Ah, except that, if I'm reading this right, you would still percieve time as going forward in a reverse-time zone. The only difference is that time flows in the opposite "direction."
You know, I just thought of something. "Normal" time starts from the beginning and works forward. Reverse time, it would seem, must start from the end and work back, flowing at the same rate.
What happens when two adjacent but opposite-flow time zones hit the exact same moment, then? They have to at some point, after all; it's a case of meeting in the middle.
Does this mean that, the problems with getting there notwithstanding, I could hop into one of these reverse-time zones, hang around for a while, and come out earlier than when I went in? The implications of that are hardly trivial...
Thing is, it's still the old version. Honestly, I think Rob should be putting out the source more ovten. Perhaps CVS access would be something to try? Yes, I know the code's beta; that's never stopped Open-Source development before.
What gives you the right to write a client and access napsters servers?
What gives Napster the right to refuse someone access for no better reason than choice of OS?
That is illegal, its the same as microsoft trying to access AOL IM servers.
Actually, it's not illegal. Neither is Microsoft trying to access AIM's servers. The only difference is that Microsoft's intentions are obviously sinister; they seek to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish AIM. Our friend here has no such intent; he just wants to use their service on his OS of choice.
Its no different than me sitting in front of your house until I figure out your garage door frequency and I open it and start using your garage.
Actually, it's very different. Why? Well, let's take my garage. I prefer to keep it private. I don't want anyone accessing it except me.
Napster is by its very nature a public service. Anyone is, in theory, able to access it. Refusing to allow someone to access because of the OS he chooses to run is not unlike refusing to allow someone into a restaurant due to religious differences.
When don't you start your own service?
I assume you mean why, not when. And frankly, why should he? There's a perfectly good one already out there. Why reinvent the wheel?
When do you have to leech on someone elses work?
Again, I'm going to assume you mean why. The fact is, he isn't leeching. All of the work he's doing is his own. In fact, he's doing more work than the original Napster people did (all they had to do was make up a protocol; he has to figure it out with no documentation to help him). He's not using one single scrap of their code. And thus, none of their work.
There actually was a StarOffice port for MacOS, but that was a long time ago.
If you got one of the very first Power Macs, actually, the System Software CD came with a bunch of software demos. One of these was for StarOffice, which (incidentally) was the first PowerPC-native word processor (you only got StarWriter; I don't know what happened to the rest of it).
It was fully payware on the Mac side, unfortunately; no "free for non-commercial use." And the word processor alone was $200. And I suppose I should point out that it was never all that stable, and the interface wasn't that great. That's probably why it never caught on with Macs. In the end, StarDivision stopped developing their MacOS port (after version 3.0 if I'm not mistaken). It's good to see them coming back to the Mac again. Though I'd be happier if there were a LinuxPPC port too.
I must admit, I'm torn here...
on
License to Surf
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· Score: 2
The privacy violations implicit in micropayment systems are certainly bad. However, I am forced to admit that it would be nice if everyone on the Net adhered to some basic etiquette, which could be enforced.
A "Net licensing" scheme wouldn't have to necessarily involve privacy violations, however. Granted, stripping identifying festures from a license (reducing it, in essence, to a certificate stating that someone has completed an etiquette course) would reduce the effectiveness of the license and eliminate the accountability issue.
It all comes down to trade-offs, I suppose. If you want security, you have to sacrifice some privacy (simply because all known methods of security are traceable to at least some degree; the contents may be hidden but the participants are not). It comes down to where you're willing to draw the line. Personally, I don't like the idea of an identifying Net license. I can't ignore the potential benefits of such a system, though. I'm just not willing to pay the price for those benefits.
Welcome to the premiere issue of Flamebait Critique Weekly. This series of posts seeks to critique and satirize one selected piece of flamebait each week (or whatever other time period passes by before another particularly spectacular example appears). In this issue, we cover a piece by prolific flamebait writer A. Coward. This particular work seems to concern the values of one Christian zealot, when faced with a joke he (or she; A. Coward's gender is unclear at this point) does not seem to understand. Sadly, the piece is quite weak. Let us examine it further...
At first glance, it seems shocking: This person (and I use the term in a spirit of far greater generosity than it could possibly deserve) brags about practicing cannibalism.
Weak introduction. It doesn't quite mesh with the title, which has nothing to do with cannibalism. Are we reading a piece on liberals or cannbals? In addition, this entire paragraph consists of a single run-on sentence, with no thesis. I suggest heavy revision in the next draft.
But then when one really thinks about it, it's only natural. Those who reject God have, in so doing, rejected the only valid basis for morality in the world.
"It" is overused in the first sentence: twice adjacently. It hurts the flow. My suggestion is to replace the second "it" (which is in a contraction, a formal literary no-no) with "this is." It is wordier, but helps the flow of the piece.
The second sentence (which contains two unnecessary commas) is the first of several fallacies: it makes a statement without backing it up with any quotations or other pertinent data. Why have they rejected the only valid basis for morality? More to the point, why is this the only valid basis for morality? We have no data.
Also, between these two sentences, we have a change in tense from the present to the present perfect. This should be avoided in future revisions, or at least arranged such that tense is consistent within paragraphs.
They have become totally amoral - not immoral, but amoral. They are not even capable of conceiving of "right" and "wrong". "It's all relative!", they cry.
Pronouns without antecedents. Who are "they"? What is this "it" which "they" claim is "all relative"?
If there's no right and wrong, why not engage in cannibalism?
Grammatical error: it should be "if there are no right and wrong" or "is there is no right or wrong."
One need only take a brief look around the world at the barbaric behavior of those who practice anti-God "religions" (e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Communism, etc.) to get a clear idea of where this increasingly atheistic nation is headed.
First, a factual error. Communism is not a religion, and has never so much as claimed to be. Quite the opposite, if the truth be known.
Also, "anti-God 'religions' " is an oxymoron, as it violates the definition of a religion as the worship of one or more dieties or other higher powers. Furthermore, in the case of polytheistic religions we have the question as to which god these religions stand against. Perhaps a more honest answer would be "non-Christian religions." This answer would also be more honest with the reader, as this is piece is clearly meant to be read as though written by a Christian zealot.
Just in case you're a little slow (Liberals usually have subnormal mentalities), here it is, in plain and unmistakable terms:
Stalin killed thirty or forty million people.
Stalin was an atheist.
You figure it out.
First, we have another run-on sentence. Second, we have inaccurate statistics: "thirty or forty million" should be replaced with a more accurate number. Third, there is a logical fallacy: the author sees a coincidence and assumes causality. How did the face that Stalin was an atheist cause him to kill "thirty or forty million" people? Could something else have caused this, such as Stalin's insanity? Without data to back this, we have no idea as to these propositions. Please provide more data in the future.
The only truly endangered species on Earth today is the Human Race.
"Human race" is not a proper noun, and not the first word of the sentence, and therefore capitalization is inappropriate.
The time has come to defend ourselves. We have not only morality but God Himself on our side.
Here, I begin to suspect plagiarism. This same statement has appeared on countless pieces of Ku Klux Klan literature. Similar statements have appeared on literature from the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Army of God, the Irish Republican Army, and other groups of religious zealots. Proper referencing is essential to good writing.
The poor dumb Liberals (atheists, Canadians, Buddhists, etc.) have nothing to sustain them but their own howling insanity and sick hate.
There should be a comma between "poor" and "dumb." "Liberals" should not be capitalized. Furthermore, the items in the list (which we can assume to be a list of "poor dumb Liberals") are mismatched: a philosophy, a nationality, and a religion. There is also no proof of insanity or hatred. For that matter, adverbial phrases are misused; insanity cannot howl, not can hatred become ill.
WE WILL PREVAIL.
Capitals are again used inappropriately. Boldface is appropriate, as it denotes emphasis. However, the quote is "We shall prevail" and again proper referencing is not used (in this case, to George Orwell's 1984.)
Millennium's Rating: 0.25 stars (out of 5). Pros: No spelling errors whatsoever found by this reviewer. Cons: Weak introduction, numerous grammatical errors, lack of data to back up assertions, misquoting of famous literature, and suspected plagiarism. The Final Word: Not worth the read. Send it back for a few more revisions.
Well, consider that Cernobyl's meltdown could have been prevented, were it not for the fact that Chernobyl's safety mechanisms and procedures made most other nuclear reactor workers cringe even then. If they've improved since then, which I'm sure they have (even the most scatterbrained comittee of politicians, pointy-haired bosses, and Windows zealots couldn't possibly be that stupid), then more power to the Ukranians (no pun intended).
All the same, I think I'll wait a few years to see how this thing runs before I go to the Ukraine...
This is what I'd do. You already planned to make the source available via FTP; this is a Good Thing. Now, you'll have to include a slip of paper with your products that states "To get the source code to this program, go to ftp://whatever.your.server.is and download via anonymous FTP" or whatever scheme you plan to use."
That should be enough. You do have to make the source freely available, but that should not be a problem at this point.
I can think of a couple of reasons to do this, actually...
1) Gauging interest in the Linux community. If they sell a Windows/Linux hybrid box, the sales will probably be considered as Windows for statistical reasons (it's just the way the statistical agencies do it; it sucks, but that's how it is). It's a lot easier to keep track of downloads than sales, particularly in this case.
2) This one may actually be more exciting: port potential. Remember that Linux has ports to many architectures. Now that Glide's gone Open-Source, there's potential that it, and subsequently UT, could theoretically be ported to many different architectures. Now, unless you encode the installer in Perl or something (which I very much doubt they would do) you have to make an installer AND executable for each architecture (you have to make the executable regardless). That can add up rather quickly, particularly if there will be many ports. You can't rely on RPM or any other package manager either, since different distros have different systems; your other alternative is to use one of each (which takes up even more space) or write your own installer from scratch which would run on everything. Consider also that the UT media is going to take up almost all of the CD. It makes no sense to have a whole CD just for Linux installers, when you can have them downloadable.
These are just thoughts; the second one in particular isn't all that probable but it's a possibility. It's something to consider, at any rate.
Personally, I'm not as happy about the fact that it's Open-Source. That was inevitable; it's a Good Thing, but hey, it was coming. What I'm happy about is that this can now be ported to other architectures (last I checked, PPC, Sparc, and Alpha didn't seem to have any 3D acceleration yet; I know PPC doesn't).
Dammit; I keep trying to resist the urge to buy a Voodoo3 instead of waiting for V4, and then something like this has to come along and tempt me again. I suppose I'll be able to hold out till the PPC port is working. Here's hoping that's not till after the V4 is out:)
I hope the future's bright for Helix. Admittedly, I'm not certain that he'll be able to support the company completely on support contracts (I'm more in favor of the consulting approach; charcing to write entirely new OSS or add major features to existing OSS). But I wish them the best anyway
I think there's a reason that it's called an operating system. It's more than just one thing. An OS, as I see it, has three tasks to fulfill. It is a mediator between the hardware, the other software, and the user.
As such, an OS has three parts to it. The drivers deal with the hardware. The kernel deals with the software. And lastly, the interfaces deal with the user.
To my mind, something is part if the operating system if, by removing it, the machine becomes unusable. Remove the drivers, and your machine won't boot. I'd certainly love to see someone here boot Linux without a kernel. And if you remove X and all of the shells, the OS is still unusable.
Where does Linux fit in? I don't see the kernel as a total operating system. I see Linux itself as highly modular, where interfaces, kernels, and even drivers can be mixed and matched almost at will. But it still takes all three, at least in some form or another, to truly make an OS. It's a system in the truest sense of the word: many programs combine to handle mediation tasks, rather than one large program (as with MacOS or PalmOS or WinCE).
Of all the... If I went there, I'd leave that school.
I go to your classes. I've paid to go to your classes, in fact. And once I've been there, the knowledge I've gained is mine. It is unique to me; the student next to me did not get exactly the same knowledge, nor the one two rows back. Even the professor's knowledge isn't the same as mine is; probably because the professor was unable to go through all of the material but possibly because I had some unique insight.
My mind and my knowledge belong to exactly one person: me. No one, not sniveling corrupt professors, not hardcore drug dealers, not tyrannical governments or administrations, will ever take it from me; I would rather die before I allow that. And if I decide to share my knowledge for free, though I may have paid to gain it, tough luck for anyone who's deluded enough to think they have a claim on what I know.
That's just it. The combination of phonemes in "LEEN-ooks" occurs so rarely in English that it's rather awkward for a native English-speaker to say. The correct paraphrase is, if I'm not mistaken, "LINN-ucks," therefore both pronunciations are linguistically correct, given the differences in language. "LINE-ucks" is still way out there.
Nope, Linux Torvalds isn't pronounced like Linux on Peanuts. It's the Peanuts pronunciation which gave rise to the myth that it is pronounced "LINE-ux."
Consider, by the way, that "Linux" is actually a dual pun. It plays both on Linus' name and Minix, the OS which inspired Linux. Minix is pronounced with a short i (like the first i in"mini"). Linus, as least in the context of Torvalds' first name, is also pronounced in this way. Therefore, why would Linux not also be pronounced with the same short i as both of its linguistic predecessors? Particularly since Linus himself pronounces it the same way he pronounces his name.
As far as I'm concerned, the person who gave the OS its name gets to pick how it's correctly pronounced. But let's not get into a holy war over this.
Last I checked, the military prefers a three-pronged approach to verification. Simply put, you're verified by who you are, what you have, and what you know. In computer terms, this translates to:
Who you are - a biometric of some kind, usually fingerprints What you have - a token of some kind, usually a smart card. What you know - a passphrase
Unless all three pass, the login doesn't work. At the same time, I'm not sure you need quite that level of security. But it's something to consider.
Although this seems to make me an unusual Slashdotter, I actually liked Radio Shack. Yeah, their prices were often a bit high, but they had stuff I never managed to find anywhere else. Honestly, I challenge anyone here to give me the name of a store as widespread as RS that carries all the same stuff.
Now, Microsoft's ripping Apple off yet again (this deal looks disturbingly similar to Apple's Stores-Within-A-Store at CompUSA, Fry's, and Micro Center). It'll be interesting to see how they do this one.
You missed the point of Question 11 entirely. And I do mean, entirely.
As I said, all the world's knowledge is at your fingertips. Not only that, but it's at the fingertips of everyone else in your situation, and you can communicate with all of them. The free exchange if information is the key to a popular uprising which would finally throw off the oppression mentioned earlier in the question.
That test wasn't about helping others with technology. It was about showing that in the end, the key to justice is knowledge and the free exchange thereof. In the end, if you carry the question further, those devices would make a revolution possible, but the people would be the ones to carry it out. No foreign troops necessary.
You don't get it. The question wasn't meant to make people feel guilty because they had technology. It's about showing them the greatest possible use of that technology: justice.
I didn't say the Chinese people thought their government was protecting the people's best interest. That isn't even important (especially not to the Chinese government); what matters is what the people in the government think about it, and the most hard-line (and even more than a few of the moderates) are likely to believe this. Remember that in any political arena, most people do have at least some genuine belief in their platform.
Geez; I did some bad wors choices this time (I'm rather surprised it didn't cost me any Karma as of yet).
Yep, you're right; China's government seems to have little regard for human rights, if indeed it has any at all. The last time I read the GPL, however, it didn't seem to cover anything about what people generally consider to be human rights. And the Chinese government seems to agree with the GPL on those issues which the GPL covers. Therefore, I seriously doubt that China will attempt to undermine the GPL; governments don't tend to hurt stuff they like (unless they don't already have it, in which case they'll go so far as to destroy it while trying to obtain it, but that's not the situation here).
I didn't say it was doing a good job of keeping its image up. You forget, the Chinese government doesn't percieve itself as we see it. I abhor what they do as much as you do.
But the fact remains, they see themselves as great protectors of the people (never mind that it's not really true; they have nothing to act on but their own perception of reality, however twisted). The GPL is likewise meant as a protector of the people, something the Chinese government appears to recognize. Since the two seem to agree at least on the issues which the GPL covers, I don't think China will attempt to undermine it.
You know what's even worse about that report? The title. What on Earth posessed someone to name it "Project Megiddo"?
If you're doing a project to combat violence by extremist apocalyptic religions, the LAST thing you want to do is give it a name which references any kind of apocalyptic scripture at all. That'll just get them even more frenzied ("See? Megiddo! It's happenning!") Were they trying to mock these religions? That would just piss them off more.
The world would be a lot better place if more people gave their actions just a little bit of thought before acting them out. Geez...
I doubt it. Say what you will about the Chinese government, but they aren't stupid. They wouldn't dare do something like that concerning an OS which supposedly goes along with their own ethos so well.
Whatever top-secret security-related stuff they do will probably be implemented as applications and/or daemons, separate from the OS, for precisely that reason. They do have an image to uphold, and violating the license of an OS which they've embraced as following their own ideals is rather counterproductive for that image.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, except that, if I'm reading this right, you would still percieve time as going forward in a reverse-time zone. The only difference is that time flows in the opposite "direction."
You know, I just thought of something. "Normal" time starts from the beginning and works forward. Reverse time, it would seem, must start from the end and work back, flowing at the same rate.
What happens when two adjacent but opposite-flow time zones hit the exact same moment, then? They have to at some point, after all; it's a case of meeting in the middle.
Does this mean that, the problems with getting there notwithstanding, I could hop into one of these reverse-time zones, hang around for a while, and come out earlier than when I went in? The implications of that are hardly trivial...
Thing is, they're doing it in PHP.
Here's where you can find it.
Thing is, it's still the old version. Honestly, I think Rob should be putting out the source more ovten. Perhaps CVS access would be something to try? Yes, I know the code's beta; that's never stopped Open-Source development before.
What gives you the right to write a client and access napsters servers?
What gives Napster the right to refuse someone access for no better reason than choice of OS?
That is illegal, its the same as microsoft trying to access AOL IM servers.
Actually, it's not illegal. Neither is Microsoft trying to access AIM's servers. The only difference is that Microsoft's intentions are obviously sinister; they seek to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish AIM. Our friend here has no such intent; he just wants to use their service on his OS of choice.
Its no different than me sitting in front of your house until I figure out your garage door frequency and I open it and start using your garage.
Actually, it's very different. Why? Well, let's take my garage. I prefer to keep it private. I don't want anyone accessing it except me.
Napster is by its very nature a public service. Anyone is, in theory, able to access it. Refusing to allow someone to access because of the OS he chooses to run is not unlike refusing to allow someone into a restaurant due to religious differences.
When don't you start your own service?
I assume you mean why, not when. And frankly, why should he? There's a perfectly good one already out there. Why reinvent the wheel?
When do you have to leech on someone elses work?
Again, I'm going to assume you mean why. The fact is, he isn't leeching. All of the work he's doing is his own. In fact, he's doing more work than the original Napster people did (all they had to do was make up a protocol; he has to figure it out with no documentation to help him). He's not using one single scrap of their code. And thus, none of their work.
There actually was a StarOffice port for MacOS, but that was a long time ago.
If you got one of the very first Power Macs, actually, the System Software CD came with a bunch of software demos. One of these was for StarOffice, which (incidentally) was the first PowerPC-native word processor (you only got StarWriter; I don't know what happened to the rest of it).
It was fully payware on the Mac side, unfortunately; no "free for non-commercial use." And the word processor alone was $200. And I suppose I should point out that it was never all that stable, and the interface wasn't that great. That's probably why it never caught on with Macs. In the end, StarDivision stopped developing their MacOS port (after version 3.0 if I'm not mistaken). It's good to see them coming back to the Mac again. Though I'd be happier if there were a LinuxPPC port too.
The privacy violations implicit in micropayment systems are certainly bad. However, I am forced to admit that it would be nice if everyone on the Net adhered to some basic etiquette, which could be enforced.
A "Net licensing" scheme wouldn't have to necessarily involve privacy violations, however. Granted, stripping identifying festures from a license (reducing it, in essence, to a certificate stating that someone has completed an etiquette course) would reduce the effectiveness of the license and eliminate the accountability issue.
It all comes down to trade-offs, I suppose. If you want security, you have to sacrifice some privacy (simply because all known methods of security are traceable to at least some degree; the contents may be hidden but the participants are not). It comes down to where you're willing to draw the line. Personally, I don't like the idea of an identifying Net license. I can't ignore the potential benefits of such a system, though. I'm just not willing to pay the price for those benefits.
Welcome to the premiere issue of Flamebait Critique Weekly. This series of posts seeks to critique and satirize one selected piece of flamebait each week (or whatever other time period passes by before another particularly spectacular example appears). In this issue, we cover a piece by prolific flamebait writer A. Coward. This particular work seems to concern the values of one Christian zealot, when faced with a joke he (or she; A. Coward's gender is unclear at this point) does not seem to understand. Sadly, the piece is quite weak. Let us examine it further...
At first glance, it seems shocking: This person (and I use the term in a spirit of far greater generosity than it could possibly deserve) brags about practicing cannibalism.
Weak introduction. It doesn't quite mesh with the title, which has nothing to do with cannibalism. Are we reading a piece on liberals or cannbals? In addition, this entire paragraph consists of a single run-on sentence, with no thesis. I suggest heavy revision in the next draft.
But then when one really thinks about it, it's only natural. Those who reject God have, in so doing, rejected the only valid basis for morality in the world.
"It" is overused in the first sentence: twice adjacently. It hurts the flow. My suggestion is to replace the second "it" (which is in a contraction, a formal literary no-no) with "this is." It is wordier, but helps the flow of the piece.
The second sentence (which contains two unnecessary commas) is the first of several fallacies: it makes a statement without backing it up with any quotations or other pertinent data. Why have they rejected the only valid basis for morality? More to the point, why is this the only valid basis for morality? We have no data.
Also, between these two sentences, we have a change in tense from the present to the present perfect. This should be avoided in future revisions, or at least arranged such that tense is consistent within paragraphs.
They have become totally amoral - not immoral, but amoral. They are not even capable of conceiving of "right" and "wrong". "It's all relative!", they cry.
Pronouns without antecedents. Who are "they"? What is this "it" which "they" claim is "all relative"?
If there's no right and wrong, why not engage in cannibalism?
Grammatical error: it should be "if there are no right and wrong" or "is there is no right or wrong."
One need only take a brief look around the world at the barbaric behavior of those who practice anti-God "religions" (e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Communism, etc.) to get a clear idea of where this increasingly atheistic nation is headed.
First, a factual error. Communism is not a religion, and has never so much as claimed to be. Quite the opposite, if the truth be known.
Also, "anti-God 'religions' " is an oxymoron, as it violates the definition of a religion as the worship of one or more dieties or other higher powers. Furthermore, in the case of polytheistic religions we have the question as to which god these religions stand against. Perhaps a more honest answer would be "non-Christian religions." This answer would also be more honest with the reader, as this is piece is clearly meant to be read as though written by a Christian zealot.
Just in case you're a little slow (Liberals usually have subnormal mentalities), here it is, in plain and unmistakable terms:
Stalin killed thirty or forty million people.
Stalin was an atheist.
You figure it out.
First, we have another run-on sentence. Second, we have inaccurate statistics: "thirty or forty million" should be replaced with a more accurate number. Third, there is a logical fallacy: the author sees a coincidence and assumes causality. How did the face that Stalin was an atheist cause him to kill "thirty or forty million" people? Could something else have caused this, such as Stalin's insanity? Without data to back this, we have no idea as to these propositions. Please provide more data in the future.
The only truly endangered species on Earth today is the Human Race.
"Human race" is not a proper noun, and not the first word of the sentence, and therefore capitalization is inappropriate.
The time has come to defend ourselves. We have not only morality but God Himself on our side.
Here, I begin to suspect plagiarism. This same statement has appeared on countless pieces of Ku Klux Klan literature. Similar statements have appeared on literature from the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Army of God, the Irish Republican Army, and other groups of religious zealots. Proper referencing is essential to good writing.
The poor dumb Liberals (atheists, Canadians, Buddhists, etc.) have nothing to sustain them but their own howling insanity and sick hate.
There should be a comma between "poor" and "dumb." "Liberals" should not be capitalized. Furthermore, the items in the list (which we can assume to be a list of "poor dumb Liberals") are mismatched: a philosophy, a nationality, and a religion. There is also no proof of insanity or hatred. For that matter, adverbial phrases are misused; insanity cannot howl, not can hatred become ill.
WE WILL PREVAIL.
Capitals are again used inappropriately. Boldface is appropriate, as it denotes emphasis. However, the quote is "We shall prevail" and again proper referencing is not used (in this case, to George Orwell's 1984.)
Millennium's Rating: 0.25 stars (out of 5).
Pros: No spelling errors whatsoever found by this reviewer.
Cons: Weak introduction, numerous grammatical errors, lack of data to back up assertions, misquoting of famous literature, and suspected plagiarism.
The Final Word: Not worth the read. Send it back for a few more revisions.
Well, consider that Cernobyl's meltdown could have been prevented, were it not for the fact that Chernobyl's safety mechanisms and procedures made most other nuclear reactor workers cringe even then. If they've improved since then, which I'm sure they have (even the most scatterbrained comittee of politicians, pointy-haired bosses, and Windows zealots couldn't possibly be that stupid), then more power to the Ukranians (no pun intended).
All the same, I think I'll wait a few years to see how this thing runs before I go to the Ukraine...
This is what I'd do. You already planned to make the source available via FTP; this is a Good Thing. Now, you'll have to include a slip of paper with your products that states "To get the source code to this program, go to ftp://whatever.your.server.is and download via anonymous FTP" or whatever scheme you plan to use."
That should be enough. You do have to make the source freely available, but that should not be a problem at this point.
I can think of a couple of reasons to do this, actually...
1) Gauging interest in the Linux community. If they sell a Windows/Linux hybrid box, the sales will probably be considered as Windows for statistical reasons (it's just the way the statistical agencies do it; it sucks, but that's how it is). It's a lot easier to keep track of downloads than sales, particularly in this case.
2) This one may actually be more exciting: port potential. Remember that Linux has ports to many architectures. Now that Glide's gone Open-Source, there's potential that it, and subsequently UT, could theoretically be ported to many different architectures. Now, unless you encode the installer in Perl or something (which I very much doubt they would do) you have to make an installer AND executable for each architecture (you have to make the executable regardless). That can add up rather quickly, particularly if there will be many ports. You can't rely on RPM or any other package manager either, since different distros have different systems; your other alternative is to use one of each (which takes up even more space) or write your own installer from scratch which would run on everything. Consider also that the UT media is going to take up almost all of the CD. It makes no sense to have a whole CD just for Linux installers, when you can have them downloadable.
These are just thoughts; the second one in particular isn't all that probable but it's a possibility. It's something to consider, at any rate.
Personally, I'm not as happy about the fact that it's Open-Source. That was inevitable; it's a Good Thing, but hey, it was coming. What I'm happy about is that this can now be ported to other architectures (last I checked, PPC, Sparc, and Alpha didn't seem to have any 3D acceleration yet; I know PPC doesn't).
:)
Dammit; I keep trying to resist the urge to buy a Voodoo3 instead of waiting for V4, and then something like this has to come along and tempt me again. I suppose I'll be able to hold out till the PPC port is working. Here's hoping that's not till after the V4 is out
I hope the future's bright for Helix. Admittedly, I'm not certain that he'll be able to support the company completely on support contracts (I'm more in favor of the consulting approach; charcing to write entirely new OSS or add major features to existing OSS). But I wish them the best anyway
I think there's a reason that it's called an operating system. It's more than just one thing. An OS, as I see it, has three tasks to fulfill. It is a mediator between the hardware, the other software, and the user.
As such, an OS has three parts to it. The drivers deal with the hardware. The kernel deals with the software. And lastly, the interfaces deal with the user.
To my mind, something is part if the operating system if, by removing it, the machine becomes unusable. Remove the drivers, and your machine won't boot. I'd certainly love to see someone here boot Linux without a kernel. And if you remove X and all of the shells, the OS is still unusable.
Where does Linux fit in? I don't see the kernel as a total operating system. I see Linux itself as highly modular, where interfaces, kernels, and even drivers can be mixed and matched almost at will. But it still takes all three, at least in some form or another, to truly make an OS. It's a system in the truest sense of the word: many programs combine to handle mediation tasks, rather than one large program (as with MacOS or PalmOS or WinCE).
Of all the... If I went there, I'd leave that school.
I go to your classes. I've paid to go to your classes, in fact. And once I've been there, the knowledge I've gained is mine . It is unique to me; the student next to me did not get exactly the same knowledge, nor the one two rows back. Even the professor's knowledge isn't the same as mine is; probably because the professor was unable to go through all of the material but possibly because I had some unique insight.
My mind and my knowledge belong to exactly one person: me. No one, not sniveling corrupt professors, not hardcore drug dealers, not tyrannical governments or administrations, will ever take it from me; I would rather die before I allow that. And if I decide to share my knowledge for free, though I may have paid to gain it, tough luck for anyone who's deluded enough to think they have a claim on what I know.
That's just it. The combination of phonemes in "LEEN-ooks" occurs so rarely in English that it's rather awkward for a native English-speaker to say. The correct paraphrase is, if I'm not mistaken, "LINN-ucks," therefore both pronunciations are linguistically correct, given the differences in language. "LINE-ucks" is still way out there.
Nope, Linux Torvalds isn't pronounced like Linux on Peanuts. It's the Peanuts pronunciation which gave rise to the myth that it is pronounced "LINE-ux."
Consider, by the way, that "Linux" is actually a dual pun. It plays both on Linus' name and Minix, the OS which inspired Linux. Minix is pronounced with a short i (like the first i in"mini"). Linus, as least in the context of Torvalds' first name, is also pronounced in this way. Therefore, why would Linux not also be pronounced with the same short i as both of its linguistic predecessors? Particularly since Linus himself pronounces it the same way he pronounces his name.
As far as I'm concerned, the person who gave the OS its name gets to pick how it's correctly pronounced. But let's not get into a holy war over this.
Last I checked, the military prefers a three-pronged approach to verification. Simply put, you're verified by who you are, what you have, and what you know. In computer terms, this translates to:
Who you are - a biometric of some kind, usually fingerprints
What you have - a token of some kind, usually a smart card.
What you know - a passphrase
Unless all three pass, the login doesn't work. At the same time, I'm not sure you need quite that level of security. But it's something to consider.
Although this seems to make me an unusual Slashdotter, I actually liked Radio Shack. Yeah, their prices were often a bit high, but they had stuff I never managed to find anywhere else. Honestly, I challenge anyone here to give me the name of a store as widespread as RS that carries all the same stuff.
Now, Microsoft's ripping Apple off yet again (this deal looks disturbingly similar to Apple's Stores-Within-A-Store at CompUSA, Fry's, and Micro Center). It'll be interesting to see how they do this one.
You missed the point of Question 11 entirely. And I do mean, entirely.
As I said, all the world's knowledge is at your fingertips. Not only that, but it's at the fingertips of everyone else in your situation, and you can communicate with all of them. The free exchange if information is the key to a popular uprising which would finally throw off the oppression mentioned earlier in the question.
That test wasn't about helping others with technology. It was about showing that in the end, the key to justice is knowledge and the free exchange thereof. In the end, if you carry the question further, those devices would make a revolution possible, but the people would be the ones to carry it out. No foreign troops necessary.
You don't get it. The question wasn't meant to make people feel guilty because they had technology. It's about showing them the greatest possible use of that technology: justice.
I didn't say the Chinese people thought their government was protecting the people's best interest. That isn't even important (especially not to the Chinese government); what matters is what the people in the government think about it, and the most hard-line (and even more than a few of the moderates) are likely to believe this. Remember that in any political arena, most people do have at least some genuine belief in their platform.
Geez; I did some bad wors choices this time (I'm rather surprised it didn't cost me any Karma as of yet).
Yep, you're right; China's government seems to have little regard for human rights, if indeed it has any at all. The last time I read the GPL, however, it didn't seem to cover anything about what people generally consider to be human rights. And the Chinese government seems to agree with the GPL on those issues which the GPL covers. Therefore, I seriously doubt that China will attempt to undermine the GPL; governments don't tend to hurt stuff they like (unless they don't already have it, in which case they'll go so far as to destroy it while trying to obtain it, but that's not the situation here).
I didn't say it was doing a good job of keeping its image up. You forget, the Chinese government doesn't percieve itself as we see it. I abhor what they do as much as you do.
But the fact remains, they see themselves as great protectors of the people (never mind that it's not really true; they have nothing to act on but their own perception of reality, however twisted). The GPL is likewise meant as a protector of the people, something the Chinese government appears to recognize. Since the two seem to agree at least on the issues which the GPL covers, I don't think China will attempt to undermine it.
You know what's even worse about that report? The title. What on Earth posessed someone to name it "Project Megiddo"?
If you're doing a project to combat violence by extremist apocalyptic religions, the LAST thing you want to do is give it a name which references any kind of apocalyptic scripture at all. That'll just get them even more frenzied ("See? Megiddo! It's happenning!") Were they trying to mock these religions? That would just piss them off more.
The world would be a lot better place if more people gave their actions just a little bit of thought before acting them out. Geez...
I doubt it. Say what you will about the Chinese government, but they aren't stupid. They wouldn't dare do something like that concerning an OS which supposedly goes along with their own ethos so well.
Whatever top-secret security-related stuff they do will probably be implemented as applications and/or daemons, separate from the OS, for precisely that reason. They do have an image to uphold, and violating the license of an OS which they've embraced as following their own ideals is rather counterproductive for that image.
Does it do 3D, though? I know it does 2D; all of the current drivers for LinPPC do. But I don't know of any that accelerates 3D yet.