every time I hear about XML as some kind of standard, all I can think about is TeX.
Not only is TeX vastly more simple than XML, and superior to anything else out there in terms of the quality of output it produces, but it is also very compressable.
Futhermore, TeX is clearly the best piece of software in existence. It is essentially bug-free. Despite the author of TeX offering a reward for any bug in TeX found, no bug has been found in it for a very very very long time.
Finally, TeX has a superb record of backwaards compatability, and will always have a superb record. Something written in TeX today will output the same now as it does 100 years from now, because the TeX engine has been frozen.
According to you, there's no e-mail program which can only download the headers of e-mail? I call bullshit.
The other part: downloading only e-mail from people you know. Easy. Any filter, even in Evolution 1.0, can do that.
The final part: filtering spam based on the headers. SpamAssassin dann well can look at the headers to determine spam-content. So can bayesian filtering programs. You obviously haven't looked at some of the settings files for spam-assassin.
Finally, even if there aren't e-mail progs that can do that (and there are), it's certainly somthing that's easy to implement.
Yep, Vi is definately the right choice for typing up documents initially (at least, if they don't need any funny characters). It is not easy to use at first, but it does provide exceptional power and speed once you understand how it works (most importantly, the difference between command mode and text-entry mode). After a couple of days to a couple of weeks of using Vi, you will be able to really fly through document creation and editing.
On the other hand, if you need any funny characters or formatting, you'll need more than Vi. Of course, you should start out with Vi, but then you'll need something else. Like LyX, which is a WYSIWYW docuemnt-processor. It allows the document-creator to avoid the details of formatting. You could create a document in Vi, paste it into Lyx, and then use LyX to format it.
Of course, you'd be best off if you knew how to use LaTeX (LyX is just a front-end for LaTeX). Then you could use LaTeX as you were writing in Vi.
slice it. All it does is protect certain special-interest groups from competition at the expense of everyone else -- competitors and consumers alike. It also violates basic property rights. Protectionism is bad whether it's initiated in the US or in China. Another name for protectionalism is mercantilism, and there's a very insightful article on the harmful effects of it on Mises.org.
There's no reason why GNU/Linux needs protectionism from the government (in fact, in most cases, it's proprietary organizations like Microsoft that receive special government advantages, granting them monopolies and exemptions from competition). GNU/Linux is a superior product, and as MS Windows gets more and more bloated with each version, less and less secure, with less useful features added, all the while MS demanding hundreds for upgrades, the market will shift over to GNU/Linux.
Let's say they charge $0.01 for every megabyte you download. So, if you download nothing, you pay nothing. If you download 1MB, you pay 1cent. If you download 100MB, you pay 1 dollar; 1000 MB, 10 dollars; 10,000MB, 100 dollars, and so-on and so-forth.
This makes much more sense than setting caps on the download rate.
I in fact do use them, though very rarely. I was thinking of MS Office when talking about that.
My point was that for many users, much less functionality is needed; thus, a much smaller set of programs.
why integrate everything into one bloated suite?
on
Review: Sun StarOffice 7
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· Score: 4, Interesting
OpenOffice and StarOffice are fine if you want one package with everything in it. But why bother?
LyX can be used to create professional documents using standard typesetting, which prevents a whole slew of the inconsistencies generated when the user has to define the typesetting. We all know how many database, spreadsheet, and presentation-creation programs there are that you can use for GNU/Linux -- a lot. There's also tons of e-mail programs too.
The vast majority of users don't use half of the features in various Office Programs. For those that do need that kind of functionality, you can get it in StarOffice or OpenOffice, along with Evolution for e-mail. But I'll tell you, the vast majority of people who use Microsoft Outlook or Evolution use them just to check their e-mail, and not as a central planning point for their lives.
Face-recognition technology doesn't even operate at 65% efficiency, yet MS is somehow going to magically be able to search for pictures with a certain person in them. More than likely, what this means (when translated), is that you type in a bunch of meta-information in a picture (key-words about it), and the search-engine searches that. Wow, a real biggie -- as if that didn't already exist.
Not that this isn't an interesting idea. I just doubt that MS will successfully implement it. It'd be interesting to see an FS project trying to create this functionality. It would, however, pose some difficult problems.
Assuming that face-recognition technology is improved, if you want to search for all pictures with "Bob" in them, your computer needs to know what Bob looks like. This means you have to at least once point to Bob in a picture, click on him, and tell the program that that's Bob. This, of course, assumes that this technology will also be able to recognize concrete borders between different objects. Humans can easily tell where a person's face ends and a background begins, and can tell the border between any two objects; teaching a computer to do that isn't so easy. Our knowledge that tells us "Bob's face ends there, and that's where the background begins" isn't as simple as noting a contrasting shade or color. It's the result of a life-times worth of learning about how different things look in a distributed system (image-memory is distributed accross different brain-cells, to create a profile of what various images look like).
the though of ATM-transactions being under the control of an OS as inherently insecure as Windows is enough to make me not use an ATM-card.
If banks want to upgrade to a modern OS with transparency that they can easily code for, they should upgrade to an OS that is inherently relatively secure, like OpenBSD.
Ok, so, according to you, RMS hasn't backed up his philosophy with action? Dedicating his whole life to encouraging the production of FS, releasing everything he's written under the GPL, doesn't constitute action? What strange world are you from. Some people focus more on the larger picture; that doesn't mean that they aren't committing actions.
Principles are unimportant. So, let's all just shut the fuck up about them and work without thinking about what we're doing. After all, the guys who assembled the H-bomb and Neutron-bomb were "just doing their job" without "foaming" right?
considering the crap that SCO has put out, a resume at SCO isn't a good thing. Also, no-one need mentioned that they worked at SCO. Furthermore, employers have the right to hire or not hire anyone for any reason -- backwards or not -- they want.
Linux is the kernel of an operating system (of many operating systems, actually). With just the Linux kernel, you basically can't do anything. With just the Linux kernel, you certainly can not operate your system. That's like saying that a brain is a human being because it's the central control region.
Won't kill you, and won't even harm you. However, most people are disgusted by it and won't do it. Simply knowing facts does not make something that is disgusting somehow appealing. For example, the cartiledge on steak is not fat, and is hardly harmful to you; however, it is still disgusting.
since there are these modern things called *forks* and *knives*. And since I eat at home, and don't eat the sorry excuse for food they serve at fast-food restuarants.
they have absolutely no credibility, no respect for real property rights, and should not under any circumstance be taken seriously. Real property rights are in physical things, not ideas and expressions. Intellectual property rights are an absurdity that do not flow naturally from the libertarian idea of property rights.
The minute something falls on the floor, it's no longer suitable eating material in my opinion. Do you know how many bacteria, yeast, and fungus are on the floor? Your really eating foot-fungus when you eat something that just fell on the floor. Yuck yuck yuck.
That means the technology isn't ready for prime-time yet, in any significant use. But the only way to get accurate data is to test it out (not necessarily to rely on it, but to test it against more traditional means that we know work).
It's sort of like voice-recognition in it's early days.
Just thought I'd chime in here. Technology is neutral. It can be used for good or ill. Facial recognition technology can be a great thing, if used properly for constructive purposes. For example, it could be used to help with identity recognition at ATM-machines.
Yes, these technologies are failing alot. But, just a couple of years ago, people would have scoffed at the idea that computers could even begin to accomplish some kind of face-recognition. This technology is in it's infant stages. I don't think you can blame a technology that's just gotten off the ground for not being perfect.
Lets criticize improper uses of this technology, not the technology itself.
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every time I hear about XML as some kind of standard, all I can think about is TeX.
Not only is TeX vastly more simple than XML, and superior to anything else out there in terms of the quality of output it produces, but it is also very compressable.
Futhermore, TeX is clearly the best piece of software in existence. It is essentially bug-free. Despite the author of TeX offering a reward for any bug in TeX found, no bug has been found in it for a very very very long time.
Finally, TeX has a superb record of backwaards compatability, and will always have a superb record. Something written in TeX today will output the same now as it does 100 years from now, because the TeX engine has been frozen.
According to you, there's no e-mail program which can only download the headers of e-mail? I call bullshit.
The other part: downloading only e-mail from people you know. Easy. Any filter, even in Evolution 1.0, can do that.
The final part: filtering spam based on the headers. SpamAssassin dann well can look at the headers to determine spam-content. So can bayesian filtering programs. You obviously haven't looked at some of the settings files for spam-assassin.
Finally, even if there aren't e-mail progs that can do that (and there are), it's certainly somthing that's easy to implement.
(1) Allow all e-mails from individuals in your address book, or otherwise permitted individuals, to be downloaded in their entirity.
(2) For e-mails from individuals not in your address book, download the headers only, and sort them by a spam-filtering program like SpamAssassin.
Yep, Vi is definately the right choice for typing up documents initially (at least, if they don't need any funny characters). It is not easy to use at first, but it does provide exceptional power and speed once you understand how it works (most importantly, the difference between command mode and text-entry mode). After a couple of days to a couple of weeks of using Vi, you will be able to really fly through document creation and editing.
On the other hand, if you need any funny characters or formatting, you'll need more than Vi. Of course, you should start out with Vi, but then you'll need something else. Like LyX, which is a WYSIWYW docuemnt-processor. It allows the document-creator to avoid the details of formatting. You could create a document in Vi, paste it into Lyx, and then use LyX to format it.
Of course, you'd be best off if you knew how to use LaTeX (LyX is just a front-end for LaTeX). Then you could use LaTeX as you were writing in Vi.
There's no reason why GNU/Linux needs protectionism from the government (in fact, in most cases, it's proprietary organizations like Microsoft that receive special government advantages, granting them monopolies and exemptions from competition). GNU/Linux is a superior product, and as MS Windows gets more and more bloated with each version, less and less secure, with less useful features added, all the while MS demanding hundreds for upgrades, the market will shift over to GNU/Linux.
Set a rate depending on how much user's download.
Let's say they charge $0.01 for every megabyte you download. So, if you download nothing, you pay nothing. If you download 1MB, you pay 1cent. If you download 100MB, you pay 1 dollar; 1000 MB, 10 dollars; 10,000MB, 100 dollars, and so-on and so-forth.
This makes much more sense than setting caps on the download rate.
I in fact do use them, though very rarely. I was thinking of MS Office when talking about that.
My point was that for many users, much less functionality is needed; thus, a much smaller set of programs.
OpenOffice and StarOffice are fine if you want one package with everything in it. But why bother?
LyX can be used to create professional documents using standard typesetting, which prevents a whole slew of the inconsistencies generated when the user has to define the typesetting. We all know how many database, spreadsheet, and presentation-creation programs there are that you can use for GNU/Linux -- a lot. There's also tons of e-mail programs too.
The vast majority of users don't use half of the features in various Office Programs. For those that do need that kind of functionality, you can get it in StarOffice or OpenOffice, along with Evolution for e-mail. But I'll tell you, the vast majority of people who use Microsoft Outlook or Evolution use them just to check their e-mail, and not as a central planning point for their lives.
What do these products offer that will do what Visual Basic does in MS Office?
You mean, what products will be offered to allow malicious hackers to gain easy access to our GNU/Linux systems?
Face-recognition technology doesn't even operate at 65% efficiency, yet MS is somehow going to magically be able to search for pictures with a certain person in them. More than likely, what this means (when translated), is that you type in a bunch of meta-information in a picture (key-words about it), and the search-engine searches that. Wow, a real biggie -- as if that didn't already exist.
Not that this isn't an interesting idea. I just doubt that MS will successfully implement it. It'd be interesting to see an FS project trying to create this functionality. It would, however, pose some difficult problems.
Assuming that face-recognition technology is improved, if you want to search for all pictures with "Bob" in them, your computer needs to know what Bob looks like. This means you have to at least once point to Bob in a picture, click on him, and tell the program that that's Bob. This, of course, assumes that this technology will also be able to recognize concrete borders between different objects. Humans can easily tell where a person's face ends and a background begins, and can tell the border between any two objects; teaching a computer to do that isn't so easy. Our knowledge that tells us "Bob's face ends there, and that's where the background begins" isn't as simple as noting a contrasting shade or color. It's the result of a life-times worth of learning about how different things look in a distributed system (image-memory is distributed accross different brain-cells, to create a profile of what various images look like).
the though of ATM-transactions being under the control of an OS as inherently insecure as Windows is enough to make me not use an ATM-card.
If banks want to upgrade to a modern OS with transparency that they can easily code for, they should upgrade to an OS that is inherently relatively secure, like OpenBSD.
Ok, so, according to you, RMS hasn't backed up his philosophy with action? Dedicating his whole life to encouraging the production of FS, releasing everything he's written under the GPL, doesn't constitute action? What strange world are you from. Some people focus more on the larger picture; that doesn't mean that they aren't committing actions.
Principles are unimportant. So, let's all just shut the fuck up about them and work without thinking about what we're doing. After all, the guys who assembled the H-bomb and Neutron-bomb were "just doing their job" without "foaming" right?
considering the crap that SCO has put out, a resume at SCO isn't a good thing. Also, no-one need mentioned that they worked at SCO. Furthermore, employers have the right to hire or not hire anyone for any reason -- backwards or not -- they want.
Linux is the kernel of an operating system (of many operating systems, actually). With just the Linux kernel, you basically can't do anything. With just the Linux kernel, you certainly can not operate your system. That's like saying that a brain is a human being because it's the central control region.
Linux 2.6 IS NOT an operating system. It is a KERNEL.
It is amazing that even someone who writes an in-depth article on this topic idiotically calls it an operating system.
but from long experience, we can also be certain that it *will* be used properly.
Some teachers will use it properly, others won't. Thsoe that won't will face the consequences.
There's nothing wrong with the technology. Used properly, it can help teachers as an aid.
Won't kill you, and won't even harm you. However, most people are disgusted by it and won't do it. Simply knowing facts does not make something that is disgusting somehow appealing. For example, the cartiledge on steak is not fat, and is hardly harmful to you; however, it is still disgusting.
since there are these modern things called *forks* and *knives*. And since I eat at home, and don't eat the sorry excuse for food they serve at fast-food restuarants.
and PS, I wash my hands with 70% Ethanol (which is ideal for sterilization) before I prepare food or eat.
they have absolutely no credibility, no respect for real property rights, and should not under any circumstance be taken seriously. Real property rights are in physical things, not ideas and expressions. Intellectual property rights are an absurdity that do not flow naturally from the libertarian idea of property rights.
The minute something falls on the floor, it's no longer suitable eating material in my opinion. Do you know how many bacteria, yeast, and fungus are on the floor? Your really eating foot-fungus when you eat something that just fell on the floor. Yuck yuck yuck.
That means the technology isn't ready for prime-time yet, in any significant use. But the only way to get accurate data is to test it out (not necessarily to rely on it, but to test it against more traditional means that we know work).
It's sort of like voice-recognition in it's early days.
Just thought I'd chime in here. Technology is neutral. It can be used for good or ill. Facial recognition technology can be a great thing, if used properly for constructive purposes. For example, it could be used to help with identity recognition at ATM-machines.
Yes, these technologies are failing alot. But, just a couple of years ago, people would have scoffed at the idea that computers could even begin to accomplish some kind of face-recognition. This technology is in it's infant stages. I don't think you can blame a technology that's just gotten off the ground for not being perfect.
Lets criticize improper uses of this technology, not the technology itself.