "source code is a precondition for freedom" thing.
NutCase, thanks for commenting. (And to get this out of the way, yes, I am a libertarian.)
I wasn't trying to define freedom or rights in abstract but to discuss the human application of those concepts.
An absolute by nature has to be a declarative statement. ("There can be no peace without justice") An abstract concept is not an absolute, any more than saying the concept of weight is absolute. The abstract concept of weight is just a vehicle. To do anything useful with it, we have to ask "how much does this weigh?". To make an absolute out of it we can say something like "Weight is an effect of the gravitational pull between all matter". Same thing with freedom. As an abstract, you can't do anything with it. But a person can have more or less freedom, or even no freedom, and the abstract concept is still involved. When we get to the specifics of how much freedom one has, that's where this whole discussion was sparked. In your other post, when you said "freedom is an absolute", I suppose from the context of your post, I took it to mean "the only freedom is absolute freedom". My mistake.
My point was only the very common-sense one that if you make freedom as a goal for everyone, then each person's freedom falls within the bounds of how it relates to the freedom of others. This is why I prefer the term "liberty" to freedom. In present society "freedom" is so loaded that it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about it.
If Richard Stallman does not in any way want to make source release a requirement, then I stand corrected. From what I see, though, he seems to be saying "We are not really free unless all software is Free Software". (otherwise, what is all the campaigning about?) Thus the logical extension of that would be that corporations are infringing upon our freedom by selling proprietary software, and the logical extension of THAT would be that they should be required by law to release source. However, if he takes a laissez faire approach, then I have absolutely no argument with the man. But then we are back again to this being a matter of personal preference, not some grandiose humanistic philosophy.
Don't get me wrong, I am not at all against the GPL, as others here seem to think I am. I am not even against legal enforcement of the GPL. I am just bewildered by an idea that equates personal freedom with the requirement that companies distribute their source code. I am not championing Big Business. They do plenty of things in attempt to restrict our freedoms to be sure, but in the area of whether or not source is released, I don't see it. It still seems to me simply a preference. If you prefer the GPL, go for it; if you prefer the BSD licence, good for you; if you prefer proprietary software, get in that line over there. It is NOT a freedom issue, because no one is forcing you to use the software. No one is forcing you to use a computer at all.
But... I agree with RMS on the point that no other parties should have a say on exactly what I do with the bits on my computer's hard drive, or whether I can make backup copies of my software, or try to reverse-engineer, etc... I also agree that software patents are almost always a ridiculous thing. In these areas, the government and big business truly IS trying to restrict our freedom. This is where I think the real fight will be.
Yeah, I know my posts are long and belabored. What can I say? I love discussing philosophy;-).
I'm sorry, but I have been trying for years to see why his "point" is so great.
After trying as hard as possible to "be on his side", I can only conclude that he is embracing a logical inconsistency. For a mind that understands computers so well, his grasp of a philosophy and its logical application is somewhat limited.
Freedom: what exactly does this overloaded word mean? The closest we have come to freedom is the Libertarianish phrase "non-initiation of force". In other words, the closest we can get to allowing everyone freedom is to restrict individuals from forcing others except when needed to prevent those others from forcing others (see a neat recursion principle there?). If we don't take this approach to freedom (more properly called liberty), then we have some real problems. Any other approach to freedom begs the question "whose freedom comes first?".
Rights: another overloaded word. If we take freedom as an overlying principle, then "my rights end where yours begin". Any other definition of rights again begs the question "whose rights come first?". Whenever rights take precedence over freedom, these rights become sort of a distributable priviledge system within the government, which of course encourages all sorts of corruption.
Thus, if we take the above logically, then the only way for a society to have anything approaching freedom or individual choice is to (1) allow any party to freely sell or buy products or services with any other party, and (2) to allow any party to freely give and receive from any other party. Once you start applying force here, someone's freedom is being taken away.
However, RMS's insistence on "free" software doesn't take this into account at all. He would use his definition of freedom to FORCE organizations and individuals to release software under his guidelines. Meaning, if I understand him properly, that any business who freely makes a contract with any customer to deliver an application without source, is wrong. To RMS, it doesn't matter whether Microsoft's customers freely enter into the contract with Microsoft, and that Microsoft does not apply any force in the matter which requires you to buy this software (I'm sure they would if they could, but at the moment you are free to refuse the software). No--to RMS, his concept of freedom of software is more important than freedom of the individual! See the freedom[0] - freedom[3] array at http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
So the logical inconsistency surfaces: freedom is important, so we must enforce upon people that they release source, and allow freely redistributable copies of any piece of software being sold. Note: I am not against the idea of having free software at all, but at the idea that this should be enforced upon me and others.
If you truly hold freedom dear, then you can't complain if people actually use this freedom to make choices that you disagree with. It is only when these choices inhibit your own freedom that you can complain. I fail to see how RMS's freedom or anyone's freedom is restricted because software is released in binary form without source. If you agree to buy it, then what's the problem. By the same token, if you freely agree to give away software, and someone freely agrees to use it, then again, what's the problem?
Yes, I am aware that many proprietary software businesses would like to restrict our freedoms. And I agree with RMS that a corporation should not have any control over exactly how I use the software once it is on my computer. That is another issue. But, the solution is not to require some arbitrary method of software release, which would require the use of police force against these companies to enact. It makes me laugh that this whole concept is even considered a "principle". It is just someone's preference about how they would like things done. Preference needs a lot more weight to be considered a principle.
On the first point, you are absolutely right. If data integrity and constraints (not to mention normalization, rules, views, and triggers) are beyond your needs (or your understanding), then you should not be using them. But then again, if a company depends AT ALL on this data, then the above are critical.
On the second point, again you are correct, IF all you want to do is slavishly mirror the Stone Age concept of heirarchical containers and contents, rather than take advantage of the capabilities of a true relational database.
The real thing is, why heirarchical filesystems in the first place? This is just an old, old concept called the heirarchical database, which was abandoned in the 70s by anyone needing serious data storage and manipulation. IMHO, heirarchies are limiting, especially for the end user, forcing you to continuously "navigate" from one container to the next, just to see your data.
But think about the advantages for computer users, if there were a true RDBMS under the hood, and they could do such a thing as enter:
1. "Show me all files accessed by user Steve since last Tuesday".
2. "Which of those files were part of project X?"
(clicks on third file, chooses "Action Item")
3. "Do not allow Steve to update, unless he checks with me".
(or even)
4. "Show previous version of this file" (or) "Show contents of this file two weeks ago"
Think the above is a pipe dream? It is completely possible, even using today's technology. I'm not proposing that the computer's search facility have an AI system that can recognize human conversation, but just that it can accept a simple declarative subset of English (or whatever language) and convert that to the appropriate queries. (Of course the computer user would have to be taught how to use the language, but it could be very intuitive).
Versioning information? Sure! Most users have 50 times the hard drive space they actually need already, and the database would not have to store a complete copy of every file version, but just the diff.
"Action Items"? Another way of saying "triggers".
And think of the widgest that GUI designers could create if documents and even parts of documents can be related by all kinds of criteria that computer users must now keep in their heads:
(Let's see, I was keeping the SlapCo proposal in my "Props" folder, but I need to remember to customize the standard disclaimer in my "Legalese" folder, so I am saving a copy into "Props", but I must remember that this change only applies to this agreement, and I must not copy the changed version back into "Legalese", or I am screwed.)
Yes, so a document management solution could handle this. Exactly!!! Every filesystem should be a document management solution. And if I hear another complaint about performance, I am going to spew. The average user is not even using 1% of a computer's power 99% of the time. Let's put it to some good use for a change.
And heirarchical databases were replaced in the 70s by the relational database model because it was impossible to effectively deal with data if you are restricted to a simple heirarchical view.
Here's an analogy: Heirarchical databases are to relational databases as the GOTO statement is to object encapsulation.
This might explain why some of us get so frustrated at being forced to continually "navigate" up and down our "folder" heirarchies with the "tree widget". That's just a graphical metaphor for 60s computer technology.
As a happy FreeBSD user, I fail to see why this "sucks". FreeBSD users tend to have the attitude that if FreeBSD is a good thing, why keep it from anyone? Business or non-business, it doesn't matter. In fact, generally it is a good thing for businesses to use FreeBSD wherever they want, because sooner or later they realize that they will benefit directly by contributing back to the main FreeBSD effort. Otherwise their (patched) version will drift too far from the main releases to be able to keep taking advantage of FreeBSD. Symbiotic relationship, you dig...?
Yes, you can move to InnoDB tables, but your performance goes South quickly, thus taking away one of the few reasons to use MySQL.
One of my clients had a Linux Apache/PHP/MySQL box that was being heavily pounded by 250+ web-based instant messaging users. (I know... using a database to handle instant messages:-( ). Anyway, I, in my simple logic, thought
1. The message tables are constantly subject to INSERT, SELECT, and DELETE queries.
2. MyISAM tables require a full lock for every INSERT or DELETE
3. InnoDB tables have row-level locking
4. Thus, I will install MySQL-Max, and use InnoDB tables for the messaging data, thus relieving PHP of the continuous connect...wait...reconnect scenario
Well, I read every note about configuring MySQL for performance, and I made the change to InnoDB, and promptly every single one of the 30 or 40 MySQL processes began taking up at least 60 MB RAM! The system slowed to a standstill, and I had to roll back to regular MyISAM tables 'real quick'. (the users on the system take about 10 seconds to start pestering the admin with trouble reports)
I know the real answer is to use shared memory or some such, but anyway, the performance benchmarks always show PostgreSQL ruling when you have mixed INSERTS and DELETES.
...and thus we have another leap forward for amorality...
Don't you mean Microsoft didn't do anything *illegal*?
I mean, who in his/her right mind could conceive of this as being OK? Yes, nothing illegal was done here. If I insult you and tell you lies, I have done nothing illegal, but does that make it right? Microsoft has clearly violated the intent of this poll. If Sun had done the same thing, you know Microsoft would be howling for blood.
And you also know that these thing do matter to some extent. Even though everyone knows these polls don't reflect real numbers, there is still an effect resulting from them. Many people seeing a poll like this click to see the results, even if they don't vote. This is disinformation, plain and simple.
If you "vote early and vote often", that is the very type of behavior that, when discovered, should result in your public shaming. That should undo any positive effect you hope to gain by disinformation.
I know that I will never buy any software written by Mark Bessey.
After reading all this stuff, I am struck by a couple things:
1. Pie menus, or radial menus, or some sort of way to do more than a simple line of choices, are a good thing, because they are not that great an extension over what is being done now. In other words, don't take big steps, take little ones.
2. Full 3D interfaces and voice interaction just have too many problems to be taken seriously, at least for the near future.
3. Everyone still takes either a visual or an audio-visual approach. Generally, all these interfaces are just different mappings of multi-dimensional thinking into flatland (Tufte -- Visual Explanations)
4. What ever happened to simple mechanics? We have all these devices for extending what we do in the gaming world; why not take THAT concept into the productivity world, instead of just the 3D interface? What about a document manager you can hold in your hand? Or a little "side screen" that lets you put your overall management stuff you don't want to obscure with your windows? (I know these might be silly examples, but who knows??)
5. Our hands are the most expressive devices we own, and are VERY limited by the keyboard and mouse. For example, 3D concepts can have some use, but they need to be mapped into the real world, with devices that we can manipulate with our hands.
6. Why does no one have the guts to try to take the keyboard out of the 19th century? At some point we should ask the question "How can we retrain ourselves to better make use of the computer?". All these sci-fi researchers want to treat the user as an idiotic drone. We spend 20+ years educating a human to do all the other stuff, but expect them to use computers after seeing a Windows 95 video with Jennifer Anniston and Matthew Perry.
7. And in the end, why would I want a full 3D interface that tries to emulate the real world? I lose more stuff in the real world than I ever lose from my computer;-).
Went out into the Everglades at 3:00 AM, to meet my photo-geek buddies who had cameras mounted on star tracking systems, etc...
They had a strict no-light policy while running exposures, so you would hear "OK, apertures open", and "apertures closed". (lol)
At first I was disappointed, because it didn't seem any better than last year, but then we started getting bursts of activity, I think at one time I saw as many as 4 or 5 trails in the sky at once, and that was just looking at one quadrant.
The coolest thing was seeing trails that didn't disappear for up to a minute or two, until they started losing shape, drifting in the wind. (wind was almost nil, which was great for photography)
We found it didn't matter which way we pointed cameras, because any direction you looked, you were bound to see one in a few seconds.
I believe I saw at least one meteorite that burst into multiple pieces, before winking out.
We kept on seeing this level of activity until the sun started to rise. From listening to my friends, and my own sightings, it seemed one of us saw something every 2 or 3 seconds, on average.
Even though I have never seen this kind of volume before, they were all small. Didn't see one that fell all the way to earth. (Back in '91 in Canada, I saw one that broke up in several pieces and fell all the way down behind an island)
Well, the greater percentage of everything is crap, so yes, most sci-fi writers will slip out of the public eye, just as most conventional novelists will.
Time is the one vindicator of the better writers, who are often ignored, and who rarely make the real money, while the commercial hacks make their millions. Eventually the world needs something of substance to look back upon.
And yes, there are some sci-fi writers who really are able to break out of the "sci-fi/fantasy" genre, and simply be considered great writers, such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
Yes, she gets a vote from me, as well as a slightly lesser vote for Anne McAffrey.
Anyone here remember "The Lathe of Heaven"? It was a great story made into a great movie in 1979, and re-broadcast on PBS last year.
"Left Hand of Darkness" left an impression on me. It was also a very interesting re-defining of the term "Libertarian" (yes, I am one). I'm not totally sure I agree with her definition, but it really is good food for thought, especially for Libertarians of the "greed is good" mentality.
It's too bad that often the femal sci-fi writers get forgotten.
There is a very cool little piece of music software called Audiomulch that does something like this. It allows you to create music signal-processing systems by dragging the output of one widget into the input of another, and so forth.
It actually is possible to run a snappy window manager under X. Unfortunately, the two main contenders for Linux/Unix desktops are quite heavy and slow, but that is gradually changing.
But if you have the time, check out Blackbox. It starts up on my AMD 350 (while running Apache and Tomcat) in literally 4 or 5 seconds. In fact, most of that time is spent just starting X itself, and blackbox only adds about a second to the startup time. (enter "xinit", then run "blackbox" in the bare terminal window)
It is one of those forgotten projects that shows the possibility of a truly nice sleek, fast interface, with minimal fuss. I understand that it not yet a desktop for the clueless public, but it shows the possibility. It's time for someone to pick this one up again.
There is also the UDE project, which has some very interesting ideas, even though it is pretty rough at the moment.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. The multiple-camera technique has been around since the mid-90s, AFAIK. First used in MTV videos, I think.
The method we are talking about sounds more like the method portrayed in Enemy of the State, as mentioned above. I saw an interview with the director, and he said everything mentioned in the movie comes from *declassified* information-- in other words "old news".
Yes, the tweening techniques have been around for awhile, too. I remember seeing at least 5 years ago a documentary on a project that combined a digital camera with GPS positioning data (and a gyroscope, I believe) to create a 3D model of a landscape. They showed a guy just walking around a park with a video camera and a laptop; he didn't even have to walk in a predermined path. NASA used this same technique for the 3D model of the Mars Rover landscape.
Writing idiotic, cut-n-paste trolls has never been easier...
> oop.ismad.com
Hehe... some fun stuff there. I especially agree with your take on the limitations of trees. One of my pet peeves.
If you are into thinking about set mathematics, then you might enjoy reading from the guys at http://www.dbdebunk.com/. They also have some very pointed discussions about OOP and OODBMS.
> You don't even need OO
True enough. Abstracting a database layer in PHP is child's play, with or without OO. In fact, even if you use one of those shiny OO abstraction layers that are so popular in PHP now, you should really be doing some project-specific abstraction anyway. At least, for larger, complex projects.
Here is a little script I use to create directory snapshots. I used Perl, but it would be easy enough to do it an any shell scripting environment:
...\n";
/usr/local/bin as "myarch". I can be browsing anywhere, such as my /home/rycamor directory, and I can just enter "myarch mail" to archive the /home/rycamor/mail directory, saving it as /home/rycamor/mail_06-02-2002_1615.tar.gz (the command it executes is simply "tar -zpscf mail_06-02-2002_1615.tar.gz mail/*")
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
$dir_in=shift(@ARGV);
chomp($dir_in);
$dir_in =~ tr/\///d;
print "Archiving $dir_in/*
use POSIX qw(strftime);
$now_string = strftime "%m-%d-%Y_%H%M", localtime;
$tarname=$dir_in."_".$now_string.".tar.gz";
$execstring="tar -zpscf ".$tarname." ".$dir_in."/*";
print($execstring);
system($execstring);
print("\n");
What this does is a create a standard Gzipped tarfile of a directory tree, preserving attributes, etc... and naming this archived file with the date and time appended to the directory name. Let's say this script is saved in
For any directory where you are doing something questionable, and you might want to create several backups as you go, this is a nice quick way to keep track of changes.
Oops. Separate the first sentence (quoted) from the rest of the paragraph. (my response)
> I'd wager the farther back you go, the more individuals you'll find, and the farther ahead we go, the less individuals inventing on their own. The thesis (which claims that potential inventions and discoveries are getting more complex, thus precluding lone discoverers) only takes into account some of the factors involved, while ignoring significant others. One significant factor: the discoveries that have been made put significantly more ability into the hands of the lone thinker.
Think about it; these days, I can access literally milllions of research documents on any subject I want, even without being a member of said university or institution. I can perform an amazing quantity of scientific computation and modeling using cheap used computers and free software. I can communicate cheaply and instantly with almost anyone. Tools of all kinds are comparatively cheaper than they have ever been. Just spend some time at a local Home Depot, Lowe's Hardware, or Radio Shack (if you are in the U.S.)
Throughout history, we have seen naysayers of this sort. Every generation has a prophet saying we have reached the end of human capability in one area or another, and they are consistently proved wrong. I'm waiting to see the next one.
I think some of the reasons we don't see more lone inventors are due more to social factors, bad education, government, etc... Let's face it: in the U.S. and many other parts of the world, we are increasingly living in a society which punishes individual accomplishment, while rewarding those who "play by the rules" (meaning: those who know how to manipulate the government grant system, or who have the best lobbyists and lawyers).
Another point about lone inventors: Even in the past, no inventor just stayed by him/herself in a room. They were always interacting with other thinkers, sharing theories, etc..., even if just on an informal basis. So, the whole argument is somewhat mis-characterized anyway.
Umm... I mean "non-initiation".
Or another way to say it is "to improperly take for granted". (http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/begs.html)
That is what I was trying to say. Many people try to assert something about freedom or rights simply by taking an aspect of it for granted. "I have a right to x, because I need it". (Nowadays most civil rights are evaluated in terms of relative need, rather than moral principle).
Thus I argue that any assertion about freedom that doesn't apply the "non-itiation of force" principle simply begs the question.
In resonse to everyone here:
I was not talking about the GPL. I have no argument with it. It is what it is. I use quite a lot of GPL software, and quite a lot of BSD software, and very little proprietary software.
Yes, I am very much against trivial software patents, ridiculous copy-protection requirements, etc...
But I simply don't understand a philosophy that says I don't have freedom if I use software without source, or that it is somehow morally wrong to release a binary without giving out the source.
That is what RMS seems to be saying. If he is not saying this, then I see no logical inconsistency.
My freedom or liberty gives me the ability to choose whether I use proprietary or "free" software. This freedom or liberty also gives me the choice whether to release source with my software, or just distribute as a binary. This freedom doesn't allow me the right to prevent others from talking about my software, or to prevent others from writing similar software, etc... I force no one, I expect no one to force me.
If RMS agrees with this, then I wish he would spend more energy on the issues of improper government control, rather than the whole "source code is a precondition for freedom" thing.
NutCase, thanks for commenting. (And to get this out of the way, yes, I am a libertarian.)
;-).
I wasn't trying to define freedom or rights in abstract but to discuss the human application of those concepts.
An absolute by nature has to be a declarative statement. ("There can be no peace without justice") An abstract concept is not an absolute, any more than saying the concept of weight is absolute. The abstract concept of weight is just a vehicle. To do anything useful with it, we have to ask "how much does this weigh?". To make an absolute out of it we can say something like "Weight is an effect of the gravitational pull between all matter". Same thing with freedom. As an abstract, you can't do anything with it. But a person can have more or less freedom, or even no freedom, and the abstract concept is still involved. When we get to the specifics of how much freedom one has, that's where this whole discussion was sparked. In your other post, when you said "freedom is an absolute", I suppose from the context of your post, I took it to mean "the only freedom is absolute freedom". My mistake.
My point was only the very common-sense one that if you make freedom as a goal for everyone, then each person's freedom falls within the bounds of how it relates to the freedom of others. This is why I prefer the term "liberty" to freedom. In present society "freedom" is so loaded that it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion about it.
If Richard Stallman does not in any way want to make source release a requirement, then I stand corrected. From what I see, though, he seems to be saying "We are not really free unless all software is Free Software". (otherwise, what is all the campaigning about?) Thus the logical extension of that would be that corporations are infringing upon our freedom by selling proprietary software, and the logical extension of THAT would be that they should be required by law to release source. However, if he takes a laissez faire approach, then I have absolutely no argument with the man. But then we are back again to this being a matter of personal preference, not some grandiose humanistic philosophy.
Don't get me wrong, I am not at all against the GPL, as others here seem to think I am. I am not even against legal enforcement of the GPL. I am just bewildered by an idea that equates personal freedom with the requirement that companies distribute their source code. I am not championing Big Business. They do plenty of things in attempt to restrict our freedoms to be sure, but in the area of whether or not source is released, I don't see it. It still seems to me simply a preference. If you prefer the GPL, go for it; if you prefer the BSD licence, good for you; if you prefer proprietary software, get in that line over there. It is NOT a freedom issue, because no one is forcing you to use the software. No one is forcing you to use a computer at all.
But... I agree with RMS on the point that no other parties should have a say on exactly what I do with the bits on my computer's hard drive, or whether I can make backup copies of my software, or try to reverse-engineer, etc... I also agree that software patents are almost always a ridiculous thing. In these areas, the government and big business truly IS trying to restrict our freedom. This is where I think the real fight will be.
Yeah, I know my posts are long and belabored. What can I say? I love discussing philosophy
I'm sorry, but I have been trying for years to see why his "point" is so great.
After trying as hard as possible to "be on his side", I can only conclude that he is embracing a logical inconsistency. For a mind that understands computers so well, his grasp of a philosophy and its logical application is somewhat limited.
Freedom: what exactly does this overloaded word mean? The closest we have come to freedom is the Libertarianish phrase "non-initiation of force". In other words, the closest we can get to allowing everyone freedom is to restrict individuals from forcing others except when needed to prevent those others from forcing others (see a neat recursion principle there?). If we don't take this approach to freedom (more properly called liberty), then we have some real problems. Any other approach to freedom begs the question "whose freedom comes first?".
Rights: another overloaded word. If we take freedom as an overlying principle, then "my rights end where yours begin". Any other definition of rights again begs the question "whose rights come first?". Whenever rights take precedence over freedom, these rights become sort of a distributable priviledge system within the government, which of course encourages all sorts of corruption.
Thus, if we take the above logically, then the only way for a society to have anything approaching freedom or individual choice is to (1) allow any party to freely sell or buy products or services with any other party, and (2) to allow any party to freely give and receive from any other party. Once you start applying force here, someone's freedom is being taken away.
However, RMS's insistence on "free" software doesn't take this into account at all. He would use his definition of freedom to FORCE organizations and individuals to release software under his guidelines. Meaning, if I understand him properly, that any business who freely makes a contract with any customer to deliver an application without source, is wrong. To RMS, it doesn't matter whether Microsoft's customers freely enter into the contract with Microsoft, and that Microsoft does not apply any force in the matter which requires you to buy this software (I'm sure they would if they could, but at the moment you are free to refuse the software). No--to RMS, his concept of freedom of software is more important than freedom of the individual! See the freedom[0] - freedom[3] array at http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
So the logical inconsistency surfaces: freedom is important, so we must enforce upon people that they release source, and allow freely redistributable copies of any piece of software being sold. Note: I am not against the idea of having free software at all, but at the idea that this should be enforced upon me and others.
If you truly hold freedom dear, then you can't complain if people actually use this freedom to make choices that you disagree with. It is only when these choices inhibit your own freedom that you can complain. I fail to see how RMS's freedom or anyone's freedom is restricted because software is released in binary form without source. If you agree to buy it, then what's the problem. By the same token, if you freely agree to give away software, and someone freely agrees to use it, then again, what's the problem?
Yes, I am aware that many proprietary software businesses would like to restrict our freedoms. And I agree with RMS that a corporation should not have any control over exactly how I use the software once it is on my computer. That is another issue. But, the solution is not to require some arbitrary method of software release, which would require the use of police force against these companies to enact. It makes me laugh that this whole concept is even considered a "principle". It is just someone's preference about how they would like things done. Preference needs a lot more weight to be considered a principle.
On the first point, you are absolutely right. If data integrity and constraints (not to mention normalization, rules, views, and triggers) are beyond your needs (or your understanding), then you should not be using them. But then again, if a company depends AT ALL on this data, then the above are critical.
On the second point, again you are correct, IF all you want to do is slavishly mirror the Stone Age concept of heirarchical containers and contents, rather than take advantage of the capabilities of a true relational database.
The real thing is, why heirarchical filesystems in the first place? This is just an old, old concept called the heirarchical database, which was abandoned in the 70s by anyone needing serious data storage and manipulation. IMHO, heirarchies are limiting, especially for the end user, forcing you to continuously "navigate" from one container to the next, just to see your data.
But think about the advantages for computer users, if there were a true RDBMS under the hood, and they could do such a thing as enter:
1. "Show me all files accessed by user Steve since last Tuesday".
2. "Which of those files were part of project X?"
(clicks on third file, chooses "Action Item")
3. "Do not allow Steve to update, unless he checks with me".
(or even)
4. "Show previous version of this file" (or) "Show contents of this file two weeks ago"
Think the above is a pipe dream? It is completely possible, even using today's technology. I'm not proposing that the computer's search facility have an AI system that can recognize human conversation, but just that it can accept a simple declarative subset of English (or whatever language) and convert that to the appropriate queries. (Of course the computer user would have to be taught how to use the language, but it could be very intuitive).
Versioning information? Sure! Most users have 50 times the hard drive space they actually need already, and the database would not have to store a complete copy of every file version, but just the diff.
"Action Items"? Another way of saying "triggers".
And think of the widgest that GUI designers could create if documents and even parts of documents can be related by all kinds of criteria that computer users must now keep in their heads:
(Let's see, I was keeping the SlapCo proposal in my "Props" folder, but I need to remember to customize the standard disclaimer in my "Legalese" folder, so I am saving a copy into "Props", but I must remember that this change only applies to this agreement, and I must not copy the changed version back into "Legalese", or I am screwed.)
Yes, so a document management solution could handle this. Exactly!!! Every filesystem should be a document management solution. And if I hear another complaint about performance, I am going to spew. The average user is not even using 1% of a computer's power 99% of the time. Let's put it to some good use for a change.
And heirarchical databases were replaced in the 70s by the relational database model because it was impossible to effectively deal with data if you are restricted to a simple heirarchical view.
Here's an analogy: Heirarchical databases are to relational databases as the GOTO statement is to object encapsulation.
This might explain why some of us get so frustrated at being forced to continually "navigate" up and down our "folder" heirarchies with the "tree widget". That's just a graphical metaphor for 60s computer technology.
Someone actually did attempt this with PostgreSQL, back in '97, but I think the project got shelved: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=1383
Maybe it's time to revive it...
So?
As a happy FreeBSD user, I fail to see why this "sucks". FreeBSD users tend to have the attitude that if FreeBSD is a good thing, why keep it from anyone? Business or non-business, it doesn't matter. In fact, generally it is a good thing for businesses to use FreeBSD wherever they want, because sooner or later they realize that they will benefit directly by contributing back to the main FreeBSD effort. Otherwise their (patched) version will drift too far from the main releases to be able to keep taking advantage of FreeBSD. Symbiotic relationship, you dig...?
'nuff said.
Yes, you can move to InnoDB tables, but your performance goes South quickly, thus taking away one of the few reasons to use MySQL.
:-( ). Anyway, I, in my simple logic, thought
One of my clients had a Linux Apache/PHP/MySQL box that was being heavily pounded by 250+ web-based instant messaging users. (I know... using a database to handle instant messages
1. The message tables are constantly subject to INSERT, SELECT, and DELETE queries.
2. MyISAM tables require a full lock for every INSERT or DELETE
3. InnoDB tables have row-level locking
4. Thus, I will install MySQL-Max, and use InnoDB tables for the messaging data, thus relieving PHP of the continuous connect...wait...reconnect scenario
Well, I read every note about configuring MySQL for performance, and I made the change to InnoDB, and promptly every single one of the 30 or 40 MySQL processes began taking up at least 60 MB RAM! The system slowed to a standstill, and I had to roll back to regular MyISAM tables 'real quick'. (the users on the system take about 10 seconds to start pestering the admin with trouble reports)
I know the real answer is to use shared memory or some such, but anyway, the performance benchmarks always show PostgreSQL ruling when you have mixed INSERTS and DELETES.
Well, for starters, any time you want to run ipfilter or ipfw in FreeBSD, you have to recompile the kernel. That should be kind of a tip-off.
...and thus we have another leap forward for amorality...
Don't you mean Microsoft didn't do anything *illegal*?
I mean, who in his/her right mind could conceive of this as being OK? Yes, nothing illegal was done here. If I insult you and tell you lies, I have done nothing illegal, but does that make it right? Microsoft has clearly violated the intent of this poll. If Sun had done the same thing, you know Microsoft would be howling for blood.
And you also know that these thing do matter to some extent. Even though everyone knows these polls don't reflect real numbers, there is still an effect resulting from them. Many people seeing a poll like this click to see the results, even if they don't vote. This is disinformation, plain and simple.
If you "vote early and vote often", that is the very type of behavior that, when discovered, should result in your public shaming. That should undo any positive effect you hope to gain by disinformation.
I know that I will never buy any software written by Mark Bessey.
After reading all this stuff, I am struck by a couple things:
;-).
1. Pie menus, or radial menus, or some sort of way to do more than a simple line of choices, are a good thing, because they are not that great an extension over what is being done now. In other words, don't take big steps, take little ones.
2. Full 3D interfaces and voice interaction just have too many problems to be taken seriously, at least for the near future.
3. Everyone still takes either a visual or an audio-visual approach. Generally, all these interfaces are just different mappings of multi-dimensional thinking into flatland (Tufte -- Visual Explanations)
4. What ever happened to simple mechanics? We have all these devices for extending what we do in the gaming world; why not take THAT concept into the productivity world, instead of just the 3D interface? What about a document manager you can hold in your hand? Or a little "side screen" that lets you put your overall management stuff you don't want to obscure with your windows? (I know these might be silly examples, but who knows??)
5. Our hands are the most expressive devices we own, and are VERY limited by the keyboard and mouse. For example, 3D concepts can have some use, but they need to be mapped into the real world, with devices that we can manipulate with our hands.
6. Why does no one have the guts to try to take the keyboard out of the 19th century? At some point we should ask the question "How can we retrain ourselves to better make use of the computer?". All these sci-fi researchers want to treat the user as an idiotic drone. We spend 20+ years educating a human to do all the other stuff, but expect them to use computers after seeing a Windows 95 video with Jennifer Anniston and Matthew Perry.
7. And in the end, why would I want a full 3D interface that tries to emulate the real world? I lose more stuff in the real world than I ever lose from my computer
Went out into the Everglades at 3:00 AM, to meet my photo-geek buddies who had cameras mounted on star tracking systems, etc...
They had a strict no-light policy while running exposures, so you would hear "OK, apertures open", and "apertures closed". (lol)
At first I was disappointed, because it didn't seem any better than last year, but then we started getting bursts of activity, I think at one time I saw as many as 4 or 5 trails in the sky at once, and that was just looking at one quadrant.
The coolest thing was seeing trails that didn't disappear for up to a minute or two, until they started losing shape, drifting in the wind. (wind was almost nil, which was great for photography)
We found it didn't matter which way we pointed cameras, because any direction you looked, you were bound to see one in a few seconds.
I believe I saw at least one meteorite that burst into multiple pieces, before winking out.
We kept on seeing this level of activity until the sun started to rise. From listening to my friends, and my own sightings, it seemed one of us saw something every 2 or 3 seconds, on average.
Even though I have never seen this kind of volume before, they were all small. Didn't see one that fell all the way to earth. (Back in '91 in Canada, I saw one that broke up in several pieces and fell all the way down behind an island)
Well, the greater percentage of everything is crap, so yes, most sci-fi writers will slip out of the public eye, just as most conventional novelists will.
Time is the one vindicator of the better writers, who are often ignored, and who rarely make the real money, while the commercial hacks make their millions. Eventually the world needs something of substance to look back upon.
And yes, there are some sci-fi writers who really are able to break out of the "sci-fi/fantasy" genre, and simply be considered great writers, such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
Yes, she gets a vote from me, as well as a slightly lesser vote for Anne McAffrey.
Anyone here remember "The Lathe of Heaven"? It was a great story made into a great movie in 1979, and re-broadcast on PBS last year.
"Left Hand of Darkness" left an impression on me. It was also a very interesting re-defining of the term "Libertarian" (yes, I am one). I'm not totally sure I agree with her definition, but it really is good food for thought, especially for Libertarians of the "greed is good" mentality.
It's too bad that often the femal sci-fi writers get forgotten.
I like that idea.
Extremely!
There is a very cool little piece of music software called Audiomulch that does something like this. It allows you to create music signal-processing systems by dragging the output of one widget into the input of another, and so forth.
It actually is possible to run a snappy window manager under X. Unfortunately, the two main contenders for Linux/Unix desktops are quite heavy and slow, but that is gradually changing.
But if you have the time, check out Blackbox. It starts up on my AMD 350 (while running Apache and Tomcat) in literally 4 or 5 seconds. In fact, most of that time is spent just starting X itself, and blackbox only adds about a second to the startup time. (enter "xinit", then run "blackbox" in the bare terminal window)
It is one of those forgotten projects that shows the possibility of a truly nice sleek, fast interface, with minimal fuss. I understand that it not yet a desktop for the clueless public, but it shows the possibility. It's time for someone to pick this one up again.
There is also the UDE project, which has some very interesting ideas, even though it is pretty rough at the moment.