And you, sir, are a flame-baiting fool in the pay of someone who does not like the WSJ article. Gomes appears to have a modest objective knowledge about Linux. You would prefer us to read articles written by someone ignorant on the matter? Go home and stop embarassing yourself.
A conspiracy theory that suggests that the this story was just a smart way to hide any prior art for the one-click patent is too far fetched. Let's see... first I create a forum and a focus for people to come forward with incriminating evidence, then I try to silence them with a t-shirt. Why would anyone so smart be so stupid? Apply Occam's Razor and take the simplest solution: quite a few people stumbled here, but there is no hidden agenda.
I just came back from a trip to Nigeria, where we're working to implement an e-commerce system. While it's easy and tempting to throw 'Africa' into one basket, wars in Angola, Congo, and dozens of other African countries are as relevant to life in more peaceful countries as is a war in Kozovo to life in Finland. Africa is a large continent, diverse, and supports many large and successful free-market enterprises.
These businesses desperately need to improve their communications, cut costs, and reach their customers and suppliers faster. African companies pay an incredible amount for telecommunications, and cheap reliable solutions such as we're used to up north still need to be put into place, one way or another.
Making life easier for business makes the whole economy work better, makes the country richer, and does actually make life better for the average African.
So, it was curious to debate the merits of Linux - which I did - with some Nigerian IT people. They asked whether open systems were not more likely to be insecure. I explained that the reverse was true. They asked whether support was an issue. I said that it might be, but any kind of support is hard to get in a country where the phone network supports a 9600-baud connection with difficulty. It's quite likely that we will use Linux for most of the e-commerce servers in this project. Unlike many IT people elsewhere, Nigerians (I can't speak for other Africans) are incredibly practical, and very quick to see the benefits of solutions like Linux.
Africans are used to being ripped-off by every passing western businessman, bank, and agency. 'Free', in any sense of the word, is a little bit abstract. It may take some time, but Linux, along with all the other millions of free and OS goodies out there will be appreciated and well used in African IT.
of spending so much money looking at Mars. Why don't we just rerun the movie until everyone is sick of the whole thing, then focus on some of the real issues, like why we need so many cars?
"used to encrypt controversial information" is not really what the article is about. The purpose of pads would be to distribute controversial information without implicating any party. As such, (and not as an encryption tool) it's a nice idea. The only weak point I can see is that someone has to, eventually, release the list of pads which represent the message, so expose that person to the lawyers. However, distributing the list of pads cannot be considered as the same as distributing the information itself, and holding old, random or innocent pads cannot either. So, it gets my vote.
One of the navy's long time top-secret projects involved the use of ultralong sound waves to carry information to submarines. Undersea transmitters and receivers using the same frequencies as whales. The surprising thing: these low-frequency waves could travel for thousands of miles. Whales can, it seems, communicate with other whales on the opposite side of the globe.
Presumably this update shortens the wavelength a little.
Presumably, also, the deep sound of the ocean is now something like the SCKREEKEERKKKSXXEWES made by a modem, only slower.
Bah indeed. This list looks like it was compiled by a first year CS student from out of date CAACM journals. It ignores most of the most interesting work done in the last twenty years. IMHO the great families of vital algorithms are:
Compression, all kinds. Easily number 1.
Encryption, especially public-key.
The GUI (mouse pointer, scroll bars, windows).
IP and all its children (protocols are algorithms, surely)
'Classic' numerical algorithms (FFT, ECC, etc.)
'Classic' data manipulation (sorts, searches, trees)
It seems obvious to me that within a few years Linux will be the standard for operating systems just as TCP/IP is the standard for networking. We're not talking about a product but about a technology that so outstrips any of its rivals that the competition is moot. The only marketing issue left to resolve is the end-user interface, something that will probably end-up defining the difference between company A's Linux and company B's Linux. After all, if the OS does its job, the end-user does not even see it. Microsoft will, one day, port their Windows front-end to Linux and actually end-up with a good and valuable product. The other route to this is gradual replacement of the OS kernel with Linux code. No company can justify long term expenditure to maintain proprietary technologies when there is a better, free alternative. The end-user would not care whether Windows 2xxx is based on NT or on Linux, so long as it runs their applications and looks familiar. They would pay the same as they do today. Less proprietary OS development means higher profits. Many of the people who contributed to Linux may be disappointed when they discover one day that their code is being used to generate higher profits for Microsoft.
The timing is just perfect, now I can blame all the new bugs in the monster project we're making on solar interference. The last excuse, e-mail viruses, no longer works. "Oh, it's normal that you can't see more data on that screen - IBM patented the More button, Microsoft patented the scroll bar, and there's an X-Class solar flare in progress!!
This story is already being reported on the BBC as "a virus that infects mobile phones". Well, what's next, infected fax machines and telephone answering systems? As soon as technology is published, someone is trying to crack and abuse it. This is an old story. To paraphrase Dilbert, the designer of any hackable technology has to pit his wits against the collective urges of millions of idle young minds.
The spate of email viruses is just, IMHO, a consequence of the Microsoft monoculture. Systems tend to evolve checks and balances, and computer viruses appear to play a fairly meaningful (if destructive) role in ensuring some kind of diversity.
So, roll on the first true mobile-phone viruses. I predict that the first mobile phones to run the-OS-formerly-known-as-Windows-CE will be the easiest targets. My voice-activated GSM already makes silent phone calls whenever a car drives past, unless I lock the keyboard. Expect many very expensive unwanted calls to numbers in third-world countries.
A computer virus can do unquantifiable damage to a system. Who can you sue? The long-distance calls made by a mobile-phone virus will be much easier to quantify. When the first major mobile phone virus wave hits, expect class-action lawsuits by the thousands of phone users affected. Ralph Nader, where are you?
There are faster and slower databases, and one of the great mysteries for me, over the last ten years, is how pedestrian relational databases like Oracle have conquered the market although they are at least 10 and sometimes up to 1000 times slower than the ISAM systems they replaced. I've not had the joy of playing with an OO database, but the problem remains: access your data without care and every other tuning you've done is lost. Unless Versant or its like are capable of enforcing properly-indexed data access, I can't see how they would help. Many of the so-called 'applications' my team has been called in to fix or rewrite pay no attention to the cost of shunting data across networks, and blithely perform full table scans as if they were going out of fashion. It's humdrum, but IMHO simple good practice in database design and access would improve the performance of most database-related applications more and easier than switching to new languages or databases. Motto: when one does not know how to use one's tools, it's no use calling for replacements.
In my experience, aside from gross overheads such as those imposed by interpreted languages, the actual performance of server-side business applications depends primarily on database access. Put simply: the cost of database access is so high that it wipes out subtle shades of difference between language A and B. The key to building fast applications is the choice of good tools, and an understanding of the impact of SQL clauses like ORDER BY. The relative speed of compiled Java over C would be a very bad basis for chosing the language for an important project.
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And you, sir, are a flame-baiting fool in the pay of someone who does not like the WSJ article. Gomes appears to have a modest objective knowledge about Linux. You would prefer us to read articles written by someone ignorant on the matter? Go home and stop embarassing yourself.
After two weeks without food, another human being starts to look quite tasty indeed. "We drew lots, honest!"
A conspiracy theory that suggests that the this story was just a smart way to hide any prior art for the one-click patent is too far fetched. Let's see... first I create a forum and a focus for people to come forward with incriminating evidence, then I try to silence them with a t-shirt. Why would anyone so smart be so stupid? Apply Occam's Razor and take the simplest solution: quite a few people stumbled here, but there is no hidden agenda.
I just came back from a trip to Nigeria, where we're working to implement an e-commerce system. While it's easy and tempting to throw 'Africa' into one basket, wars in Angola, Congo, and dozens of other African countries are as relevant to life in more peaceful countries as is a war in Kozovo to life in Finland. Africa is a large continent, diverse, and supports many large and successful free-market enterprises.
These businesses desperately need to improve their communications, cut costs, and reach their customers and suppliers faster. African companies pay an incredible amount for telecommunications, and cheap reliable solutions such as we're used to up north still need to be put into place, one way or another.
Making life easier for business makes the whole economy work better, makes the country richer, and does actually make life better for the average African.
So, it was curious to debate the merits of Linux - which I did - with some Nigerian IT people. They asked whether open systems were not more likely to be insecure. I explained that the reverse was true. They asked whether support was an issue. I said that it might be, but any kind of support is hard to get in a country where the phone network supports a 9600-baud connection with difficulty. It's quite likely that we will use Linux for most of the e-commerce servers in this project. Unlike many IT people elsewhere, Nigerians (I can't speak for other Africans) are incredibly practical, and very quick to see the benefits of solutions like Linux.
Africans are used to being ripped-off by every passing western businessman, bank, and agency. 'Free', in any sense of the word, is a little bit abstract. It may take some time, but Linux, along with all the other millions of free and OS goodies out there will be appreciated and well used in African IT.
of spending so much money looking at Mars. Why don't we just rerun the movie until everyone is sick of the whole thing, then focus on some of the real issues, like why we need so many cars?
The subject says it, I think.
Moderators: moderate this up! Or have you all been replaced by zombies that zap any post containing the word 'Metallica'? Slipshod.
"used to encrypt controversial information" is not really what the article is about. The purpose of pads would be to distribute controversial information without implicating any party. As such, (and not as an encryption tool) it's a nice idea. The only weak point I can see is that someone has to, eventually, release the list of pads which represent the message, so expose that person to the lawyers. However, distributing the list of pads cannot be considered as the same as distributing the information itself, and holding old, random or innocent pads cannot either. So, it gets my vote.
Presumably this update shortens the wavelength a little.
Presumably, also, the deep sound of the ocean is now something like the SCKREEKEERKKKSXXEWES made by a modem, only slower.
Pity the whales.
Compression, all kinds. Easily number 1.
Encryption, especially public-key.
The GUI (mouse pointer, scroll bars, windows).
IP and all its children (protocols are algorithms, surely)
'Classic' numerical algorithms (FFT, ECC, etc.)
'Classic' data manipulation (sorts, searches, trees)
It seems obvious to me that within a few years Linux will be the standard for operating systems just as TCP/IP is the standard for networking. We're not talking about a product but about a technology that so outstrips any of its rivals that the competition is moot. The only marketing issue left to resolve is the end-user interface, something that will probably end-up defining the difference between company A's Linux and company B's Linux. After all, if the OS does its job, the end-user does not even see it. Microsoft will, one day, port their Windows front-end to Linux and actually end-up with a good and valuable product. The other route to this is gradual replacement of the OS kernel with Linux code. No company can justify long term expenditure to maintain proprietary technologies when there is a better, free alternative. The end-user would not care whether Windows 2xxx is based on NT or on Linux, so long as it runs their applications and looks familiar. They would pay the same as they do today. Less proprietary OS development means higher profits. Many of the people who contributed to Linux may be disappointed when they discover one day that their code is being used to generate higher profits for Microsoft.
The timing is just perfect, now I can blame all the new bugs in the monster project we're making on solar interference. The last excuse, e-mail viruses, no longer works. "Oh, it's normal that you can't see more data on that screen - IBM patented the More button, Microsoft patented the scroll bar, and there's an X-Class solar flare in progress!!
This story is already being reported on the BBC as "a virus that infects mobile phones". Well, what's next, infected fax machines and telephone answering systems? As soon as technology is published, someone is trying to crack and abuse it. This is an old story. To paraphrase Dilbert, the designer of any hackable technology has to pit his wits against the collective urges of millions of idle young minds.
The spate of email viruses is just, IMHO, a consequence of the Microsoft monoculture. Systems tend to evolve checks and balances, and computer viruses appear to play a fairly meaningful (if destructive) role in ensuring some kind of diversity.
So, roll on the first true mobile-phone viruses. I predict that the first mobile phones to run the-OS-formerly-known-as-Windows-CE will be the easiest targets. My voice-activated GSM already makes silent phone calls whenever a car drives past, unless I lock the keyboard. Expect many very expensive unwanted calls to numbers in third-world countries.
A computer virus can do unquantifiable damage to a system. Who can you sue? The long-distance calls made by a mobile-phone virus will be much easier to quantify. When the first major mobile phone virus wave hits, expect class-action lawsuits by the thousands of phone users affected. Ralph Nader, where are you?
There are faster and slower databases, and one of the great mysteries for me, over the last ten years, is how pedestrian relational databases like Oracle have conquered the market although they are at least 10 and sometimes up to 1000 times slower than the ISAM systems they replaced. I've not had the joy of playing with an OO database, but the problem remains: access your data without care and every other tuning you've done is lost. Unless Versant or its like are capable of enforcing properly-indexed data access, I can't see how they would help. Many of the so-called 'applications' my team has been called in to fix or rewrite pay no attention to the cost of shunting data across networks, and blithely perform full table scans as if they were going out of fashion. It's humdrum, but IMHO simple good practice in database design and access would improve the performance of most database-related applications more and easier than switching to new languages or databases. Motto: when one does not know how to use one's tools, it's no use calling for replacements.
In my experience, aside from gross overheads such as those imposed by interpreted languages, the actual performance of server-side business applications depends primarily on database access. Put simply: the cost of database access is so high that it wipes out subtle shades of difference between language A and B. The key to building fast applications is the choice of good tools, and an understanding of the impact of SQL clauses like ORDER BY. The relative speed of compiled Java over C would be a very bad basis for chosing the language for an important project.