I wonder if really the slew of applications for Palm machines was really so important for their success, or it was the other way around. Developing for embedded devices has always been a bit of a moving target. The systems change too ofen, due to the constraints of the format. So the different APIs are going to be a minor problem, IMHO. Some implementation/machine will be the most popular, and development will standarise on it. Other will serve niche markets, and in any case porting shouldn't be so difficult, all taken into account.
If not, I think it makes a lot of sense using Java, as the article states. Does not solve all problems, but should make porting easier.
About my sig. It's from Marguerite Yourcenar's "Memoirs of Hadrian". Rome emperor Hadrian finds life at the top to be a little bit harder than expected. There was no place in the sig to put author or work:o(
Exactly. It would probably be illegal. But it's not, and so, it's I think the only stimulant drug that can be sold in supermarkets and to children, and advertised without limits or warnings. Wait a bit and we'll see drinks with still higher concentrations of caffine. After all, stimulants are always in strong demand.
Uhm. I guess you think they did everything with the sound car, even play the original CD WAVs. Perhaps. It would be the best way, certainly. I thought otherwise because of the mention of "stereo system". If so, they meant only the amplifier and loudspeakers. In any case, not a very detailled article. For more info on MP3 sound quality, you can check mp3-tech and r3mix
Because (in my theory) you don't use a sound car to play the WAV file, but a CD player after recording the WAV file in a CD. CD players have usually much better sound quality than sound cards although that of course depends on the card and the CD.
Good question. I suppose, but it takes a lot of suppossing, that they converted the "lossy formats" back to WAV and made a CD out of them. If not, all the article is crap, because of the differences between players. If done, I'm still not so sure the result is too meaningful, as a WAV converted file can sound different from the output of a direct MP3-player.
And there are more questions open. Was it a blind hearing? Or did they know when they were hearing "lossy" and when "wav"? What level of compression did they use?
What I think. That was a crappy test. They connected a computer with some good audio card to a stereo and played things from the computer and then from the CD. Everybody knew what was what. They could probably see the CD spinning. Probably the computer made a lot of noise. The compression level was probably 1:15 or something like that.
Conclusion: Absolutely useless test. If you want a better test, trust your ears.
Am I the only one to think that an Open Source project is not the best way to learn programming? Sure, you get help and support, but I don't think at that level. I can answer a difficult question (or make it), or a simple one in some particular environment. But if somebody just doesn't know how to program, I would feel rather daunted by the task.
Programming is not only difficult, it requires a particular kind of thinking. Some people are never going to get the hang of it. But even if you can get the hang of it, the environment of an Open Source project is probably going to overwhelm you a bit.
I think that Open Source projects are a way to go when you want to give something back to the community, or when you want to learn something new in a particular environment, or simply when you need something and cannot find it, so you create it. But for starting with programming? Not the best way IMHO.
Probably right, but the article is not so clear. When the PS2 appeared, Sony had problems getting a permission to export it at all. See this slashdot new . This is probably only a continuation of the same problem.
Something like that must be done. My approach to "ortography through statistics" seems to be prone to failure, at least with unfrequent words. But well, if you look at it on quite another way, perhaps "possession" should be spelled possesion, as this spelling got the majority (I'm not considering posesion as that got the spanish posesión into it).
No more dictionary dogmatic opression, let's fight for a democratic spelling;o)
I was introduced to the "spirit of the slide rule" by some works of Robert A. Heinlein, in which some characters had to do something or other with them slide rules. It seemed like a big deal. I was young, calculators were all over, and I wondered what the fuss was all about.
Being a good writer, however, Heinlein finally managed somehow to get his point across, and I found that using a slide rule could give you a better uhmmm... let's say manipulation ability of the involved mathematical concepts. I even learnt to use an old one of my father, and loved the simplicity and power of the design. Somehow fascinating, but sorry no graphics display:o) So I kept with the HP. I remember going to math and physics exams with that 64K calculator filled up with all the theory, as text. I never had a teacher tech-savvy enough to know that calculators could carry full pages. That was a neat trick that slide rules still have to learn:o)
No, as knives shouldn't be banned just because you can kill somebody with them. But when a tool only use (reasonable use) is doing something illegal, yes I think the tool can be outlawed. That covers also the DOS tools. If they are general purpose, they are OK. If they are single purpose cracking tools they can IMHO be banned.
Exception being if you are a computer security specialist (that's the locksmith in the metaphor). I admit I have no clear solution for the hobbyist locksmith, or hobbyist computer-security expert.
I was not trying to defend that law, not particularly. But sometimes when treading into computer or internet laws, there is a big load of paranoia going around. And the fact that the same kind of problems and imperfect solutions have been around for centuries is overlooked. The world is, has been and will keep on being an imperfect place. That's not to say we should not try to fight, for it to be better (or at least not worse), but I think we should choose our battles with a little bit more forethought.
Of course I don't like the sound of it. But I also fail to see how's that so different from lockpicking tools possession being illegal, or having to open your safe for police inspection if a judge mandates it.
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P.S.: I wasnt's so sure of the spelling of "possession", so I used Google. Results : "possession" 30000 results, "possesion" 39100 results, "posession" 33400 results, "posesion" 45300 results. Fortunately I also have a dictionary:o)
Of course you can take the conspirational approach, if you want, but I think that is too far-fetched. What about person-to-person transactions? If you pay me some bills, am I going to register the transaction in some device or database? Ridiculous. And once the chain is broken, there is no chain at all.
However, from the point of view of counterfeiting hindrance, the possibilities are really big. The basis for avoiding counterfeiting is to use some device in the money that's cheap to make in big quantities, but requires big expensive equipment as an initial investment. Chips absolutely check that list. A world full of chip-money, would be a world in which our money would be worth more, as counterfeiting is reduced and money laundering too.
Don't hope too much on that, however. Fat suitcases filled with untraceable money get traded every day, and many of them end in the hands of people that take decisions. They are not going to shoot themselves in the foot, so to say.
I guess everybody knows that Napster is, if not dead, for all purposes, smelling funny, as somebody pointed me some days ago about Unix. But for me that's not the point.
I mean, IMHO Napster was a company that struck it dead on quite by chance. They never had a clear strategy, never a business plan, never cared a whiff for their "clients". When faced with a lawsuit, they declined to make an issue of "fair use" and fight on those terms. They chose the lame avenue of procrastinating, feet shuffling and finger-pointing that could do nobody no good. They were never champions of anything, really.
Now they see the boat sinking, and resort to the AOL-games of "change-my-client". That's, of course, not for complying with the court order, as has been suggested here. The filtering is all server-side. Well, it's their servers, but they would be better off, IMHO, trying to develop a better client themselves and adding some value to the service, before it's too late and they are sunk for good.
About my.sig: It's from "Memoirs of Hadrians", of Marguerite Yourcenar. Emperor Hadrians find the task of goverment a little bit more exacting than expected:)
There was no place for the title or author, regrettably, in the.sig
I'm right along with you. They should change the name to "The program formerly known as GAIM" and trod along, thinking on how much they paid to their lawyer just to get that lame change.
When you play, play to your own strengths, not the strengths of the enemy.
It's a fact they've got a right to do it. The question is will the users accept it? It's rather difficult to sell something undifferenciated, when somebody else is giving it away.
And that's precisely what worries me. The fact of them charging a license, althoug it does feel somewhat wrong, it's nothing. I'm worried about they forking away, releasing some kind of application that will work only on their system (because of the various "extensions" and "improvemements"). If some app has some widespread appeal, that could mean trouble.
The problem is, the people are used to pay for a license. Still are. And they feel almost uncomfortable if you ask for none, for crying out loud! They feel safe if they pay for the software, as if they think that a license is a support contract. That the provider will support them because they have paid for the program, or something. It's going to take a while changing those mentalities, and this kind of actions add to the confusion.
An at least initially successful forking could lead to others, things are a little bit tight now. I'm old enough to remember seeing Unix die (don't tell me it's not dead, you know what I mean), and the awful feeling that came with it. Take some Unix magazine of those times. They were as sure of victory as we are now with Linux. After all we had a much better product! Only a little tiny bit of unity and some common standards were lacking. All was lost in a sea of pettiness, uncompatibilities, and stupid bickering. I do not fear the same destiny. I do not know exactly what I fear, but I sure don't like this movement at Caldera. I expect they will be doing audits soon.
"The kite project seems like a lot of fun, but it doesn't prove the pyramids were built that way," said Willeke Wendrich
I completely agree with ( him ? her ? What's a Willeke ?.) Both in the "lot of fun" and in the "proves nothing" part of it.
That said, I consider this kind of research as very thought-provoking (it has provoked at least two thoughts in myself, close to a record), and worthwhile in itself. Well done!
To what purpose? I mean, why the hurry? Wait till the hardware is here, I would say. 64-bit architecture is nothing that's going storm us. It's going to be a slow process if it's ever to happen, I mean in a reasonable time frame.
Well enough purposeless ranting. At least, it's Friday. Thank God for small mercies.
Ops. Yeah, now that you mention it, it's rather obvious:o)
But for me the distinction between object and component is important. For me, a component should be directly manipulable, and could be combined with other components to make apps without coding, or almost without coding. That's what I thought when I saw that sentence.
So for example, in a component-driven framework, I could make let's say an MP3 organizer combining a customized file manager component with an MP3-player component, an MP3 coder component, and probably some code to extract-set tags. I mean, that would be more like an script than anyting else. Of course the desktop cannot provide all these components, but if a framework were defined, I think many apps could give themselves component capabilities, and create big sinergies in the process (hey! look at me, next you know, I'll be working for Arthur Andersen, create big sinergies indeed!).
Well, probably not the idea, if I have understood it now. Worthwhile, in any case, that "component as software object". Very. But I had been really excited by the possibility of it being that "component as externally manipulable entities" concept.
Thanks for taking time to answering me.:)
Originally, the GNOME project's goal was to create a component architecture
First time I hear it, but seems to me like a wonderful idea. In fact, IMHO, it's high time to start thinking about some "component standard" of sorts, at least at the OS level. Too much time lost doing the same ****dy things once and again.
Anybody knows more about it? Or where to find info of what's pretended (done I infer not much)? Thanks for any info.:)
I'm sure that with some genetical tinkering, a type of fungus could be developed that reproduced at normal temperature/humidity. A little bit more of tinkering, and it could select and eat only CDs of Britney Spears. Uhmmm.
Slashdot Mirror
If not, I think it makes a lot of sense using Java, as the article states. Does not solve all problems, but should make porting easier.
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And there are more questions open. Was it a blind hearing? Or did they know when they were hearing "lossy" and when "wav"? What level of compression did they use?
What I think. That was a crappy test. They connected a computer with some good audio card to a stereo and played things from the computer and then from the CD. Everybody knew what was what. They could probably see the CD spinning. Probably the computer made a lot of noise. The compression level was probably 1:15 or something like that.
Conclusion: Absolutely useless test. If you want a better test, trust your ears.
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Programming is not only difficult, it requires a particular kind of thinking. Some people are never going to get the hang of it. But even if you can get the hang of it, the environment of an Open Source project is probably going to overwhelm you a bit.
I think that Open Source projects are a way to go when you want to give something back to the community, or when you want to learn something new in a particular environment, or simply when you need something and cannot find it, so you create it. But for starting with programming? Not the best way IMHO.
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Something like that must be done. My approach to "ortography through statistics" seems to be prone to failure, at least with unfrequent words. But well, if you look at it on quite another way, perhaps "possession" should be spelled possesion, as this spelling got the majority (I'm not considering posesion as that got the spanish posesión into it).
No more dictionary dogmatic opression, let's fight for a democratic spelling ;o)
--
Being a good writer, however, Heinlein finally managed somehow to get his point across, and I found that using a slide rule could give you a better uhmmm... let's say manipulation ability of the involved mathematical concepts. I even learnt to use an old one of my father, and loved the simplicity and power of the design. Somehow fascinating, but sorry no graphics display :o) So I kept with the HP. I remember going to math and physics exams with that 64K calculator filled up with all the theory, as text. I never had a teacher tech-savvy enough to know that calculators could carry full pages. That was a neat trick that slide rules still have to learn :o)
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No, as knives shouldn't be banned just because you can kill somebody with them. But when a tool only use (reasonable use) is doing something illegal, yes I think the tool can be outlawed. That covers also the DOS tools. If they are general purpose, they are OK. If they are single purpose cracking tools they can IMHO be banned.
Exception being if you are a computer security specialist (that's the locksmith in the metaphor). I admit I have no clear solution for the hobbyist locksmith, or hobbyist computer-security expert.
I was not trying to defend that law, not particularly. But sometimes when treading into computer or internet laws, there is a big load of paranoia going around. And the fact that the same kind of problems and imperfect solutions have been around for centuries is overlooked. The world is, has been and will keep on being an imperfect place. That's not to say we should not try to fight, for it to be better (or at least not worse), but I think we should choose our battles with a little bit more forethought.
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P.S.: I wasnt's so sure of the spelling of "possession", so I used Google. Results : "possession" 30000 results, "possesion" 39100 results, "posession" 33400 results, "posesion" 45300 results. Fortunately I also have a dictionary :o)
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However, from the point of view of counterfeiting hindrance, the possibilities are really big. The basis for avoiding counterfeiting is to use some device in the money that's cheap to make in big quantities, but requires big expensive equipment as an initial investment. Chips absolutely check that list. A world full of chip-money, would be a world in which our money would be worth more, as counterfeiting is reduced and money laundering too.
Don't hope too much on that, however. Fat suitcases filled with untraceable money get traded every day, and many of them end in the hands of people that take decisions. They are not going to shoot themselves in the foot, so to say.
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I mean, IMHO Napster was a company that struck it dead on quite by chance. They never had a clear strategy, never a business plan, never cared a whiff for their "clients". When faced with a lawsuit, they declined to make an issue of "fair use" and fight on those terms. They chose the lame avenue of procrastinating, feet shuffling and finger-pointing that could do nobody no good. They were never champions of anything, really.
Now they see the boat sinking, and resort to the AOL-games of "change-my-client". That's, of course, not for complying with the court order, as has been suggested here. The filtering is all server-side. Well, it's their servers, but they would be better off, IMHO, trying to develop a better client themselves and adding some value to the service, before it's too late and they are sunk for good.
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There was no place for the title or author, regrettably, in the .sig
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When you play, play to your own strengths, not the strengths of the enemy.
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And that's precisely what worries me. The fact of them charging a license, althoug it does feel somewhat wrong, it's nothing. I'm worried about they forking away, releasing some kind of application that will work only on their system (because of the various "extensions" and "improvemements"). If some app has some widespread appeal, that could mean trouble.
The problem is, the people are used to pay for a license. Still are. And they feel almost uncomfortable if you ask for none, for crying out loud! They feel safe if they pay for the software, as if they think that a license is a support contract. That the provider will support them because they have paid for the program, or something. It's going to take a while changing those mentalities, and this kind of actions add to the confusion.
An at least initially successful forking could lead to others, things are a little bit tight now. I'm old enough to remember seeing Unix die (don't tell me it's not dead, you know what I mean), and the awful feeling that came with it. Take some Unix magazine of those times. They were as sure of victory as we are now with Linux. After all we had a much better product! Only a little tiny bit of unity and some common standards were lacking. All was lost in a sea of pettiness, uncompatibilities, and stupid bickering. I do not fear the same destiny. I do not know exactly what I fear, but I sure don't like this movement at Caldera. I expect they will be doing audits soon.
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I completely agree with ( him ? her ? What's a Willeke ? .) Both in the "lot of fun" and in the "proves nothing" part of it.
That said, I consider this kind of research as very thought-provoking (it has provoked at least two thoughts in myself, close to a record), and worthwhile in itself. Well done!
--
Well enough purposeless ranting. At least, it's Friday. Thank God for small mercies.
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But for me the distinction between object and component is important. For me, a component should be directly manipulable, and could be combined with other components to make apps without coding, or almost without coding. That's what I thought when I saw that sentence.
So for example, in a component-driven framework, I could make let's say an MP3 organizer combining a customized file manager component with an MP3-player component, an MP3 coder component, and probably some code to extract-set tags. I mean, that would be more like an script than anyting else. Of course the desktop cannot provide all these components, but if a framework were defined, I think many apps could give themselves component capabilities, and create big sinergies in the process (hey! look at me, next you know, I'll be working for Arthur Andersen, create big sinergies indeed!). Well, probably not the idea, if I have understood it now. Worthwhile, in any case, that "component as software object". Very. But I had been really excited by the possibility of it being that "component as externally manipulable entities" concept. Thanks for taking time to answering me. :)
First time I hear it, but seems to me like a wonderful idea. In fact, IMHO, it's high time to start thinking about some "component standard" of sorts, at least at the OS level. Too much time lost doing the same ****dy things once and again.
Anybody knows more about it? Or where to find info of what's pretended (done I infer not much)? Thanks for any info. :)
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I'm looking forward to the tenth anniversary!
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