I work as a software developer for a small technology company. We do custom software for our clients. I used to feel very slightly guilty for not developing Free software, but after reading the interview I no longer feel that way.
Richard Stallman: Non-free software is meant to be distributed to the public. Custom software is meant to be used by one client. There's no ethical problem with custom software as long as you're respecting your client's freedom.
What he's saying is that there's an ethical difference between developing custom software and developing proprietary software. I had assumed that because my company doesn't slap the GPL on the custom software we write that I was helping to write programs that violate the spirit of Free software. But since the software is custom-designed for one client, RMS says it's OK. And I guess it really is. After all, the client can look at the source code if he wants, and make changes if he wants. Most of them don't want to, but since they paid for the development they do have that right.
The only way any product in this space is going to go places is if it works just like Office, acts just like Office, feels just like Office, etc. Office is the standard, and for 99% of people that use it, it's flawless. Any deviation from this standard suite, even if it's an improvement, is nothing but a nuisance to the average user.
I disagree. You are correct in one sense: anybody who already uses Microsoft Office (whether at work or at home) for document creation will be more comfortable sticking with something that works exactly like Office.
But I think Apple is going for a different market: casual computer users. I don't necessarily mean just first-time computer users, I mean people who use computers for email, Internet, and instant messaging. How often do casual users need to use an Office suite?
I'll tell you how often: almost never. Since I graduated from college two years ago I have not once used a word processor to create a document. (OK maybe once--I wrote a letter to my grandma.) Most casual users are like me. The only office suite they need is something that lets them view documents that people send them via email. If Apple's office suite can view Microsoft Office documents, that's good enough for home users.
Casual computer users have no need of Microsoft Office as a document creation suite. I think Apple is heading in the right direction for their target market. Apple's suite will not be a replacement for Microsoft Office, but it will be suitable for a large class of users who don't need Microsoft Office.
Bush earlier wanted to amend the constitution to not allow states to have their own choice as to what constitutes a civil union.
You are being misleading.
The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) prohibits states from using the word marriage for anything other than the union of a man and a woman. However, the FMA clearly and deliberately allows states to define civil unions in any manner they choose. If states want to give civil unions to homosexual couples the FMA permits them to do so. If Bush supports the FMA (and he has) then he supports the states' right to define civil unions however they choose. So his recent statements are not, in fact, a change. There is no flip-flop.
As an aside, are you aware of the difference between Bush and Cheney (yes, Vice-President Cheney disagrees with the President on this question) on the question of gay marriage? Both support a state's right to define civil unions, but Bush wants to reserve the word marriage for heterosexual relationships, while Cheney wants to leave that decision up to the state. That's why Bush supports the FMA and Cheney does not. The difference between Bush and Cheney on this issue is entirely about the use of the word marriage. Neither of them have a problem with giving some measure of legal recognition and protection to homosexual couples.
I don't know why modern political-reformists are so fixated on IRV. Of all the technical criteria of "fair voting" IRV fulfills NONE. In this respect it's worse even than "majority vote".
Reformists are fixated on IRV because that's what the public will actually agree to. Systems like Condorcet's Method voting are technically superior but use a lot of math and are complicated to explain. If you can't explain it in a thirty second sound bite you won't get able to get enough popular support to get it passed.
The other reason to support IRV is that IRV is a stepping-stone to Condorcet's Method. Current voting procedures and equipment are not able to support IRV or Condorcet's Method. Once we implement IRV we will have the procedures and voting equipment necessary to use any number of superior vote counting schemes, including Condorcet's Method. So by introducing IRV we will have built the framework to allow a move to Condorcet's Method. Then all we have to do is convince the public to support Condorcet's Method--and since we already have the equipment, no one can complain that it will be too expensive to switch.
Re:Why are Nader voters and his party so cluess?
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The Hidden Swing State?
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· Score: 2, Informative
In spending his political capital running for an office he can not posibly win he is insuring a minimal return on investment.... A party that runs someone for president and gets 2% of the vote in the US has no ability to do anything of use.
Running for President gives the candidate and the party publicity that running for a lower office (such as a state legislative seat) does not. Publicity for the party's Presidential candidate then helps (in a trickle-down sort of way) the campaigns of the other party members running for lower offices. Running for President is not about winning, it's about getting your party some publicity and communicating your message to as many people as possible.
Another reason to run for President is that in some states a party must get a certain percentage of the vote in a major election in order to be recognized as an official political party. Officially recognizied political parties generally have easier requirements for getting candidates on the ballot than do unrecognized parties and independent candidates. The Presidential race is as good a race as any to pick up those much-needed votes to keep your party on the official list of political parties.
1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%) 2. Cobb, David - Green Party (88%) 3. Nader, Ralph - Independent (84%) 4. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (80%) 5. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (72%)
I removed candidates that are no longer running from your list of results. It's interesting that you have four candidates who match your views up to 70% or more according to this quiz. Let's check my results:
1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%) 2. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (72%) 3. Bush, President George W. - Republican (60%) 4. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (38%) 5. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (36%) 6. Cobb, David - Green Party (26%) 7. Nader, Ralph - Independent (26%) 8. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (22%)
I only get one candidate--Badnarik--who breaks the 70% threshhold. And only two candidates break 50%. That suggests to me that the candidates are not evenly distributed along ideological lines. That is, there are more candidates who hold liberal views (and thus your four candidates with 70% a or higher rating) than there are candidates who hold conservative values (as seen in my results.) This suggests several questions: why are candidates not evenly distributed throughout the ideological spectrum? Is this a bad thing for America? If so, how can we change it?
As an aside, I'm not surprised at all at my results on this quiz. I had already decided to vote for Badnarik, and I know that I support Bush over Kerry slightly. And of course all the other candidates are out of the question for me, as they support few or none of the policies I find important.
"... and then sell them in our next version of Visual Studio." I'm not sure that is a standard definition of Open Source Development.
That never stopped anyone working on Mozilla.
The difference is that Netscape donated their entire Netscape browser code to the Mozilla project. In exchange, Netscape got to include future Mozilla code in their freely available Netscape browser. If Microsoft is willing to donate the source code to Visual Studio I would be willing to work on it for free and let them use my code in future Visual Studio releases.
GNU/Linux desktop??? Isn't KDE the desktop, and GNU/Linux the kernel?
Not exactly. Linux is the kernel, X Windows is the GUI, and KDE (or GNOME) is the Desktop Environment. The whole package together is called GNU/Linux, but most people just call it Linux. I sidestep the whole GNU/Linux vs. Linux debate by just calling it Mandrake or Debian or Redhat, but that's just me.
So, in summary:
Linux -> the kernel
X Windows -> the GUI
KDE or GNOME -> the desktop environment
GNU/Linux, or just "Linux" -> the whole package
Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, etc -> specific version of GNU/Linux
What you say makes sense, but if you read my article that I wrote to explain the effects of the project in more depth, you'll see that (hopefully) you're wrong.
I read your article before posting (I saw the link on another website, so I knew all about it before the story appeared on Slashdot), but I'll go back and reread it. It is a good article, by the way.
These people can then act as a gateway between the developers and the users, to try to improve the quality of communication between these two groups.
That makes sense. I guess my misunderstanding was that these Quality Teams would be average end users, when in reality I think it more likely that they will be people like me: medium-to-advanced users with no programming experience*, who have a passion for Free software but who have never been involved in a serious open source project before. I've been looking at KDE for a while as something I might want to contribute to, but I'm still not sure if I can commit enough time. If I can find a nice small module that I can hack on and stress-test a couple hours a week then I'll sign up. Well, no time like the present I guess. *goes off to find out more about KDE Quality Team Project*
* Well, I lied. I have programming experience, because that's my day job. But I have little or no programming experience on non-Windows platforms, except for one measly little university project.
I think this is exactly what open source needs. It's one thing for programmers, sysadmins and advanced users to contribute to open source projects, but there's often no easy way for the average user to help out.
There's a reason for that: average users can find bugs, but cannot report them without having a programmer or an advanced user looking over their shoulder. An average user doesn't think through things logically enough to be able to isolate problems or to come up with the steps needed to consistently reproduced a bug.
You might say, "But the average user doesn't need to know those things! He just needs to report the bug and the programmers will research it and fix it." That's nonsense. A bug report from an average user (if he files one at all) is likely to be along the lines of "A program crashed when I clicked on a menu item." And when you ask for more details, he has forgotten which menu item he clicked on, he has forgotten the error message, he doesn't even know which version he was running. At best you might figure out which OS he uses, but that's it.
QA testing can be done by average users only if they are closely monitored by programmers or advanced users. There needs to be an advanced, knowledgable user present to watch the novice use the program and see how he uses the software. The KDE Quality Team might get some work done--for example, average users could easily locate and point out misspellings or other errors in the help files or dialog box messages--but don't think for a moment that KDE is tapping a great heretofore unused resource. The quality of the feedback generated by the KDE Quality Team will likely be low.
What we really need is to have local LUGs sponsor QA seminars. Get all the local geeks to bring a friend who has never used KDE. Sit them all down in front of a brand new installation of the latest KDE and ask them to perform simple tasks similar to what they would do at home using Windows. (Burn a CD, search the web, etc.) Watch them closely and take notes every time they find a bug or unexpected behavior. Compile that information and submit the necessary bug reports. Now that information will be truly useful.
Disclaimer: I could be wrong about everything. It's not likely, but it's happened before.
XGI is a new player in this market and need something to distinguish themselves from the competition. This is an opportunity to persuade them that supporting Linux by releasing drivers would gain them positive reviews and have an impact on sales. Linux is gaining in popularity in the enterprise and server areas, so announcing Linux support for their products would sort of *legitimize* XGI's cards. It's worth a shot--the question is, how do we convince them?
Re:64-benchmarks wont be good
on
AMD64 Preview
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· Score: 2, Informative
Intel's IA-64 emulates 32-bit unlike AMD's 64-bit chips which have 32-bit hardware. So we can expect AMD to beat Intel easily in 32-bit stuff.
If you had RTFA, you would know that the benchmarks compared the Athlon64 against Pentium 4s and Xeons, not against IA64. What the benchmarks show is that the 32-bit performance of the Athlon64 is on par or better than the best Pentium 4 processors, and is better than the current Xeons. IA64 is not benchmarked in the article.
The 64-bit performance of the Athlon64 is not being benchmarked in the article; it is the 32-bit performance relative to leading 32-bit processors that is the issue.
I'm tired of all this talk about open source development vs. closed source development. That's not the issue here.
It doesn't matter so much whether the source is open or closed as it does who is in charge of the project. Any company could use standard software development methods to produce open source software. Similarly, any company could hire developers all over the world, and have them work together on a project without ever having met.
It's not an open vs. closed thing, and it has little to do with licensing. It just happens that most companies use standard development techniques and don't release as open source.
I've been a Mandrake user since 7.0 and I must say that Mandrake 9.1 is far and away the best release I have used.
As far as hardware compatibility, let me say that Mandrake 7.1 through 8.1 would not install on my computer; 8.2 installed with difficultly, 9.0 worked fine but the install wasn't painless, but 9.1 installed perfectly the first time.
Plus, 9.1 configured everything right the first time, without asking me any stupid questions. For example, it auto-detected my DCHP server and set up my network connection without needing to ask me. That's not such a huge deal for me as an experienced user, but for a novice that sort of automation could make all the difference. (In case you're interested, it *did* give me an opportunity to change all the settings it had automatically configured, in case I wanted to do anything unusual or special. It's important to have that option too.)
With the professional feel and slick installer, I'm not surprised that Mandrake 9.1 sales are going well.
I'm excited about 9.2 and I plan on buying it too, but wonder how much improvement it can really show. Because for the first time, I have a distribution that does (almost) everything I want.
Just grab the GLX and Kernel [4363 is latest] tar.gz's. Unpack them, export IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH=true. go into the Kernel directory, make, go into the GLX directory, make, go into/etc/X11, edit XF86CONFIG-4 [e.g. remove dri, etc.. replace nv with nvidia], add nvidia to your/etc/modules now either reboot or isnmod nvidia and launch startx. Boom NVIDIA drivers.
Better yet, just buy a boxed set of Mandrake 9.1 CDs. Official nVidia drivers are included and installed by default. (This is not true of the downloaded ISOs of Mandrake, which include only Free and Open Source software.)
My freshman year of college I had an English professor who focused on teaching us to write for an online audience.
To illustrate the difference between writing for print and writing for the web, one of our projects was to write a research paper and then adapt the content for a website. She taught us the bare basics of HTML, as well as some design styles.
But the main thing she focused on was how we had to adapt the content for the medium. Paragraphs had to be much shorter--preferably not paragraphs at all, but rather a list of bullet points. As a rule of thumb, she told us that we had to cut the length of the information to 25% of the length of the paper. Much less than that and you lose important information; much more and you lose the interest of the audience.
Also, she demanded that the websites be readable in any page order. No fair making users click through the pages in order, because they simply won't do it. So while you can lay out a nice long cohesive argument in a research paper, you can't do that in a website. You have to post your conclusions right on the home page, and then have links to other pages that have supporting material, but in such a way that each page can be read without having read or seen any of the other pages.
Competant communication in online media is a deceptively difficult skill, so if you can teach your students a few simple things like that (and if they actually learn) you will have helped them immensely.
According to the article: Linux is a variant of Unix and isn't copyrighted.
This is, as we all know, utterly false. Linux is most certainly copyrighted--that's what prevents you from stealing Linux code to use in your proprietary system. Linux may be GPLed Free Software, but it is certainly copyrighted.
At my university (private school in east Texas) there is no official policy on using filesharing programs. However, if you use too much bandwidth the other students will track you down and make you pay. I remember one day when I stepped out of my room and saw a lynch mob headed my direction. Fortunately I convinced them it wasn't me. (And it really wasn't, either.) I don't think they would have believed me, but I let them examine my computer for themselves.
Between Opera, IE, and Mozilla, the speed difference is small enough for your average user not to know the difference.
That's only partially correct. On a newer computer, the difference is probably not noticable. (After all, who's going to notice the difference between 5 milliseconds and 10 milliseconds?) But on older computers (mine is now three years old, although it has had some incremental upgrades) the speed difference becomes much more noticable. The difference between 5 seconds and 10 seconds is quite noticable to me, the user.
The biggest advantage Opera has (in my opinion) is that it has a little button that turns images on or off. Quickly enabling or disabling images makes browsing on a dial-up connection much less painful. There is also a button to enable or disable the document's stylesheet, which makes viewing poorly designed website much easier on the eyes. (I believe similar options have now been added to Mozilla, but I find them not quite as well implemented as in Opera.) The one thing I wish Opera would do would be to do the "smart popups" like Mozilla does. (Opera just lets you disable or enable all popups.)
What if there would then be a successful lobby to change 'under God' and 'In God We Trust' to 'under Allah' and 'In Allah We Trust'.
Actually, since "Allah" literally means "God", lobbying to change "God" to "Allah" would be pointless. "God" is a multi-purpose term. As far as I know, there isn't any deity in any religion named "God". (After all, what does God need with a name? There's only one of Him.)
Yeah, I signed up for emusic. It's a great service at a reasonable price, but it doesn't offer enough options to suit most people.
For a monthly fee, Emusic offers unlimited access to their regular non-digital right managed mp3 files at 128kbps. Their servers are reasonably fast. The drawbacks are: you can't buy just one or two songs--you have to sign up for at least 3 months. You can only get songs at 128kbps--that's fine for me with my crappy computer speakers, but anybody with a decent system needs better quality. And finally, they don't have a lot of good music to offer--I signed up because of They Might Be Giants, but besides their music I haven't found much that I like. Oh, except the Young Fresh Fellows.
"G-forces on roller coasters last for nano-seconds," says [Six Flags president Gary] Story. I've ridden on the roller coasters at Six Flags, and from experience I can say that it isn't the high G-forces that are dangerous, it's the jerk. (Jerk is the term for rate of change of acceleration, for the physics-challenged.) I love the high G-forces, but especially in the newer magnetically accelerated rides, the jerk is just too much for my neck and back to handle. (And I'm only 21!) Any regulations that are put in place should address jerk as well as acceleration limits.
How appropriate that this bill should be presented to Congress now, just after I have finished reading Frederick Pohl's "Man Plus." (For those who don't know, "Man Plus" deals with sending a man to Mars.)
I was thinking about how an actual Mars mission might be accomplished, with minimum cost and maximum gain. Here's what I came up with:
1. Construct a large ship in orbit--launching the entire ship on one rocket wouldn't really be feasible for a Mars expedition as it was for the lunar missions.
2. The ship might need to simulate gravity by spinning on an axis--after all, this will be a long mission (1-2 years) and we can't let the astronauts get too weak.
3. Send the ship off to Mars, land with a couple (or three) landing vehicles, then bring the ship back to Earth.
4. Use the ship as an orbiting space station. That's the real brilliance of my plan. We get a free space station in the process.
Second, Evolution costs more than Outlook in an Exchange environment. When you buy an Exchange client license you get with it an Outlook license. If I were to use Evolution I'd still have to purchase the Exchange client license PLUS the Evolution connector for Exchange. So, it's not always cheaper.
Nice try, but you forgot to factor in the cost of a Windows license for each desktop. In both scenarios you must buy the Exchange client license, but with Outlook you have to purchase Windows to use it on, whereas with Evolution all you have to buy is the connector. So Evolution is still cheaper.
Gates: Don't do this to us! The whole world depends on us. If you hurt us, you'll just hurt yourself.
Unfortunately, that's not the issue here. Microsoft broke the law, and there must be a punishment. If that hurts everyone, so be it. Sometimes doing the right thing isn't easy; in this case it will most likely be extremely painful.
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I disagree. You are correct in one sense: anybody who already uses Microsoft Office (whether at work or at home) for document creation will be more comfortable sticking with something that works exactly like Office.
But I think Apple is going for a different market: casual computer users. I don't necessarily mean just first-time computer users, I mean people who use computers for email, Internet, and instant messaging. How often do casual users need to use an Office suite?
I'll tell you how often: almost never. Since I graduated from college two years ago I have not once used a word processor to create a document. (OK maybe once--I wrote a letter to my grandma.) Most casual users are like me. The only office suite they need is something that lets them view documents that people send them via email. If Apple's office suite can view Microsoft Office documents, that's good enough for home users.
Casual computer users have no need of Microsoft Office as a document creation suite. I think Apple is heading in the right direction for their target market. Apple's suite will not be a replacement for Microsoft Office, but it will be suitable for a large class of users who don't need Microsoft Office.
The Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) prohibits states from using the word marriage for anything other than the union of a man and a woman. However, the FMA clearly and deliberately allows states to define civil unions in any manner they choose. If states want to give civil unions to homosexual couples the FMA permits them to do so. If Bush supports the FMA (and he has) then he supports the states' right to define civil unions however they choose. So his recent statements are not, in fact, a change. There is no flip-flop.
As an aside, are you aware of the difference between Bush and Cheney (yes, Vice-President Cheney disagrees with the President on this question) on the question of gay marriage? Both support a state's right to define civil unions, but Bush wants to reserve the word marriage for heterosexual relationships, while Cheney wants to leave that decision up to the state. That's why Bush supports the FMA and Cheney does not. The difference between Bush and Cheney on this issue is entirely about the use of the word marriage. Neither of them have a problem with giving some measure of legal recognition and protection to homosexual couples.
Reformists are fixated on IRV because that's what the public will actually agree to. Systems like Condorcet's Method voting are technically superior but use a lot of math and are complicated to explain. If you can't explain it in a thirty second sound bite you won't get able to get enough popular support to get it passed.
The other reason to support IRV is that IRV is a stepping-stone to Condorcet's Method. Current voting procedures and equipment are not able to support IRV or Condorcet's Method. Once we implement IRV we will have the procedures and voting equipment necessary to use any number of superior vote counting schemes, including Condorcet's Method. So by introducing IRV we will have built the framework to allow a move to Condorcet's Method. Then all we have to do is convince the public to support Condorcet's Method--and since we already have the equipment, no one can complain that it will be too expensive to switch.
Running for President gives the candidate and the party publicity that running for a lower office (such as a state legislative seat) does not. Publicity for the party's Presidential candidate then helps (in a trickle-down sort of way) the campaigns of the other party members running for lower offices. Running for President is not about winning, it's about getting your party some publicity and communicating your message to as many people as possible.
Another reason to run for President is that in some states a party must get a certain percentage of the vote in a major election in order to be recognized as an official political party. Officially recognizied political parties generally have easier requirements for getting candidates on the ballot than do unrecognized parties and independent candidates. The Presidential race is as good a race as any to pick up those much-needed votes to keep your party on the official list of political parties.
I removed candidates that are no longer running from your list of results. It's interesting that you have four candidates who match your views up to 70% or more according to this quiz. Let's check my results:
1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%)
2. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (72%)
3. Bush, President George W. - Republican (60%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (38%)
5. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (36%)
6. Cobb, David - Green Party (26%)
7. Nader, Ralph - Independent (26%)
8. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (22%)
I only get one candidate--Badnarik--who breaks the 70% threshhold. And only two candidates break 50%. That suggests to me that the candidates are not evenly distributed along ideological lines. That is, there are more candidates who hold liberal views (and thus your four candidates with 70% a or higher rating) than there are candidates who hold conservative values (as seen in my results.) This suggests several questions: why are candidates not evenly distributed throughout the ideological spectrum? Is this a bad thing for America? If so, how can we change it?
As an aside, I'm not surprised at all at my results on this quiz. I had already decided to vote for Badnarik, and I know that I support Bush over Kerry slightly. And of course all the other candidates are out of the question for me, as they support few or none of the policies I find important.
Not exactly. Linux is the kernel, X Windows is the GUI, and KDE (or GNOME) is the Desktop Environment. The whole package together is called GNU/Linux, but most people just call it Linux. I sidestep the whole GNU/Linux vs. Linux debate by just calling it Mandrake or Debian or Redhat, but that's just me.
So, in summary:
I read your article before posting (I saw the link on another website, so I knew all about it before the story appeared on Slashdot), but I'll go back and reread it. It is a good article, by the way.
That makes sense. I guess my misunderstanding was that these Quality Teams would be average end users, when in reality I think it more likely that they will be people like me: medium-to-advanced users with no programming experience*, who have a passion for Free software but who have never been involved in a serious open source project before. I've been looking at KDE for a while as something I might want to contribute to, but I'm still not sure if I can commit enough time. If I can find a nice small module that I can hack on and stress-test a couple hours a week then I'll sign up. Well, no time like the present I guess. *goes off to find out more about KDE Quality Team Project*
* Well, I lied. I have programming experience, because that's my day job. But I have little or no programming experience on non-Windows platforms, except for one measly little university project.
I think this is exactly what open source needs. It's one thing for programmers, sysadmins and advanced users to contribute to open source projects, but there's often no easy way for the average user to help out.
There's a reason for that: average users can find bugs, but cannot report them without having a programmer or an advanced user looking over their shoulder. An average user doesn't think through things logically enough to be able to isolate problems or to come up with the steps needed to consistently reproduced a bug.
You might say, "But the average user doesn't need to know those things! He just needs to report the bug and the programmers will research it and fix it." That's nonsense. A bug report from an average user (if he files one at all) is likely to be along the lines of "A program crashed when I clicked on a menu item." And when you ask for more details, he has forgotten which menu item he clicked on, he has forgotten the error message, he doesn't even know which version he was running. At best you might figure out which OS he uses, but that's it.
QA testing can be done by average users only if they are closely monitored by programmers or advanced users. There needs to be an advanced, knowledgable user present to watch the novice use the program and see how he uses the software. The KDE Quality Team might get some work done--for example, average users could easily locate and point out misspellings or other errors in the help files or dialog box messages--but don't think for a moment that KDE is tapping a great heretofore unused resource. The quality of the feedback generated by the KDE Quality Team will likely be low.
What we really need is to have local LUGs sponsor QA seminars. Get all the local geeks to bring a friend who has never used KDE. Sit them all down in front of a brand new installation of the latest KDE and ask them to perform simple tasks similar to what they would do at home using Windows. (Burn a CD, search the web, etc.) Watch them closely and take notes every time they find a bug or unexpected behavior. Compile that information and submit the necessary bug reports. Now that information will be truly useful.
Disclaimer: I could be wrong about everything. It's not likely, but it's happened before.
XGI is a new player in this market and need something to distinguish themselves from the competition. This is an opportunity to persuade them that supporting Linux by releasing drivers would gain them positive reviews and have an impact on sales. Linux is gaining in popularity in the enterprise and server areas, so announcing Linux support for their products would sort of *legitimize* XGI's cards. It's worth a shot--the question is, how do we convince them?
If you had RTFA, you would know that the benchmarks compared the Athlon64 against Pentium 4s and Xeons, not against IA64. What the benchmarks show is that the 32-bit performance of the Athlon64 is on par or better than the best Pentium 4 processors, and is better than the current Xeons. IA64 is not benchmarked in the article.
The 64-bit performance of the Athlon64 is not being benchmarked in the article; it is the 32-bit performance relative to leading 32-bit processors that is the issue.
I'm tired of all this talk about open source development vs. closed source development. That's not the issue here.
It doesn't matter so much whether the source is open or closed as it does who is in charge of the project. Any company could use standard software development methods to produce open source software. Similarly, any company could hire developers all over the world, and have them work together on a project without ever having met.
It's not an open vs. closed thing, and it has little to do with licensing. It just happens that most companies use standard development techniques and don't release as open source.
I've been a Mandrake user since 7.0 and I must say that Mandrake 9.1 is far and away the best release I have used.
As far as hardware compatibility, let me say that Mandrake 7.1 through 8.1 would not install on my computer; 8.2 installed with difficultly, 9.0 worked fine but the install wasn't painless, but 9.1 installed perfectly the first time.
Plus, 9.1 configured everything right the first time, without asking me any stupid questions. For example, it auto-detected my DCHP server and set up my network connection without needing to ask me. That's not such a huge deal for me as an experienced user, but for a novice that sort of automation could make all the difference. (In case you're interested, it *did* give me an opportunity to change all the settings it had automatically configured, in case I wanted to do anything unusual or special. It's important to have that option too.)
With the professional feel and slick installer, I'm not surprised that Mandrake 9.1 sales are going well.
I'm excited about 9.2 and I plan on buying it too, but wonder how much improvement it can really show. Because for the first time, I have a distribution that does (almost) everything I want.
Better yet, just buy a boxed set of Mandrake 9.1 CDs. Official nVidia drivers are included and installed by default. (This is not true of the downloaded ISOs of Mandrake, which include only Free and Open Source software.)
My freshman year of college I had an English professor who focused on teaching us to write for an online audience.
To illustrate the difference between writing for print and writing for the web, one of our projects was to write a research paper and then adapt the content for a website. She taught us the bare basics of HTML, as well as some design styles.
But the main thing she focused on was how we had to adapt the content for the medium. Paragraphs had to be much shorter--preferably not paragraphs at all, but rather a list of bullet points. As a rule of thumb, she told us that we had to cut the length of the information to 25% of the length of the paper. Much less than that and you lose important information; much more and you lose the interest of the audience.
Also, she demanded that the websites be readable in any page order. No fair making users click through the pages in order, because they simply won't do it. So while you can lay out a nice long cohesive argument in a research paper, you can't do that in a website. You have to post your conclusions right on the home page, and then have links to other pages that have supporting material, but in such a way that each page can be read without having read or seen any of the other pages.
Competant communication in online media is a deceptively difficult skill, so if you can teach your students a few simple things like that (and if they actually learn) you will have helped them immensely.
According to the article: Linux is a variant of Unix and isn't copyrighted.
This is, as we all know, utterly false. Linux is most certainly copyrighted--that's what prevents you from stealing Linux code to use in your proprietary system. Linux may be GPLed Free Software, but it is certainly copyrighted.
At my university (private school in east Texas) there is no official policy on using filesharing programs. However, if you use too much bandwidth the other students will track you down and make you pay. I remember one day when I stepped out of my room and saw a lynch mob headed my direction. Fortunately I convinced them it wasn't me. (And it really wasn't, either.) I don't think they would have believed me, but I let them examine my computer for themselves.
That's only partially correct. On a newer computer, the difference is probably not noticable. (After all, who's going to notice the difference between 5 milliseconds and 10 milliseconds?) But on older computers (mine is now three years old, although it has had some incremental upgrades) the speed difference becomes much more noticable. The difference between 5 seconds and 10 seconds is quite noticable to me, the user.
The biggest advantage Opera has (in my opinion) is that it has a little button that turns images on or off. Quickly enabling or disabling images makes browsing on a dial-up connection much less painful. There is also a button to enable or disable the document's stylesheet, which makes viewing poorly designed website much easier on the eyes. (I believe similar options have now been added to Mozilla, but I find them not quite as well implemented as in Opera.) The one thing I wish Opera would do would be to do the "smart popups" like Mozilla does. (Opera just lets you disable or enable all popups.)
What if there would then be a successful lobby to change 'under God' and 'In God We Trust' to 'under Allah' and 'In Allah We Trust'.
Actually, since "Allah" literally means "God", lobbying to change "God" to "Allah" would be pointless. "God" is a multi-purpose term. As far as I know, there isn't any deity in any religion named "God". (After all, what does God need with a name? There's only one of Him.)
Yeah, I signed up for emusic. It's a great service at a reasonable price, but it doesn't offer enough options to suit most people.
For a monthly fee, Emusic offers unlimited access to their regular non-digital right managed mp3 files at 128kbps. Their servers are reasonably fast. The drawbacks are: you can't buy just one or two songs--you have to sign up for at least 3 months. You can only get songs at 128kbps--that's fine for me with my crappy computer speakers, but anybody with a decent system needs better quality. And finally, they don't have a lot of good music to offer--I signed up because of They Might Be Giants, but besides their music I haven't found much that I like. Oh, except the Young Fresh Fellows.
"G-forces on roller coasters last for nano-seconds," says [Six Flags president Gary] Story.
I've ridden on the roller coasters at Six Flags, and from experience I can say that it isn't the high G-forces that are dangerous, it's the jerk. (Jerk is the term for rate of change of acceleration, for the physics-challenged.) I love the high G-forces, but especially in the newer magnetically accelerated rides, the jerk is just too much for my neck and back to handle. (And I'm only 21!) Any regulations that are put in place should address jerk as well as acceleration limits.
How appropriate that this bill should be presented to Congress now, just after I have finished reading Frederick Pohl's "Man Plus." (For those who don't know, "Man Plus" deals with sending a man to Mars.)
I was thinking about how an actual Mars mission might be accomplished, with minimum cost and maximum gain. Here's what I came up with:
1. Construct a large ship in orbit--launching the entire ship on one rocket wouldn't really be feasible for a Mars expedition as it was for the lunar missions.
2. The ship might need to simulate gravity by spinning on an axis--after all, this will be a long mission (1-2 years) and we can't let the astronauts get too weak.
3. Send the ship off to Mars, land with a couple (or three) landing vehicles, then bring the ship back to Earth.
4. Use the ship as an orbiting space station. That's the real brilliance of my plan. We get a free space station in the process.
Well, that's all.
Second, Evolution costs more than Outlook in an Exchange environment. When you buy an Exchange client license you get with it an Outlook license. If I were to use Evolution I'd still have to purchase the Exchange client license PLUS the Evolution connector for Exchange. So, it's not always cheaper.
Nice try, but you forgot to factor in the cost of a Windows license for each desktop. In both scenarios you must buy the Exchange client license, but with Outlook you have to purchase Windows to use it on, whereas with Evolution all you have to buy is the connector. So Evolution is still cheaper.
Gates: Don't do this to us! The whole world depends on us. If you hurt us, you'll just hurt yourself.
Unfortunately, that's not the issue here. Microsoft broke the law, and there must be a punishment. If that hurts everyone, so be it. Sometimes doing the right thing isn't easy; in this case it will most likely be extremely painful.