I'm honestly not sure what to think here, but do I have a right to my voice?
Let's say someone wanted to make me say something in direct contradiction to my normal views, then publish that. Now, I don't consider myself famous enough for this to be a problem;-) but the possibilities are obvious. The technical liberal in me says that this is fine. The, erm, other part of me says that this could cause some serious problems and harm for people, so shouldn't be allowed. Which do people think here?
The flipside for law enforcement is perhaps even more scary. What if I published a recording, generated in this way, of (for example) Gary Condit (sp?) confessing to having killed Chandra Levy (again, sp?)? For a parallel (and I never thought I'd cite Lois & Clarke... Promise I'm not a fan, my sister used to watch it over meals so we all had to, I have a weird memory, honest really...) the episode where a photographer produces a pre-wedding image of them in bed which could have been taken properly but was actually faked due to a lost film.
This has been coming for years, I know, but it's still a nasty big can of worms.
Or, to put it another way, that you're talking about the total governmental spend in the USA - whereas our friend is talking about the spend of the US Government.
But why should people have to understand all sorts of things before they can even use the OS?
Computers have to be usable to all. OK, they're never going to be as easy to use as a toaster but if they're significantly more complex in day-to-day operations than VCRs or washing machines, people begin to get confused and scared.
Much of the problem with Linux is the belief amongst much of the community that people should require a basic education and understanding to use computers. Much of what has helped Windows (alright, it hasn't needed much for some time) is that it made computing a no-brainer. Of course it works quickly and simply with Windows. It hasn't done it that well, but it has done it.
Look at other OSs. There are certainly good OSs which are accessible to users. MacOS X, BeOS, EPOC, AmigaOS or OS/2 in their days.
Until there's a recognition that good computing doesn't have to be difficult computing, Linux isn't going anywhere.
OK, can't find information elsewhere and this is _nearly_ on-topic:-)
I've just been presented with an ancient computer, which I'm thinking of extremely gentle uses for. At the moment it'll probably get used to take printer load off a desktop or two, which it should manage well enough.
Anyway. Looking at where it's going to be dumped, I'll be happier if it doesn't have to have a monitor, keyboard or anything like that. So, if VNC will run it's rather useful.
We're currently looking at a P120 running Windows 95 (original) with 16MB and 600MBish free drive space. Oi, no laughing! Yes, it might be getting more RAM and a bigger HDD if we can come up with a strong enough motivation and find some SIMMs... I don't mind turning it down to 640*480 @ 16 colours, I don't care if it'll be slow because I'll hardly ever use it. It would be running over 100Mb ethernet so bandwidth isn't a problem.
But would it work at all? Honestly, I can't find this sort of information at the moment!
Don't know whether the first series has been shown outside the UK - the one with the same teams throughout and only the experts different - but in that, when they made hovercrafts, one never made it.
There has been at least that one total failure, as well as the merely embarrassingly poor like the rugby ball cannon or the gun which shot its own barrel, or the boat with outriggers on one side only which sank at the first bend...
Y'know, I honestly can't see why so many people buy iPaqs. They're bigger and more expensive than Psion 5s, have a lower resolution screen and you're stuck with inputting the data by pen. On my Psion, I can type with almost the speed and accuracy I manage on a normal PC...
Are that many people really prepared to pay more to lose so much and only gain a colour screen?
This makes me really sad. I _love_ my Psion 5 - it's fast enough, light enough, runs for plenty of time on the batteries. Epoc Office is really rather good, that keyboard is amazing and I'll never understand how they've made something that small that good.
It's absolutely leagues ahead of my old Palm III and I can't see myself ever going back to a PalmOS machine. That thing really felt like a toy, wasn't as well made by a mile and had far more basic software. The screen was too small to use for anything intensive and Graffiti was just inaccurate.
Sadly, this leaves me without a decent alternative.
I _want_ a machine with a keyboard, it's just better. No, a Palm keyboard isn't good enough. If I get an HP Jornada it's bigger, heavier and ludicrously expensive. I mean, I could get a Psion Series 7 for less! Look at them and you see instantly why people think Palms are a good thing
I can't use Amigas (well, Amigas with another 7 years of development ideally...) at home, soon I won't be able to use Psions on the move. Why do the good ones die young?
"Patriots" are always free to do that sort of thing - this, though, made sure they had someone getting regular updates from particular people. Memory says they were paid but I'm not 100% certain.
In case anyone wants to do any research, they were known as 'Blockleiters' in German.
Picking my words here carefully to avoid the wrath of Godwin;-)
Late '30s Germany had a system called 'Blockwardens'. Essentially, they littered the area with party supporters who were under instruction (and paid) to mention pretty much everything that people were saying and doing to area handlers. Stub your toe and cry out in anguish against the government and you would be reported if they heard.
They were totally anonymous.
Net result, you had no way of knowing where or when you could say something possibly irritating to the government - anyone could be the blockwarden and so could get you in to trouble. About as close to a thought police as you can get.
I honestly don't know anything substantial about Chinese politics or society - but, with this sort of system, you can shut off dissent very effectively. If you can't discuss you can't organise. If you can't organise then how can you get any movement of opposition going? The net might be able to help a little (still very vulnerable, though) but how many Chinese have unfiltered net access?
This message is (sadly) posted in IE5 - which, let's be honest, sucks, but I'm stuck in Windows and NS4.7 is just painful.
I would love to try Mozilla - except that I have a really, really large back archive of mail in Netscape Messenger which I can't afford to lose. I can't find an answer anywhere, so does anyone know if I can run NS4.7x and Moz 0.9x in parallel under the same OS install without causing problems?
As I recall, Energis route perfectly ordinary cables alongside on the pylons, working on the grounds that they had space and that that was cheaper than putting up their own poles and digging their own trenches.
Different cables, though - they're not running over the same wires as the national high voltage grid.
I suppose the question is exactly how an FPS is defined here. I certainly remember Doom and Descent being compared.
If you're requiring that you simulate a view from a person nominally running around an arena then it clearly misses. I would suggest it only truly requires a shoot-em-up game where it sits as a first-person view in a 3D world of some form, on which grounds Descent qualifies admirably. But yes, it's largely a different gaming paradigm so I can understand why it's sometimes forgotten.
Oh, BTW, I found it almost unplayable until I got a Cyborg 3D. With a decent stick it's actually pretty simple, it's just that it doesn't work well with a keybaord and mouse.
I know slashdot's located in the States and all but still, it's in the worldwide domain, it's certainly reported when european politics have affected IT and the times get displayed in your selected timezone. It's used to recognising that there is a world outside of the US.
So, why is this being remarked on, given that the EU has a higher population than the USA? It might have been a good idea to stick a server or two elsewhere - but it's not exactly unknown to see the reverse.
If they had a need for one of those massive S/36s, they're likely to have been in a relativley large complex. At which point it's perfectly possible that the limiting factor was a temporary partition wall of some kind which had been built around the machine, and which the landlord was entirely happy to move within his own building but which would have been against the terms of their lease for them to touch.
Firstly, you really think that BSD source could just be dropped into Windows with its totally different internal architecture?
Secondly, free coding for Microsoft implies that you wouldn't be getting anything more than satisfaction out of it. Even if somone does use your source, though, the community still has it! A major argument against limiting software distribution seems to be that it's creating artificial scarcity - well, you'd only lose that code if there was real scarcity. There isn't.
Thirdly, I don't care. If I help a fellow programmer then I'm pleased. Heck, I spent _ages_ trawling code archives earlier today to find some odd function and it's the same principle here. I want to help others... If I help improve the experience of normal users through my code, same again.
I'm _not_ an open source zealot. I'm happy that closed source can have its place and people can have their reasons for choosing it.
But, I've long thought that any open source projects I released would be, unquestionably, BSD licensed.
I know and understand why people like the GPL. I can see the point, I merely disagree with it.
Write and release code under BSD and you have a library of code that your fellow coders can, basically, do what they want with. Don't have to worry about the law or the politics of it, they can just grab the source and work with it. This is a fantastic attitidue which I applaud from the rooftops.
Yes, if the someone wants to they can take this code and release a subsequent version under a restricted license. Know what? I don't care. The original is there and free for everyone to use. Can't put that genie back in that bottle.
There was a lovely comment I saw years ago. I forget the author... To paraphrase, "A good coder writes good code. A great coder borrows and adapts good code." BSD makes this truly, universally possible and I applaud it.
When and where I release code under an open license, I have every intention of placing every last chunk under a BSD-style license with a real, evangelistic zeal.
This then begs the question of what would be better.
Hypothetically, User #267435 is looking for a new boyfriend via the internet. She wishes to find a male user of internet discussion forums who enjoys neither computer games or pornography.
I'd want to see exactly what IBM Research are doing here, but no.
IBM are a company who are well used to the power a monopoly gives. They've had one and created another. They know they could crush a market with this.
But they're being friendly. They'll still get their payback, it'll be some time before the rest of the world figures out how to make drives this way and equips for it. While that's happening, they have a lead.
Crushing markets harms competition and harms the economy as a whole. By forcing up prices (inevitable result of the damaged market) they'd reduce computer sales as a whole which doesn't help them at all. Plus, they saw what happened to them last time they got too big and don't want that again.
Patent rules sort of fall down with large entities like IBM. If Greg's HDs limited (for example;-) had developed this, I'd have no problem with them using it to get a serious advantage. It'd be one thing they'd be able to use to establish themselves in a market, as with Dyson and the vacuum cleaners.
IBM are already well established and could do serious harm by enforcing licensing on this sort of patent. Well done to them for recognising this, accepting the short-term advantage is actually what's best and only taking that.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm honestly not sure what to think here, but do I have a right to my voice?
;-) but the possibilities are obvious. The technical liberal in me says that this is fine. The, erm, other part of me says that this could cause some serious problems and harm for people, so shouldn't be allowed. Which do people think here?
Let's say someone wanted to make me say something in direct contradiction to my normal views, then publish that. Now, I don't consider myself famous enough for this to be a problem
The flipside for law enforcement is perhaps even more scary. What if I published a recording, generated in this way, of (for example) Gary Condit (sp?) confessing to having killed Chandra Levy (again, sp?)? For a parallel (and I never thought I'd cite Lois & Clarke... Promise I'm not a fan, my sister used to watch it over meals so we all had to, I have a weird memory, honest really...) the episode where a photographer produces a pre-wedding image of them in bed which could have been taken properly but was actually faked due to a lost film.
This has been coming for years, I know, but it's still a nasty big can of worms.
Uh-oh, I've got to take a wizz.
Think man, think.
Think, think, think.
I'd better get up.
Or, to put it another way, that you're talking about the total governmental spend in the USA - whereas our friend is talking about the spend of the US Government.
Oh, clarity is just wonderful...
But why should people have to understand all sorts of things before they can even use the OS?
Computers have to be usable to all. OK, they're never going to be as easy to use as a toaster but if they're significantly more complex in day-to-day operations than VCRs or washing machines, people begin to get confused and scared.
Much of the problem with Linux is the belief amongst much of the community that people should require a basic education and understanding to use computers. Much of what has helped Windows (alright, it hasn't needed much for some time) is that it made computing a no-brainer. Of course it works quickly and simply with Windows. It hasn't done it that well, but it has done it.
Look at other OSs. There are certainly good OSs which are accessible to users. MacOS X, BeOS, EPOC, AmigaOS or OS/2 in their days.
Until there's a recognition that good computing doesn't have to be difficult computing, Linux isn't going anywhere.
OK, can't find information elsewhere and this is _nearly_ on-topic :-)
I've just been presented with an ancient computer, which I'm thinking of extremely gentle uses for. At the moment it'll probably get used to take printer load off a desktop or two, which it should manage well enough.
Anyway. Looking at where it's going to be dumped, I'll be happier if it doesn't have to have a monitor, keyboard or anything like that. So, if VNC will run it's rather useful.
We're currently looking at a P120 running Windows 95 (original) with 16MB and 600MBish free drive space. Oi, no laughing! Yes, it might be getting more RAM and a bigger HDD if we can come up with a strong enough motivation and find some SIMMs... I don't mind turning it down to 640*480 @ 16 colours, I don't care if it'll be slow because I'll hardly ever use it. It would be running over 100Mb ethernet so bandwidth isn't a problem.
But would it work at all? Honestly, I can't find this sort of information at the moment!
Thanks,
Don't know whether the first series has been shown outside the UK - the one with the same teams throughout and only the experts different - but in that, when they made hovercrafts, one never made it.
There has been at least that one total failure, as well as the merely embarrassingly poor like the rugby ball cannon or the gun which shot its own barrel, or the boat with outriggers on one side only which sank at the first bend...
Y'know, I honestly can't see why so many people buy iPaqs. They're bigger and more expensive than Psion 5s, have a lower resolution screen and you're stuck with inputting the data by pen. On my Psion, I can type with almost the speed and accuracy I manage on a normal PC...
Are that many people really prepared to pay more to lose so much and only gain a colour screen?
This makes me really sad. I _love_ my Psion 5 - it's fast enough, light enough, runs for plenty of time on the batteries. Epoc Office is really rather good, that keyboard is amazing and I'll never understand how they've made something that small that good.
It's absolutely leagues ahead of my old Palm III and I can't see myself ever going back to a PalmOS machine. That thing really felt like a toy, wasn't as well made by a mile and had far more basic software. The screen was too small to use for anything intensive and Graffiti was just inaccurate.
Sadly, this leaves me without a decent alternative.
I _want_ a machine with a keyboard, it's just better. No, a Palm keyboard isn't good enough. If I get an HP Jornada it's bigger, heavier and ludicrously expensive. I mean, I could get a Psion Series 7 for less! Look at them and you see instantly why people think Palms are a good thing
I can't use Amigas (well, Amigas with another 7 years of development ideally...) at home, soon I won't be able to use Psions on the move. Why do the good ones die young?
"Patriots" are always free to do that sort of thing - this, though, made sure they had someone getting regular updates from particular people. Memory says they were paid but I'm not 100% certain.
In case anyone wants to do any research, they were known as 'Blockleiters' in German.
Picking my words here carefully to avoid the wrath of Godwin ;-)
Late '30s Germany had a system called 'Blockwardens'. Essentially, they littered the area with party supporters who were under instruction (and paid) to mention pretty much everything that people were saying and doing to area handlers. Stub your toe and cry out in anguish against the government and you would be reported if they heard.
They were totally anonymous.
Net result, you had no way of knowing where or when you could say something possibly irritating to the government - anyone could be the blockwarden and so could get you in to trouble. About as close to a thought police as you can get.
I honestly don't know anything substantial about Chinese politics or society - but, with this sort of system, you can shut off dissent very effectively. If you can't discuss you can't organise. If you can't organise then how can you get any movement of opposition going? The net might be able to help a little (still very vulnerable, though) but how many Chinese have unfiltered net access?
Hey, Roger! How did I come up first, I wonder?
;-)
Anyway, thanks for the advice. Think I'll still back up my mail first, but nice to know it works.
And that I've got someone to blame in the event that it stuffs up
Thanks,
Hi all!
This message is (sadly) posted in IE5 - which, let's be honest, sucks, but I'm stuck in Windows and NS4.7 is just painful.
I would love to try Mozilla - except that I have a really, really large back archive of mail in Netscape Messenger which I can't afford to lose. I can't find an answer anywhere, so does anyone know if I can run NS4.7x and Moz 0.9x in parallel under the same OS install without causing problems?
Thanks,
This is the advantage of iris recognition. It's reliant on there being blood flowing through the eye when it's checked.
As I recall, Energis route perfectly ordinary cables alongside on the pylons, working on the grounds that they had space and that that was cheaper than putting up their own poles and digging their own trenches.
Different cables, though - they're not running over the same wires as the national high voltage grid.
I suppose the question is exactly how an FPS is defined here. I certainly remember Doom and Descent being compared.
If you're requiring that you simulate a view from a person nominally running around an arena then it clearly misses. I would suggest it only truly requires a shoot-em-up game where it sits as a first-person view in a 3D world of some form, on which grounds Descent qualifies admirably. But yes, it's largely a different gaming paradigm so I can understand why it's sometimes forgotten.
Oh, BTW, I found it almost unplayable until I got a Cyborg 3D. With a decent stick it's actually pretty simple, it's just that it doesn't work well with a keybaord and mouse.
Actually, I'd suggest the first commercially successful 3D shooter was Descent.
Definitely full 3D and precedes Quake by quite some margin as I recall. Pretty successful, too.
Problem is it's been forgotten because it wasn't in the same mould.
DVD regioning sucks, I agree, and I'm looking forward to B5 coming out on DVD at some point too.
I don't think VHS would help much, though. How would you plan on watching a PAL video cassette?
If you mean me then I meant sheer volume of people. Internet users I don't know but I'd suspect we're looking at a comparable figure at the minimum.
:-) Oh well, can't please them all...
Sidetrack: I'm a little curious who modded my comment as a troll
I know slashdot's located in the States and all but still, it's in the worldwide domain, it's certainly reported when european politics have affected IT and the times get displayed in your selected timezone. It's used to recognising that there is a world outside of the US.
So, why is this being remarked on, given that the EU has a higher population than the USA? It might have been a good idea to stick a server or two elsewhere - but it's not exactly unknown to see the reverse.
Somehow, for a design decision like that, finding out a problem with LART seems curiously appropriate :-)
t ml for those who don't know what I'm talking about...
http://tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/LART.h
Partition walls?
If they had a need for one of those massive S/36s, they're likely to have been in a relativley large complex. At which point it's perfectly possible that the limiting factor was a temporary partition wall of some kind which had been built around the machine, and which the landlord was entirely happy to move within his own building but which would have been against the terms of their lease for them to touch.
Just one possibility...
Er, no.
Firstly, you really think that BSD source could just be dropped into Windows with its totally different internal architecture?
Secondly, free coding for Microsoft implies that you wouldn't be getting anything more than satisfaction out of it. Even if somone does use your source, though, the community still has it! A major argument against limiting software distribution seems to be that it's creating artificial scarcity - well, you'd only lose that code if there was real scarcity. There isn't.
Thirdly, I don't care. If I help a fellow programmer then I'm pleased. Heck, I spent _ages_ trawling code archives earlier today to find some odd function and it's the same principle here. I want to help others... If I help improve the experience of normal users through my code, same again.
BSD code is good.
(Troll or serious? Er, stuff it, I'm biting)
That final paragraph rather jumped out.
I'm _not_ an open source zealot. I'm happy that closed source can have its place and people can have their reasons for choosing it.
But, I've long thought that any open source projects I released would be, unquestionably, BSD licensed.
I know and understand why people like the GPL. I can see the point, I merely disagree with it.
Write and release code under BSD and you have a library of code that your fellow coders can, basically, do what they want with. Don't have to worry about the law or the politics of it, they can just grab the source and work with it. This is a fantastic attitidue which I applaud from the rooftops.
Yes, if the someone wants to they can take this code and release a subsequent version under a restricted license. Know what? I don't care. The original is there and free for everyone to use. Can't put that genie back in that bottle.
There was a lovely comment I saw years ago. I forget the author... To paraphrase, "A good coder writes good code. A great coder borrows and adapts good code." BSD makes this truly, universally possible and I applaud it.
When and where I release code under an open license, I have every intention of placing every last chunk under a BSD-style license with a real, evangelistic zeal.
This then begs the question of what would be better.
:-)
Hypothetically, User #267435 is looking for a new boyfriend via the internet. She wishes to find a male user of internet discussion forums who enjoys neither computer games or pornography.
I foresee a potential problem here
I have a post anonymously button here now FWIW.
;-)
Not that I can provably use it
I'd want to see exactly what IBM Research are doing here, but no.
;-) had developed this, I'd have no problem with them using it to get a serious advantage. It'd be one thing they'd be able to use to establish themselves in a market, as with Dyson and the vacuum cleaners.
IBM are a company who are well used to the power a monopoly gives. They've had one and created another. They know they could crush a market with this.
But they're being friendly. They'll still get their payback, it'll be some time before the rest of the world figures out how to make drives this way and equips for it. While that's happening, they have a lead.
Crushing markets harms competition and harms the economy as a whole. By forcing up prices (inevitable result of the damaged market) they'd reduce computer sales as a whole which doesn't help them at all. Plus, they saw what happened to them last time they got too big and don't want that again.
Patent rules sort of fall down with large entities like IBM. If Greg's HDs limited (for example
IBM are already well established and could do serious harm by enforcing licensing on this sort of patent. Well done to them for recognising this, accepting the short-term advantage is actually what's best and only taking that.