It seems as though by now with multiply billion dollar industries out there that supposedly care about this stuff have come up with a viable solution to software licenses by now (think movies, music, software, and now things like ebooks, etc).
Personally, I'm in favor of a hardware device (think lika an Atari cartridge), but there may be a better solution. I've talked with multiple software companies and told them that I feel more like a criminal for buying and licensing their software than by "stealing" it. I think I'm done buying any software that makes me go through hoops to either make it work or keep it working. I've got like $1000 worth of software that I would like to transfer to another computer some day, and its like a 50/50 shot that it will work. I would gladly pay a nominal fee to trade in my old cartridge and get an updated one to work with my new computer. I refuse to pay another $1000.
Much better than 4. And the memory management did help. I remember with the help of QEMM I was able to get something like 633K free, which was incredible.
I never considered DOS an operating system (or at least much of one) because it didn't do much memory management and other hardware management and what it did do, it didn't do very well. It was common for applications to access hardware directly and having to write their own device drivers instead of going through the "OS".
I shake my head when I think about that DOS thing.
Wasn't there a/. story about how businesses are "wrongly" calling their software "open source", when it doesn't count as "open source", because even though the source is open, it doesn't grant you the Four Freedoms, and "open source" and "free" are supposed to be the same thing?
That is a philosophical argument that like free will vs determination, nature vs nurture, etc, etc. that will not be resolved.
As I see it, open source means that I can obtain the source with the same agreements as I can for obtaining a binary, and closed source means I cannot. To me, "free software" is a loaded term, and the only truely free software is in the public domain, all other "free" software has limits.
I believe that the BSD license (and others) is more "free" than the GPL.
I'm a firm believer in open source software for multiple reasons. Things like the ability for people to know how their software works (additional and more accurate documentation), security audits, the ability for people to learn without recreating the wheel, portability, and a number of other ones.
I'm unclear on a stance on "free" software, because there is no agreeable definition on what "free" is, so how can I agree or have an opinion?
we have computer-human composites that easily surpass human intelligence. (I.E. - Your mind, plus a computer, can easily solve a wide range of problems that your mind alone cannot)
I understand the logic here, but I question it.
The intellegence still lies within the human here. For example, because I can't add, multiply, or whatever 923847293 and 293472390 quickly and accurately in my head, but I can quickly, accurately and easily do this with a computer or calculator does not make the system more intellegent. To take this further, if I give a calculator or computer to a person who cannot do basic arithmetic, they still cannot do it with the tool.
In fact, many people are less intelligent in front of a computer:) (Almost joking here).
Our eyes don't look at individual letters, they look at groups at a time. I learned this in high school....
Actually, it appears as though our brain does like the inverse of how a fractal is generated. Fractals get more detail until you quit. Our brain gets the outline of the text, and context, and other things, and then gets the meaning of what is said. THAT IS WHY CAPS ARE HARDER TO READ. The letters are the same, but the spacing between characters and their height helps us.
Also, I thought this was old info as well. We don't know the details, but we know about chunking and whatnot.
I also find it interesting that we parse sentences similar to the way a computer does. AFAIK, this is the most similar thing that a computer does to a human.
Real men use echo as their text editor. Its builtin to the shell, so no overhead of a fork and whatnot.
With respect to bloat-free software, who cares?
I go for features and utility first, and then will ditch it if the resources used outweigh the features and utility. I mean if bloat-free is the goal, then I guess you have to start with a bloat-free OS like free DOS, and gradually build from there, right?
Take bittorent apps. I tried most all that work on Linux and OS X. Azureus came recommended, and sure the GUI was cute and all of the features, but its bloated and the features are simply unnecessary (I'm just downloading files, what features are needed???), so I always come back to Bittornado. With Bittornado I can background the downloads on a remote machine and be done with it. I have a script called bt and I feed it the URL and it "does the right thing (TM)".
Sometimes, I use multiple apps, depending on the need. At home, I primarily use Safari as a web browser (OS X). But I also use wget, mozilla, lynx, and camino. I don't know, nor care the whole rank ordering of bloatness here. Nor do I care. Regardless of how bloated the GUI web browsers are, none of them can emulate a wget -r -np http://some.site.com/location. At work, I use Firefox mostly for webbrowsing (Linux). But I still use lynx and wget as well.
So, my point is the right tool for the job. Bloat is not an issue until it is an issue. Bloat will always be the last thing I consider for choosing and app, not the first.
Something like a single DB column that has an array data type?
Something like that. That rings a bell. I tried an array datatype in Oracle, and it was slow as molasis. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that it came up more than once that it would have been nice to have an indexed array datatype or something like that. Its been years.
Column stores are great (better than a row store) if you're just reading tons of data
Sounds reasonable. Plus you could store the columns on different disks or machines for scaling. Sounds fine, but only evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Now, mod me to oblivion if I'm a moron, but years ago when I did DB stuff, it seemed common that I wanted a single cell in a table to contain 0 to potentially "lots" of values where each one was indexed. Oracle did have a hack that allowed something similar, but it was not indexed, and it was slow as molasis. By storing data by columns, this kind of feature would be possible.
Am I the only one that wanted such a feature, or was I missing something back then?
That (or something similar) was what Eudora used to say on Macs when it was having network problems or something like that.
Just out of curiosity. Are there people that still use Eudora? And if so, do they have a reason? I have a friend who has to have Eudora because "its all he knows", and the sad thing is that he does not know the program at all. Is there a need that Eudora fills?
I'm still and old-school *NIX guy that uses a mailer from a terminal. No GUI for me.
From what I've read (which is by no means authoritative), a normal store can only ask; you are free to refuse. A "club" on the other hand (like Sam's, Costco, or whatever) where you are a member and have a membership agreement *can* require it, as they'll have that permission written into the membership agreement, which you accepted as a condition of shopping there.
So, I guess by extension, driving on public roads is like a "club" because individual's 4th amendment rights don't apply.
Ok, call me ignorant, stupid, dumb, whatever. But why, whenever someone makes a mistake or fucks up is the very first thought (or post in this matter) always down the line of lawsuits, cash, court, lawyers etc?
My first thought is to kill the person who makes a mistake or fucks up:)
The theory behind lawsuits, courts, and fines is that its more civil because more people are involved over a longer period of time vs one person making a rash decision.
The downside to the "civil" way of doing things is that the power is shifted to those in power vs what is right. This is yet another example of a cop pulling his power trip trump card because cops simply cannot stand an independent thinking person. I've pushed that button before, and it definitely gets a reaction.
Of course there are, but they all revolve around NBC wanting more money and more control over how, where and when you can watch their shows.
This is wrong. NBC gets essentially 100% of their money from advertisers. Broadcasting stuff for free over the airwaves simply does not spontaneously generate money.
NBC attempts to make shows that people want to watch for pride/personal reasons, and by having popular shows, they can then charge extra for advertising on those shows.
I would assume that the iTunes downloads don't have these ads, and even if 2 million mild manored geeks pay for and download the thing, its simply a waste of time for NBC to even think about.
At $1.99/download, even if every penny went to NBC, its still not worth the effort. This is compounded when you consider syndication, which downloads pretty much circumvent altogether.
The new U.S. law will probably make it illegal to download music from and site hosted in a country that is not in alignment with U.S. IP laws.
Why stop at music? Why not all "intellectual property"?
That will in effect make much of the internet "illegal" which would probably be a good thing, because then we will have the choice as to which laws we want to follow. Funny, isn't that how multinational corps work?
It takes a minimum of 3 years of training and years of experience on top of that to know what is legal within a subset of the law, and even then it takes due diligence to keep up because the law constantly changes.
In my opinion, one has to be a confident and comfortable lier and a borderline sociopath to be normal, and that does not seem normal to me.
Instead, employer sponsored group health plans are a form of socialized medicine, but implemented under a private feudal system
Amen, praise the lord, and pass the snake.
My health plan is taken out of my paycheck before I even see my money, just like other socialized programs (taxes and retirement -- both governmental and private).
But, I have a "good" job. People with lower social skills frequently don't have the option for health programs in the US, and to me that is almost criminal.
Knock Starbucks because they are trendy, or their coffee sucks, or they are too expensive, but they provide health insurance for employees, and I respect that.
The government provides fire departments, police departments, roads, but there is practically no provision for health care, which I think is almost criminal./rant
1. Decent, large wide-screen HDTVs (LCDs, Plasmas, etc.) cost about $300-$400.
2. The HD-DVD or Blu-Ray debate is settled so I'm not buying the wrong tech.
3. Shopping for above parts or components is simplified or culled down a bit (I don't have to read a dozen articles to understand every bit of the technology - 720p, 1080i, compatibility issues, etc. - I just want it to work)
4. Hooking it all up is easy enough to where I'm not reading manuals or HOWTOs (i.e. done in less than 15 minutes - why waste the time?)
Until then, my nice,
WTF?
Its hard to find more data quickly, but I did find this from wikipedia:
The cheapest of the pre-World War II factory-made American sets, a 1938 image-only model with a 3-inch (8 cm) screen, cost US$125, the equivalent of US$1,732 in 2005. The cheapest model with a 12-inch (30 cm) screen was $445 ($6,256).
If I remember correctly, color TVs in the 19-27" range were $300-700 range or more in the early 80s in early 80s dollar terms.
Today, I think large widescreen HDTVs are practically free when you think about it. I mean an 80gig video iPod is over $300 and many telephones are over $300. And the parent poster wants what?
What I want is for the more important stuff to come back down in price like cars and houses. Electronics always seem got get better and cheaper over time, cars and houses seem to get slightly better, but the prices keep going up.
I think the super computers are a thing of the past. Now days clusters are the way to go. Much cheaper and flexible.
Yes, no, maybe.
I guess the best definition of a cluster vs a "real" supercomputer is distributed memory connected via some kind of interconnect vs a large shared memory SMP. A blue gene is a distributed memory system connected via interconnects. The Cray XT4 and XT3 are distributed memory systems connected via interconnects. Actually, I think that SGI is the only guy that really makes large quasi shared memory SMP boxes. They are a ccNUMA architecture that kind of blurs the distinction between the two.
AFAIK, large SMP systems are great when you have when you have a large static DB of info that needs to be shared by all compute nodes. Again, AFAIK, this is what those who design things like abombs where the plasma states of heat, temperature, pressure, etc are known beforehand, and these things need to be looked up as you step though the simlation of the chain reaction.
Fast forward to 2007 and beyond, and like most oppositely opposed arguments, the "real" answer is a combination of the two and not either one in absolute. Today, big computer systems are a hybrid of shared and distrubuted memory systems. The shared part comes within each compute node where almost 100% of the time there is more than one CPU or CPU core inside of the box that shares the memory inside of the box, and then distributed memory between these little SMP guys.
I see this latter arrangement being dominant for quite some time, with the number of CPU cores increasing per compute node over time.
Then again, you could also just look at these things as prototypes of future desktop computers where boys just like more expensive toys.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems as though by now with multiply billion dollar industries out there that supposedly care about this stuff have come up with a viable solution to software licenses by now (think movies, music, software, and now things like ebooks, etc).
Personally, I'm in favor of a hardware device (think lika an Atari cartridge), but there may be a better solution. I've talked with multiple software companies and told them that I feel more like a criminal for buying and licensing their software than by "stealing" it. I think I'm done buying any software that makes me go through hoops to either make it work or keep it working. I've got like $1000 worth of software that I would like to transfer to another computer some day, and its like a 50/50 shot that it will work. I would gladly pay a nominal fee to trade in my old cartridge and get an updated one to work with my new computer. I refuse to pay another $1000.
Much better than 4. And the memory management did help. I remember with the help of QEMM I was able to get something like 633K free, which was incredible.
I never considered DOS an operating system (or at least much of one) because it didn't do much memory management and other hardware management and what it did do, it didn't do very well. It was common for applications to access hardware directly and having to write their own device drivers instead of going through the "OS".
I shake my head when I think about that DOS thing.
Wasn't there a /. story about how businesses are "wrongly" calling their software "open source", when it doesn't count as "open source", because even though the source is open, it doesn't grant you the Four Freedoms, and "open source" and "free" are supposed to be the same thing?
That is a philosophical argument that like free will vs determination, nature vs nurture, etc, etc. that will not be resolved.
As I see it, open source means that I can obtain the source with the same agreements as I can for obtaining a binary, and closed source means I cannot. To me, "free software" is a loaded term, and the only truely free software is in the public domain, all other "free" software has limits.
I believe that the BSD license (and others) is more "free" than the GPL.
I'm a firm believer in open source software for multiple reasons. Things like the ability for people to know how their software works (additional and more accurate documentation), security audits, the ability for people to learn without recreating the wheel, portability, and a number of other ones.
I'm unclear on a stance on "free" software, because there is no agreeable definition on what "free" is, so how can I agree or have an opinion?
we have computer-human composites that easily surpass human intelligence. (I.E. - Your mind, plus a computer, can easily solve a wide range of problems that your mind alone cannot)
:) (Almost joking here).
I understand the logic here, but I question it.
The intellegence still lies within the human here. For example, because I can't add, multiply, or whatever 923847293 and 293472390 quickly and accurately in my head, but I can quickly, accurately and easily do this with a computer or calculator does not make the system more intellegent. To take this further, if I give a calculator or computer to a person who cannot do basic arithmetic, they still cannot do it with the tool.
In fact, many people are less intelligent in front of a computer
Our eyes don't look at individual letters, they look at groups at a time. I learned this in high school....
Actually, it appears as though our brain does like the inverse of how a fractal is generated. Fractals get more detail until you quit. Our brain gets the outline of the text, and context, and other things, and then gets the meaning of what is said. THAT IS WHY CAPS ARE HARDER TO READ. The letters are the same, but the spacing between characters and their height helps us.
Also, I thought this was old info as well. We don't know the details, but we know about chunking and whatnot.
I also find it interesting that we parse sentences similar to the way a computer does. AFAIK, this is the most similar thing that a computer does to a human.
Now that one's easy! `ed`
Real men use echo as their text editor. Its builtin to the shell, so no overhead of a fork and whatnot.
With respect to bloat-free software, who cares?
I go for features and utility first, and then will ditch it if the resources used outweigh the features and utility. I mean if bloat-free is the goal, then I guess you have to start with a bloat-free OS like free DOS, and gradually build from there, right?
Take bittorent apps. I tried most all that work on Linux and OS X. Azureus came recommended, and sure the GUI was cute and all of the features, but its bloated and the features are simply unnecessary (I'm just downloading files, what features are needed???), so I always come back to Bittornado. With Bittornado I can background the downloads on a remote machine and be done with it. I have a script called bt and I feed it the URL and it "does the right thing (TM)".
Sometimes, I use multiple apps, depending on the need. At home, I primarily use Safari as a web browser (OS X). But I also use wget, mozilla, lynx, and camino. I don't know, nor care the whole rank ordering of bloatness here. Nor do I care. Regardless of how bloated the GUI web browsers are, none of them can emulate a wget -r -np http://some.site.com/location. At work, I use Firefox mostly for webbrowsing (Linux). But I still use lynx and wget as well.
So, my point is the right tool for the job. Bloat is not an issue until it is an issue. Bloat will always be the last thing I consider for choosing and app, not the first.
Why don't more ISPs (like Comcast and Roadrunner) self-police their machines on a much more frequent basis and knock these customers offline?
What would be their motivation?
Would you (as a "normal" person, not a slashdotter) pick and ISP or change ISPs if they advertised the feature of kicking customers offline?
Unless it affects their bottom line (the ISP's), there is no motivation. In fact, it would only increase their calls to their support lines.
Something like a single DB column that has an array data type?
Something like that. That rings a bell. I tried an array datatype in Oracle, and it was slow as molasis. I don't remember the details, but I do remember that it came up more than once that it would have been nice to have an indexed array datatype or something like that. Its been years.
Column stores are great (better than a row store) if you're just reading tons of data
Sounds reasonable. Plus you could store the columns on different disks or machines for scaling. Sounds fine, but only evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Now, mod me to oblivion if I'm a moron, but years ago when I did DB stuff, it seemed common that I wanted a single cell in a table to contain 0 to potentially "lots" of values where each one was indexed. Oracle did have a hack that allowed something similar, but it was not indexed, and it was slow as molasis. By storing data by columns, this kind of feature would be possible.
Am I the only one that wanted such a feature, or was I missing something back then?
It's one of the few MDI designs I actually liked.
OK. I never used Eudora, and never found a MDI design that I liked.
Yeah, and after years, Cmdr Taco finally has to eat his words about the iPod being lame because it doesn't have wifi.
Eudora could use some help!
That (or something similar) was what Eudora used to say on Macs when it was having network problems or something like that.
Just out of curiosity. Are there people that still use Eudora? And if so, do they have a reason? I have a friend who has to have Eudora because "its all he knows", and the sad thing is that he does not know the program at all. Is there a need that Eudora fills?
I'm still and old-school *NIX guy that uses a mailer from a terminal. No GUI for me.
From what I've read (which is by no means authoritative), a normal store can only ask; you are free to refuse. A "club" on the other hand (like Sam's, Costco, or whatever) where you are a member and have a membership agreement *can* require it, as they'll have that permission written into the membership agreement, which you accepted as a condition of shopping there.
So, I guess by extension, driving on public roads is like a "club" because individual's 4th amendment rights don't apply.
Ok, call me ignorant, stupid, dumb, whatever. But why, whenever someone makes a mistake or fucks up is the very first thought (or post in this matter) always down the line of lawsuits, cash, court, lawyers etc?
:)
My first thought is to kill the person who makes a mistake or fucks up
The theory behind lawsuits, courts, and fines is that its more civil because more people are involved over a longer period of time vs one person making a rash decision.
The downside to the "civil" way of doing things is that the power is shifted to those in power vs what is right. This is yet another example of a cop pulling his power trip trump card because cops simply cannot stand an independent thinking person. I've pushed that button before, and it definitely gets a reaction.
Of course there are, but they all revolve around NBC wanting more money and more control over how, where and when you can watch their shows.
This is wrong. NBC gets essentially 100% of their money from advertisers. Broadcasting stuff for free over the airwaves simply does not spontaneously generate money.
NBC attempts to make shows that people want to watch for pride/personal reasons, and by having popular shows, they can then charge extra for advertising on those shows.
I would assume that the iTunes downloads don't have these ads, and even if 2 million mild manored geeks pay for and download the thing, its simply a waste of time for NBC to even think about.
Here is a listing of the cost per 30 second slot on TV: http://www.frankwbaker.com/2005-2006_ad_rates.htm
At $1.99/download, even if every penny went to NBC, its still not worth the effort. This is compounded when you consider syndication, which downloads pretty much circumvent altogether.
Given the power of even low end PCs these days (minimum spec Vista machines) its crazy they cannot handle both together.
Sure they can.
They just cannot run Vista at the same time.
Audio. Networking. Vista.
Pick any two.
I miss those (along with Joe six pack). Funny how those things come and go.
The new U.S. law will probably make it illegal to download music from and site hosted in a country that is not in alignment with U.S. IP laws.
Why stop at music? Why not all "intellectual property"?
That will in effect make much of the internet "illegal" which would probably be a good thing, because then we will have the choice as to which laws we want to follow. Funny, isn't that how multinational corps work?
It started when they became an entertainment corp, rather than a technology corp.
So, are rootkits entertainment or technology?
I'm not breaking the law.
Nobody can say that with any credible confidence.
It takes a minimum of 3 years of training and years of experience on top of that to know what is legal within a subset of the law, and even then it takes due diligence to keep up because the law constantly changes.
In my opinion, one has to be a confident and comfortable lier and a borderline sociopath to be normal, and that does not seem normal to me.
Yesterday at a Best Buy in Ohio a guy and his wife were looking at 42" Sony LCDs. There was a 1080P for $1899 and a 1080i for $1599.
I'm a little confused. LCDs simply don't come in interlaced formats. Neither do LCoS, nor DLP, nor plasma.
Have you read an insurance application lately? Non-commercial pilot, skydiving, rock climbing and other "dangerous" activities are asked about.
As for the rest, I'm sure they'll get to them eventually.
That is why me and other smart people lie.
Instead, employer sponsored group health plans are a form of socialized medicine, but implemented under a private feudal system
/rant
Amen, praise the lord, and pass the snake.
My health plan is taken out of my paycheck before I even see my money, just like other socialized programs (taxes and retirement -- both governmental and private).
But, I have a "good" job. People with lower social skills frequently don't have the option for health programs in the US, and to me that is almost criminal.
Knock Starbucks because they are trendy, or their coffee sucks, or they are too expensive, but they provide health insurance for employees, and I respect that.
The government provides fire departments, police departments, roads, but there is practically no provision for health care, which I think is almost criminal.
Excellent parent post, mod accordingly.
This is one of the most insightful posts I have seen on Slashdot.
I second the motion.
Humans are social animals _by definition_. Social graces trumps IQ, looks, physical strength, or basically any other single quality.
Call me when:
1. Decent, large wide-screen HDTVs (LCDs, Plasmas, etc.) cost about $300-$400.
2. The HD-DVD or Blu-Ray debate is settled so I'm not buying the wrong tech.
3. Shopping for above parts or components is simplified or culled down a bit (I don't have to read a dozen articles to understand every bit of the technology - 720p, 1080i, compatibility issues, etc. - I just want it to work)
4. Hooking it all up is easy enough to where I'm not reading manuals or HOWTOs (i.e. done in less than 15 minutes - why waste the time?)
Until then, my nice,
WTF?
Its hard to find more data quickly, but I did find this from wikipedia:
The cheapest of the pre-World War II factory-made American sets, a 1938 image-only model with a 3-inch (8 cm) screen, cost US$125, the equivalent of US$1,732 in 2005. The cheapest model with a 12-inch (30 cm) screen was $445 ($6,256).
If I remember correctly, color TVs in the 19-27" range were $300-700 range or more in the early 80s in early 80s dollar terms.
Today, I think large widescreen HDTVs are practically free when you think about it. I mean an 80gig video iPod is over $300 and many telephones are over $300. And the parent poster wants what?
What I want is for the more important stuff to come back down in price like cars and houses. Electronics always seem got get better and cheaper over time, cars and houses seem to get slightly better, but the prices keep going up.
I think the super computers are a thing of the past. Now days clusters are the way to go. Much cheaper and flexible.
Yes, no, maybe.
I guess the best definition of a cluster vs a "real" supercomputer is distributed memory connected via some kind of interconnect vs a large shared memory SMP. A blue gene is a distributed memory system connected via interconnects. The Cray XT4 and XT3 are distributed memory systems connected via interconnects. Actually, I think that SGI is the only guy that really makes large quasi shared memory SMP boxes. They are a ccNUMA architecture that kind of blurs the distinction between the two.
AFAIK, large SMP systems are great when you have when you have a large static DB of info that needs to be shared by all compute nodes. Again, AFAIK, this is what those who design things like abombs where the plasma states of heat, temperature, pressure, etc are known beforehand, and these things need to be looked up as you step though the simlation of the chain reaction.
Fast forward to 2007 and beyond, and like most oppositely opposed arguments, the "real" answer is a combination of the two and not either one in absolute. Today, big computer systems are a hybrid of shared and distrubuted memory systems. The shared part comes within each compute node where almost 100% of the time there is more than one CPU or CPU core inside of the box that shares the memory inside of the box, and then distributed memory between these little SMP guys.
I see this latter arrangement being dominant for quite some time, with the number of CPU cores increasing per compute node over time.
Then again, you could also just look at these things as prototypes of future desktop computers where boys just like more expensive toys.