Over-hyped merchandising machine -- without a doubt.
this is the part that bothers me the most. Training kids to be good little consumers. "You'll be happy if you just have this doll...and this one...and this one, etc." I'm seriously thinking that a universal ban on advertising to children under 12 would be a grand idea, isn't it like that in some countries? Children don't have the abstract reasoning needed to see past the actors in commercials, or the need to question what they are told (especially at loud volume). In the end you get Pokemon, which is, IMHO, Japanese for "blind consumerism".
hackers might be the core of the/. community but it doesn't define everyone here. A lot of the more interesting stories here are the tech/science advances, having little or nothing to do with programming at all. Not to mention the huge new media/IP/copyright discussions. Anything less than well versed and expressed opinions are trashed, or ignored.
However, a member of the intellectual elite would generally not spend their free time writing software. They would spend every last minute of it learning newer things.
I don't see the two as incompatible, but complementary. Regardless, any widespread use of the Internet leads to constant learning (or extrmemely focused attention), there's just too much info of whatever you may be interested in, and waaay too many new things to catch your fancy.
The Net is a big part of the whole thing, programming is a huge part of the Net. I just hope more people enjoy/abuse/use it to the degree most/.'ers do. blah, blah, this stuff is easy to rant about.
it might be a bit extreme, but the point is there. We live in a new time, a new place, one different in so many ways from what came before. A fresh outlook and a resetting of goals and priorities is in order.
It's not "open" in the facet that it can't be repackaged or repurposed, but is "open" as far as using it to obtain a wide variety of well-organized and searchable information. Updates, servers, and bandwidth are paid for with mass exposure (advertising).
Databases are interesting things. I mainly work with radio/tv station db's. It has been determined that the average cost for obtaining a name/address/phone is roughly $7. Appending interesting information costs more money, as well as yearly NCOA (National Change of Address) updates, databases can be expensive, or I should say, used to be. The Internet has changed things siginificantly (as if you didn't know). Acquisition has dropped (for us) to about $.10 a name.
Large Databases used to (15-20 yrs. ago)require the work of millions of dollars of heavy iron, now a moderately equipped small company can do serious modeling/profiling and apply it (BTW, this is another reason CS majors are pulling heavy $) effectively.
I don't really see how the OS model fits this. Unless you're talking about DB tools. OS developement isn't like DB developement, collecting/organizing data is different than coding compilers and desktop environments.
Did birth control really free half the population to "reliably join the work force?"
Yes. It's not just a matter of being able to "return" to a job after a pregnancy, but also to be depended on to work straight for years at a time if necessary.
Perhaps things like maternity laws and day care would better qualify under that criteria.
These still have to take into account the 6-9 weeks that a woman is physically unable to work for 8 hours a day (for most of them, some don't need to stop). Birth control means that, if a woman chooses, she can avoid pregnancy (and therefore forced in-home time) and stay working consistently at a job for an arbitrarily long length of time.
As for sparking the "sexual revolution," what is that, exactly? Really, what does it mean?
It was equality for women. Before the pill, if a one-nite stand occured, it was the women who bore sole responsibility for anything spawned at the time. That is the same, mostly, but after the pill a women could, arguably, protect herself from unwanted pregnancy, and was there fore "free" to explore her sexuality in any way she wished without fear of conception. This kind of thinking, women are free to explore sexuality, was a revolution in this county. Especially when one considers the contrast of the straight-laced (and boring as hell, IMHO) nature of the 50s and the hippie, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, free-love, ride that was the 60s. 'Course I wasn't born till '74, so this is all pre-mystory to me...
doh, forgot about those luscious-lock-havin' gentlemen in the crowd. Having recently-de-hippified myself (on the outside;) 'twas a simple oversight. carry on.
not to mention the fact that it is easily surpassed in usability (time to dry hands), portability, cost, and just about everything else, by a simple paper towel. Electric hand dryers are a good example of technology gone way too far. Electric HAIR dryers, OTOH (for women) have been a godsend. Now it only takes women 2 hours to get ready, instead of the pre-historic 4.
Re:Defense Dept Lost Satellites
on
Apocalypse Not
·
· Score: 2
this is like banks admitting they got cracked. What F500 business is going to report they got whacked by a Y2K bug? None that are publicly traded, IMHO. It was a big problem, most of it got fixed, some didn't, we'll see normal "bug-like" behaviour for years to come. Everyone here know that not all bugs appear the moment they occur, it could take months for a critical mass of bits to be misplaced.
hopefully any reporter with a clue would visit a Linux site and smell the rat. CNBC usually does a pretty good job. We'll see how aware the market is..
.. (An expert at the British government's computer security headquarters, CESG (Communications-Electronics Security Group) has endorsed Linux along with the open source model for software development as the most secure computer architecture available.
.and.
He says, "Windows was built for a single computer and then the network was added on as an afterthought. Also it's closed source, and I would never ever trust someone else completely with security.")
vs.
A Microsoft spokeswoman, however, disputes these perspectives, claiming that Microsoft's closed-source software is more secure than ever.
no, way. I agree with the article. This is the first home use robot that I'm seriously interested in. Vacuuming is a great starting task, with their interest in open source (see posts from the FAQ), I'm sure tons of stuff will pop up. The price is immaterial as everyone who buys within the next few years is paying for developement and new manufacturing processes. Looks like it might retail for $150-250 in 3/4 years. I want one.
It looks like they picked a cool way to solve a lot of the problems. The mapping feature looks good too. I saw this is a magazine just the other day, but didn't really look at it. It doesn't look like robots are "supposed" to. hehe.
I dunno about Amazon.com (or is it.org, I can never remember) revolutionizing the way I buy books, but I know Napster has revolutionized the way I buy music. Free Beer for all. (now it's just a matter of waiting for the laws^H^H^H^Hhangover.)
Name: John Carmack Email: johnc@idsoftware.com Description: Programmer Project: Quake 3 Arena Last Updated: 12/21/1999 20:24:07 (Central Standard Time) ------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------- 12/21/99 --------
The Q3 game source code is getting pushed back a bit because we had to do some rearranging in the current codebase to facilitate the release, and we don't want to release in-progress code before the official binary point release.
We still have a Christmas present for the coders, though:
http://www.idsoftware.com/q1source/
Happy holidays!
conjecture at will.
Re:Is it a business decision?
on
Quake 1 GPL'ed
·
· Score: 2
If microsfot was a "cool" company, like id (and thats a loong stick to measure by), they would release their old "useless code". It's the best way not to have to support it. Maybe that should be a law? If you won't support your own software, you have to GPL it, or at least open the source.
Opening the 5/8 year old Office95/Win3.11 code could be tremendously helpful to (new) developers. At the very least they make great case studies for student courses.
If these are the "greatest engineering task(s) in human history" then perhaps we should learn how they got there..blah, blah, just pissed at M$ stuff for eating some email.
Re:Large amount of artwork? Umm...
on
Quake 1 GPL'ed
·
· Score: 2
It usually isn't wise to trivialize the art department (unfortunately something that feeds my stereotype of programmers not realizing how much work it really is)
I agree. I work with artists all the time. They know their G4s pretty damn well. I've seen some amazing stuff, but it does take a lot of work. What would interest artists in a GPL project? Does the credit and (hopefully) widespread distrubution interest you? You get to do whatever you want, basically. Do you guys do "art" in your spare time? (please, feel free to generalize for an entire profession;)
Slashdot Mirror
survival of the sluttiest, eh?
Did you see/hear the Crosseyed & Painless at NYE2000? or is your alias coincidence...
(searching for Linux usin' Phishies)
Over-hyped merchandising machine -- without a doubt.
this is the part that bothers me the most. Training kids to be good little consumers. "You'll be happy if you just have this doll...and this one...and this one, etc." I'm seriously thinking that a universal ban on advertising to children under 12 would be a grand idea, isn't it like that in some countries? Children don't have the abstract reasoning needed to see past the actors in commercials, or the need to question what they are told (especially at loud volume). In the end you get Pokemon, which is, IMHO, Japanese for "blind consumerism".
hackers might be the core of the /. community but it doesn't define everyone here. A lot of the more interesting stories here are the tech/science advances, having little or nothing to do with programming at all. Not to mention the huge new media/IP/copyright discussions. Anything less than well versed and expressed opinions are trashed, or ignored.
/.'ers do. blah, blah, this stuff is easy to rant about.
However, a member of the intellectual elite would generally not spend their free time writing software. They would spend every last minute of it learning newer things.
I don't see the two as incompatible, but complementary. Regardless, any widespread use of the Internet leads to constant learning (or extrmemely focused attention), there's just too much info of whatever you may be interested in, and waaay too many new things to catch your fancy.
The Net is a big part of the whole thing, programming is a huge part of the Net. I just hope more people enjoy/abuse/use it to the degree most
it might be a bit extreme, but the point is there. We live in a new time, a new place, one different in so many ways from what came before. A fresh outlook and a resetting of goals and priorities is in order.
Look at the IMDB. as an example.
It's not "open" in the facet that it can't be repackaged or repurposed, but is "open" as far as using it to obtain a wide variety of well-organized and searchable information. Updates, servers, and bandwidth are paid for with mass exposure (advertising).
Databases are interesting things. I mainly work with radio/tv station db's. It has been determined that the average cost for obtaining a name/address/phone is roughly $7. Appending interesting information costs more money, as well as yearly NCOA (National Change of Address) updates, databases can be expensive, or I should say, used to be. The Internet has changed things siginificantly (as if you didn't know). Acquisition has dropped (for us) to about $.10 a name.
Large Databases used to (15-20 yrs. ago)require the work of millions of dollars of heavy iron, now a moderately equipped small company can do serious modeling/profiling and apply it (BTW, this is another reason CS majors are pulling heavy $) effectively.
I don't really see how the OS model fits this. Unless you're talking about DB tools. OS developement isn't like DB developement, collecting/organizing data is different than coding compilers and desktop environments.
centscents
Did birth control really free half the population to "reliably join the work force?"
Yes. It's not just a matter of being able to "return" to a job after a pregnancy, but also to be depended on to work straight for years at a time if necessary.
Perhaps things like maternity laws and day care would better qualify under that criteria.
These still have to take into account the 6-9 weeks that a woman is physically unable to work for 8 hours a day (for most of them, some don't need to stop). Birth control means that, if a woman chooses, she can avoid pregnancy (and therefore forced in-home time) and stay working consistently at a job for an arbitrarily long length of time.
As for sparking the "sexual revolution," what is that, exactly? Really, what does it mean?
It was equality for women. Before the pill, if a one-nite stand occured, it was the women who bore sole responsibility for anything spawned at the time. That is the same, mostly, but after the pill a women could, arguably, protect herself from unwanted pregnancy, and was there fore "free" to explore her sexuality in any way she wished without fear of conception. This kind of thinking, women are free to explore sexuality, was a revolution in this county. Especially when one considers the contrast of the straight-laced (and boring as hell, IMHO) nature of the 50s and the hippie, pot-smoking, acid-dropping, free-love, ride that was the 60s. 'Course I wasn't born till '74, so this is all pre-mystory to me...
doh, forgot about those luscious-lock-havin' gentlemen in the crowd. Having recently-de-hippified myself (on the outside ;) 'twas a simple oversight. carry on.
not to mention the fact that it is easily surpassed in usability (time to dry hands), portability, cost, and just about everything else, by a simple paper towel. Electric hand dryers are a good example of technology gone way too far. Electric HAIR dryers, OTOH (for women) have been a godsend. Now it only takes women 2 hours to get ready, instead of the pre-historic 4.
this is like banks admitting they got cracked. What F500 business is going to report they got whacked by a Y2K bug? None that are publicly traded, IMHO. It was a big problem, most of it got fixed, some didn't, we'll see normal "bug-like" behaviour for years to come. Everyone here know that not all bugs appear the moment they occur, it could take months for a critical mass of bits to be misplaced.
I can't wait to see the DA for the fool who tries to get on top of his house by shooting a RL at his feet.
...are pretty good business it would seem. What are Internic / NetSol's numbers for the past few years? $70 for a database entry...
hopefully any reporter with a clue would visit a Linux site and smell the rat. CNBC usually does a pretty good job. We'll see how aware the market is..
..
(An expert at the British government's computer security headquarters, CESG (Communications-Electronics Security Group) has endorsed Linux along with the open source model for software development as the most secure computer architecture available.
.and.
He says, "Windows was built for a single computer and then the network was added on as an afterthought. Also it's closed source, and I would never ever trust someone else completely with security.")
vs.
A Microsoft spokeswoman, however, disputes these perspectives, claiming that Microsoft's closed-source software is more secure than ever.
Marketing vs. Reality isn't a fair fight...
Does anyone believe that everything that sells in great numbers "must be effective"? Ever heard of Windows?
..speaking of hopelessly naive..
no, way. I agree with the article. This is the first home use robot that I'm seriously interested in. Vacuuming is a great starting task, with their interest in open source (see posts from the FAQ), I'm sure tons of stuff will pop up. The price is immaterial as everyone who buys within the next few years is paying for developement and new manufacturing processes. Looks like it might retail for $150-250 in 3/4 years. I want one.
It looks like they picked a cool way to solve a lot of the problems. The mapping feature looks good too. I saw this is a magazine just the other day, but didn't really look at it. It doesn't look like robots are "supposed" to. hehe.
... I remember when September happened in September, not all the damned time.
extra big ?
(capilast conspiracy theory)
I wnder how much Time/Warner owns of Amazon? I wonder how much traffic and cash they get from a front page ad in Time?
Time Magazine never had anything against nominating an inanimate object or concept,
an Inanimate Carbon Rod!!!
(don't laught at Inanimate Carbon Rod)
I dunno about Amazon.com (or is it .org, I can never remember) revolutionizing the way I buy books, but I know Napster has revolutionized the way I buy music. Free Beer for all. (now it's just a matter of waiting for the laws^H^H^H^Hhangover.)
..Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo!
this is from JC's .plan
- -------------------------------
Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
Last Updated: 12/21/1999 20:24:07 (Central Standard Time)
-----------------------------------------------
12/21/99
--------
The Q3 game source code is getting pushed back a bit because we had to do
some rearranging in the current codebase to facilitate the release, and
we don't want to release in-progress code before the official binary point
release.
We still have a Christmas present for the coders, though:
http://www.idsoftware.com/q1source/
Happy holidays!
conjecture at will.
If microsfot was a "cool" company, like id (and thats a loong stick to measure by), they would release their old "useless code". It's the best way not to have to support it. Maybe that should be a law? If you won't support your own software, you have to GPL it, or at least open the source.
Opening the 5/8 year old Office95/Win3.11 code could be tremendously helpful to (new) developers. At the very least they make great case studies for student courses.
If these are the "greatest engineering task(s) in human history" then perhaps we should learn how they got there..blah, blah, just pissed at M$ stuff for eating some email.
It usually isn't wise to trivialize the art department (unfortunately something that feeds my stereotype of programmers not realizing how much work it really is)
;)
I agree. I work with artists all the time. They know their G4s pretty damn well. I've seen some amazing stuff, but it does take a lot of work. What would interest artists in a GPL project? Does the credit and (hopefully) widespread distrubution interest you? You get to do whatever you want, basically. Do you guys do "art" in your spare time? (please, feel free to generalize for an entire profession
include any of the many TCs (and the ones to follow, id kicks ass)
This code was worth, what, $10 million 4 years ago? An interesting point in the discussion of determining the "value" of software.