Kurt Elling is IMHO the finest male jazz vocalist alive today, if not the finest jazz vocalist alive today full stop. His 'vocalises' (settings of poetry to transcriptions of great instrumental improvisations) are pretty extraordinary, and his subtle phrasing and clean (mainly) vibratoless sound is a delight. 'Flirting with Twilight' is a subversive disc of standards and is a good (if somewhat atypical) introduction to his art, while 'The Messenger' contains a version of Nature Boy that has to be heard to be believed.
Some pianists you must consider:
* Oscar Peterson - wonderfully big-hearted, and a great example of a phenomenal technique used brilliantly for emotional expression. 'Exclusively for my Friends' is an essential four-disc set.
* Keith Jarrett (The Koeln Concert in particular is a powerhouse of free, unbounded improvisation)
* Chick Corea. The gonzo jazz-rock fusion of Return to Forever isn't to everyone's taste (it is to mine), but he has a wonderfully crisp style with a totally distinctive harmonic language. A fine composer too (his Piano Concerto is one of the more successful jazz-classical crossover attempts).
* Michel Pettrucciani. This man is was a genius, despite being quite badly disabled. A triumph of the human spirit. I highly recommend the two-disc set of him live at the Champs-Elysees (solo) - the highlight is an incredible continuous 30min+ 'Medley of my Favourite Songs'. Talk about stamina!
'Exclusive' reviews of incomplete (or in some cases entirely non-existent) games have been around almost as long as computer games magazines themselves. I remember back in the glory days of the classic UK games mags of the 80s and early 90s - the likes of ZZap, Crash, Your Sinclair, Commodore Format, Amiga Format etc - the surprise was when a review of a real, *finished* game was published (it was not unusual to see rave, 95% reviews of games which were never even written:-)
UK and Australian readers will probably know what I am talking about: I'm sure I'm not the only one who misses the zany yet sophisticated humour, and complete and utter lack of moral fibre, of the great UK games mags. The copious pop-culture references, the disturbing running gags and in-jokes, the barf-inducing layouts.... all seem to be missing from today's sanitised publications.
There was a terrific site set up by the staff of the short-lived (but truly surreal while it lasted) Amiga Power magazine, telling the inside story of the fake reviews, blatant plagiarism etc of the UK games mag scene of the period. Unfortunately it seems to have vanished.... hopefully someone might turn up with a URL.
Come on mate, no need to get all worked up just because someone makes mildly non-left-liberal comments... Austrian economics have nothing to do with Rand (I have no time for Randroids myself).
We should not be pondering the circumstances surrounding Eazel's demise - these facts are more or less irrelevant. The big questions are:
(a) Whose bright idea was it to give them venture capital?
(b) Where did the credit to fund ridiculous indulgences like Eazel come from?
The Austrian theory of the business cycle - as expounded by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek et al states that the expansionary policies of the central bank (ie. low interest rates and the general printing of money during the Dot Com Boom) create a cluster of investments in higher-order capital industries which are later revealed to be erroneous. Eazel is simply one of many of these 'business errors'. How many more companies riding the Linux bandwagon are revealed to be similarly hopeless? (Almost all of them, most likely).
It may be that Free Software is a noble aim. However, the notion that it is possible to base any kind of business model around it - apart from vanilla software contracting - is not a reality, unfortunately. (And don't come up with the usual half-dozen 'examples' with which to counter this notion - I will bet you that the majority of their revenue comes from other sources).
So how long before Helix / Ximian chews up its VC? Six weeks at the most?
Of course the real, and most ominous, parallel between late-80s Japan and the US 'new economy' of the 90s today is that both were basically the products of massive expansion of the money supply on the part of both countries' central banks.
Anyone familiar with the Austrian theory of the trade cycle will know that Japan's economic woes of the 90s were exacerbated by yet more neo-Keynesian expansionary measures, such as negative interest rates etc. The Fed's gratuitous money pumping of 1999 (under the guise of pro-active Y2K measures) was performed with similar goals in mind; unfortunately they will make the liquidation of malinvestments all the more painful.
Greenspan's godlike status is already looking decidedly shaky; perhaps the inevitable recession will make the world realise that you cannot 'turn a stone into bread' by printing money.
I assume OS X should be able to compile and run BSD apps 'out of the box'. However, the lack of X compatibility is a bit of a shame... Is anyone able to provide answers to the following questions:
(1) Is anyone working on XFree86 for Darwin?
(2) Would it be possible to create some kind of 'X compatibility layer' for porting X11 apps to OS X?
(3) If (2) is not possible, how about porting GTK+ or Qt to OS X/Carbon/whatever?
It would be a *huge* bonus for Apple if they could have easy access to the vast array of Unix/X applications already out there; I'm surprised they haven't given more thought to this concept, especially with the current community and media interest in Linux.
-- briggers
Does open / closed have to equal good / bad?
on
Bob Metcalfe On NPR
·
· Score: 5
Igor Stravinsky once said that there are only two types of music - good music and bad music. Perhaps its time that such a philosophy was applied to software. Software that is robustly designed and tested will always be preferable to software that isn't (obviously); but being 'open' or 'closed' doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. There are examples of 'good' closed software (ie on the space shuttle) and 'bad' closed software (You Know What).
It can be argued that open source increases the chances of a program being robust, but is not a panacea; at the end of the day it boils down to whether correct software engineering and testing principles have been applied. In many ways the open source movement is a backlash against appalling software quality in over-the-counter commercial applications - maybe it mightn't have been so popular if there had been more 'engineering' in software development from the outset?
To me, it seems that a certain section of the Linux community has been far too hasty in condemning Sun for what is really a PR glitch. This is the history of Java on Linux: earlier this year (or late 98?), Sun license the Java 2 sources to the Blackdown team (with some fanfare). A few months later and it the Blackdown port is not going so well - whether this is the result of insufficient info from Sun, who knows? Inprise want to port JBuilder to Linux, but can't do it without a decent JVM, so they approach Sun and decide to do their own port.
Months later and no sign of a release from Blackdown. Sun and Inprise decide to make the Inprise JDK 'official'. Just as they are about to release, Blackdown come out with their own release candidates. This is not some big conspiracy, just appalling communcation problems between Blackdown and Sun.
There still seem to be many people under the impression that Sun have simply repackaged the Blackdown port; this is *not* the case, as anyone who has actually *tried* either port will find out. A guy from the Inprise team has been very active on the Java Linux mailing list trying to point out that they (quite legally) used a few Blackdown diffs, but apart from that it is an independent effort.
Maybe it was a bit lame of Sun not to acknowledge Blackdown in their press releases, but do they really want to be associated with things like Blackdown's v1.2 prereleases? I'm not sledging Blackdown's work (in fact their 1.2.2 port is superior to Sun's), but they have managed to give Java on Linux a bad reputation in the past.
We have to come to terms with the fact that Linux cannot survive as an enterprise platform without a decent JDK. Java is more than buggy Netscape applets and a slow JVM; when it's implemented well, it's a great solution for both server-side and client-side applications. Both the new Sun and Blackdown releases go a long way to fulfilling that gap; and isn't it better to have a choice as well?
The answer to his question very much depends on your particular definition of free. Using the 'free beer' concept, the answer would definitely be No. How could Sun continue to spend millions of dollars maintaining a huge operating system if they weren't receiving any revenue in return?
But if it was 'free speech' free software (truly open source - none of this Community License rubbish) I doubt Linux would survive at all. Why struggle with adding features to Linux when they're already implemented in Solaris? There would initially be a problem of attracting outside developers to such a huge existing codebase, but it wouldn't take too long.
Theoretically, there would be enormous benefits to Sun if they GPLed Solaris and really encouraged the kind of lightning-paced development that Linux has enjoyed. They could still make money off their SPARC hardware, and gain a foothold in the low-end Intel market as well. But since Sun currently has more or less the same 'take-over-the-world' mentality that Microsoft has, this is unlikely to happen.
I assume they're talking about GNOME/GTK, or KDE/QT. It would be a *huge* coup for either project to have Inprise use their toolkit instead of using the old Motif copout.
Re:X *is* a media-savvy, compositing GUI!
on
Is X The Future?
·
· Score: 1
As the article said, why replace X when you can simply extend it? Have a look at the feature list for XFree86 4.0 - it's pretty amazing. Direct access to the hardware with DRI, 3D accelleration from SGI, TrueType support....
A complete shift to another windowing system is just not going to happen. Are the GTK, QT, Lesstif guys willing to rewrite their stuff? Can we persuade UNIX vendors to use Berlin? Not bloody likely.
How exactly do you propose that 'web GUIs' actually draw graphics on the screen? You still need an underlying graphics protocol. The article was spot on - X is superbly designed. The coming extensions from Precision Insight, SGI et al, such as Direct Rendering and GLX, should eliminate the need for alternatives like Berlin, Y, etc.
Brian Blackwell
This was inevitable....
on
BO2K cracked
·
· Score: 0
It only takes a few minutes browsing the cDc website to discover that they are basically a bunch of sad teenagers with serious delusions of grandeur. The sheer pretentiousness of this whole Back Orifice nonsense is truly something to behold - they've even released it under the GPL, for God's sake!
However, it's important for Linux users not to get too cocky about Window's security flaws, for it's only a matter of time before trojan horses start appearing on Linux. Remember that running a program as root makes your system just as vulnerable as any Windows platform. I'm sure there are plenty of anti-social lamers with a grudge against the Linux community who could certainly write something similar, if they haven't done so already.
It's great that Compaq has realised that Motif/CDE is a dead technology. Hopefully this will result in greater acceptance of either KDE or GNOME as the standard GUI for commercial Unices as well as Linux. It would be teriffic if big-name commercial *nix applications used Qt or GTK and offered KDE/GNOME integration, instead of the bloated, statically-linked Motif apps we generally have to put up with now. Hopefully other vendors will follow suit.
Slashdot Mirror
Kurt Elling is IMHO the finest male jazz vocalist alive today, if not the finest jazz vocalist alive today full stop. His 'vocalises' (settings of poetry to transcriptions of great instrumental improvisations) are pretty extraordinary, and his subtle phrasing and clean (mainly) vibratoless sound is a delight. 'Flirting with Twilight' is a subversive disc of standards and is a good (if somewhat atypical) introduction to his art, while 'The Messenger' contains a version of Nature Boy that has to be heard to be believed.
Some pianists you must consider:
* Oscar Peterson - wonderfully big-hearted, and a great example of a phenomenal technique used brilliantly for emotional expression. 'Exclusively for my Friends' is an essential four-disc set.
* Keith Jarrett (The Koeln Concert in particular is a powerhouse of free, unbounded improvisation)
* Chick Corea. The gonzo jazz-rock fusion of Return to Forever isn't to everyone's taste (it is to mine), but he has a wonderfully crisp style with a totally distinctive harmonic language. A fine composer too (his Piano Concerto is one of the more successful jazz-classical crossover attempts).
* Michel Pettrucciani. This man is was a genius, despite being quite badly disabled. A triumph of the human spirit. I highly recommend the two-disc set of him live at the Champs-Elysees (solo) - the highlight is an incredible continuous 30min+ 'Medley of my Favourite Songs'. Talk about stamina!
'Exclusive' reviews of incomplete (or in some cases entirely non-existent) games have been around almost as long as computer games magazines themselves. I remember back in the glory days of the classic UK games mags of the 80s and early 90s - the likes of ZZap, Crash, Your Sinclair, Commodore Format, Amiga Format etc - the surprise was when a review of a real, *finished* game was published (it was not unusual to see rave, 95% reviews of games which were never even written :-)
UK and Australian readers will probably know what I am talking about: I'm sure I'm not the only one who misses the zany yet sophisticated humour, and complete and utter lack of moral fibre, of the great UK games mags. The copious pop-culture references, the disturbing running gags and in-jokes, the barf-inducing layouts.... all seem to be missing from today's sanitised publications.
There was a terrific site set up by the staff of the short-lived (but truly surreal while it lasted) Amiga Power magazine, telling the inside story of the fake reviews, blatant plagiarism etc of the UK games mag scene of the period. Unfortunately it seems to have vanished.... hopefully someone might turn up with a URL.
>AYN RAND AYN RAND AYN RAND AYN RAND AYN RAND
>...Someone had to say it.
Come on mate, no need to get all worked up just because someone makes mildly non-left-liberal comments... Austrian economics have nothing to do with Rand (I have no time for Randroids myself).
(a) Whose bright idea was it to give them venture capital?
(b) Where did the credit to fund ridiculous indulgences like Eazel come from?
The Austrian theory of the business cycle - as expounded by Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek et al states that the expansionary policies of the central bank (ie. low interest rates and the general printing of money during the Dot Com Boom) create a cluster of investments in higher-order capital industries which are later revealed to be erroneous. Eazel is simply one of many of these 'business errors'. How many more companies riding the Linux bandwagon are revealed to be similarly hopeless? (Almost all of them, most likely).
It may be that Free Software is a noble aim. However, the notion that it is possible to base any kind of business model around it - apart from vanilla software contracting - is not a reality, unfortunately. (And don't come up with the usual half-dozen 'examples' with which to counter this notion - I will bet you that the majority of their revenue comes from other sources).
So how long before Helix / Ximian chews up its VC? Six weeks at the most?
Anyone familiar with the Austrian theory of the trade cycle will know that Japan's economic woes of the 90s were exacerbated by yet more neo-Keynesian expansionary measures, such as negative interest rates etc. The Fed's gratuitous money pumping of 1999 (under the guise of pro-active Y2K measures) was performed with similar goals in mind; unfortunately they will make the liquidation of malinvestments all the more painful.
Greenspan's godlike status is already looking decidedly shaky; perhaps the inevitable recession will make the world realise that you cannot 'turn a stone into bread' by printing money.
I assume OS X should be able to compile and run BSD apps 'out of the box'. However, the lack of X compatibility is a bit of a shame... Is anyone able to provide answers to the following questions:
(1) Is anyone working on XFree86 for Darwin?
(2) Would it be possible to create some kind of 'X compatibility layer' for porting X11 apps to OS X?
(3) If (2) is not possible, how about porting GTK+ or Qt to OS X/Carbon/whatever?
It would be a *huge* bonus for Apple if they could have easy access to the vast array of Unix/X applications already out there; I'm surprised they haven't given more thought to this concept, especially with the current community and media interest in Linux.
-- briggers
Igor Stravinsky once said that there are only two types of music - good music and bad music. Perhaps its time that such a philosophy was applied to software. Software that is robustly designed and tested will always be preferable to software that isn't (obviously); but being 'open' or 'closed' doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. There are examples of 'good' closed software (ie on the space shuttle) and 'bad' closed software (You Know What).
It can be argued that open source increases the chances of a program being robust, but is not a panacea; at the end of the day it boils down to whether correct software engineering and testing principles have been applied. In many ways the open source movement is a backlash against appalling software quality in over-the-counter commercial applications - maybe it mightn't have been so popular if there had been more 'engineering' in software development from the outset?
-- briggers
To me, it seems that a certain section of the Linux community has been far too hasty in condemning Sun for what is really a PR glitch. This is the history of Java on Linux: earlier this year (or late 98?), Sun license the Java 2 sources to the Blackdown team (with some fanfare). A few months later and it the Blackdown port is not going so well - whether this is the result of insufficient info from Sun, who knows? Inprise want to port JBuilder to Linux, but can't do it without a decent JVM, so they approach Sun and decide to do their own port.
Months later and no sign of a release from Blackdown. Sun and Inprise decide to make the Inprise JDK 'official'. Just as they are about to release, Blackdown come out with their own release candidates. This is not some big conspiracy, just appalling communcation problems between Blackdown and Sun.
There still seem to be many people under the impression that Sun have simply repackaged the Blackdown port; this is *not* the case, as anyone who has actually *tried* either port will find out. A guy from the Inprise team has been very active on the Java Linux mailing list trying to point out that they (quite legally) used a few Blackdown diffs, but apart from that it is an independent effort.
Maybe it was a bit lame of Sun not to acknowledge Blackdown in their press releases, but do they really want to be associated with things like Blackdown's v1.2 prereleases? I'm not sledging Blackdown's work (in fact their 1.2.2 port is superior to Sun's), but they have managed to give Java on Linux a bad reputation in the past.
We have to come to terms with the fact that Linux cannot survive as an enterprise platform without a decent JDK. Java is more than buggy Netscape applets and a slow JVM; when it's implemented well, it's a great solution for both server-side and client-side applications. Both the new Sun and Blackdown releases go a long way to fulfilling that gap; and isn't it better to have a choice as well?
briggers
The answer to his question very much depends on your particular definition of free. Using the 'free beer' concept, the answer would definitely be No. How could Sun continue to spend millions of dollars maintaining a huge operating system if they weren't receiving any revenue in return?
But if it was 'free speech' free software (truly open source - none of this Community License rubbish) I doubt Linux would survive at all. Why struggle with adding features to Linux when they're already implemented in Solaris? There would initially be a problem of attracting outside developers to such a huge existing codebase, but it wouldn't take too long.
Theoretically, there would be enormous benefits to Sun if they GPLed Solaris and really encouraged the kind of lightning-paced development that Linux has enjoyed. They could still make money off their SPARC hardware, and gain a foothold in the low-end Intel market as well. But since Sun currently has more or less the same 'take-over-the-world' mentality that Microsoft has, this is unlikely to happen.
Brian Blackwell
I assume they're talking about GNOME/GTK, or KDE/QT. It would be a *huge* coup for either project to have Inprise use their toolkit instead of using the old Motif copout.
As the article said, why replace X when you can simply extend it? Have a look at the feature list for XFree86 4.0 - it's pretty amazing. Direct access to the hardware with DRI, 3D accelleration from SGI, TrueType support....
A complete shift to another windowing system is just not going to happen. Are the GTK, QT, Lesstif guys willing to rewrite their stuff? Can we persuade UNIX vendors to use Berlin? Not bloody likely.
Brian Blackwell
How exactly do you propose that 'web GUIs' actually draw graphics on the screen? You still need an underlying graphics protocol. The article was spot on - X is superbly designed. The coming extensions from Precision Insight, SGI et al, such as Direct Rendering and GLX, should eliminate the need for alternatives like Berlin, Y, etc.
Brian Blackwell
It only takes a few minutes browsing the cDc website to discover that they are basically a bunch of sad teenagers with serious delusions of grandeur. The sheer pretentiousness of this whole Back Orifice nonsense is truly something to behold - they've even released it under the GPL, for God's sake!
However, it's important for Linux users not to get too cocky about Window's security flaws, for it's only a matter of time before trojan horses start appearing on Linux. Remember that running a program as root makes your system just as vulnerable as any Windows platform. I'm sure there are plenty of anti-social lamers with a grudge against the Linux community who could certainly write something similar, if they haven't done so already.
It's great that Compaq has realised that Motif/CDE is a dead technology. Hopefully this will result in greater acceptance of either KDE or GNOME as the standard GUI for commercial Unices as well as Linux. It would be teriffic if big-name commercial *nix applications used Qt or GTK and offered KDE/GNOME integration, instead of the bloated, statically-linked Motif apps we generally have to put up with now. Hopefully other vendors will follow suit.