how is regulation going to keep criminals from using strong encryption on their data. if they're computer savvy enough to encrypt their stuff, they're also capable of getting it from an overseas site. the only people who will be kept from using strong cryptography will be the law-abiding citizens and the criminals who are to stupid to know about cryptography.
this argument is very similar to the arguments that led to the creation of gun laws like the brady bill here in the us.
how is an unenforced patent such a great thing? this yields a great deal of uncertainty to anyone who may be infringing on their patent. there is nothing to keep symentec from changing their mind and enforcing the patent tomorrow.
a mars mission game was done a for the apple II quite a while ago. i still have it. it started with training in space school, all the way to extended missions in research settlments on mars. all along the way you learned interesting things about mars and space travel in general.
BeOS comes with Anti-Aliased Fonts and they cannot be disabled. This is fine with me. Unless you are working with extremely small font sizes, AA is a lot easier for me read. At extremely small font sizes on non-AA displayes, you just hurt your eyes instead of trying to decipher grey blobs.
charging racism is easy. it doesn't require the accuser to change anything about themselves.
there are legitimate reasons why the scores may be different.
let's face it: many minorities live in poorer families; minorities have a higher percentage of single-parent homes; a high percentage of minorites live in areas with more crime;... and on and on.
all of these things create problems for minorities to be able to focus as much on school and the school itself has to worry about a lot more than school.
none of these situations means that there is racism present, and to correct them in a way that would be more favorable to minority races would be racist.
i took both the sat and the act before i went to college. i did not go to any prep school, but i did go to the library and look through the book that had sample questions in it. some of my friends did better than me, but i did above average.
i think the sat is more able to measure aptitude and the act is geared toward measuring knowlege. both can be good, but you have to know what you're measuring. you won't see any seventh grader taking the act, because so much of the test material depends on how far you've progressed through you're school's curriculum. but there are always a few who are encoraged to take the sat.
i think that overall these national standard tests provide a fair method to compare students' ability to succeed.
what i really wonder about is what standard will be used now?
- they can't use gpa. every highschool has an incentive to inflate their student's grades and this leads to an unfair comparison.
- they shouldn't (and can't in some areas) use race. making decisions based on race is in fact racist. so they are attempting to defeat percieved racism with more racism.
- they have decided not to use national standard tests like act and sat.
- they can develop their own test. they probably won't do this since its a lot of work and will have the same result as using the national tests.
i don't really see the point of using softmodems. so you can get a softmodem for ~$20 and a real modem for ~$50. if you are going through the expense of getting a computer and maybe spending ~$2000, what's an extra 2.5%?
besides, real modems are more reliable. if there is some problem with my real modem, i just flip the switch on the back of it on and off, and it's ready to go. on a softmodem, you have to reboot the pc. if you're running linux, one of you're goals is reliability. who wants to reboot because their modem won't reset.
in case you're thinking cad - that's for making engineering drawings, not for rendering, here are some examples of renderings i've done with Pro/E. Engine Parts Wood Logs
are there any solid modelling CAD programs for linx?
i use a lot of different types of cad programs between work and school, and the only one i have seen that even works on any *nix is Pro/E (irix). it is a very expensive, professional, proprietary, solid-modelling CAD program.
i think that the cad programs are a lot easier to use than typing code and rendering.
dxf is a 2d standard.
the most common 3d standard is IGES. this is compatible with every solid-modelling CAD program on the market.
a large part of my job is doing solid modelling in Pro/Engineer. we use dxf's all the time to export portable 2d representations of our parts, but there is no way you can used dxf for a 3d standard.
how do they get 22 times the storage density out of a media without running into problems.
there is the obvious reliability. floppies regularly fail as it is. does this compound the problem?
if this much storage could be had from a floppy, what kept manufacturers from doing this in the first place.
this is not some compression algorithm, you actually have to have some place to put all these bits. there is a physical limit to how close you can put bits and still differentiate between them. magnetic forces go up as the inverse sqare of the distance.
one way the bits can be put closer together is by giving them a stronger charge, but there is a chemical limit inherent to to each media. as long as you are using standard floppies, you're stuck with the same limit as floppies have right now.
if you think you can operate your system with just a kernel go ahead, but I will at least need a cli. the ui is just as much a part of the os as the kernel. in *nix, everyone can choose there own kernel and ui, but you need at least one of each before you have an os.
The Highpoint 66 controller is definitely a problem. It is a major pain to get them configured in any OS except their Linux distribution (Gentus).
I played around with the them for a while, but because I wanted to use BeOS, I switched to the 33. This was before I was having any serious problems.
this is a copy of a post i made at benews. go here to read the follow-up posts.
For a long time I have been unable to use BeOS. My computer would mysteriously and randomly completely lock up. I say randomly because I started to keep a log, but there wasn't any pattern at all.
I looked all over the web for help, and since I had a graphics card that some people had reported to have problems, I replaced it. This did not solve my problem.
Next, I thought something might be the matter with BeOS. This seemed to be true for a while because it got to the point where I needed to reinstall and the reinstall kept crashing. Linux was still working at this point.
But it got worse. Linux would crash periodically and sometimes my ext2 partition would be too mangled for fsck and I would try to reinstall. It got to the point where my distribution would not install (Gentus). I tried a few other distributions and Debian Installed but kept giving me these IDE time-out and restart warnings.
I actually like Debian and would have never tried it out if it hadn't been for this problem, but my problem got worse. Debian started having the same problems as the rest of the distributions.
A friend suggested we try installing Windows 2000 just to eliminate the possibility that software was the problem. We tried a couple of times and Win2k's best was 76% completed and then crashed.
Since I had gotten some error messages with Debian about my IDE I thought it might be my IDE controller. I found a few people on the web who said that they also had problems with their Abit BP6 motherboard's IDE controllers. So I started the process of choosing another motherboard.
I finally selected an EPoX KP6-BS with slotkets. (I have two 500Mhz Celerons).
I am glad that I finally found the proplem. I have not had a single crash since I installed the new motherboard and I have done everything that made it crash before. Installed BeOS and Debian GNU/Linux, compiled my kernel 3 times, forced an fsck, Used Net+ (Net+ crashed once, but BeOS caught it), etc.
I really enjoy using BeOS and really missed it during the several months it took me to finally find the problem.
I am posting this here for anyone else who may be having similar problems. I hope this helps.
one thing to keep in mind. as a single piece of hardware becomes more complex, the chances of a single manufacturing error rendering the part useless go up.
I think this one phrase from the "Makes sense" section pretty much sums up the problem.
I hope the NSA takes their time in evaluating VMWare's stuff. Right now, they have a working system. Is it really worth it to throw this system out in favor of an unproven technology.
I am not saying VMWare is unproven technology, but merely this new use for the product. Again, from the article, "the current VMware technology is not up to a level of assurance necessary for this."
Of course an obvious point is that there is no such thing as "Crackproof Computing." No matter how good this product becomes, there will always be a chance that there are remaining security holes. It may be a while before this risk is at an acceptable level for the NSA.
This guy has a warped idea of what an OS is. An operating system is many things, but an OS is NEVER transparent.
I see my OS and the successes/failures of it's design anytime I try to do something. It doesn't matter whether the OS is the ghastly Windows or the Beautiful BeOS. The all-encompassing GNU/Linux or the embedded QNX.
Let's just take one function of a modern OS as an example: Opening a file with an application.
In Windows, you double-click on a file to open it. It opens it with the one and only default application. If you want to open it with another app (say to view instead of edit it), it's a bit of a pain. If there is no default app and you double-click, you are faced with guessing what app should be the default app. If you guessed wrong, you're file associations are messed up and sometimes it can be difficult to fix.
This is a definite short-coming of the OS.
In MacOS, the default application is on a per-file basis. whichever app last touched the file is the default app. This works great as long as I want to do the default task with the file. ie Always edit or always view. I don't want to start up Photoshop to view an image. This also is a short-coming of the OS.
Linux doesn't have any one way to handle this. each window manager takes a slightly different tack, and if you are at the CLI, you are on you're own for picking the correct app for a file.
In BeOS, there are fourlevels at which an app can register itself for a filetype. An app can be the default app. an app can register that it can interact with the file well. an app can register that it can interact with the file to some extent, and an app can register that it cannot handle that file-type. The default app will be used on double-click. on a right-click (or hold-click), a context menu comes up. At the top is the default app. then come all the apps that can handle the file well, then those that can handle it so-so. This is the most intelligent way I have ever seen.
I don't know how this guy would implement this with a transparent OS? would you have an app to open an app? and how is that different from having the OS perform this function.
This is just a small example of why an OS is not transparent. There are many more.
Maybe this guy is getting at this from the average computer user's point of view. These guys don't even know what an OS is. They think that windows is an app that lets you use you're apps.
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how is regulation going to keep criminals from using strong encryption on their data. if they're computer savvy enough to encrypt their stuff, they're also capable of getting it from an overseas site. the only people who will be kept from using strong cryptography will be the law-abiding citizens and the criminals who are to stupid to know about cryptography.
this argument is very similar to the arguments that led to the creation of gun laws like the brady bill here in the us.
how is an unenforced patent such a great thing? this yields a great deal of uncertainty to anyone who may be infringing on their patent. there is nothing to keep symentec from changing their mind and enforcing the patent tomorrow.
a mars mission game was done a for the apple II quite a while ago. i still have it. it started with training in space school, all the way to extended missions in research settlments on mars. all along the way you learned interesting things about mars and space travel in general.
BeOS comes with Anti-Aliased Fonts and they cannot be disabled. This is fine with me. Unless you are working with extremely small font sizes, AA is a lot easier for me read. At extremely small font sizes on non-AA displayes, you just hurt your eyes instead of trying to decipher grey blobs.
polo --> sport --> soccer
horse --> equipment used by player to move around the field? --> cleats?
is this it or is it something else?
this part of the sat was my favorite part.
charging racism is easy. it doesn't require the accuser to change anything about themselves.
... and on and on.
there are legitimate reasons why the scores may be different.
let's face it: many minorities live in poorer families; minorities have a higher percentage of single-parent homes; a high percentage of minorites live in areas with more crime;
all of these things create problems for minorities to be able to focus as much on school and the school itself has to worry about a lot more than school.
none of these situations means that there is racism present, and to correct them in a way that would be more favorable to minority races would be racist.
oops. should be "their" not "there"
i took both the sat and the act before i went to college. i did not go to any prep school, but i did go to the library and look through the book that had sample questions in it. some of my friends did better than me, but i did above average.
i think the sat is more able to measure aptitude and the act is geared toward measuring knowlege. both can be good, but you have to know what you're measuring. you won't see any seventh grader taking the act, because so much of the test material depends on how far you've progressed through you're school's curriculum. but there are always a few who are encoraged to take the sat.
i think that overall these national standard tests provide a fair method to compare students' ability to succeed.
what i really wonder about is what standard will be used now?
- they can't use gpa. every highschool has an incentive to inflate their student's grades and this leads to an unfair comparison.
- they shouldn't (and can't in some areas) use race. making decisions based on race is in fact racist. so they are attempting to defeat percieved racism with more racism.
- they have decided not to use national standard tests like act and sat.
- they can develop their own test. they probably won't do this since its a lot of work and will have the same result as using the national tests.
what's left?
no wonder the schools were turning you down.
the sat is out of 1600.
even if you're thinking of the act, a passing score is 17.
i don't really see the point of using softmodems. so you can get a softmodem for ~$20 and a real modem for ~$50. if you are going through the expense of getting a computer and maybe spending ~$2000, what's an extra 2.5%?
besides, real modems are more reliable. if there is some problem with my real modem, i just flip the switch on the back of it on and off, and it's ready to go. on a softmodem, you have to reboot the pc. if you're running linux, one of you're goals is reliability. who wants to reboot because their modem won't reset.
over the life of my 5-year-old 100MHz pc, i have replaced the hard drive twice. just count yourself lucky. or maybe count me unlucky.
in case you're thinking cad - that's for making engineering drawings, not for rendering, here are some examples of renderings i've done with Pro/E.
Engine Parts
Wood Logs
are there any solid modelling CAD programs for linx?
i use a lot of different types of cad programs between work and school, and the only one i have seen that even works on any *nix is Pro/E (irix). it is a very expensive, professional, proprietary, solid-modelling CAD program.
i think that the cad programs are a lot easier to use than typing code and rendering.
dxf is a 2d standard.
the most common 3d standard is IGES. this is compatible with every solid-modelling CAD program on the market.
a large part of my job is doing solid modelling in Pro/Engineer. we use dxf's all the time to export portable 2d representations of our parts, but there is no way you can used dxf for a 3d standard.
how do they get 22 times the storage density out of a media without running into problems.
there is the obvious reliability. floppies regularly fail as it is. does this compound the problem?
if this much storage could be had from a floppy, what kept manufacturers from doing this in the first place.
this is not some compression algorithm, you actually have to have some place to put all these bits. there is a physical limit to how close you can put bits and still differentiate between them. magnetic forces go up as the inverse sqare of the distance.
one way the bits can be put closer together is by giving them a stronger charge, but there is a chemical limit inherent to to each media. as long as you are using standard floppies, you're stuck with the same limit as floppies have right now.
do these guys just wave a magic wand?
i think it's pretty funny that the fans of this band look like crazed vampires in the first picture.
if you think you can operate your system with just a kernel go ahead, but I will at least need a cli. the ui is just as much a part of the os as the kernel. in *nix, everyone can choose there own kernel and ui, but you need at least one of each before you have an os.
The Highpoint 66 controller is definitely a problem. It is a major pain to get them configured in any OS except their Linux distribution (Gentus).
I played around with the them for a while, but because I wanted to use BeOS, I switched to the 33. This was before I was having any serious problems.
this is a copy of a post i made at benews. go here to read the follow-up posts.
For a long time I have been unable to use BeOS. My computer would mysteriously and randomly completely lock up. I say randomly because I started to keep a log, but there wasn't any pattern at all.
I looked all over the web for help, and since I had a graphics card that some people had reported to have problems, I replaced it. This did not solve my problem.
Next, I thought something might be the matter with BeOS. This seemed to be true for a while because it got to the point where I needed to reinstall and the reinstall kept crashing. Linux was still working at this point.
But it got worse. Linux would crash periodically and sometimes my ext2 partition would be too mangled for fsck and I would try to reinstall. It got to the point where my distribution would not install (Gentus). I tried a few other distributions and Debian Installed but kept giving me these IDE time-out and restart warnings.
I actually like Debian and would have never tried it out if it hadn't been for this problem, but my problem got worse. Debian started having the same problems as the rest of the distributions.
A friend suggested we try installing Windows 2000 just to eliminate the possibility that software was the problem. We tried a couple of times and Win2k's best was 76% completed and then crashed.
Since I had gotten some error messages with Debian about my IDE I thought it might be my IDE controller. I found a few people on the web who said that they also had problems with their Abit BP6 motherboard's IDE controllers. So I started the process of choosing another motherboard.
I finally selected an EPoX KP6-BS with slotkets. (I have two 500Mhz Celerons).
I am glad that I finally found the proplem. I have not had a single crash since I installed the new motherboard and I have done everything that made it crash before. Installed BeOS and Debian GNU/Linux, compiled my kernel 3 times, forced an fsck, Used Net+ (Net+ crashed once, but BeOS caught it), etc.
I really enjoy using BeOS and really missed it during the several months it took me to finally find the problem.
I am posting this here for anyone else who may be having similar problems. I hope this helps.
one thing to keep in mind. as a single piece of hardware becomes more complex, the chances of a single manufacturing error rendering the part useless go up.
I think this one phrase from the "Makes sense" section pretty much sums up the problem.
I hope the NSA takes their time in evaluating VMWare's stuff. Right now, they have a working system. Is it really worth it to throw this system out in favor of an unproven technology.
I am not saying VMWare is unproven technology, but merely this new use for the product. Again, from the article, "the current VMware technology is not up to a level of assurance necessary for this."
Of course an obvious point is that there is no such thing as "Crackproof Computing." No matter how good this product becomes, there will always be a chance that there are remaining security holes. It may be a while before this risk is at an acceptable level for the NSA.
This guy has a warped idea of what an OS is. An operating system is many things, but an OS is NEVER transparent.
I see my OS and the successes/failures of it's design anytime I try to do something. It doesn't matter whether the OS is the ghastly Windows or the Beautiful BeOS. The all-encompassing GNU/Linux or the embedded QNX.
Let's just take one function of a modern OS as an example: Opening a file with an application.
In Windows, you double-click on a file to open it. It opens it with the one and only default application. If you want to open it with another app (say to view instead of edit it), it's a bit of a pain. If there is no default app and you double-click, you are faced with guessing what app should be the default app. If you guessed wrong, you're file associations are messed up and sometimes it can be difficult to fix.
This is a definite short-coming of the OS.
In MacOS, the default application is on a per-file basis. whichever app last touched the file is the default app. This works great as long as I want to do the default task with the file. ie Always edit or always view. I don't want to start up Photoshop to view an image. This also is a short-coming of the OS.
Linux doesn't have any one way to handle this. each window manager takes a slightly different tack, and if you are at the CLI, you are on you're own for picking the correct app for a file.
In BeOS, there are fourlevels at which an app can register itself for a filetype. An app can be the default app. an app can register that it can interact with the file well. an app can register that it can interact with the file to some extent, and an app can register that it cannot handle that file-type. The default app will be used on double-click. on a right-click (or hold-click), a context menu comes up. At the top is the default app. then come all the apps that can handle the file well, then those that can handle it so-so. This is the most intelligent way I have ever seen.
I don't know how this guy would implement this with a transparent OS? would you have an app to open an app? and how is that different from having the OS perform this function.
This is just a small example of why an OS is not transparent. There are many more.
Maybe this guy is getting at this from the average computer user's point of view. These guys don't even know what an OS is. They think that windows is an app that lets you use you're apps.