What's wrong with a pocket sized notepad and pencil?
Seriously, as someone who used to carry a PDA around all the time (i did my university notes on a newton), I'd have to say that pencil and paper are going to beat the crap out of PDAs. The only thing that could change my mind would be a pda with integrated wireless networking, monster long battery life, and made of something flexible so I don't worry about crushing it all the time.
The balance of salary may be in managements court, out of your hands, but that's your fault - if you wanted the money game, why did you get into the code game?
Many programmers complain and complain about how their salesmen and managers know nothing about computers.
I ask how many programmers know the first real thing about management, about finance, about running a company.
It's right there in the language that's used: "who maintains the code" - who cares? We don't make code, we make products.
Anyhoo, that's my piece. If you knew your job as well as everyone elses, you'd be running your own company now. Not complaining about being a peon in someone else's.
However, I like to think that the "World Domination" we are all bearing down on in one way or another will not be a domination of Product (Windows becomes Linux) but a domination of an attitude towards machines, and broadly life in general.
The attitude says that we are intelligent and can manage to learn a thing or two. I don't consider myself as being elite or snotty when I say that most computer users should know what TCP/IP is. They don't need to know how it works or it's history, much like I don't need to know how my car's engine works in detail. But I do know enough about that engine to keep it running (gas, oil, checkups for funny noises). There is no reason, not even "no-time-to-spend", for a person not to know this sort of basic thing.
The "Hacker" mentality is what we are trying to spread, not Linux or Apache or FreeBSD or what have you. We are trying to spread the idea that you are not a consumer, and that you are entirely capable of understanding, learning and self-direction. Linux and GNU are the torch we carry though the streets to draw people to these ideas.
So: Don't tell your friends that Linux is Better; tell them that self-determination and not getting ass-raped as a consumer is Better.
It's 6:00 am here so that may not be as sensible or as eloquent as I'd hope; but I with luck I got the gist across.
Berlin is far more than just vector based; it's scalability considerations are currently on the "how to make the same app present a sensible UI in any server environment"; ie not just WIMP but audio-only, CAVE environments, etc..
Berlin is a very, very interesting project. You can take a peek at their website.
..are pretty simple. I wrote a Macintosh app to control that kind of stuff to fill time in highschool CS; took me all of an hour to get the controller communications part working.
(ah, highschool CS, how I miss those days; Macintoshes and resedit made it Sooo easy to write login spoofs, and then there was the time I replaced all the lab's system's default window drawing/updating functions with oval-frames..)
Re:While on the subject of X windows...
on
Fifteen Years of X
·
· Score: 1
>The fact that it doesn't happen in Windows is a >little puzzling. Perhaps the gain is turned down >more in Windows? It could also be the driver. The >driver can actually make a difference in the >amount of interference you get.
I've noticed that Windows sound drivers generally make the SC play with an awful lot more noise/static than the equivalent OSS drivers.. could be that static difference making minute noises distinguishable.
If the source of the noise turns out to be coming from governement satelites monitoring you, the tinfoil is a good idea.
You might try doing it with gradients, too, using the shape-following options of the fill tool (can't remember their names, but they're there). That'll let you make your circle with whatever kind of border you want!
a: Sounds like your code literacy could use some work. Certainly, many, many software packages have huge code sizes and sometimes poor coding style, if you are reasonably fluent in the implementation language and the ideas/concepts that the source is batting around, you shouldn't have much trouble fixing things that need fixing. I should note that if you need something fixed, the group of authors who did most of the work would probably be frothing at the big to help you solve your problem. You might just learn something, too!
b) "And waht do you do when the next version comes out??"
Ah, this is the best part. When the next version comes out, your patch is already a stable part of it (remember, you contributed to the community?). So you just install it and carry on, and maybe give a little showing in a newbie-visited discussion group and offer a bit of direction, now that you are a bonafide free software developer.
Good for the code, Good for the soul. What more could you want?
"Corel will also be releasing all its improvements and development on open source software to the Open Source community," said Mr.Burney. "The developers in that community are the strength of Linux, and with our recent work and contributions to the WINE project, Corel strongly supports their efforts."
Um, not exactly sure here, but don't most Open Source licenses REQUIRE you to share back with the community any fixes or changes you make?
Not that I'm ungrateful - even if Debian GNU/Linux-Kde-Corel turns out to be a Windows9x clone, this means much development of hardware support for linux. This makes me wish Linus hadn't made that concession for binary-only kernel modules.. But much work will be needed to outfit the kernel with an end-user oriented io system (ie, no one will buy it without support for usb etc, and friendlier device setup).
>Our modern economy is largely based upon the >"illogical" property scheme that forces the >public to pay for copyrighted works. This economy >has allowed the developed world to reach to the >highest standards of living in history.
Actually no. It (sadly like many such systems before it) allows the highest standards of living for a few, an admittedly nice standard for more, and absolute piss-shit crap for the rest.
What we are looking for is not to increase the absolute or even average measure of quality of life. what we want is to increase the low end of it.
I will detract from the success of this economy, as I will detract from the success of any system, because NO SOCIAL SYSTEMS CAN BE PERFECT. Point being, constant analyses of success and failures of all systems is required. This is democracy.
... ...
Except maybe killing anyone who happens to be unhappy.. but then we'd need mind-reading machines to find out what they were thinking.. and we could drug them up to be happy.. oh well.
Point one: It was unreadable. Most of us digested it pretty well, why not deal with it?
Point two: The guarantee that the inventor will be able to get a return on investment. This is completely silly. Lawmakers are not responsible for making sure you succeed. That is your the inventor's problem.
Point three: I've got nothing against the poll for lamest article.. sounds like fun! But if you've got a beef with an article, your comments and possible counter-article are your weapons. Closing your eyes (not wanting to see it) is not.
Remember: Democracy is not so much your rights to freedom as your responsibility to understand and keep them. All information is valuable, whether true or false, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
(i make no excuse for my spelling & grammar. it may be terrible, please deal with it)
Capitalism is just fine for many things. More socialist systems work better elsewhere. Other types of organization work better in other places. There is no need to say, "Capitalism: now and forever." All systems have their problems, all systems have their benefits. (the problems don't ever go away, because the problems are people!:)
The thing about software is that it's somewhere BETWEEN and idea and an object. It takes no work or cost to copy, move, use simultaneously. It does however take work (time and sometimes money, time==money for many) to PRODUCE. This is why neither the Completely Free or the Completely Closed methods work PERFECTLY.
Cost of production is one thing that the essay above didn't seem to touch. Is there a gradient between ideas and objects? Apparently, yes. Hard thinking time, boys and girls.
(idea: define two sets of laws with the same number of atomic paragraphs, each paragraph meta-isomorphic to it's paired partner. one set for IP, the other for physical property. then, for each entity wishing to be covered by the laws, assign a number 0..1 to it, 0 being more IP-ish, 1 being more physical-ish. then, say, for a particular entity of IP/obj-ishness of.5, 50% of the IP paragraph set applies, 50% of the property set applies. chosen randomly at inception of the law's application to the entity:)
uh - the farmer ALWAYS resells the seed. It's called grain, and we make bread, pasta, cereals, and many other wonderful things with it. and we also feed it to our livestock, who do the same.
>``It takes hundreds of slaves to pick all the >cotton and process it from a medium-sized >field.'' >Denying a fundamental liberty because it makes a >certain business avenue possible is wrong. >Monsanto will have to find a new profit avenue.
This is exactly the argument against legislation of MP3s. The business model record companies use has become outmoded, and they want to curtail our artist's and our artist's fans freedoms.
They have every right to make a profit. They do not have the right to stop others from profiting, and they do not have the right to cut our rights.
Capitalism has always been about evolution. Competion and Diversity are the key words to the thing. What is happening, in fact, is an attempt to legislate Competition and Diversity out of our economy. We all know this is bad for consumers, who don't get continual improvements to products, and for producers, when the economy ceases to function.
(incidentaly, mass comm. mediums, like the bigmoney-to-many paradigm of TV, force consumer desires in planned directions. Is this good or bad in light of the evolutionary view of capitalism?)
I would love to spend time talking to a penguin. Let's get Larry Ewing to animate some images, and pop in a conversation simulator. That would be so cute!
I don't know about cool, but it's a hell of a fun way to waste an afternoon waiting for exams to finish.. Just get a bunch of people and take turns making cards, then link them together for a story!
If you are running a Unix system (might work for Win95/NT, or Mac, but I have no idea) a package called Junkbuster exists which will filter out all urls matching patterns you give it. Just start it up, add "adfu.blockstackers.com" to it's blockfile, and point your browser's proxy at the local port on which it is hosted. Alternatively, Junkbuster could be hosted on a separate computer, such as on your home router box or at your ISP.
Took me two minutes once I found out Junkbuster was installed by Debian!
Despite this being obviously a troll, I'd like to add something:
You are thinking of (or at least are expression a cultural mode driven by) the supply and demand system. as in, without demand there is no point in supply, and without supply there is no demand.
What you must remember is that most of what we know of the supply & demand feedback systems is in the domain of economics. As in, demand==people paying for product, and supply==controlled distribution and pricing.
None of these apply without an entity or set of entities doing the supplying for money. MP3 players may be being marketed by companies, but there are many free implementations available anywhere. That codebase will never disapear, meaning the support from a mother company that a product traditionally requires is no longer needed -- it is an entity of it's own now.
For those who (apparently) don't know, MP3s are not doled out by distribution companies: they are ripped and compressed by people sitting at their computers at home, who have no economic interesest in them.
>> If people are willing to PAY for mp3s, it will >> stay alive.
MP3s are thriving, and have been for a couple of years. And in that time, no one was willing to pay for them.
an idea: if mp3s suddenly and magically were pay-only, they would likely disapear!
Slashdot Mirror
What's wrong with a pocket sized notepad and pencil?
Seriously, as someone who used to carry a PDA around all the time (i did my university notes on a newton), I'd have to say that pencil and paper are going to beat the crap out of PDAs. The only thing that could change my mind would be a pda with integrated wireless networking, monster long battery life, and made of something flexible so I don't worry about crushing it all the time.
The balance of salary may be in managements court, out of your hands, but that's your fault - if you wanted the money game, why did you get into the code game?
Many programmers complain and complain about how their salesmen and managers know nothing about computers.
I ask how many programmers know the first real thing about management, about finance, about running a company.
It's right there in the language that's used: "who maintains the code" - who cares? We don't make code, we make products.
Anyhoo, that's my piece. If you knew your job as well as everyone elses, you'd be running your own company now. Not complaining about being a peon in someone else's.
This (a by-default closed distro) is a good idea.
However, I like to think that the "World Domination" we are all bearing down on in one way or another will not be a domination of Product (Windows becomes Linux) but a domination of an attitude towards machines, and broadly life in general.
The attitude says that we are intelligent and can manage to learn a thing or two. I don't consider myself as being elite or snotty when I say that most computer users should know what TCP/IP is. They don't need to know how it works or it's history, much like I don't need to know how my car's engine works in detail. But I do know enough about that engine to keep it running (gas, oil, checkups for funny noises). There is no reason, not even "no-time-to-spend", for a person not to know this sort of basic thing.
The "Hacker" mentality is what we are trying to spread, not Linux or Apache or FreeBSD or what have you. We are trying to spread the idea that you are not a consumer, and that you are entirely capable of understanding, learning and self-direction. Linux and GNU are the torch we carry though the streets to draw people to these ideas.
So: Don't tell your friends that Linux is Better; tell them that self-determination and not getting ass-raped as a consumer is Better.
It's 6:00 am here so that may not be as sensible or as eloquent as I'd hope; but I with luck I got the gist across.
Berlin is far more than just vector based; it's scalability considerations are currently on the "how to make the same app present a sensible UI in any server environment"; ie not just WIMP but audio-only, CAVE environments, etc..
Berlin is a very, very interesting project. You can take a peek at their website.
Huh? Why bother with the Grits? Wouldn't you rather just go read the CNN article?
Does anyone know of any Free Software projects to make front ends to these services, or to create servers for creating our own networks?
..are pretty simple. I wrote a Macintosh app to control that kind of stuff to fill time in highschool CS; took me all of an hour to get the controller communications part working.
(ah, highschool CS, how I miss those days; Macintoshes and resedit made it Sooo easy to write login spoofs, and then there was the time I replaced all the lab's system's default window drawing/updating functions with oval-frames..)
>The fact that it doesn't happen in Windows is a
>little puzzling. Perhaps the gain is turned down
>more in Windows? It could also be the driver. The
>driver can actually make a difference in the
>amount of interference you get.
I've noticed that Windows sound drivers generally make the SC play with an awful lot more noise/static than the equivalent OSS drivers.. could be that static difference making minute noises distinguishable.
If the source of the noise turns out to be coming from governement satelites monitoring you, the tinfoil is a good idea.
Mmmm... Heather Graham...
GEOPaint on Commodore 64 GEOS! 300-something by 100-something black and white windowing, using a cheap joystick for a pointer..
It would take five seconds to cross the screen!
You might try doing it with gradients, too, using the shape-following options of the fill tool (can't remember their names, but they're there). That'll let you make your circle with whatever kind of border you want!
Howsabout:
"Don't make me get Clone Wars on yo' behind!"
a: Sounds like your code literacy could use some work. Certainly, many, many software packages have huge code sizes and sometimes poor coding style, if you are reasonably fluent in the implementation language and the ideas/concepts that the source is batting around, you shouldn't have much trouble fixing things that need fixing. I should note that if you need something fixed, the group of authors who did most of the work would probably be frothing at the big to help you solve your problem. You might just learn something, too!
b) "And waht do you do when the next version comes out??"
Ah, this is the best part. When the next version comes out, your patch is already a stable part of it (remember, you contributed to the community?). So you just install it and carry on, and maybe give a little showing in a newbie-visited discussion group and offer a bit of direction, now that you are a bonafide free software developer.
Good for the code, Good for the soul. What more could you want?
"Corel will also be releasing all its improvements and development on open source software to the Open Source community," said Mr.Burney. "The developers in that community are the strength of Linux, and with our recent work and contributions to the WINE project, Corel strongly supports their efforts."
Um, not exactly sure here, but don't most Open Source licenses REQUIRE you to share back with the community any fixes or changes you make?
Not that I'm ungrateful - even if Debian GNU/Linux-Kde-Corel turns out to be a Windows9x clone, this means much development of hardware support for linux. This makes me wish Linus hadn't made that concession for binary-only kernel modules.. But much work will be needed to outfit the kernel with an end-user oriented io system (ie, no one will buy it without support for usb etc, and friendlier device setup).
>Our modern economy is largely based upon the
>"illogical" property scheme that forces the
>public to pay for copyrighted works. This economy
>has allowed the developed world to reach to the
>highest standards of living in history.
Actually no. It (sadly like many such systems before it) allows the highest standards of living for a few, an admittedly nice standard for more, and absolute piss-shit crap for the rest.
What we are looking for is not to increase the absolute or even average measure of quality of life. what we want is to increase the low end of it.
I will detract from the success of this economy, as I will detract from the success of any system, because NO SOCIAL SYSTEMS CAN BE PERFECT. Point being, constant analyses of success and failures of all systems is required. This is democracy.
...
...
Except maybe killing anyone who happens to be unhappy.. but then we'd need mind-reading machines to find out what they were thinking.. and we could drug them up to be happy.. oh well.
Point one: It was unreadable. Most of us digested it pretty well, why not deal with it?
Point two: The guarantee that the inventor will be able to get a return on investment. This is completely silly. Lawmakers are not responsible for making sure you succeed. That is your the inventor's problem.
Point three: I've got nothing against the poll for lamest article.. sounds like fun! But if you've got a beef with an article, your comments and possible counter-article are your weapons. Closing your eyes (not wanting to see it) is not.
Remember: Democracy is not so much your rights to freedom as your responsibility to understand and keep them. All information is valuable, whether true or false, whether agreeable or disagreeable.
(i make no excuse for my spelling & grammar. it may be terrible, please deal with it)
Capitalism is just fine for many things. More socialist systems work better elsewhere. Other types of organization work better in other places. There is no need to say, "Capitalism: now and forever." All systems have their problems, all systems have their benefits. (the problems don't ever go away, because the problems are people! :)
.5, 50% of the IP paragraph set applies, 50% of the property set applies. chosen randomly at inception of the law's application to the entity :)
The thing about software is that it's somewhere BETWEEN and idea and an object. It takes no work or cost to copy, move, use simultaneously. It does however take work (time and sometimes money, time==money for many) to PRODUCE. This is why neither the Completely Free or the Completely Closed methods work PERFECTLY.
Cost of production is one thing that the essay above didn't seem to touch. Is there a gradient between ideas and objects? Apparently, yes. Hard thinking time, boys and girls.
(idea: define two sets of laws with the same number of atomic paragraphs, each paragraph meta-isomorphic to it's paired partner. one set for IP, the other for physical property. then, for each entity wishing to be covered by the laws, assign a number 0..1 to it, 0 being more IP-ish, 1 being more physical-ish. then, say, for a particular entity of IP/obj-ishness of
uh - the farmer ALWAYS resells the seed. It's called grain, and we make bread, pasta, cereals, and many other wonderful things with it. and we also feed it to our livestock, who do the same.
House of cards, like the man said.
>``It takes hundreds of slaves to pick all the
>cotton and process it from a medium-sized >field.''
>Denying a fundamental liberty because it makes a
>certain business avenue possible is wrong. >Monsanto will have to find a new profit avenue.
This is exactly the argument against legislation of MP3s. The business model record companies use has become outmoded, and they want to curtail our artist's and our artist's fans freedoms.
They have every right to make a profit. They do not have the right to stop others from profiting, and they do not have the right to cut our rights.
Capitalism has always been about evolution. Competion and Diversity are the key words to the thing. What is happening, in fact, is an attempt to legislate Competition and Diversity out of our economy. We all know this is bad for consumers, who don't get continual improvements to products, and for producers, when the economy ceases to function.
(incidentaly, mass comm. mediums, like the bigmoney-to-many paradigm of TV, force consumer desires in planned directions. Is this good or bad in light of the evolutionary view of capitalism?)
I would love to spend time talking to a penguin. Let's get Larry Ewing to animate some images, and pop in a conversation simulator. That would be so cute!
I don't know about cool, but it's a hell of a fun way to waste an afternoon waiting for exams to finish.. Just get a bunch of people and take turns making cards, then link them together for a story!
Yayy! Fun!
Universal and OPEN file formats!!!
and not binary ones at that, except for actual binary data.
1. He can't check it, silly. It's forbidden to him.
2. That was his signature.
If you are running a Unix system (might work for Win95/NT, or Mac, but I have no idea) a package called Junkbuster exists which will filter out all urls matching patterns you give it. Just start it up, add "adfu.blockstackers.com" to it's blockfile, and point your browser's proxy at the local port on which it is hosted. Alternatively, Junkbuster could be hosted on a separate computer, such as on your home router box or at your ISP.
Took me two minutes once I found out Junkbuster was installed by Debian!
Despite this being obviously a troll, I'd like to add something:
You are thinking of (or at least are expression a cultural mode driven by) the supply and demand system. as in, without demand there is no point in supply, and without supply there is no demand.
What you must remember is that most of what we know of the supply & demand feedback systems is in the domain of economics. As in, demand==people paying for product, and supply==controlled distribution and pricing.
None of these apply without an entity or set of entities doing the supplying for money. MP3 players may be being marketed by companies, but there are many free implementations available anywhere. That codebase will never disapear, meaning the support from a mother company that a product traditionally requires is no longer needed -- it is an entity of it's own now.
For those who (apparently) don't know, MP3s are not doled out by distribution companies: they are ripped and compressed by people sitting at their computers at home, who have no economic interesest in them.
>> If people are willing to PAY for mp3s, it will
>> stay alive.
MP3s are thriving, and have been for a couple of years. And in that time, no one was willing to pay for them.
an idea: if mp3s suddenly and magically were pay-only, they would likely disapear!