Umm, what good is a ROM you can't read? Isn't that what the R stands for? And the O stands for Only, so if you can't even do that, you can't do anything with it!
Forgive me if this is a stupid question. I'm a programmer, and you're talking about hardware...
You can patent an algorithm, in the united states at least, but it's expensive and time consuming, and too late in this case.
Umm, why is it too late? Actually, I think it would be too late in the case of international patents, but for a U.S. patent you can file up to a year after you begin selling the product (or giving it away in this case), or at least that's what I was recently told by someone researching our company's options with regards to a certain product. The decision was made to screw the international crap and go ahead and start selling it, even though the patents were still being worked on.
Not that it mattered. I was happy (being I oppose patents) to discover prior art while crusing the web one day. The CEO was less than happy with the news my email brought, but happy to save the money that would have been wasted filing for an indefensible patent. (By the way, do you people know how much money attorneys want for patent consultation?! Trust me, you don't want to know...)
Only one who is of the theological mind set ever bothers to capitalize the "T" in truth.
Actually, I've frequently seen this used as a short-hand way to distingush necessary truths from contingent truths. (It's necessarily true that pi rounded to 3 significant digits is 3.14 -- it just couldn't be any other way. It's contingently true that I have no brother -- I don't, but I could have had things been different. Of course, if you're a determinist, there are no contingent truths, but then if you're a determinist you're probably not into 20th century physics and are therefore not reading this article...)
Of course the Bible didn't cover those things, it was written thousands of years ago! What kind of fool do you take me for? But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
I believe the oil level in my car is sufficient, but I don't consider it a waste of effort to check it the dipstick anyways.
It should be noted that religions claim to report the truth, and science is a means of testing propositions for their truthfulness. Now, there are many religions, and they are contradictory, so only one (if any) is likely to pass this test.
Thus, whatever religion is the True Religion has a great deal to gain from scientific exploration. However, false religions have a great deal to lose.
Thus, we have an effective litmus test for the validity of any religion. A true religion will promote science at every available oportunity. Only a false religion would develop an adversarial relationship with science. Only worshipers of a false religion will consider science a waste of time and effort...
Conspiracy theorists in the audience might say that this is an attempt to run LEP just a little bit longer before ripping it out for the LHC.
Only really really stupid conspiracy theorists. Think about it, either (A) the physicists genuinely believe they've seen Higgs bosons, or (B) the physicists don't think they've seen Higgs bosons and this is just an excuse to keep the LEP running.
Now, what the scientists want to be is the people who discovered the Higgs boson If the scientists did not believe they're seeing Higgs bosons (i.e. assuming B is true), what would be their desire? They would want to rip out the LEP and replace it with the LHC as fast as possible, since the LHC is supposed to be able to see Higgs bosons whereas the LEP (according to their beliefs under this scenario) can't! Thus, their actions, attempting to DELAY the ripping out of the LEP rather than trying to speed along pretty much proves (B) is false. (A) is the only plausible explanation for their attempts to delay ripping out the LEP.
Which doesn't mean they've actually discovered Higgs boson, it simply means they're sincere in their beliefs and this is not a conspiracy.
(...or it's a far, far more convoluted conspiracy.:)
Naw, not full-fledged virtual machines, but we would have seen standards for writing BIOS independent code just as under today's operating systems we write hardware independent code. Now, it's the job of the OS to talk to the hardware. Under the scenario you suggest, it's job would just be expanded a bit to include translating OS calls into odd-BIOS-specific calls. Of course, it'd have no effect at all on OS's that simply ignore the BIOS entirely...
The problem is that those are the exact terms those of the Cult of the Most Holy GNU use when talking about software. If you do not wish to be taken for a cultist, don't talk like one.
Telling people how they should or shouldn't talk is cult-like behavior. Also, using new, invented terms to either glorify or ridicule something (such as refering to the GPL as the GPV rather than simply as the GPL) is common religious nut practice. I find it vaguely amusing that the only person in this discussion talking like a cultist is the one accusing other people of it.
After I finish configuring a system, netstat -a --inet (from root, of course) usually gives me this:
tcp 0 0 *:ssh *:* LISTEN
raw 0 0 *:icmp *:* 7
raw 0 0 *:tcp *:* 7
As you can see, pretty much nothing needs to be left enabled. I'm of the firm opinion that if you don't recognize it, all the more reason you should be disabling it.:)
On the flip side, on that same thread was a post by someone who complained that he hand-updated a number of packages on his system because it takes too bloody long for things to get into unstable. So, for some, unstable is too unstable, for others, it's not bleeding edge enough. Just goes to show you can't please everyone...
It takes a while to grok dselect, but once you grok dselect, you have a hard time putting up with the vastly inferior alternatives (both within Debian and in other distros)...
In fact this idea could end up harming the project
The project is dead in the water! How can any new development harm it further?
if an inept project manager refuses to step down as the official leader of the project, if and when a more suitable project manager comes along.
I fail to see how this can be a problem for an open source project. If a better project manager comes along, nothing stops him from leading development (it's not like he doesn't have access to the source code or anything). If he truly is better, and the other manager truly is inept, guess how long people are going to continue working with the inept guy?
Let me see if I understand your position correctly. Because there's the possibility that the people reviving a dead project might not maintain it as well as it could be maintained, it's better for the project to leave it unmaintained. Where's the benefit in that! Even if the new maintainer is inept, at least the project gets some exposure, making it more likely to be noticed and adopted by competent people.
A project can die for many reasons, and it's odds of being picked up by someone else have less to do with how good of a project it is than with how much exposure it got. If the original team were not "glory hunters", the project may simply have escaped notice by many people. Especially in early phases, good coders don't spend much time on marketting, and other good coders aren't attracted by the smell of good code alone. They need to know the project exists before they can get excited about it.
The fact that some projects aren't worth picking up and some people aren't going to be good maintainers is a pretty silly reason to call this a bad idea. Unless you can confidently state both of those some's should be all's, your arguments are simply invalid.
Better organized? UFO looks like you'd never find anything in it if it actually managed to get a decent number of projects listed. At least this new site divides things into categories so you can go looking for Internet software or Games or whatever...
I had a roommate who would regularly turn off the VCR, causing the picture on the TV to go black, and then walk away without realizing the TV was still on. He looked at me like I was nuts when I'd come in and turn off the TV, complaining about the loud, obnoxious whine televisions all emit while in operation (or at least all the ones I've ever seen). But it's been a few years since I had a monitor that bothered me (currently using a 19" AOC). Is this because of the higher frequency of computer monitors vs. televisions? Anyone know? I use a TV-card in my PC for my TV watching. I've never owned an actual television...
This is false for any decent encryption algorithm. I wouldn't consider for an instant using one where this is true. For any decent crypto, if you give someone both the plain text and the ciphertext, it's STILL infeasible for them to determine the key.
This is not true. More mathematical cryptosystems can be proven to be as secure as some difficult math problem (factoring, discrete log, etc.). Umm, how does your statement show ahto's statement to be untrue? ahto says "an algorithm cannot be proven secure", to which you respond by saying it can be proven to be as secure as something else that can't be proven to be secure. We don't know that tomorrow some bright mathematician isn't going to discover a quick, easy shortcut for factoring, discrete log, or whatever. You statement is perfectly true, but it in no way contradicts ahto's also perfectly true statement.
Agreed. My company recently needed to solve a tricky problem about how to securely transmit data in an environment where information received had to be acted upon immediately but there was no guarentee it would be received in the same order it was sent (thus ruling out cipher block chaining) but the data had a great deal of predictability and repetativeness to it (thus ruling out electronic code book mode). We called in a CSci Ph.D. from the local university who happens to know a lot about the subject. He helped develop a secure way to handle the problem and researched it to see what other solutions people had come up with in similar circumstances. It worked out beautifully, and it was a lot of fun working with one of my old professors.:)
By pointing out they port to MacOS? If the size of the MacOS user base warrants a MacOS port, then the reason for no Linux port can't be because the user base is too small. I suspect it's more like they expect more piracy from Linux users than Mac users...
Why are huge downloads necessary if you are just upgrading? Do I have to get on a bunch of mailin lists to figure out what is new and hunt down those files myself?
Err, is there something wrong with the "ls" command? Mandrake RPMs are named in such a way as to make it rather obvious which ones on 7.1 are newer than the ones from 7.0.
Not that this will help you avoid huge downloads. I believe nearly all of the 925MB worth of RPMs in Mandrake 7.1 are either brand new or newer versions than 7.0.
How would you suggest they make it easier to keep current?
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Re:I Suspect they Ripped off a BSD
on
AtheOS
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· Score: 1
Well, if they ripped off FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD, it can't be GPL'd.
Why not? Unlike the GPL, there's nothing in the BSD license that prevents you from licensing derivative works under a different license, even a proprietary one! This is the whole point BSD-advocates harp on all the time, that their license lacks the viral nature of the GPL. If what you're saying is true, then the BSD-advocates have been lying...
I wouldn't drive your supercar if it meant I couldn't look under the hood. Similarly, I wouldn't trust a computer system if I couldn't pick it apart. I agree with you on the first point of your so-called argument. The amount of service a machine needs should be variable dependent on the user. However, on your second point, you fall flat on your face.
Actually, I think you fail to make your point here. There's a difference between not having to look under the hood and not being able to look under the hood. The first is great, and the goal of MacOS. The second is terrible, and is not now nor ever was true of MacOS. Although there are plenty of idiots, who upon being confronted with the amount of knowledge required to look under the hood and poke around, declare it's a failing of the OS and not themselves. As an old Mac hacker, I have no patience or sympathy for these people...
Slashdot Mirror
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Forgive me if this is a stupid question. I'm a programmer, and you're talking about hardware...
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Umm, why is it too late? Actually, I think it would be too late in the case of international patents, but for a U.S. patent you can file up to a year after you begin selling the product (or giving it away in this case), or at least that's what I was recently told by someone researching our company's options with regards to a certain product. The decision was made to screw the international crap and go ahead and start selling it, even though the patents were still being worked on.
Not that it mattered. I was happy (being I oppose patents) to discover prior art while crusing the web one day. The CEO was less than happy with the news my email brought, but happy to save the money that would have been wasted filing for an indefensible patent. (By the way, do you people know how much money attorneys want for patent consultation?! Trust me, you don't want to know...)
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Actually, I've frequently seen this used as a short-hand way to distingush necessary truths from contingent truths. (It's necessarily true that pi rounded to 3 significant digits is 3.14 -- it just couldn't be any other way. It's contingently true that I have no brother -- I don't, but I could have had things been different. Of course, if you're a determinist, there are no contingent truths, but then if you're a determinist you're probably not into 20th century physics and are therefore not reading this article...)
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I believe the oil level in my car is sufficient, but I don't consider it a waste of effort to check it the dipstick anyways.
It should be noted that religions claim to report the truth, and science is a means of testing propositions for their truthfulness. Now, there are many religions, and they are contradictory, so only one (if any) is likely to pass this test.
Thus, whatever religion is the True Religion has a great deal to gain from scientific exploration. However, false religions have a great deal to lose.
Thus, we have an effective litmus test for the validity of any religion. A true religion will promote science at every available oportunity. Only a false religion would develop an adversarial relationship with science. Only worshipers of a false religion will consider science a waste of time and effort...
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Only really really stupid conspiracy theorists. Think about it, either (A) the physicists genuinely believe they've seen Higgs bosons, or (B) the physicists don't think they've seen Higgs bosons and this is just an excuse to keep the LEP running.
Now, what the scientists want to be is the people who discovered the Higgs boson If the scientists did not believe they're seeing Higgs bosons (i.e. assuming B is true), what would be their desire? They would want to rip out the LEP and replace it with the LHC as fast as possible, since the LHC is supposed to be able to see Higgs bosons whereas the LEP (according to their beliefs under this scenario) can't! Thus, their actions, attempting to DELAY the ripping out of the LEP rather than trying to speed along pretty much proves (B) is false. (A) is the only plausible explanation for their attempts to delay ripping out the LEP.
Which doesn't mean they've actually discovered Higgs boson, it simply means they're sincere in their beliefs and this is not a conspiracy.
(...or it's a far, far more convoluted conspiracy. :)
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That certainly makes things easier. But that's not always the best goal...
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Telling people how they should or shouldn't talk is cult-like behavior. Also, using new, invented terms to either glorify or ridicule something (such as refering to the GPL as the GPV rather than simply as the GPL) is common religious nut practice. I find it vaguely amusing that the only person in this discussion talking like a cultist is the one accusing other people of it.
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tcp 0 0 *:ssh *:* LISTEN
raw 0 0 *:icmp *:* 7
raw 0 0 *:tcp *:* 7
As you can see, pretty much nothing needs to be left enabled. I'm of the firm opinion that if you don't recognize it, all the more reason you should be disabling it. :)
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The project is dead in the water! How can any new development harm it further?
if an inept project manager refuses to step down as the official leader of the project, if and when a more suitable project manager comes along.
I fail to see how this can be a problem for an open source project. If a better project manager comes along, nothing stops him from leading development (it's not like he doesn't have access to the source code or anything). If he truly is better, and the other manager truly is inept, guess how long people are going to continue working with the inept guy?
Let me see if I understand your position correctly. Because there's the possibility that the people reviving a dead project might not maintain it as well as it could be maintained, it's better for the project to leave it unmaintained. Where's the benefit in that! Even if the new maintainer is inept, at least the project gets some exposure, making it more likely to be noticed and adopted by competent people.
A project can die for many reasons, and it's odds of being picked up by someone else have less to do with how good of a project it is than with how much exposure it got. If the original team were not "glory hunters", the project may simply have escaped notice by many people. Especially in early phases, good coders don't spend much time on marketting, and other good coders aren't attracted by the smell of good code alone. They need to know the project exists before they can get excited about it.
The fact that some projects aren't worth picking up and some people aren't going to be good maintainers is a pretty silly reason to call this a bad idea. Unless you can confidently state both of those some's should be all's, your arguments are simply invalid.
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This is false for any decent encryption algorithm. I wouldn't consider for an instant using one where this is true. For any decent crypto, if you give someone both the plain text and the ciphertext, it's STILL infeasible for them to determine the key.
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This is not true. More mathematical cryptosystems can be proven to be as secure as some difficult math problem (factoring, discrete log, etc.). Umm, how does your statement show ahto's statement to be untrue? ahto says "an algorithm cannot be proven secure", to which you respond by saying it can be proven to be as secure as something else that can't be proven to be secure. We don't know that tomorrow some bright mathematician isn't going to discover a quick, easy shortcut for factoring, discrete log, or whatever. You statement is perfectly true, but it in no way contradicts ahto's also perfectly true statement.
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By pointing out they port to MacOS? If the size of the MacOS user base warrants a MacOS port, then the reason for no Linux port can't be because the user base is too small. I suspect it's more like they expect more piracy from Linux users than Mac users...
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I tried explaining them to my cat, but she just looked at me like I'm on drugs or something...
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Err, is there something wrong with the "ls" command? Mandrake RPMs are named in such a way as to make it rather obvious which ones on 7.1 are newer than the ones from 7.0.
Not that this will help you avoid huge downloads. I believe nearly all of the 925MB worth of RPMs in Mandrake 7.1 are either brand new or newer versions than 7.0.
How would you suggest they make it easier to keep current?
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Why not? Unlike the GPL, there's nothing in the BSD license that prevents you from licensing derivative works under a different license, even a proprietary one! This is the whole point BSD-advocates harp on all the time, that their license lacks the viral nature of the GPL. If what you're saying is true, then the BSD-advocates have been lying...
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Actually, I think you fail to make your point here. There's a difference between not having to look under the hood and not being able to look under the hood. The first is great, and the goal of MacOS. The second is terrible, and is not now nor ever was true of MacOS. Although there are plenty of idiots, who upon being confronted with the amount of knowledge required to look under the hood and poke around, declare it's a failing of the OS and not themselves. As an old Mac hacker, I have no patience or sympathy for these people...
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