Heh. I'm a K5 regular and I never noticed that article or it's replies. Too bad. I've been reading through some of the posts and I must say I agree with some and disagree with others, but it is worth a read, especially the thread you reference. Thanks! --M
You haven't given any specific references, though you have listed works and some criticism by others. And you do point out some practices which while aren't necessarily illegitimate, they may be considered sloppy. I don't remember having read Randy Allen Harris (though I have read many criticisms of Chomsky, so it's possible I may have read one of his articles without remembering his name) so I can't speak to his specific criticisms either.
I will note that having seen Chomsky speak recently, and having read his Nation exchange with Christopher Hitchens over 9/11 and our response has left me feeling as though he is either rushing out work better reserved for a second edit, or possibly his age may be showing through. Without a doubt I believe his earlier political work over the past decades is much better thought through and referenced than what he's been writing over the last few years. Though that is just personal opinion and not factually based.
It occurs to me that Cerebus might think I'm refering to him when I wrote "you" at the end of my post. No, I realize he was requesting the same evidence I'm requesting. That "you" is directed to those authors several posts back such as Fnkmaster and others I have read, who made the claims of bias to which Cerebus replied.
I've repeatedly read in individual posts and in the partisan rags that Chomsky misrepresents his sources both in context and quotes in order to come to his conclusion. Yet I've never seen any examples in print. Just various claims of lies from "experts", along with claims of his rabid left wing ideology. And here we see it again without any examples presented as evidence. However, I have gone to the public library and conducted my own research into this matter. Here's why:
Some years back, right after Chomsky and Herman published Manufacturing Consent, I found myself in a debate at the Harvard Square Au Bon Pain with an Israeli who found Chomsky's work offensive. He made the claim -- as the previous poster did -- that Chomsky selectively misquotes, misrepresents context, and filters everything through anti-Israeli and anti-American presuppositions, therefore his analysis is biased and not of value. So, I asked him if he had ever checked Chomsky's references personally, but he hadn't. Nor did he think this was necessary as he pointed to an anti-Chomsky article which he provided in reference as proof of Chomsky's bias. This article made the same accusation, but it didn't provide any specific examples either, instead it simply quoted other "experts" who made these claims. I've yet to find anything in print which provides specific examples of misrepresentation of either the context or text of an article sourced in one of Chomsky's books or essays.
However, since at the time Manufacturing Consent was one of those books I was raving about and informally debating with friends, I decided that it behooved me to maybe check a few on my own just to be sure. So I blew an afternoon at the Boston Public Library checking up on a few references of personal interest and several just randomly selected. But I couldn't find a single example of misrepresentation of either the text or the context of any source material in the references I looked up. Not one.
Of course, I didn't check every one. So it's possible that there may be some bad references lurking somewhere in Manufacturing Consent, or any of his other works. If so, I'd be very interested in seeing a legitimate example.
It's one thing to say you think Chomsky's opinions stink and you think he's full of shit. That's a perfectly reasonable opinion. But to claim that he misrepresents facts and context demands proof, which I've yet to see provided. I really think that you should spend a few hours in a library and check this assertion on your own. You'll do yourself some good, and if you can find a legitimate example of his nefarious out of context lies I'm sure plenty of people would jump at the chance to reprint your proof.
I am a very intelligent person who made some occupational and educational choices (music)
you replied:
Well that's a contradiction if I ever saw one. While the rest of us were learning us...[context in previous message]
And I DO disagree with this sentiment. I disagree with the presupposition that a "highly valued" skill is always rewarded monetarily, and that those who are both skilled and poor somehow lack the ability to learn "valuable" skills. Many skills are difficult to learn, have value in the creative expression of engaging in those skills, yet generate little to no income in the process. You could say that I believe that money is only one value system, not the only value system which defines success. JMO. I didn't miss your point, I simply disagree.
While the rest of us were learning useful skills we knew would be worth money, you were blowing on a horn.
I can't disagree with this sentiment more. Other societies actually value the contribution made by artists and musicians to the society as a whole. You do not. That the previous poster earns a poor living here in the US because he chose to learn a *very* difficult set of skills which are not valued by the business community is a choice he made. It's personal (I'd argue he should up and move to Europe, where they actually care about serious art and music -- but soon enough their culture will be homogenized by corporate osmosis as well). I find the sentiment you express to the previous poster not only rude, but indicative of a total decline in our society's value in the creation of all things beautiful. Art may not generate a profit today, but it may well tomorrow. Van Gough died a poor pauper, but his paintings are now worth millions per canvas. So, because they weren't valued at their creation, does that make his art worthless? Or Mozart? Must a person become rich, or at least generate vast wealth for others, before learning a worthless craft becomes "valueable"? I certainly don't agree with that sentiment. Nor do I consider his "blowing on a horn" a waste of life.
The RJ-45 is an eight cable (four pair) connector most often used for TP Ethernet, while RJ-11 is a four cable (two pair) connector most often used for telephone cables.
I remember the older four prong connecter of which the previous poster refers... in a hazy '70s childhood memory. He's right about the phone company testing line voltages for multiple ringers too -- AT&T and the Bells really were an obnoxious monopoly and we're better off after the breakup. JMO.
Since when Has Laurence Lessig or the Washington Post ever claimed to be communist sympathizers? Or even members of the communist party? What the hell is it with all this red baiting? Why don't you argue his points with articulate counterpoints instead of calling them names? As for the difficulties in laying fiber in Washington DC, I can't speak to that. It would have been nice if you provided a link to the issue instead of just taking a jab at the Mayor (who has little to no real power in DC).
To know that the parent poster is, in fact, the real Scott Hacker, simply click on the link he provides in his user info. Yup, it's him. So, I guess I'll kill some karma and let you know what I think of your rude, community destructive behavior. Posts (and posters) like you(rs) are designed to destroy the Slashdot community by confusing ligitimate users. Your goal is to increase the noise level to the point that all signal is lost, thereby making these forums worthless for intellectual discussion and dissent. You provide NO intellectual discourse, simply diversion from the topic at hand. I'd love to see Rob not only disable your account, but contact your ISP and complain about your behavior. And if (as I suspect) you're a University student, I'd really enjoy seeing you dragged to the Dean's office to explain why you (and your ilk) spend time on a University network causing problems for other people rather than inputing to the community as a whole. Maybe you should experience a suspension, expulsion, or legal action to get a clue about real life, eh? JMO.
The trolls on/. remind me of those assholes who drive up to the right of you at an intersection and instead of taking a right hand turn (as they're supposed to) push out ahead when the light turns green and risk everyone elses life to take the lead. Sure, they jump ahead of a few cars today -- but maybe at the expense of someone else's life tomorrow.
Like this little rant will do a damn thing about the problem.:(
But I just bought a Vectrex with three carts on Ebay for $81 bucks. I checked into the Sean Kelly multicart and sent him a note. When he replies I buy one. Cool!:)
For nostalgia's sake I just drove through Vectrex lane on EBAY and see that there are three or four systems up for sale right now. Looks like ~$100 or so will get me a Vectrex if I really care. Trouble is I just bought a house and need a refridgerator more than a Vectrex.:) So, yeah... right... us grownups can buy all the video games we want, if we're willing to sacrifice FOOD! Heh...
Oh well, I've got my ps2, GT3 and Ace Combat 4. Who am I to complain?
Proof that if you are determined to find things to criticize, you will find them, even if you have to twist the facts.
Wow. You claim he twists the "facts" and write a long diatribe which only severs to prove his point. I particularly enjoy the reference to '60s civil rights for blacks used as a straw man in defense for federal civil rights abuses today. Never mind that it was progressives who took those billy clubs to the heads, got arrested, and at times were even killed in defense of our democratic principles. Considering that even many serious conservatives agree with the previous poster that the list of power grabs by the current administration is detremental to our civil liberties, are you willing to claim that they are "knee-jerk" and in need of "education"as well? As an example of the two most serious of abuses, Bush's new kangaroo courts and the Justice Department's claims at Lawyer-Client privilege, both William Saffire and Bill Kristol have written editorials lambasting these decisions with very similar arguments as the previous poster wrote.
In being an apologist for the executive branch -- not necessarily conservative ideology, since there is so much dissent on these issues among both progressive and conservative ranks -- does intellectual rigor in your arguments matter?
Just curious....
Performance may not be perfect but it'll work
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XBox Released
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· Score: 1
The issue is optimizing the X driver for GL performance on the PS2, which is hardware dependent no matter what GPU you're coding for. I imagine it's likely that performance may not be as good on the PS2 as writing hand assembly. That said, I'm sure it would be good enough considering that FlightGear runs perfectly fine on my Dual PPRO 200 with a PCI Voodoo 3 video card.
Honestly, the idea of providing a cross platform development and gaming environment between the PS2 and Xbox is pretty cool. FlighGear would be an excellent way to show off Linux and it's wide range of hardware support.
Imagine FlightGear for both PS2 and XBox!
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XBox Released
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· Score: 2
This is one development which I think could be seriously interesting. We know Linux has been ported to the PS2, and we know that the Xbox uses a standard PIII and NVIDIA Gforce chipset. Given GL support and reasonable performance under both graphics chipsets imagine porting FlightGear to the PS2 (it's a given that it should work almost unchanged on the XBox) and providing ISO images for folks to download and burn. This would be a great way to get desirable free software out to the masses. It might even spark greater interest in Linux to boot!
FlightGear is an impressive flight simulator with a huge amount of scenery data taken from satellite images. Unlike Ace Combat 4, FlightGear actually flies like a real airplane. It's got some networking support and a userbase of real pilots working to make the simulator as real as possible. It's one of the only simulators out there which strives to make star field, moon, and sun locations as real as possible.
Of course there are other potential targets for GL games ported through Linux, and Linux would provide an ideal quick cross platform development platform for both systems. End users don't need to know that Linux happens to be driving the game (or program) underneath, and it would cost nothing to distribute. I love the idea that free software developers could distribute software for free to both PS2 and Xbox users -- something which I think would surprise quite a few console gamers. Heh.:)
...we would all share and enjoy secure communication. Everyone focuses on Tunnel Mode ipsec without paying attention to other possibilities in the specification. Linux FreeS/WAN, the BSD's, and even Win2K all support both Tunnel and Transport Mode ipsec, why don't more people use this stuff? Though, honestly, why the FreeW/AN folks don't use a standard IKE daemon for key exchange is beyond me....
I guess we'll all have to wait for IPV6 before this stuff becomes ubiquitous. But there's really no reason why an end user need worry about secure communications across the internet. If everyone had the infrastructure (local daemons) for key exchange and ipsec it would be entirely hidden from the user and totally secure point to point. No more need for wrapping various protocols through SSL pipes... which is an obnoxious hack IMO. The ipsec guys have it right. Setting up a secure communication point to point should be completely transparent to the end user, and given ubiquitous support ipsec would be just that simple.
So your "Average Joe" argument is worthless. Your second argument about securing local systems is beside the point and not relevant to secure communications across an insecure network. Your third point that there is already a huge installed base of IPV4 systems without ipsec support is, unfortunately, the truth. The point that "there is more to the world than IP" is yet another meaningless statement. There is more to the world than a woman, beer, and dinner. But I'm not about to turn down dinner with Guinness and a date anytime soon.
Good luck getting your AFS cache to work reliably under Reiserfs. Though it looks like AFS will work OK with ext3. I've been having a hell of a time getting it to work with 2.4.9-13 (the latest RH distibution kernel) though. You're right about OpenAFS kernel modules not being ready for prime time under linux. Unmounting on shutdown often causes a kernel oops, unloading the AFS kernel module on a running system usually causes a system crash requiring a hardware reset... ugly ugly ugly. Unfortunately, find me a better network filesystem.--M
Um, I was once told to (and subsequently did) install Linux on my main machine in 1996, when I was told that regardless of a bad video driver, the drivers themselves never enter protected memory space and shouldn't bring down the system. (I argued that the display drawer itself may crash, but no one seemed to agree with me).
Back then you were told right. In 1996 you were likely running a kernel 2.0 based distribution with Xfree86-3.x.x. At that time the XFree project wrote separate X servers for specific video chip set support with no integration into the kernel. Mind you, the X server still ran SUID as root, and had control of the console, so a crash might not take down the entire system (networking, disk, and VM would still be up), but the net result could be a hosed console requiring a reboot anyway.
At the time Linus was staunchly against integrating video support into the kernel as a general device driver, even though an ongoing project called GGI (General Graphics Interface) had written a proof of concept video kernel module, supporting libraries, and an X server. Their system prevented these kinds of crashes by providing an abstraction API layer for applications to access the video hardware through the kernel, just as DRI does today, instead of having individual applications responsible for writing to the hardware directly. The argument then was that no userspace application should write directly to hardware considering the potential for race conditions, security problems, etc. And since all other hardware has an API layer through to the kernel, why not video?
This concept won out, but not the GGI project. Which is too bad because they had a good idea and a working system back in '96. I'm sure there were some politics involved, maybe a project lead at GGI pissed Linus off or something. I wasn't paying enough attention at the time.
Just a note about this in comparison with NT: the idea is to abstract out video acceleration routines into a hardware independent API for programmers. In NT 4.0 (which was current at the time), Microsoft placed not a video hardware acceleration API into kernel space, but much of GDI (their windowing system API). Many people thought this was unnecessary kernel bloat and complained vociferously about it being a prime cause of NT 4.0's instability. I'm not an NT programmer, nor do I know much about it's internals, so if anyone wishes to chime up and offer a better explanation please feel free.
One last point: now that DRI provides a direct kernel interface to video hardware, it's quite possible to take down an entire system with an errant DRI kernel module. Yup -- exactly the same kind of problem that linux advocates used to sneer at NT users over. The NVIDEA GForce proprietary DRI kernel modules are a prime example of problem drivers crashing people's systems. Ironic, huh?
Gnustep? I've been pretty happy with Gnome so far, but I must say I'm getting annoyed with Ximian's shenanigans. I understand they need to turn a profit and because of this require some sort of business model. However, picking apart the various bug-you-for-money "features" of ximian Gnome -- such as doorman -- in order to support a couple hundred gnome desktops, combined with the outrageously poor documentation in Gnome, makes for some serious headaches. Enough for me to simply dump Ximian Gnome when we migrate to RH7.2.
All that said, I really wish RMS would help the GnuStep project with more funds and programming staff rather than trying to push the Gnome group around. Gnome is doing fine on it's own and doesn't need the guidance or help. It's Miguel's baby, let him manage the project. GnuStep was around long before Gnome and I believe was at one point an official part of the GNU project. I honestly think GnuStep offers better potential as a free desktop environment than either KDE or Gnome, and GnuStep seems to be really coming along lately. Never mind that a free Display Postscript X Server extension in XFree86 would be of great benefit to us all.
JMO,
--Maynard
US stock market bubble / patent office insanity
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Mount Rainier for Linux
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I can't agree with this more. While I agree with your general sentiment WRT the U.S. patent office policy, I find the statement "US government is more interested in floating the stock market than in supporting economic fair play" to be particularly insightful.
With average Dow P/E ratios hovering at 23 and, a flood of cheap money coming out of the Fed (just *look* at M3 since 9/11!), and the Treasury's recent decision to end the 30 year long bond in an effort to push down long term interest and mortgage rates, it's pretty clear that the policy is to squeeze out real estate equity inflationary (and illusory) gains through refinancing in order to float consumer spending and stock market speculation. The frightening thing about this is that it doesn't in the least promote healthy economic activity through increased productivity, it's entirely speculative -- as evidenced by the stock market continuing to rise even with ridiculous P/E ratios making stocks such an obvious bad long term bet. Which makes your analogy of the patent office creating a new "gold rush" all the more relevant: patenting obvious mathematical algorithms doesn't increase productivity as much as it creates exclusive monopolies for the big players. Sure, they get to claim the gains on their balance sheet, but it's a net loss for the economy as a whole.
I'm worried that the Fed won't be able to maintain and prop up the credit bubble as rising unemployment creates a certain rise in consumer bankruptcies. With increasing unemployment, huge consumer credit and mortgage debt (backed by unreasonably inflated property values) defaults, I fear an unraveling from the banking system through the stock market. Never mind all the crazy derivative hedging going on making many major banks and financial institutions leveraged beyond belief. I fear a recession like we haven't seen since 1929. It could get bad.
Of course, I could be wrong... (hope so -- I just bought a house!:) )
I don't know what else to write. I expect that LinuxToday and the other internet.com branded Linux sites will probably close pretty quickly, and the community will lose what was once a useful web portal. All because Reichard, along with his senior management I must assume, took it upon themselves break the most basic of ethical standards in journalism. Reichard refused to respond to the allegations at first, and when He did he assumed the issue was readers being offended by his posts, rather than the underlying ethical implications of his behavior. Reichard should be fired, the owners should apologize, and at the very least hire an independent editorial board. But I doubt it will happen -- and that will be the end of Internet.com.
I'm not just offended by your anonymous postings, Mr. Reichard, I'm personally offended by your regular censorship of content in talkback posts which refuted your editorial positions. You personally censored some of my talkbacks on an editorial that you wrote, so I speak from experience. I note that many others have claimed the same, so I am not alone. I've worked as a journalist for a local small time paper and I *never* saw that kind of behavior by our editorial board. Both censorship where you have an obvious conflict of interest and anonymous postings in your own forum show you lack the ethics required for the position of Sr. Editor. Personally, I think you should be fired for breach of trust to the Linux community, and for breach of journalistic ethics overall. Until this happens I will not consider LinuxToday a reputable source for news.
J. Maynard Gelinas
This speaks for itself. I have no respect for this man, or how he has behaved on their forums. Internet.com should fire the man posthaste.
Both the Economist and Salon charge for "premium content" as well. In the case of the Economist, if one wishes to read archived content they must obtain a subscription. For Salon, certain articles are branded "premium content" and access to those are restricted to only those who sign up. Not being members of either (though I regularly read both) I can't say if it's worth the money. Just wanted to add to the list.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh. I'm a K5 regular and I never noticed that article or it's replies. Too bad. I've been reading through some of the posts and I must say I agree with some and disagree with others, but it is worth a read, especially the thread you reference. Thanks! --M
You haven't given any specific references, though you have listed works and some criticism by others. And you do point out some practices which while aren't necessarily illegitimate, they may be considered sloppy. I don't remember having read Randy Allen Harris (though I have read many criticisms of Chomsky, so it's possible I may have read one of his articles without remembering his name) so I can't speak to his specific criticisms either.
I will note that having seen Chomsky speak recently, and having read his Nation exchange with Christopher Hitchens over 9/11 and our response has left me feeling as though he is either rushing out work better reserved for a second edit, or possibly his age may be showing through. Without a doubt I believe his earlier political work over the past decades is much better thought through and referenced than what he's been writing over the last few years. Though that is just personal opinion and not factually based.
Thanks for your insightful reply,
--Maynard
It occurs to me that Cerebus might think I'm refering to him when I wrote "you" at the end of my post. No, I realize he was requesting the same evidence I'm requesting. That "you" is directed to those authors several posts back such as Fnkmaster and others I have read, who made the claims of bias to which Cerebus replied.
Cheers,
--Maynard
I've repeatedly read in individual posts and in the partisan rags that Chomsky misrepresents his sources both in context and quotes in order to come to his conclusion. Yet I've never seen any examples in print. Just various claims of lies from "experts", along with claims of his rabid left wing ideology. And here we see it again without any examples presented as evidence. However, I have gone to the public library and conducted my own research into this matter. Here's why:
Some years back, right after Chomsky and Herman published Manufacturing Consent, I found myself in a debate at the Harvard Square Au Bon Pain with an Israeli who found Chomsky's work offensive. He made the claim -- as the previous poster did -- that Chomsky selectively misquotes, misrepresents context, and filters everything through anti-Israeli and anti-American presuppositions, therefore his analysis is biased and not of value. So, I asked him if he had ever checked Chomsky's references personally, but he hadn't. Nor did he think this was necessary as he pointed to an anti-Chomsky article which he provided in reference as proof of Chomsky's bias. This article made the same accusation, but it didn't provide any specific examples either, instead it simply quoted other "experts" who made these claims. I've yet to find anything in print which provides specific examples of misrepresentation of either the context or text of an article sourced in one of Chomsky's books or essays.
However, since at the time Manufacturing Consent was one of those books I was raving about and informally debating with friends, I decided that it behooved me to maybe check a few on my own just to be sure. So I blew an afternoon at the Boston Public Library checking up on a few references of personal interest and several just randomly selected. But I couldn't find a single example of misrepresentation of either the text or the context of any source material in the references I looked up. Not one.
Of course, I didn't check every one. So it's possible that there may be some bad references lurking somewhere in Manufacturing Consent, or any of his other works. If so, I'd be very interested in seeing a legitimate example.
It's one thing to say you think Chomsky's opinions stink and you think he's full of shit. That's a perfectly reasonable opinion. But to claim that he misrepresents facts and context demands proof, which I've yet to see provided. I really think that you should spend a few hours in a library and check this assertion on your own. You'll do yourself some good, and if you can find a legitimate example of his nefarious out of context lies I'm sure plenty of people would jump at the chance to reprint your proof.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Cheers,
--Maynard
Cheers,
--Maynard
The RJ-45 is an eight cable (four pair) connector most often used for TP Ethernet, while RJ-11 is a four cable (two pair) connector most often used for telephone cables.
I remember the older four prong connecter of which the previous poster refers... in a hazy '70s childhood memory. He's right about the phone company testing line voltages for multiple ringers too -- AT&T and the Bells really were an obnoxious monopoly and we're better off after the breakup. JMO.
Cheers,
--Maynard
Since when Has Laurence Lessig or the Washington Post ever claimed to be communist sympathizers? Or even members of the communist party? What the hell is it with all this red baiting? Why don't you argue his points with articulate counterpoints instead of calling them names? As for the difficulties in laying fiber in Washington DC, I can't speak to that. It would have been nice if you provided a link to the issue instead of just taking a jab at the Mayor (who has little to no real power in DC).
To know that the parent poster is, in fact, the real Scott Hacker, simply click on the link he provides in his user info. Yup, it's him. So, I guess I'll kill some karma and let you know what I think of your rude, community destructive behavior. Posts (and posters) like you(rs) are designed to destroy the Slashdot community by confusing ligitimate users. Your goal is to increase the noise level to the point that all signal is lost, thereby making these forums worthless for intellectual discussion and dissent. You provide NO intellectual discourse, simply diversion from the topic at hand. I'd love to see Rob not only disable your account, but contact your ISP and complain about your behavior. And if (as I suspect) you're a University student, I'd really enjoy seeing you dragged to the Dean's office to explain why you (and your ilk) spend time on a University network causing problems for other people rather than inputing to the community as a whole. Maybe you should experience a suspension, expulsion, or legal action to get a clue about real life, eh? JMO.
/. remind me of those assholes who drive up to the right of you at an intersection and instead of taking a right hand turn (as they're supposed to) push out ahead when the light turns green and risk everyone elses life to take the lead. Sure, they jump ahead of a few cars today -- but maybe at the expense of someone else's life tomorrow.
:(
The trolls on
Like this little rant will do a damn thing about the problem.
--Maynard
But I just bought a Vectrex with three carts on Ebay for $81 bucks. I checked into the Sean Kelly multicart and sent him a note. When he replies I buy one. Cool! :)
Best,
--Maynard
For nostalgia's sake I just drove through Vectrex lane on EBAY and see that there are three or four systems up for sale right now. Looks like ~$100 or so will get me a Vectrex if I really care. Trouble is I just bought a house and need a refridgerator more than a Vectrex. :) So, yeah... right... us grownups can buy all the video games we want, if we're willing to sacrifice FOOD! Heh...
Oh well, I've got my ps2, GT3 and Ace Combat 4. Who am I to complain?
Cheers,
--Maynard
As a kid that Vectrex of your was my favorite game system I couldn't afford. Talk about a cool system... --M
No thank you'ee. Never much liked Gibsons anyway... --M
Proof that if you are determined to find things to criticize, you will find them, even if you have to twist the facts.
Wow. You claim he twists the "facts" and write a long diatribe which only severs to prove his point. I particularly enjoy the reference to '60s civil rights for blacks used as a straw man in defense for federal civil rights abuses today. Never mind that it was progressives who took those billy clubs to the heads, got arrested, and at times were even killed in defense of our democratic principles. Considering that even many serious conservatives agree with the previous poster that the list of power grabs by the current administration is detremental to our civil liberties, are you willing to claim that they are "knee-jerk" and in need of "education"as well? As an example of the two most serious of abuses, Bush's new kangaroo courts and the Justice Department's claims at Lawyer-Client privilege, both William Saffire and Bill Kristol have written editorials lambasting these decisions with very similar arguments as the previous poster wrote.
In being an apologist for the executive branch -- not necessarily conservative ideology, since there is so much dissent on these issues among both progressive and conservative ranks -- does intellectual rigor in your arguments matter?
Just curious....
The issue is optimizing the X driver for GL performance on the PS2, which is hardware dependent no matter what GPU you're coding for. I imagine it's likely that performance may not be as good on the PS2 as writing hand assembly. That said, I'm sure it would be good enough considering that FlightGear runs perfectly fine on my Dual PPRO 200 with a PCI Voodoo 3 video card.
Honestly, the idea of providing a cross platform development and gaming environment between the PS2 and Xbox is pretty cool. FlighGear would be an excellent way to show off Linux and it's wide range of hardware support.
This is one development which I think could be seriously interesting. We know Linux has been ported to the PS2, and we know that the Xbox uses a standard PIII and NVIDIA Gforce chipset. Given GL support and reasonable performance under both graphics chipsets imagine porting FlightGear to the PS2 (it's a given that it should work almost unchanged on the XBox) and providing ISO images for folks to download and burn. This would be a great way to get desirable free software out to the masses. It might even spark greater interest in Linux to boot!
:)
FlightGear is an impressive flight simulator with a huge amount of scenery data taken from satellite images. Unlike Ace Combat 4, FlightGear actually flies like a real airplane. It's got some networking support and a userbase of real pilots working to make the simulator as real as possible. It's one of the only simulators out there which strives to make star field, moon, and sun locations as real as possible.
Of course there are other potential targets for GL games ported through Linux, and Linux would provide an ideal quick cross platform development platform for both systems. End users don't need to know that Linux happens to be driving the game (or program) underneath, and it would cost nothing to distribute. I love the idea that free software developers could distribute software for free to both PS2 and Xbox users -- something which I think would surprise quite a few console gamers. Heh.
Cheers,
--Maynard
...we would all share and enjoy secure communication. Everyone focuses on Tunnel Mode ipsec without paying attention to other possibilities in the specification. Linux FreeS/WAN, the BSD's, and even Win2K all support both Tunnel and Transport Mode ipsec, why don't more people use this stuff? Though, honestly, why the FreeW/AN folks don't use a standard IKE daemon for key exchange is beyond me....
I guess we'll all have to wait for IPV6 before this stuff becomes ubiquitous. But there's really no reason why an end user need worry about secure communications across the internet. If everyone had the infrastructure (local daemons) for key exchange and ipsec it would be entirely hidden from the user and totally secure point to point. No more need for wrapping various protocols through SSL pipes... which is an obnoxious hack IMO. The ipsec guys have it right. Setting up a secure communication point to point should be completely transparent to the end user, and given ubiquitous support ipsec would be just that simple.
So your "Average Joe" argument is worthless. Your second argument about securing local systems is beside the point and not relevant to secure communications across an insecure network. Your third point that there is already a huge installed base of IPV4 systems without ipsec support is, unfortunately, the truth. The point that "there is more to the world than IP" is yet another meaningless statement. There is more to the world than a woman, beer, and dinner. But I'm not about to turn down dinner with Guinness and a date anytime soon.
JMO,
--Maynard
Nvidia's drivers aren't DRI. They use their own approach, and have a much larger kernel driver.
Yeah, you're right. Whoops. Thanks for the fact check. --M
Good luck getting your AFS cache to work reliably under Reiserfs. Though it looks like AFS will work OK with ext3. I've been having a hell of a time getting it to work with 2.4.9-13 (the latest RH distibution kernel) though. You're right about OpenAFS kernel modules not being ready for prime time under linux. Unmounting on shutdown often causes a kernel oops, unloading the AFS kernel module on a running system usually causes a system crash requiring a hardware reset... ugly ugly ugly. Unfortunately, find me a better network filesystem.--M
At the time Linus was staunchly against integrating video support into the kernel as a general device driver, even though an ongoing project called GGI (General Graphics Interface) had written a proof of concept video kernel module, supporting libraries, and an X server. Their system prevented these kinds of crashes by providing an abstraction API layer for applications to access the video hardware through the kernel, just as DRI does today, instead of having individual applications responsible for writing to the hardware directly. The argument then was that no userspace application should write directly to hardware considering the potential for race conditions, security problems, etc. And since all other hardware has an API layer through to the kernel, why not video?
This concept won out, but not the GGI project. Which is too bad because they had a good idea and a working system back in '96. I'm sure there were some politics involved, maybe a project lead at GGI pissed Linus off or something. I wasn't paying enough attention at the time.
Just a note about this in comparison with NT: the idea is to abstract out video acceleration routines into a hardware independent API for programmers. In NT 4.0 (which was current at the time), Microsoft placed not a video hardware acceleration API into kernel space, but much of GDI (their windowing system API). Many people thought this was unnecessary kernel bloat and complained vociferously about it being a prime cause of NT 4.0's instability. I'm not an NT programmer, nor do I know much about it's internals, so if anyone wishes to chime up and offer a better explanation please feel free.
One last point: now that DRI provides a direct kernel interface to video hardware, it's quite possible to take down an entire system with an errant DRI kernel module. Yup -- exactly the same kind of problem that linux advocates used to sneer at NT users over. The NVIDEA GForce proprietary DRI kernel modules are a prime example of problem drivers crashing people's systems. Ironic, huh?
Cheers,
--Maynard
Gnustep? I've been pretty happy with Gnome so far, but I must say I'm getting annoyed with Ximian's shenanigans. I understand they need to turn a profit and because of this require some sort of business model. However, picking apart the various bug-you-for-money "features" of ximian Gnome -- such as doorman -- in order to support a couple hundred gnome desktops, combined with the outrageously poor documentation in Gnome, makes for some serious headaches. Enough for me to simply dump Ximian Gnome when we migrate to RH7.2.
All that said, I really wish RMS would help the GnuStep project with more funds and programming staff rather than trying to push the Gnome group around. Gnome is doing fine on it's own and doesn't need the guidance or help. It's Miguel's baby, let him manage the project. GnuStep was around long before Gnome and I believe was at one point an official part of the GNU project. I honestly think GnuStep offers better potential as a free desktop environment than either KDE or Gnome, and GnuStep seems to be really coming along lately. Never mind that a free Display Postscript X Server extension in XFree86 would be of great benefit to us all.
JMO,
--Maynard
I can't agree with this more. While I agree with your general sentiment WRT the U.S. patent office policy, I find the statement "US government is more interested in floating the stock market than in supporting economic fair play" to be particularly insightful.
:) )
.sig.
With average Dow P/E ratios hovering at 23 and, a flood of cheap money coming out of the Fed (just *look* at M3 since 9/11!), and the Treasury's recent decision to end the 30 year long bond in an effort to push down long term interest and mortgage rates, it's pretty clear that the policy is to squeeze out real estate equity inflationary (and illusory) gains through refinancing in order to float consumer spending and stock market speculation. The frightening thing about this is that it doesn't in the least promote healthy economic activity through increased productivity, it's entirely speculative -- as evidenced by the stock market continuing to rise even with ridiculous P/E ratios making stocks such an obvious bad long term bet. Which makes your analogy of the patent office creating a new "gold rush" all the more relevant: patenting obvious mathematical algorithms doesn't increase productivity as much as it creates exclusive monopolies for the big players. Sure, they get to claim the gains on their balance sheet, but it's a net loss for the economy as a whole.
I'm worried that the Fed won't be able to maintain and prop up the credit bubble as rising unemployment creates a certain rise in consumer bankruptcies. With increasing unemployment, huge consumer credit and mortgage debt (backed by unreasonably inflated property values) defaults, I fear an unraveling from the banking system through the stock market. Never mind all the crazy derivative hedging going on making many major banks and financial institutions leveraged beyond belief. I fear a recession like we haven't seen since 1929. It could get bad.
Of course, I could be wrong... (hope so -- I just bought a house!
Cheers,
--Maynard
ps - like your
I don't know what else to write. I expect that LinuxToday and the other internet.com branded Linux sites will probably close pretty quickly, and the community will lose what was once a useful web portal. All because Reichard, along with his senior management I must assume, took it upon themselves break the most basic of ethical standards in journalism. Reichard refused to respond to the allegations at first, and when He did he assumed the issue was readers being offended by his posts, rather than the underlying ethical implications of his behavior. Reichard should be fired, the owners should apologize, and at the very least hire an independent editorial board. But I doubt it will happen -- and that will be the end of Internet.com.
It's just plain sad...
--Maynard
This speaks for itself. I have no respect for this man, or how he has behaved on their forums. Internet.com should fire the man posthaste.
--Maynard
Both the Economist and Salon charge for "premium content" as well. In the case of the Economist, if one wishes to read archived content they must obtain a subscription. For Salon, certain articles are branded "premium content" and access to those are restricted to only those who sign up. Not being members of either (though I regularly read both) I can't say if it's worth the money. Just wanted to add to the list.
--Maynard