They'd better give time off in lax weeks, else employees would just go freakin' nuts...
The coders in my office have taken to shooting each other with nerf darts and StarWars(tm)(c)(r) guns and light sabres and such to keep the sanity in place (and it's still not working:)
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
Why don't the pollsters just not announce to anyone results of the elections until all of the ballots are in? Every club and organization that I've been in (which admittedly are WAAAAY smaller than a nation:) don't announce X number of votes for candidate Y until after the complete vote session is over. If they don't let anyone at all know the results, or don't even tally them until after all of the polls have closed, it would eliminate the need to punitive action in the first place.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
I would imagine that if enough libarary support is complete, it'd be relatively easy to run 3rd party ANSI-C or ANSI-C++ source based applications. All you'd have to do is compile them. What I don't know is if all of the libraries are up to where they need to be, or if lots of stuff that works in BSD/Linux/HP-UX/Solaris/AIX etc can't be compiled yet...
I've wondered the same thing for a long time. I had an old Slackware distro that had one of the 2.0 level kernels on it (it was a masq box for my cablemodem at the time) and it got broke into. I don't think that it was used for anything, and I formatted and reinstalled it with a newer Linux distro and version, but it still bothered me that I only installed packages that seemed necessary for masq and a few port redirects and it still was compromised...
I own a lot of playstation games. Ridge Racer, Toshinden, Twisted Metal, and several of the others. I like the playstation, but it's starting to (finally) have hardware difficulties requiring me to turn it upside down to play. Bleem is cool and all, but playing these on my 27" tv with my nifty chair for video games is better. When the cost for the Playstation 2 comes down, I'll probably pick one up, as I don't think my PSX is going to last too much longer, but I don't really mind. It's had years of use.
The Playstation 2 is the first one that looks to have real good backward compatibility. If anyone cares to remember, this is why the PC has had as much success as it has, because our software generally works for years and years and years despite newer hardware. Yes, I do remember the equipment that later came out for nintendos and such, but that was all third party, and for years I had to have a nintendo, Super nintendo, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis with the CD and 32x all hooked up. I'd much rather have one that will play more than just its specific games. Also, Sony's system is available (in strained supply granted) BEFORE Christmas, and as freakin' nuts as parents are, they'll probably shell out the $300+ for the system and games, and then lots of kids age 10-18 will have them. Their friends will see the nifty new system with its cool games and want one for themselves. They'll later see the Microsoft box and other platforms, but they'll not be able to afford them, and still buy games for their Sony. Sony isn't stupid either, thet original Playstation has hung on for a LONG TIME on really underpowered hardware, but generally keeps on going. Playability is a big part of it, and one can have all of the pretty graphics and fancy touches one wants, but if playability isn't there neither will be repeat customers.
how hard would it be to add some encryption to the system? I think it would be really cool to have to type a password during kernel boot that would allow the kernel to do anything further, including IO on the hard disk. Especially if it were on such a high encryption scheme as to make it nearly impossible to guess the password and successfully decrypt the data in a useful amount of time...
Obviously this would require the filesystem to be encrypted too, but it sounds like a lot of people would be willing to sacrifice speed for data integrity.
... it would be really keen for development to change to look at how to produce reuseable 'assembly line' designed spacecraft, maybe not along the lines of what the Russians have, probably something more like a lifting body or something capable of launching in without having to shed tanks. It would be neat if a new spacecraft had the ability to actually fly around a bit with power or the ability to be flown in the atmosphere back to its launch site instead of requiring a piggy back. I like the look of the current shuttle, and I'm sure that the astronauts like having something rather large and relatively secure to go back to while on space missions. I would imagine that if the shuttle were hit with any space debris and if the hull they could seal off that section and attempt to deal with the problem from there. I don't know how much room is in the russian craft, but I don't think there's much that can be sealed off.
Let's just ignore that... the Linux wars are too annoying...
Slackware - very OLD distro, non-commercial in the extreme, no package management in proprietary form, Sysadmins generally need to know what they are doing.
Debian - interesting package management tool allowing for on the fly upgrades from FTP, annoyingly GPL only (to the point that pico isn't installed by default), used to have clunky install tool (IMHO), 'leet distro
Redhat - "commercial" Linux, easy to use local package management, often buggy right off the shelf in an X.0 release, somewhat documented, and supported by large companies
SuSE - nice, tight distribution, some commercialization, generally good releases, good ripped-off package management, nice installer, too much documentation is still in German...
I like Slack if I'm not going to use package management, and SuSE if I am. I have just had enough problems installing Debian in the 2.0 release level that I don't care to try anymore.
I'd like to see a port to the motorola 68000 processor, so I can run it on my Sony Laservision(tm)(R)(C) LaserDisc player... I'd have the world's first CLV LaserDisc player/Web Server! The only trouble is finding a laserdisc burner and media to make my boot disk...:(
I have an older Toshiba Satellite Pro at 120MHz. I have Slackware Linux and Windows 95 dual booting, and I use it for mobile CD playing, MP3 playing, and basic word processor/spreadsheet stuff for note taking, problem solving, etc. I'm not using the hell out of it for performance, doing stuff like 3d gaming, tons of source code compilation (though in Linux I do end up doing some), and complex modelling... It doesn't matter what the processor is the the greatest extent as how long I can keep using it.
I can see this Transmeta based laptop being something I would buy if I could afford it. It's faster than the mobile computer that I have now, it's got a good screen, it runs for many, many hours on just one battery, it won't give me 3rd degree burns to my lap.
How much processor power does it take to load a web browser or a telnet client or such? USE is more important than simple speed...
... that something being done about these patent fights be mentioned here, we've been pumped with story after story of 'x has patented this' and 'y has applied for a patent for this' but we don't hear about the fight. We need to fight all these dumbass patents, and I think that one of the first that needs to be attacked is that @%#^ one that Digital Convergence is licensing from their co-conspirator (whose corporate name eludes me at the moment). Why can someone patent scanning something off a piece of paper and using that to look something up on the Internet? we've had barcode readers for a very long time, and they are in almost EVERY library, and these libraries are using internet browers to reference the numbers...
Pardon the ranty nature of that, I haven't had my coffee
We should all just go back to Gopher, and declare EVERYTHING in all of the standard to be public domain, so no one could patent 'one click' this or 'linking' that or such... it'd be great! besides, all of the sites would be perfectly usable from an 80x25 text mode shell!
... that the government has any business knowing my activities or income. I don't personally like how the IRS operates, and would much rather see sales be taxed. If the IRS goes away, or if corporations are taxed instead of people, then the need for this data goes away. They already take almost a third of my income, still charge sales taxes, and now want to know every little detail from there? I don't think so. I think this should come to a public referendum, and require something like, oh, 10,000,000 signatures before it comes to a vote. After that, they have to justify to the people why this is needed.
Knowledge is always exploited when it is an option.
... isn't spreading AV updates through insecure nodes a BAD idea? I thought the point of those is that you want them to be secure and good, not themselves compromised!
Its bad enough that theoretically someone with an important enough of a router could screw with stuff as it is being downloaded, I don't want this to be too easy...
... it makes me glad that I was moving while they took the census, so they hadn't got to the area yet where I came from, and had already did the area that I moved to... If they would like to come back and talk to me, they may, but I'll wait for them.
"Surprised there haven't been any comments pointing out that X is woefully out of date. Nostalgia aside, it's really fairly embarassing that we'll still all be using X Window in 2001 - I would have thought a tech-savvy audience like Slashdot would have been the first to point this out."
X Windows has been with us a long time, and I'll be the first to admit that in its original incantation, it isn't the greatest GUI. All of the GUIs that are specifically written for a specific platform usually outperform it, and for someone who only will use one platform and for one specific function, that's fine. X has its power as a DISTRIBUTED GUI though, in that one can run applications on MANY different computers, regardless of the OS on the computer (providing it has X and TCP/IP support) and use them ALL on one workstation with one X Server. In fact, one doesn't even need a computer to run X, just an X Terminal. They are often cheaper and better equipment than most full blown computers. I have on my desk an HP Envizex term that I use to connect to my BSD box in the rack, and it's great! For someone who wants to be connected to a network and have software available regardless of the platform, X is the easiest way to go, for ALL modern Unices support it, and OS/2 does as well (for whatever reason).
"So, is it really so exciting that Apple now support X? I suppose in one sense it's great to have all those legacy applications, but it would be nice to see the state of the art pushed forward somewhat - I would certainly have expected this of Apple, one of the more forward-thinking old-school computer companies."
It's exciting because it gives lots of professionals more options than they have with Microsoft products, like the ability to run very common software on a central server (software like web browsers, email clients, and other stuff that just doesn't _need_ to be installed on every computer and needs to be updated from time to time) to ease maintenance and overhead. I personally would MUCH rather upgrade just ONE installation of Netscape or an office suite instead of like, 200...
"Then again, I must admit there are no serious contenders to X currently visible on the radar. I've looked at WHY (fairly promising but early days) and Berlin (extremely interesting, but a little too bogged-down in providing support for glitzy rotations and the like too early on in the development), but I don't see X being replaced in the forseeable future, sadly."
Well, one thing that will always allow X to compete is that the X Consortium has the option of adding features as they see them necessary. Remember, many of the existing X installations (like my aformentioned term) aren't running X11R6.4 revisions, I think my term has a X11R5 or R4 server. So far, all that I have tried has worked on it, but maintaining compatiblity is very tricky. If they want 15 year old equipment to stay working, they have to test and test and test...
"Perhaps this is because X Window was developed by academic experts who were basically employed to do this, whereas it's putative replacements are being developed by enthusiastic amateurs (and this isn't intended as a knock to those developers, but merely a reflection of the truth - I am an enthusiastic amateur myself!)."
Remember, a lot of early UNIX stuff was all at schools, with students and teachers doing the work, and not necessarily for money. I'd say that the only difference is that they didn't have existing paradigms for this sort of development, so they created them. Besides, most of the RFCs are fairly easy to read if one has the technical background for them, and one could fairly easily figure out what they did. Also, the sources are available from groups like the XFree86 project and the X Consortium, so one who is skilled enough can work with it (I'm not that good, but oh well, I can type "make" with the best of them)
"Specifically, one thing X certainly needs is FAST and CONSISTENT (across the whole desktop) sub-pixel anti-alisasing. Acorn users have had this since 1990, so why has it taken so long for the rest of the world to catch up?"
Well, I'll admit speed is an issue, but most of the terminals have classically been on 10BaseT or slower network connections, so it really didn't matter for a long, long time. SuSE has developed a lot of X servers that are accelerated, and these are really nice servers. As more vendors decide to support their equipment natively, thist should become less and less of a problem.
I like X, it does almost everything I need it to do. The only thing lacking that I'd like to see is better support for some of the more enhanced routines, but as it stands it does do a fairly good job.
There's an application suite called "Exceed" that is an X Server for windows, and it can serve apps so that Windows is the native window manager, putting an entry on the taskbar and everything. It requires Exceed to be running as an app, but I'm sure that if enough people wanted it they might be willing to write another version to be a service...
It's made by Hummingbird Software and is expensive, but my school (Arizona State University) provides a license for students to use it for student use.
... when you do find that gal who is a command line junkie who uses Debian Linux or BSD, and simply blows you out of the water with her skills, and she's been BBSing since, like the 300 baud days, you're hers...
Apple or BSDaemon, good question...
on
X On OSX Now Free
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· Score: 3
Well, since the product started with the very apple gui (blecch!) and one mouse button on the hardware, the apple icon looked perfectly appropriate... Now that some actual useful stuff is there, like X support, etc, and since an x86 edition is doing something and is available, it might be almost ready to graduate into the realm of being classified in the BSD arena. Unfortunately I haven't enough experience on it (the last time I played with it was in a VERY early test on a school district computer, where no compilation tools were installed and what looked like Apple's 'finder' was the shell) to be more decisive. Besides, I thought all diehard Apple/UNIX fans ran AUX anyway...
The only thing I don't do with my Linux boxen that I could with the M$ ones is gaming, and that's because the games haven't been ported yet. I also don't reboot my computers unless the power goes out, so downtime if I'm serving content to someone is not a problem either. So, don't come griping to me about Windows being a better choice, because it all matters from the implementation. If I want to play most of the games that I like, I have to load Windows. If I want to do anything else, I use Linux, or another UNIX variant. If I am going to be serving public content I won't even think about Microsoft, because the closest to a good server platform they ever got was Xenix...
Slashdot Mirror
They'd better give time off in lax weeks, else employees would just go freakin' nuts...
:)
The coders in my office have taken to shooting each other with nerf darts and StarWars(tm)(c)(r) guns and light sabres and such to keep the sanity in place (and it's still not working
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
Why don't the pollsters just not announce to anyone results of the elections until all of the ballots are in? Every club and organization that I've been in (which admittedly are WAAAAY smaller than a nation :) don't announce X number of votes for candidate Y until after the complete vote session is over. If they don't let anyone at all know the results, or don't even tally them until after all of the polls have closed, it would eliminate the need to punitive action in the first place.
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
I would imagine that if enough libarary support is complete, it'd be relatively easy to run 3rd party ANSI-C or ANSI-C++ source based applications. All you'd have to do is compile them. What I don't know is if all of the libraries are up to where they need to be, or if lots of stuff that works in BSD/Linux/HP-UX/Solaris/AIX etc can't be compiled yet...
Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these?!?
I can't... I somehow doubt that it would do any good... Besides, how does one fit a network card into the subatomic level?
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
I've wondered the same thing for a long time. I had an old Slackware distro that had one of the 2.0 level kernels on it (it was a masq box for my cablemodem at the time) and it got broke into. I don't think that it was used for anything, and I formatted and reinstalled it with a newer Linux distro and version, but it still bothered me that I only installed packages that seemed necessary for masq and a few port redirects and it still was compromised...
I own a lot of playstation games. Ridge Racer, Toshinden, Twisted Metal, and several of the others. I like the playstation, but it's starting to (finally) have hardware difficulties requiring me to turn it upside down to play. Bleem is cool and all, but playing these on my 27" tv with my nifty chair for video games is better. When the cost for the Playstation 2 comes down, I'll probably pick one up, as I don't think my PSX is going to last too much longer, but I don't really mind. It's had years of use.
The Playstation 2 is the first one that looks to have real good backward compatibility. If anyone cares to remember, this is why the PC has had as much success as it has, because our software generally works for years and years and years despite newer hardware. Yes, I do remember the equipment that later came out for nintendos and such, but that was all third party, and for years I had to have a nintendo, Super nintendo, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis with the CD and 32x all hooked up. I'd much rather have one that will play more than just its specific games. Also, Sony's system is available (in strained supply granted) BEFORE Christmas, and as freakin' nuts as parents are, they'll probably shell out the $300+ for the system and games, and then lots of kids age 10-18 will have them. Their friends will see the nifty new system with its cool games and want one for themselves. They'll later see the Microsoft box and other platforms, but they'll not be able to afford them, and still buy games for their Sony. Sony isn't stupid either, thet original Playstation has hung on for a LONG TIME on really underpowered hardware, but generally keeps on going. Playability is a big part of it, and one can have all of the pretty graphics and fancy touches one wants, but if playability isn't there neither will be repeat customers.
Just my own two cents worth...
how hard would it be to add some encryption to the system? I think it would be really cool to have to type a password during kernel boot that would allow the kernel to do anything further, including IO on the hard disk. Especially if it were on such a high encryption scheme as to make it nearly impossible to guess the password and successfully decrypt the data in a useful amount of time...
Obviously this would require the filesystem to be encrypted too, but it sounds like a lot of people would be willing to sacrifice speed for data integrity.
... it would be really keen for development to change to look at how to produce reuseable 'assembly line' designed spacecraft, maybe not along the lines of what the Russians have, probably something more like a lifting body or something capable of launching in without having to shed tanks. It would be neat if a new spacecraft had the ability to actually fly around a bit with power or the ability to be flown in the atmosphere back to its launch site instead of requiring a piggy back. I like the look of the current shuttle, and I'm sure that the astronauts like having something rather large and relatively secure to go back to while on space missions. I would imagine that if the shuttle were hit with any space debris and if the hull they could seal off that section and attempt to deal with the problem from there. I don't know how much room is in the russian craft, but I don't think there's much that can be sealed off.
Pardon the ranty nature of that... it's morning.
You are under attack!
Ugly Old Hag surprises you!
She hits you for 3 damage by being ugly
With apologies to Seth Able
I like Slack if I'm not going to use package management, and SuSE if I am. I have just had enough problems installing Debian in the 2.0 release level that I don't care to try anymore.
I'd like to see a port to the motorola 68000 processor, so I can run it on my Sony Laservision(tm)(R)(C) LaserDisc player... I'd have the world's first CLV LaserDisc player/Web Server! The only trouble is finding a laserdisc burner and media to make my boot disk... :(
if you kill -9 your web browser you won't have that problem!
I have an older Toshiba Satellite Pro at 120MHz. I have Slackware Linux and Windows 95 dual booting, and I use it for mobile CD playing, MP3 playing, and basic word processor/spreadsheet stuff for note taking, problem solving, etc. I'm not using the hell out of it for performance, doing stuff like 3d gaming, tons of source code compilation (though in Linux I do end up doing some), and complex modelling... It doesn't matter what the processor is the the greatest extent as how long I can keep using it.
I can see this Transmeta based laptop being something I would buy if I could afford it. It's faster than the mobile computer that I have now, it's got a good screen, it runs for many, many hours on just one battery, it won't give me 3rd degree burns to my lap.
How much processor power does it take to load a web browser or a telnet client or such? USE is more important than simple speed...
... that something being done about these patent fights be mentioned here, we've been pumped with story after story of 'x has patented this' and 'y has applied for a patent for this' but we don't hear about the fight. We need to fight all these dumbass patents, and I think that one of the first that needs to be attacked is that @%#^ one that Digital Convergence is licensing from their co-conspirator (whose corporate name eludes me at the moment). Why can someone patent scanning something off a piece of paper and using that to look something up on the Internet? we've had barcode readers for a very long time, and they are in almost EVERY library, and these libraries are using internet browers to reference the numbers...
Pardon the ranty nature of that, I haven't had my coffee
Yeah, it's now a no button mouse!
Stupidest thing I ever saw...
We should all just go back to Gopher, and declare EVERYTHING in all of the standard to be public domain, so no one could patent 'one click' this or 'linking' that or such... it'd be great! besides, all of the sites would be perfectly usable from an 80x25 text mode shell!
... that the government has any business knowing my activities or income. I don't personally like how the IRS operates, and would much rather see sales be taxed. If the IRS goes away, or if corporations are taxed instead of people, then the need for this data goes away. They already take almost a third of my income, still charge sales taxes, and now want to know every little detail from there? I don't think so. I think this should come to a public referendum, and require something like, oh, 10,000,000 signatures before it comes to a vote. After that, they have to justify to the people why this is needed.
Knowledge is always exploited when it is an option.
... isn't spreading AV updates through insecure nodes a BAD idea? I thought the point of those is that you want them to be secure and good, not themselves compromised!
Its bad enough that theoretically someone with an important enough of a router could screw with stuff as it is being downloaded, I don't want this to be too easy...
... it makes me glad that I was moving while they took the census, so they hadn't got to the area yet where I came from, and had already did the area that I moved to... If they would like to come back and talk to me, they may, but I'll wait for them.
a point by point retort:
"Surprised there haven't been any comments pointing out that X is woefully out of date. Nostalgia aside, it's really fairly embarassing that we'll still all be using X Window in 2001 - I would have thought a tech-savvy audience like Slashdot would have been the first to point this out."
X Windows has been with us a long time, and I'll be the first to admit that in its original incantation, it isn't the greatest GUI. All of the GUIs that are specifically written for a specific platform usually outperform it, and for someone who only will use one platform and for one specific function, that's fine. X has its power as a DISTRIBUTED GUI though, in that one can run applications on MANY different computers, regardless of the OS on the computer (providing it has X and TCP/IP support) and use them ALL on one workstation with one X Server. In fact, one doesn't even need a computer to run X, just an X Terminal. They are often cheaper and better equipment than most full blown computers. I have on my desk an HP Envizex term that I use to connect to my BSD box in the rack, and it's great! For someone who wants to be connected to a network and have software available regardless of the platform, X is the easiest way to go, for ALL modern Unices support it, and OS/2 does as well (for whatever reason).
"So, is it really so exciting that Apple now support X? I suppose in one sense it's great to have all those legacy applications, but it would be nice to see the state of the art pushed forward somewhat - I would certainly have expected this of Apple, one of the more forward-thinking old-school computer companies."
It's exciting because it gives lots of professionals more options than they have with Microsoft products, like the ability to run very common software on a central server (software like web browsers, email clients, and other stuff that just doesn't _need_ to be installed on every computer and needs to be updated from time to time) to ease maintenance and overhead. I personally would MUCH rather upgrade just ONE installation of Netscape or an office suite instead of like, 200...
"Then again, I must admit there are no serious contenders to X currently visible on the radar. I've looked at WHY (fairly promising but early days) and Berlin (extremely interesting, but a little too bogged-down in providing support for glitzy rotations and the like too early on in the development), but I don't see X being replaced in the forseeable future, sadly."
Well, one thing that will always allow X to compete is that the X Consortium has the option of adding features as they see them necessary. Remember, many of the existing X installations (like my aformentioned term) aren't running X11R6.4 revisions, I think my term has a X11R5 or R4 server. So far, all that I have tried has worked on it, but maintaining compatiblity is very tricky. If they want 15 year old equipment to stay working, they have to test and test and test...
"Perhaps this is because X Window was developed by academic experts who were basically employed to do this, whereas it's putative replacements are being developed by enthusiastic amateurs (and this isn't intended as a knock to those developers, but merely a reflection of the truth - I am an enthusiastic amateur myself!)."
Remember, a lot of early UNIX stuff was all at schools, with students and teachers doing the work, and not necessarily for money. I'd say that the only difference is that they didn't have existing paradigms for this sort of development, so they created them. Besides, most of the RFCs are fairly easy to read if one has the technical background for them, and one could fairly easily figure out what they did. Also, the sources are available from groups like the XFree86 project and the X Consortium, so one who is skilled enough can work with it (I'm not that good, but oh well, I can type "make" with the best of them)
"Specifically, one thing X certainly needs is FAST and CONSISTENT (across the whole desktop) sub-pixel anti-alisasing. Acorn users have had this since 1990, so why has it taken so long for the rest of the world to catch up?"
Well, I'll admit speed is an issue, but most of the terminals have classically been on 10BaseT or slower network connections, so it really didn't matter for a long, long time. SuSE has developed a lot of X servers that are accelerated, and these are really nice servers. As more vendors decide to support their equipment natively, thist should become less and less of a problem.
I like X, it does almost everything I need it to do. The only thing lacking that I'd like to see is better support for some of the more enhanced routines, but as it stands it does do a fairly good job.
There's an application suite called "Exceed" that is an X Server for windows, and it can serve apps so that Windows is the native window manager, putting an entry on the taskbar and everything. It requires Exceed to be running as an app, but I'm sure that if enough people wanted it they might be willing to write another version to be a service...
It's made by Hummingbird Software and is expensive, but my school (Arizona State University) provides a license for students to use it for student use.
... when you do find that gal who is a command line junkie who uses Debian Linux or BSD, and simply blows you out of the water with her skills, and she's been BBSing since, like the 300 baud days, you're hers...
Well, since the product started with the very apple gui (blecch!) and one mouse button on the hardware, the apple icon looked perfectly appropriate... Now that some actual useful stuff is there, like X support, etc, and since an x86 edition is doing something and is available, it might be almost ready to graduate into the realm of being classified in the BSD arena. Unfortunately I haven't enough experience on it (the last time I played with it was in a VERY early test on a school district computer, where no compilation tools were installed and what looked like Apple's 'finder' was the shell) to be more decisive. Besides, I thought all diehard Apple/UNIX fans ran AUX anyway...
The only thing I don't do with my Linux boxen that I could with the M$ ones is gaming, and that's because the games haven't been ported yet. I also don't reboot my computers unless the power goes out, so downtime if I'm serving content to someone is not a problem either. So, don't come griping to me about Windows being a better choice, because it all matters from the implementation. If I want to play most of the games that I like, I have to load Windows. If I want to do anything else, I use Linux, or another UNIX variant. If I am going to be serving public content I won't even think about Microsoft, because the closest to a good server platform they ever got was Xenix...
Moderate that @%#^ post down!