Localizing Firefox is as simple as installing a xpi for that language and setting it as your default locale. The difficulty is in localizing the Windows and Unix installers, legacy applications. Each localized build not only has the separate locale xpi, it sets that locale to be that build's default, and configures the installer with a complete set of strings for that locale that are inserted at compile-time.
If you want to help update our installer software, contact me at cmp at m.o (I'm the tech lead for Mozilla releases). I can point you in the right direction to get started. Being proficient in C, Unix and Windows programming would make the task easier.
The stationary activity you mention is a valid market to target this device at. Just having a device that can handle MPEG4 decoding in such a small form factor is a huge step forward. In the generation after this one there will probably be a video output on these devices, allowing any display device. Throw 2 or 3 movies on a 20 GB player and head over to the party. Throw 40 political speeches and interviews on the player and hold a teach-in/rally for local voters. Or use the player as a portable studio for recording and playing back video in the field.
Also.. watch videos while you run? Where? Straight into traffic? Repeat after me: BAD IDEA.:-) Though I want to say there will be a big market for portable video display drivers combined with wearable displays. Would a lightweight, wearable display allow you to watch video while painting or doing chores? I think so.
It comes down to a choice of what you want to spend your time doing. Do you want to maintain the software on the machine and be 100% responsible if anything breaks or do you want to install software to fulfill the requirements placed on you and then move on to other things?
Building from source is deceptively simple -- it gives you the most flexibility from the start but, if you're like me, you'll spend more time later trying to remember how (or why!) you built a piece of software they way you did.
What is mainstream? Even if it doesn't become mainstream, does that mean it can't be "the next big thing" or not be involved in useful science? The NEESgrid project relies on creating a grid infrastructure, and the system architecture of that grid involves storage at each equipment site that is a part of that virtual organization, not (only) some central storage server. Standing up a NEESpop, a TelePresence server, or a data storage server does not require 1000 workstations, although it may require a UPS and some people to administer the servers. Sure, the architecture adds overhead, but what architectures don't, grid or otherwise? The important questions your comment doesn't address are whether the architecture solves the targetted scientific/business problems and whether the provided solutions are affordable (and hence realistic).
The point is not that the configuration you mention here is technologically infeasible. That's like saying that computer networking is doomed because one of the protocols in use on some remote part of the network is flawed. The point is that the grid has enough abstractions built into it to allow a diverse set of logical system architectures. Maybe none of these architectural plans will work, maybe all will work, but just because one architecture you enumerate here won't in your opinion work, that is not cause to dismiss offhand the entire concept of grid computing as never having applicability towards a mainstream purpose, such as enabling scientific collaboration.
Primitive cultures like the one running Afghanistan don't accept the inevitability of globalism. Most other governments do, perhaps the primary reason the Arab world isn't actively resisting the much-resented United States in its new war. Countries that don't want to join in may end up like Afghanistan, beset by tribal conflicts, cut off from capital development and economic opportunity. Would investment from multi-nationals help or harm a country like Afghanistan, where one kid after another says in TV interviews that the only available job opportunities involve shooting people?
After an entire article citing how many believe that Globalism is a danger to the way the world _exists_, you then go on to say that Globalism is "inevitable" and only "primitive nations" would ever think of avoiding it??
Globalism is the eradication of local boundaries. Globalism is the idea that local culture and local influences are irrelevant.
For something to become an influence under Globalism, it must pass through the well-established channels of business and boardrooms. Globalism is the idea that your region's customs should be.. no.. will be the same as every other region on the planet after it has taken its full effect. Globalism is the idea that what matters there matters everywhere and vice versa.
Globalism is only inevitable if corporations should be allowed to do whatever they please. It runs directly against the ideas that a tight-nit band of people should be able to determine the flow of their own lives. Instead, they must surrender that notion to a large bureaucracy bent on gaining, you guessed it, more cash.
And then there's the total immorality present in the best ways to get cash. And then we remember how much power corporations already have. And then we start to think, just like Katz, that Globalization is completely inevitable.
for someone that's supposed to be so god-damned concerned with the "freedom as speech" mentality re: software, rms sure as fuck is one of the first to chuck it right out of the window when it's most convenient to do so. isn't this an all-or-nothing concept, here?
Funny, just ran into this program a few days ago. Napster is at (http://www.napster.com/). You point it at your mp3 repository and it registers that with all of the other users that are online.
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Localizing Firefox is as simple as installing a xpi for that language and setting it as your default locale. The difficulty is in localizing the Windows and Unix installers, legacy applications. Each localized build not only has the separate locale xpi, it sets that locale to be that build's default, and configures the installer with a complete set of strings for that locale that are inserted at compile-time.
If you want to help update our installer software, contact me at cmp at m.o (I'm the tech lead for Mozilla releases). I can point you in the right direction to get started. Being proficient in C, Unix and Windows programming would make the task easier.
They already have a video output!
The stationary activity you mention is a valid market to target this device at. Just having a device that can handle MPEG4 decoding in such a small form factor is a huge step forward. In the generation after this one there will probably be a video output on these devices, allowing any display device. Throw 2 or 3 movies on a 20 GB player and head over to the party. Throw 40 political speeches and interviews on the player and hold a teach-in/rally for local voters. Or use the player as a portable studio for recording and playing back video in the field.
:-) Though I want to say there will be a big market for portable video display drivers combined with wearable displays. Would a lightweight, wearable display allow you to watch video while painting or doing chores? I think so.
Also.. watch videos while you run? Where? Straight into traffic? Repeat after me: BAD IDEA.
It comes down to a choice of what you want to spend your time doing. Do you want to maintain the software on the machine and be 100% responsible if anything breaks or do you want to install software to fulfill the requirements placed on you and then move on to other things?
Building from source is deceptively simple -- it gives you the most flexibility from the start but, if you're like me, you'll spend more time later trying to remember how (or why!) you built a piece of software they way you did.
What is mainstream? Even if it doesn't become mainstream, does that mean it can't be "the next big thing" or not be involved in useful science? The NEESgrid project relies on creating a grid infrastructure, and the system architecture of that grid involves storage at each equipment site that is a part of that virtual organization, not (only) some central storage server. Standing up a NEESpop, a TelePresence server, or a data storage server does not require 1000 workstations, although it may require a UPS and some people to administer the servers. Sure, the architecture adds overhead, but what architectures don't, grid or otherwise? The important questions your comment doesn't address are whether the architecture solves the targetted scientific/business problems and whether the provided solutions are affordable (and hence realistic).
The point is not that the configuration you mention here is technologically infeasible. That's like saying that computer networking is doomed because one of the protocols in use on some remote part of the network is flawed. The point is that the grid has enough abstractions built into it to allow a diverse set of logical system architectures. Maybe none of these architectural plans will work, maybe all will work, but just because one architecture you enumerate here won't in your opinion work, that is not cause to dismiss offhand the entire concept of grid computing as never having applicability towards a mainstream purpose, such as enabling scientific collaboration.
It's called The Globus Toolkit.
Now I'm gonna have to go find yet another secret lair!
When you people stop being so nosy?!
After an entire article citing how many believe that Globalism is a danger to the way the world _exists_, you then go on to say that Globalism is "inevitable" and only "primitive nations" would ever think of avoiding it??
Globalism is the eradication of local boundaries. Globalism is the idea that local culture and local influences are irrelevant. For something to become an influence under Globalism, it must pass through the well-established channels of business and boardrooms. Globalism is the idea that your region's customs should be.. no.. will be the same as every other region on the planet after it has taken its full effect. Globalism is the idea that what matters there matters everywhere and vice versa.
Globalism is only inevitable if corporations should be allowed to do whatever they please. It runs directly against the ideas that a tight-nit band of people should be able to determine the flow of their own lives. Instead, they must surrender that notion to a large bureaucracy bent on gaining, you guessed it, more cash.
And then there's the total immorality present in the best ways to get cash. And then we remember how much power corporations already have. And then we start to think, just like Katz, that Globalization is completely inevitable.
We shouldn't give up so easily.
for someone that's supposed to be so god-damned concerned with the "freedom as speech" mentality re: software, rms sure as fuck is one of the first to chuck it right out of the window when it's most convenient to do so. isn't this an all-or-nothing concept, here?
Funny, just ran into this program a few days ago. Napster is at (http://www.napster.com/). You point it at your mp3 repository and it registers that with all of the other users that are online.