Alright, I was confused. Sengan posted the story *before* this one, and the anecdote was from a reader. Sorry, all.
My criticism of Sengan (in general) still applies, and my take on internet access in library still applies, but the link between them is broken. Bad poster.
My apologies. This is what happens when you stop to post a comment "real quick".
Now there's a blast from the past. I wouldn't mind if he stayed there, myself. And yes, Sengan, we know you're British. Those who've been around a while well remember your anti-US tirades, as well.
But, back to "topic", so teenagers with mod points don't mark me down... The increasing restriction on internet use in libraries *in* troubling. Aren't libraries about sharing information widely? Maybe not, but, I think they should be.
Unfortunately, libraries are a workplace, and thus can be smacked with sexual harassment charges if some one loads porn on the screen, and some one else gets offended. If you ask me, the library should not be liable for such things, but, even in the UK, you have to have *someone* to sue. Unfortunately, libraries have to cover their asses, and so they forget about Sharing Information, and lock down the boxes as hard as they can. First it's porn, then hate sites, then drug information sites, then "fringe" political sites, and soon you are left with Barnie and Friends.
It is a disturbing trend, but certainly nothing new. Slashdot has been particularly vocal on this topic. I don't see what Sengan's antidote adds to the discussion.
I guess the summary, as always, is pay attention and write your congressman! (or whatever the equivalent is in your country)
Which is *exactly* why Microsoft won't use it. "Cross Platform" gives them nightmares. MS's mission is to lock consumers into *their* products, *their* systems, and *their* way of doing things. That way consumers are forced to keep buying MS, no matter what sh*t the company puts out.
Cross Platform means easy migration, which is wonderful for consumers, and horrible for Microsoft. If you could easily pick up shop and take your business elsewhere, MS would be forced to provide a decent product to win your business. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. I keep hoping that consumers will wake up and realize that MS's actions are not in their best interest, but that's probably asking too much.
Sigh... Figures we'd get a reaction like that from the six-digit-account-number crowd. Slashdot isn't what it used to be.
I might expect such a comment from a five-digit-account-number poster like yourself. Slashdot isn't what it used to be. Far Side pics? On Slashdot? How frivolous! I remember back when the only acceptable allusions on Slashdot were to man pages, Linus quotes, and kernel source. What a soft lot we've become...
Besides, any real geek would have thought up a Monty Python reference.
Have RMS's complaints about different liscences (anything other than pure 100% GPL) ever done a damn thing for open source?!
Why would RMS care about Open Source? He is interested in Free Software. And several people talk about RMS as if he's getting in the way of OS. WTF? OS is just a watered down form of Free Software that people like ESR approach businesses with. If you think the two are the same movement, then you are sadly mistaken.
it really doesn't encourage the adoption of open source to insist on a particular liscense scheme
Again, you are missing the point. Open Source is the watered down, pragmatic movement that doesn't address user freedoms. That's not what RMS wants, so why would he help in it's acceptance? RMS is seeking to educate people about their freedoms, and at the same time write enough quality software that people have a viable free choice. He has a higher goal than just "better code", and is not interested in compromising on his ideals.
There's no point in expecting him to stop this sort of thing, but we can hope.
I sure hope he never stops. The man may not be someone you want to take home to mom but, then again, he is a freedom fighter: radical, unkempt, and fighting the good fight.
I'm amazed at the number of people who don't understand RMS. Have you never read the GNU Manifesto?
I remember an article in the Dallas Morning News from the time period. It stated that some of the tunnels were sold off to mushroom farmers. Apparently the conditions in the tunnels were just right for fungi.
It would have been a marvelous scientific instrument. Most sad that it got canned. Atleast we got some mushrooms out of the deal, though.
but in a war between KDE and RMS, I'm going to side with RMS.
He wrote the GPL. It is a vital component of his Life Mission. I trust that the man understands all aspects of the license. KDE may not care about stringent adherence to licensing restrictions, but if they truly want to keep their software "free", then they should.
I thought the "go Gnome" quote was a little much, but I don't see it as a big deal. I didn't think his tone was particularly obnoxious, either.
My basic point is that if RMS doesn't know how to license Free Software, then who does? Telling RMS he doesn't know his own license seems pretty absurd to me.
Except that in this case, the long-term dependence is on the server, so replacing the server is replacing the "blade". The "razor" is the Everquest client software, which enables use of the Everquest servers.
Ah...you are right. In the case of the server emulator, this would be take away from the continued revenue stream of the original company.
I was focusing on the Playstation case, which is probably inappropriate in this thread.
It's the old razor and razor blade analogy. Let's say a razor company sold razors for around cost, and then designed them so that no one else could make blades for them.
This is the Gillette model: give them the razors cheap/free to build up demand for the blades, which is where they make their money. As you mention, console makers follow this model too: they take a hit on selling you the hardware, and make up the money through licensing fees on the games for their console.
Thus far, your analogy holds. The error lies in associating the emulator with a knock-off blade company. The emulator is replacing the razor, not the blade. Recall that the original company gave away that razor at a loss to drum up business. Now some one else is taking that loss for them. Sony no longer has to sell you hardware at a loss to reap money off of games -- you can buy the games for your virtual playstation that didn't cost them a dime. Shouldn't they be happy? They still have their original revenue-source, and now it potentially reaches more customers.
Well, obviously they are not happy because they've been going around suing people. The reason they are unhappy is that in allowing someone else into their market, they no longer have complete control. You mention the importance of control, but I don't think that you take it far enough. This goes beyond simple economics and into power. They know, as Microsoft knows, that controlling a market is how you make the long term money. They don't want to settle for good business -- they want to make the market sit up and beg.
The key difference being that Ford underestimated the magnitude of the lawsuits AFTER they'd put the cars on the market, not knowing that they were prone to blow up on people.
Incorrect. Ford's engineers were fully aware of the fault before the Pinto's release. The problem was a poorly shielded gas tank that tended to get crushed in rear-impact collisions, causing an explosion. The engineers brought the information to management, along with a proposed (and inexpensive) fix. Management did the math on the number of deaths, how much each would cost them in lawsuits and PR, weighed it against the per-vehicle cost of the fix and decided to produce the vehicle unmodified.
The Pinto is now a text-book example in engineering ethics. The really chilling part of the story is that the primary motivation for not including the fix was that it would push the car's cost up enough to force a reprice. Marketing had been advertising the Pinto's low low target price like mad and weren't about to back down. Thus, the deadly defect remained largely due to marketing promises.
While it's easy to villify Ford or any other company for making decisions like these, it must be remembered that this is the extreme case of a common phenomenon. It isn't surprising that by spending more money on a car, you can design it to be safer. You expect a Volvo to be safer than a Kia, don't you? If the engineers so liked, they could keep lopping life-saving features onto a car until it 1) looks like a tank, and 2) can only be afforded by the very rich. Clearly, this is taking things too far. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and equations based on cost and fatalities are the tool used to make these decisions.
In the Pinto case, however, Ford went too far. The gas tank problem was a severe one, and it lowered the safety of the Pinto below consumers' reasonable expectations of safety. That is the key. Consumers may have expected the inexpensive Pinto to be less safe than a luxury car, but no one expected it to be as unsafe as it was.
Anyway, this Intel mess is really a whole different ball game. Failing on speed promises like this isn't life threatening to anyone, so the stakes from an ethical viewpoint drop markedly. (Don't tell me about air-traffic control, none of those people would touch these chips) This is really just another case of Intel throwing vapor around. It surprises no one.
I've had long discussions with BSD people about what the various designations used by FreeBSD really mean. This is the what I've come to understand:
FreeBSD ~ Debian
current ~ unstable
stable ~ stable
release ~ "we stuck it on a CD"
The releases are really just snapshots of one of the other branches of FreeBSD -- basically the source tree is frozen in time and pressed onto a CD-ROM. Anyone installing from a release is urged to follow "stable" which tracks fixs to the distribution. So "release"s are really just packaged versions of the other trees, provided for convenience on CD-ROM.
Thus, it seems to me that FreeBSD doesn't really have three branches.
Your list left out HP -- they were the original company to introduce "multimedia extension", SIMD-type instructions to their architecture.
I forget which PA-RISC they first did this with, but they redesigned parts of the integer unit so that it could do packed arithmetic (a la MMX) at a 0% increase in die size. They literally squeezed the extra logic into the corners of the existing die frame. Pretty impressive. Sure, it only sped up a few functions (MPEG decompression was the biggie), but they essentially got it for free. Conservative, but a definite win.
On the opposite extreme lies Alti-Vec. Alti-Vec is basically an entire vector processor sitting next to the original PowerPC core. It added 50% to the die size of the G4. 50%! It's certainly more capable than what HP or the others implemented, but Motorola paid the price. It's quite possible that they have decided the multimedia unit wasn't worth that much silicon, and have gone a different route with their next generation.
For the curious, Intel's original MMX unit increased the die size of the classic Pentium by about 5%. They're more recent extensions no doubt add more, but I think you can see that HP and Intel took a more conservative approach to "accelerating" multimedia with specialized SIMD units.
I'll never use Mac because there is no method for switching between apps from the keyboard. (someone correct me if this has been implemented since I've used a Mac)
I've had my Mac zealot friends explain to me how keyboard-centric MacOS really is, and how efficient it is to get around. They mention all the shortcuts that you do. Great, someone at Apple thought their interface through.
They thought it through, but not enough. Switching apps is a vital and common activity for anyone who actually uses their multitasking operating system to multitask. Having to reach for the mouse slows you down. This is a massive hole in the "Mac is good for keyboard users" argument that I keep hearing.
As for the state of Linux file browsers, I have to agree that it is grim. I prefer the old Win95 Explorer to any file browser for Linux that I have ever tried -- and I've gone down the page at Freshmeat. Good thing I don't mind using BASH for all my browsing needs.
Those in the Linux camp are fine with revolutionizing interface, as long as it doesn't interfere with legacy
Read up on the Berlin project, and keep your fingers crossed. There are people working on replacing X, but it's no easy task.
I would have to type FSMH(tab)2(tab) while squinting to see what was different about the filenames.
Dude, up your font size. Many term's have hotkeys to do it.
Usability is not a foreign concept, people... why do so few people get it?
I'm really sick of people on Slashdot talking about people geting it. Atleast you didn't say "XYZ company just doesn't get it...." Did Jon Katz start this?
Hmmph. You thought your post sounded like flamebait...
I want to calculate solar radiation flux! I want to simulate nuclear detonations! I want to solve the traveling salesman problem for 29 billion routes!
You know that's exactly the sort of thing that the old Crays were used for. That was back in the day when "supercomputer" meant something, and these beasts only existed in ones and twos in places like Los Alamos, Sandia, and maybe Exxon.
And back then people thought the exact same things that you are saying now. "Who other than a weapons research lab could possibly use this"? The answer that surprised people is "just about everyone". The Cray-1 may be an inert piece of history now, but it's spirit lives on in our microprocessors. It's not just that modern PC's are as fast as old supercomputers, they are designed like old supercomputers.
Most innovations in computer architecture in the PC/workstation/server area have been taken from the supercomputers that came before. Surely the original researchers never dreamed that all of the complicated methods they were inventing to speed up supercomputers would wind up running some kid's game -- but they have.
Modern systems are blazingly fast, yet people continually feel the need to upgrade. In the PC biz, this seems to be driven by games and MS-bloat. Whatever the case, technology marches on, and people are willing to pay for more power. If you have the transistor budget, why not build a supercomputer on a chip? There's a market for it.
My point (such as it is) is that the hunger for performance shows no sign of stopping. It may seem ridiculous to us that an average person could ever use this much computing power. But bear in mind, that this won't even hit supercomputers for ~20 years. Think what people ~20 years ago would think about the kind of computing power that we use for games today. They would be stunned.
You speak of Slashdot as a single entity. That is absurd. At best, it is a gathering of relatively like-minded people.
Most of these people are of like mind because they support Linux, a BSD, or something like BeOS. Others could care less. However, perhaps the most unifying aspect of slashdot's disparate readership is an anti-MS bent.
You may call this "bias" if you wish, but it is more of a shared belief. Slashdot was never "unbiased". It started out as Rob's homepage. He would post links to things he found interesting. People with similar tastes starting frequenting the site because *they* thought the links were interesting too. The Slashdot "community" grew in this self-selecting fashion.
Miguel is effectively reimplementing Windows in open source. Slashdot has provided a home for many who dislike Windows. Why would you expect the readership to react with anything other than distaste?
> Component architectures are vital to a good GUI, code reuse is key.
Says your CS professor. I don't agree. You're use of the word "good" is revealing. This is all very subjective.
I've always wondered why so many users here feel the need to badmouth those individuals who put their freedom, and sometimes lives, on the line for their beliefs?
And what, exactly, was this guy's belief? I read the article, and I sure don't know. Did he have a cause he was representing? I sure can't tell. It seems that his "activism" wasn't very effective if I can take the time to read his write-up and still have no clue as to his cause.
If he had a cause, why wasn't it plastered all over his write-up? If he is so gung-ho about his beliefs, that he's willing to get arrested for them, doesn't it seem that he would take the opportunity to explain them to his audience? Typing out his ideas is certainly easier than protesting.
"Social justice" sounds great, but I don't see what it has to do with this story. This guy wasn't fighting for a cause. He was just looking to get arrested, and the cops obliged him.
When corporations are as unfettered as they are in USia, getting them to agree on things like standards is a herculean task - each corporation is assured that it has the One True path.
I'd really like to believe that this isn't true. But with the likes of MS running around these days, I'd have a difficult time counter-arguing.
Ideally, if consumers are abused, they will take it out on the company by complaining, or just moving to another product. Then the abusing company either rights their ways or dies. This same reasoning can apply to standards acceptance and environmental issues. The consumers have the ultimate power (and, in fact, responsibility) in correcting corporate behavior. This is the system, and it all seems reasonable to me.
So why does it break down? I don't think it's the system that is broken so much as the consumer these days. This, I feel, is one of the biggest problems in America today. People don't accept their responsibility as consumers. I think that a lot of people are just too taken in by marketing to sit down and rationally consider their choices. In the case of MS, I think companies have been too short sighted to realize that they'd be better off telling Gates to take a hike. Maybe then MS would shape up. Instead, companies take the short-term easier route of sticking with Windows, and MS continues to get away with murder.
Also, you have to remember that USia is such a huge place that establishing the kind of mobile phone networks that are seen in Europe is extremely difficult...
A very good point -- and one that I think is often ignored. There are some real disadvantages to being big. American infrastructure simply can not adjust as quickly as that of smaller nations.
Slashdot Mirror
> If Linux is to succeed in Linus's quest for World Domination(tm), then QNX must be the first up against the wall.
Well, hot damn, let's get going! I've got some pipes and chains. Let's meet at midnight and go make some trouble for these "QNX" sucks.
First blood gets a free "RTLinux rules!" T-shirt!
...but seriously, does QNX distribute source code? If not then I'm sure not going to want to work with it.
--Lenny
Alright, I was confused. Sengan posted the story *before* this one, and the anecdote was from a reader. Sorry, all.
My criticism of Sengan (in general) still applies, and my take on internet access in library still applies, but the link between them is broken. Bad poster.
My apologies. This is what happens when you stop to post a comment "real quick".
--Lenny
Now there's a blast from the past. I wouldn't mind if he stayed there, myself. And yes, Sengan, we know you're British. Those who've been around a while well remember your anti-US tirades, as well.
But, back to "topic", so teenagers with mod points don't mark me down... The increasing restriction on internet use in libraries *in* troubling. Aren't libraries about sharing information widely? Maybe not, but, I think they should be.
Unfortunately, libraries are a workplace, and thus can be smacked with sexual harassment charges if some one loads porn on the screen, and some one else gets offended. If you ask me, the library should not be liable for such things, but, even in the UK, you have to have *someone* to sue. Unfortunately, libraries have to cover their asses, and so they forget about Sharing Information, and lock down the boxes as hard as they can. First it's porn, then hate sites, then drug information sites, then "fringe" political sites, and soon you are left with Barnie and Friends.
It is a disturbing trend, but certainly nothing new. Slashdot has been particularly vocal on this topic. I don't see what Sengan's antidote adds to the discussion.
I guess the summary, as always, is pay attention and write your congressman! (or whatever the equivalent is in your country)
--Lenny
> It's already here AND it's cross-platform.
Which is *exactly* why Microsoft won't use it. "Cross Platform" gives them nightmares. MS's mission is to lock consumers into *their* products, *their* systems, and *their* way of doing things. That way consumers are forced to keep buying MS, no matter what sh*t the company puts out.
Cross Platform means easy migration, which is wonderful for consumers, and horrible for Microsoft. If you could easily pick up shop and take your business elsewhere, MS would be forced to provide a decent product to win your business. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world. I keep hoping that consumers will wake up and realize that MS's actions are not in their best interest, but that's probably asking too much.
I can dream, can't I?
--Lenny
Sigh... Figures we'd get a reaction like that from the six-digit-account-number crowd. Slashdot isn't what it used to be.
I might expect such a comment from a five-digit-account-number poster like yourself. Slashdot isn't what it used to be. Far Side pics? On Slashdot? How frivolous! I remember back when the only acceptable allusions on Slashdot were to man pages, Linus quotes, and kernel source. What a soft lot we've become...
Besides, any real geek would have thought up a Monty Python reference.
--Lenny, who owns a dachshund
Have RMS's complaints about different liscences (anything other than pure 100% GPL) ever done a damn thing for open source?!
Why would RMS care about Open Source? He is interested in Free Software. And several people talk about RMS as if he's getting in the way of OS. WTF? OS is just a watered down form of Free Software that people like ESR approach businesses with. If you think the two are the same movement, then you are sadly mistaken.
it really doesn't encourage the adoption of open source to insist on a particular liscense scheme
Again, you are missing the point. Open Source is the watered down, pragmatic movement that doesn't address user freedoms. That's not what RMS wants, so why would he help in it's acceptance? RMS is seeking to educate people about their freedoms, and at the same time write enough quality software that people have a viable free choice. He has a higher goal than just "better code", and is not interested in compromising on his ideals.
There's no point in expecting him to stop this sort of thing, but we can hope.
I sure hope he never stops. The man may not be someone you want to take home to mom but, then again, he is a freedom fighter: radical, unkempt, and fighting the good fight.
I'm amazed at the number of people who don't understand RMS. Have you never read the GNU Manifesto?
--Lenny
I remember an article in the Dallas Morning News from the time period. It stated that some of the tunnels were sold off to mushroom farmers. Apparently the conditions in the tunnels were just right for fungi.
It would have been a marvelous scientific instrument. Most sad that it got canned. Atleast we got some mushrooms out of the deal, though.
--Lenny
but in a war between KDE and RMS, I'm going to side with RMS.
He wrote the GPL. It is a vital component of his Life Mission. I trust that the man understands all aspects of the license. KDE may not care about stringent adherence to licensing restrictions, but if they truly want to keep their software "free", then they should.
I thought the "go Gnome" quote was a little much, but I don't see it as a big deal. I didn't think his tone was particularly obnoxious, either.
My basic point is that if RMS doesn't know how to license Free Software, then who does? Telling RMS he doesn't know his own license seems pretty absurd to me.
--Lenny
Except that in this case, the long-term dependence is on the server, so replacing the server is replacing the "blade". The "razor" is the Everquest client software, which enables use of the Everquest servers.
Ah...you are right. In the case of the server emulator, this would be take away from the continued revenue stream of the original company.
I was focusing on the Playstation case, which is probably inappropriate in this thread.
It's nice to see a non-violent AC.
--Lenny
It's the old razor and razor blade analogy. Let's say a razor company sold razors for around cost, and then designed them so that no one else could make blades for them.
This is the Gillette model: give them the razors cheap/free to build up demand for the blades, which is where they make their money. As you mention, console makers follow this model too: they take a hit on selling you the hardware, and make up the money through licensing fees on the games for their console.
Thus far, your analogy holds. The error lies in associating the emulator with a knock-off blade company. The emulator is replacing the razor, not the blade. Recall that the original company gave away that razor at a loss to drum up business. Now some one else is taking that loss for them. Sony no longer has to sell you hardware at a loss to reap money off of games -- you can buy the games for your virtual playstation that didn't cost them a dime. Shouldn't they be happy? They still have their original revenue-source, and now it potentially reaches more customers.
Well, obviously they are not happy because they've been going around suing people. The reason they are unhappy is that in allowing someone else into their market, they no longer have complete control. You mention the importance of control, but I don't think that you take it far enough. This goes beyond simple economics and into power. They know, as Microsoft knows, that controlling a market is how you make the long term money. They don't want to settle for good business -- they want to make the market sit up and beg.
--Lenny
Anyone else just realize that:
HP++ = IQ
in the same sense that
IBM-- = HAL.
or
VMS++ = WNT (Windows NT)
I'm surprised that I haven't seen this pointed out before.
--Lenny
Why the heck do people keep calling special effects 'CGI' around here? What the heck does the 'I' stand for?
CGI stands for "Common Gateway Interface", and is for web pages. CG stands for "Computer Graphics" and is for special effects.
Has someone come up with some clever meaning for the "I" so that they can ignore the difference between the two acronyms?
I'd feel like I'm nitpicking except that every post I've seen mentions "CGI".
--Lenny
The key difference being that Ford underestimated the magnitude of the lawsuits AFTER they'd put the cars on the market, not knowing that they were prone to blow up on people.
Incorrect. Ford's engineers were fully aware of the fault before the Pinto's release. The problem was a poorly shielded gas tank that tended to get crushed in rear-impact collisions, causing an explosion. The engineers brought the information to management, along with a proposed (and inexpensive) fix. Management did the math on the number of deaths, how much each would cost them in lawsuits and PR, weighed it against the per-vehicle cost of the fix and decided to produce the vehicle unmodified.
The Pinto is now a text-book example in engineering ethics. The really chilling part of the story is that the primary motivation for not including the fix was that it would push the car's cost up enough to force a reprice. Marketing had been advertising the Pinto's low low target price like mad and weren't about to back down. Thus, the deadly defect remained largely due to marketing promises.
While it's easy to villify Ford or any other company for making decisions like these, it must be remembered that this is the extreme case of a common phenomenon. It isn't surprising that by spending more money on a car, you can design it to be safer. You expect a Volvo to be safer than a Kia, don't you? If the engineers so liked, they could keep lopping life-saving features onto a car until it 1) looks like a tank, and 2) can only be afforded by the very rich. Clearly, this is taking things too far. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and equations based on cost and fatalities are the tool used to make these decisions.
In the Pinto case, however, Ford went too far. The gas tank problem was a severe one, and it lowered the safety of the Pinto below consumers' reasonable expectations of safety. That is the key. Consumers may have expected the inexpensive Pinto to be less safe than a luxury car, but no one expected it to be as unsafe as it was.
Anyway, this Intel mess is really a whole different ball game. Failing on speed promises like this isn't life threatening to anyone, so the stakes from an ethical viewpoint drop markedly. (Don't tell me about air-traffic control, none of those people would touch these chips) This is really just another case of Intel throwing vapor around. It surprises no one.
--Lenny
I've had long discussions with BSD people about what the various designations used by FreeBSD really mean. This is the what I've come to understand:
FreeBSD ~ Debian
current ~ unstable
stable ~ stable
release ~ "we stuck it on a CD"
The releases are really just snapshots of one of the other branches of FreeBSD -- basically the source tree is frozen in time and pressed onto a CD-ROM. Anyone installing from a release is urged to follow "stable" which tracks fixs to the distribution. So "release"s are really just packaged versions of the other trees, provided for convenience on CD-ROM.
Thus, it seems to me that FreeBSD doesn't really have three branches.
> hmmm..., when will the world learn?
Ick. BSD elitism.
--Lenny
I'm still holding out for X11R6.5.6.32L27.2.34a++
*That*'s going to be the version to last...
--Lenny
Your list left out HP -- they were the original company to introduce "multimedia extension", SIMD-type instructions to their architecture.
I forget which PA-RISC they first did this with, but they redesigned parts of the integer unit so that it could do packed arithmetic (a la MMX) at a 0% increase in die size. They literally squeezed the extra logic into the corners of the existing die frame. Pretty impressive. Sure, it only sped up a few functions (MPEG decompression was the biggie), but they essentially got it for free. Conservative, but a definite win.
On the opposite extreme lies Alti-Vec. Alti-Vec is basically an entire vector processor sitting next to the original PowerPC core. It added 50% to the die size of the G4. 50%! It's certainly more capable than what HP or the others implemented, but Motorola paid the price. It's quite possible that they have decided the multimedia unit wasn't worth that much silicon, and have gone a different route with their next generation.
For the curious, Intel's original MMX unit increased the die size of the classic Pentium by about 5%. They're more recent extensions no doubt add more, but I think you can see that HP and Intel took a more conservative approach to "accelerating" multimedia with specialized SIMD units.
--Lenny
Title. Weee.
--Lenny
I've had my Mac zealot friends explain to me how keyboard-centric MacOS really is, and how efficient it is to get around. They mention all the shortcuts that you do. Great, someone at Apple thought their interface through.
They thought it through, but not enough. Switching apps is a vital and common activity for anyone who actually uses their multitasking operating system to multitask. Having to reach for the mouse slows you down. This is a massive hole in the "Mac is good for keyboard users" argument that I keep hearing.
As for the state of Linux file browsers, I have to agree that it is grim. I prefer the old Win95 Explorer to any file browser for Linux that I have ever tried -- and I've gone down the page at Freshmeat. Good thing I don't mind using BASH for all my browsing needs. Read up on the Berlin project, and keep your fingers crossed. There are people working on replacing X, but it's no easy task. Dude, up your font size. Many term's have hotkeys to do it. I'm really sick of people on Slashdot talking about people geting it. Atleast you didn't say "XYZ company just doesn't get it...." Did Jon Katz start this?
Hmmph. You thought your post sounded like flamebait...
--Lenny
The Flying Saucer has pint-glass night on Wednesdays. The one in Addison is pretty cool...
Come on, you know you're going to be celebrating the Debian release *anyway*.
--Lenny
I want to calculate solar radiation flux! I want to simulate nuclear detonations! I want to solve the traveling salesman problem for 29 billion routes!
You know that's exactly the sort of thing that the old Crays were used for. That was back in the day when "supercomputer" meant something, and these beasts only existed in ones and twos in places like Los Alamos, Sandia, and maybe Exxon.
And back then people thought the exact same things that you are saying now. "Who other than a weapons research lab could possibly use this"? The answer that surprised people is "just about everyone". The Cray-1 may be an inert piece of history now, but it's spirit lives on in our microprocessors. It's not just that modern PC's are as fast as old supercomputers, they are designed like old supercomputers.
Most innovations in computer architecture in the PC/workstation/server area have been taken from the supercomputers that came before. Surely the original researchers never dreamed that all of the complicated methods they were inventing to speed up supercomputers would wind up running some kid's game -- but they have.
Modern systems are blazingly fast, yet people continually feel the need to upgrade. In the PC biz, this seems to be driven by games and MS-bloat. Whatever the case, technology marches on, and people are willing to pay for more power. If you have the transistor budget, why not build a supercomputer on a chip? There's a market for it.
My point (such as it is) is that the hunger for performance shows no sign of stopping. It may seem ridiculous to us that an average person could ever use this much computing power. But bear in mind, that this won't even hit supercomputers for ~20 years. Think what people ~20 years ago would think about the kind of computing power that we use for games today. They would be stunned.
A little historical perspective, that's all...
--Lenny
"A little for the computer, a little for me! A little for the computer, a little for me!"
Ah, Simpsons.
--Lenny
>And I thought the /. bias wasn't that bad..
You speak of Slashdot as a single entity. That is absurd. At best, it is a gathering of relatively like-minded people.
Most of these people are of like mind because they support Linux, a BSD, or something like BeOS. Others could care less. However, perhaps the most unifying aspect of slashdot's disparate readership is an anti-MS bent.
You may call this "bias" if you wish, but it is more of a shared belief. Slashdot was never "unbiased". It started out as Rob's homepage. He would post links to things he found interesting. People with similar tastes starting frequenting the site because *they* thought the links were interesting too. The Slashdot "community" grew in this self-selecting fashion.
Miguel is effectively reimplementing Windows in open source. Slashdot has provided a home for many who dislike Windows. Why would you expect the readership to react with anything other than distaste?
> Component architectures are vital to a good GUI, code reuse is key.
Says your CS professor. I don't agree. You're use of the word "good" is revealing. This is all very subjective.
--Lenny
I've always wondered why so many users here feel the need to badmouth those individuals who put their freedom, and sometimes lives, on the line for their beliefs?
And what, exactly, was this guy's belief? I read the article, and I sure don't know. Did he have a cause he was representing? I sure can't tell. It seems that his "activism" wasn't very effective if I can take the time to read his write-up and still have no clue as to his cause.
If he had a cause, why wasn't it plastered all over his write-up? If he is so gung-ho about his beliefs, that he's willing to get arrested for them, doesn't it seem that he would take the opportunity to explain them to his audience? Typing out his ideas is certainly easier than protesting.
"Social justice" sounds great, but I don't see what it has to do with this story. This guy wasn't fighting for a cause. He was just looking to get arrested, and the cops obliged him.
--Lenny
Ideally, if consumers are abused, they will take it out on the company by complaining, or just moving to another product. Then the abusing company either rights their ways or dies. This same reasoning can apply to standards acceptance and environmental issues. The consumers have the ultimate power (and, in fact, responsibility) in correcting corporate behavior. This is the system, and it all seems reasonable to me.
So why does it break down? I don't think it's the system that is broken so much as the consumer these days. This, I feel, is one of the biggest problems in America today. People don't accept their responsibility as consumers. I think that a lot of people are just too taken in by marketing to sit down and rationally consider their choices. In the case of MS, I think companies have been too short sighted to realize that they'd be better off telling Gates to take a hike. Maybe then MS would shape up. Instead, companies take the short-term easier route of sticking with Windows, and MS continues to get away with murder. A very good point -- and one that I think is often ignored. There are some real disadvantages to being big. American infrastructure simply can not adjust as quickly as that of smaller nations.
--Lenny
--Lenny