This reminds me of a story I heard about the study of language development. The idea was to raise a baby chimp in parallel with a human baby, to give them the same environment, in effect, and see if the chmip could be taught human language.
However the experiment was considered a failure when not only did the chimp not speak, but the human child began showing chimp behaviors.
Pros:
Child likes bananas - good nutritional content.
Child is playful - usually gets along well with others. (See below.)
I for one can not wait to see the first footage of Lions trying to hunt Kangaroos.
Now I understand why this is happening in Australia - Rupert Murdoch is behind it so he can get exclusive rights to the footage which he'll use for a new Fox show to be called "When Lions Attack Kangaroos."
I actually went to see Spinal Tap a few months ago at "Carnegie Fucking Hall," as Derek put it, and Nigel's guitar was a masterpiece. On the body, under the strings, was all pickups - probably a dozen (sorry, eleven.) Below that were a speedometer and tachometer, and the body also had exhaust pipes pointing to the other end.
unless the northern alliance has managed to get DSL installed in the past few days
Damn, that's fast. It took me several weeks, with two ISPs, and I live in New York City! I guess that makes Afghanistan a good place for a net-friendly vacation.
I dragged my girlfriend out of bed at 4 am and we took a tarp and sleeping bag to Prospect Park, where we had a nice view in a wide-open meadow near one of the highest points in Brooklyn. Pretty much nothing but sky. There were streetlights, but they were pretty far away and weren't a big problem. Incidentally, there were quite a few other people out there.
I've only seen meteors twice before, and they were nothing like this. It was quite a show. We saw quite a few of the big ones that left a "snail-trail" that could be seen even if you missed the initial flash. There were several multiples, too.
I work at a pretty big financial information and analytics company and while they've been allowing C for a while now, the vast majority of their code is written in FORTRAN.
I briefly worked in that world but thank God I now work on the client side and write C/C++.
Not to be morbid or anything, but the World Trade Centers had their own ZIP code, 10048. I wonder how long it'll be before Radio Shack's computer system stops accepting that one.
Insanely long battery life. I don't mean 'barely survive the flight from
NWK to LAX'. I mean 'I'm only going to be in Tokyo for a week, so I won't
need the AC adapter.'
Here's a somewhat ridiculous suggestion, but it just might work. You know where you're going to be in advance, and you're going to be there a week: buy a refurbished name brand PII for $100-$200, get a refurbed monitor for another $50. (Prices in $US.) Have them shipped to your destination. Bring a CD-ROM of your favorite Linux/BSD/whatever distribution with you and either do a run-from-CD or just a quick install.
After a week is up, either ship the PC to your next location, or donate it to a local charity and write it off.
Obviously, you have the additional time overhead of getting your system up and running when you get to your destination, but my thought was that it would get amortized over a longer trip.
Another disadvantage would be that you couldn't work on the plane, but I figure that if you're not in business or first class, it's too tight a squeeze anyway. I can barely type on a Palm foldable keyboard on those food trays.
Especially if MS eventually included filters for the format in Word:-)
They don't have to - Word has an API so that you can write your own converters. See How to Obtain the WinWord Converter SDK (GC1039). I looked at it a long time ago (Word 95/97 days) and it was beyond my abilities at the time, but the way it works is you write a dll that exports a few well-defined functions. The important ones convert your format to and from RTF and Word converts RTF to its own format and back.
So anyone who wants to can write a converter so that Word users can read and write AbiWord/KWord/OpenOffice (is that what Star Office is now?) documents.
This is not as silly as it sounds: a big reason not to use these word processors is because of their limited abilities with Word format. Well, if you can use their native format (which they are probably best at) and freely provide a converter to your format, then there's no technical reason a recipient using Word couldn't open your document in its native format.
That's a good point. Furthermore, the article talks about KDE vs. GNOME in relation to the issue of whether one OSS project '"kills" another.' The article goes on to say that OSS projects do indeed compete, but in "a different form." Here's what I think of this competition among OSS projects and why it's a good thing.
It occurs to me that talking about projects killing each other is assuming the Microsoft paradigm - that there can only be one dominant force in any market. Also, many comments on the KDE/GNOME (or Linux/BSD, or which Linux distribution will "win" or "die next") situation assume that there can only be one "winner."
However, who is to say what is the "natural state" of the OS/software market? Is it a winner-take-all market, as Microsoft would (a) like to be the winner of, and (b) like us to believe is the natural way, or is there room for multiple vendors? When there are open protocols, there is no technical reason limiting the number of clients that use a given protocol. There is also no compelling market force.
Take for comparison word processors vs. web browsers. For word processors, Microsoft Word takes advantage of "network effects" with its closed-format document format. That is, the more people that use that format, the more valuable it becomes. Similarly, a new word processor purchaser deciding between closed formats will surely choose the one with the bigger installed base, or at least the one that most of their clients use - which, at this point, are probably the same. The network effect is why Microsoft wants us to think that the OS/software market is a winner-take all situation - this leads to the decision to buy the latest version of Word, simply because you're afraid to get left behind by everyone else upgrading their version.
On the other hand, web browsers are dealing with an open protocol. Anyone can write a browser - and several parties have - that can render some form of HTML and communicate to http servers. On an open platform such as Linux, there are several to chose from and there's no reason to worry that you've chosen the wrong one. That is, as long as the protocol stays the same, you could just as well write your own browser as pick one of the existing ones.
On Windows, there's strong disincentive against any browser but IE, since it is preinstalled, and you can't really avoid that. However, if you're willing to go through the effort, you can get another browser installed.
Open protocols are why KDE vs. GNOME, Linux vs. BSD, or which Linux distribution to choose is not a big deal - just about any application you could want for either system either runs on the other, or a clone does. Then it's just a question of personal preference, but there's no danger of obsolescence.
When it comes to distributions, there's the danger that your distribution vendor will go under, but then again, so what? Once you've got your kernel, utilities and applications installed, it's pretty simple to keep them up to date.
Microsoft is trying so hard to kill other browsers by making its web server work best with its client. Fortunately they are limited in how much they can extend the protocols by their server customers since a company setting up a web presence doesn't want to shut out any potential customers.
That's all I can think of for now, and sorry I can't summarize or introduce it better, but it's late. I hope there was some nugget of insight for someone out there.
I have a 486 laptop (which used to be my good machine.) When I would insert my 14.4 PCMCIA modem and plug it into the phone line at my parents' house, the laptop speaker would play a local AM news station. It was pretty annoying, and a bit creepy. OK, not Halloween-creepy.
For what it's worth (this is the first time I've probably ever tried), I'm also getting into MSN.com with Netscape 4.77, but not with Konqueror 2.1.1. With the latter, it is suggested that I upgrade to
IE for Windows
IE for Macintosh
MSN Explorer for Windows
Call me a traitor, but I'd love to have Internet Explorer for Linux. After avoiding IE (if not Windows) as much as possible, I became complacent and tried it out a little on my new laptop (which came with Win98), on which I didn't bother to install Netscape (or any other browser.)
I felt dirty, but wasn't displeased with the rendering performance and tried using IE a little at work (on NT4) where I'd diligently been using Netscape 4.something for a long time. Testing them side-by-side, I was impressed by how much faster IE renders some pages than Netscape on NT4. For another sample point, if I had the time, I wouldn't mind trying Mozilla on NT4 - my experience with it on Linux suggests it would be pretty quick on Windows too.
Someone please tell Bill Gates to call me collect when IE for Linux is ready, as long as it's not embedded in the kernel and I don't have to worry that it brings down my kernel when it dies.
When my old CD player started acting up and not playing many recent disks, I figured it was time to upgrade. As an interim, I hooked an old IDE CD-ROM (dumpster special) to an old power supply, and to my stereo via the drive's headphone jack. It doesn't have very many features besides play/skip and stop/eject but it generally gets the job done.
When this copy-prevention crap starts hitting music that I would actually buy, it may be time to get that new player. Still, this is a drag, since I rip many of my disks on my PC at work, which beats shuttling disks back and forth.
Then again, by the time this technology makes it to the disks that I use, my PC will probably be illegal anyway.
Someone addressed this general issue recently and to summarize - the FBI's response is in proportion to financial damage done. I would imagine that would be expanded to number of lives lost at this point.
I've salvaged an otherwise hosed Linux machine that had run out of RAM from a bash prompt. It's been a while, but I used the fact that while I couldn't run new programs like top, or even ls, I could still use file-name completion at the prompt. I recall I used this in the/proc directory to get bash to tell me all the PIDs, then for each suspect (it was an out of control netscape in this case) I did something like "cat/proc/123/cmdline", which I guess did work. (I don't know why cat worked but ls didn't. As I said, details are sketchy now.)
Slashdot Mirror
D00D - wh3r3 c@n 1 637 [get] 0n3 [one] 0f 74353 [these] pr06r@m5?
Maybe Microsoft should petition the DOJ to investigate WindRiver's monopoly position in the embedded market.
However the experiment was considered a failure when not only did the chimp not speak, but the human child began showing chimp behaviors.
Pros:
Cons:
Now I understand why this is happening in Australia - Rupert Murdoch is behind it so he can get exclusive rights to the footage which he'll use for a new Fox show to be called "When Lions Attack Kangaroos."
I actually went to see Spinal Tap a few months ago at "Carnegie Fucking Hall," as Derek put it, and Nigel's guitar was a masterpiece. On the body, under the strings, was all pickups - probably a dozen (sorry, eleven.) Below that were a speedometer and tachometer, and the body also had exhaust pipes pointing to the other end.
@echo off
%*
Leave out the @echo off for debugging. Oh, and this software is GPL'ed.
It's too bad your summary didn't look like this instead:
No Vendor support for Emulator == No Vendor
It takes a lot of clout for that to happen, though.
Here's what I'll listen to first when I get this working.
Damn, that's fast. It took me several weeks, with two ISPs, and I live in New York City! I guess that makes Afghanistan a good place for a net-friendly vacation.
I've only seen meteors twice before, and they were nothing like this. It was quite a show. We saw quite a few of the big ones that left a "snail-trail" that could be seen even if you missed the initial flash. There were several multiples, too.
I briefly worked in that world but thank God I now work on the client side and write C/C++.
Not to be morbid or anything, but the World Trade Centers had their own ZIP code, 10048. I wonder how long it'll be before Radio Shack's computer system stops accepting that one.
Here's a somewhat ridiculous suggestion, but it just might work. You know where you're going to be in advance, and you're going to be there a week: buy a refurbished name brand PII for $100-$200, get a refurbed monitor for another $50. (Prices in $US.) Have them shipped to your destination. Bring a CD-ROM of your favorite Linux/BSD/whatever distribution with you and either do a run-from-CD or just a quick install.
After a week is up, either ship the PC to your next location, or donate it to a local charity and write it off.
Obviously, you have the additional time overhead of getting your system up and running when you get to your destination, but my thought was that it would get amortized over a longer trip.
Another disadvantage would be that you couldn't work on the plane, but I figure that if you're not in business or first class, it's too tight a squeeze anyway. I can barely type on a Palm foldable keyboard on those food trays.
That must have been my former advisor.
I thought it was "publish or perish." Now you're telling me it's "publish and perish"?
I'm glad I got out of academia.
They don't have to - Word has an API so that you can write your own converters. See How to Obtain the WinWord Converter SDK (GC1039). I looked at it a long time ago (Word 95/97 days) and it was beyond my abilities at the time, but the way it works is you write a dll that exports a few well-defined functions. The important ones convert your format to and from RTF and Word converts RTF to its own format and back.
So anyone who wants to can write a converter so that Word users can read and write AbiWord/KWord/OpenOffice (is that what Star Office is now?) documents.
This is not as silly as it sounds: a big reason not to use these word processors is because of their limited abilities with Word format. Well, if you can use their native format (which they are probably best at) and freely provide a converter to your format, then there's no technical reason a recipient using Word couldn't open your document in its native format.
It occurs to me that talking about projects killing each other is assuming the Microsoft paradigm - that there can only be one dominant force in any market. Also, many comments on the KDE/GNOME (or Linux/BSD, or which Linux distribution will "win" or "die next") situation assume that there can only be one "winner."
However, who is to say what is the "natural state" of the OS/software market? Is it a winner-take-all market, as Microsoft would (a) like to be the winner of, and (b) like us to believe is the natural way, or is there room for multiple vendors? When there are open protocols, there is no technical reason limiting the number of clients that use a given protocol. There is also no compelling market force.
Take for comparison word processors vs. web browsers. For word processors, Microsoft Word takes advantage of "network effects" with its closed-format document format. That is, the more people that use that format, the more valuable it becomes. Similarly, a new word processor purchaser deciding between closed formats will surely choose the one with the bigger installed base, or at least the one that most of their clients use - which, at this point, are probably the same. The network effect is why Microsoft wants us to think that the OS/software market is a winner-take all situation - this leads to the decision to buy the latest version of Word, simply because you're afraid to get left behind by everyone else upgrading their version.
On the other hand, web browsers are dealing with an open protocol. Anyone can write a browser - and several parties have - that can render some form of HTML and communicate to http servers. On an open platform such as Linux, there are several to chose from and there's no reason to worry that you've chosen the wrong one. That is, as long as the protocol stays the same, you could just as well write your own browser as pick one of the existing ones.
On Windows, there's strong disincentive against any browser but IE, since it is preinstalled, and you can't really avoid that. However, if you're willing to go through the effort, you can get another browser installed.
Open protocols are why KDE vs. GNOME, Linux vs. BSD, or which Linux distribution to choose is not a big deal - just about any application you could want for either system either runs on the other, or a clone does. Then it's just a question of personal preference, but there's no danger of obsolescence.
When it comes to distributions, there's the danger that your distribution vendor will go under, but then again, so what? Once you've got your kernel, utilities and applications installed, it's pretty simple to keep them up to date.
Microsoft is trying so hard to kill other browsers by making its web server work best with its client. Fortunately they are limited in how much they can extend the protocols by their server customers since a company setting up a web presence doesn't want to shut out any potential customers.
That's all I can think of for now, and sorry I can't summarize or introduce it better, but it's late. I hope there was some nugget of insight for someone out there.
I have a 486 laptop (which used to be my good machine.) When I would insert my 14.4 PCMCIA modem and plug it into the phone line at my parents' house, the laptop speaker would play a local AM news station. It was pretty annoying, and a bit creepy. OK, not Halloween-creepy.
Does the broken browser work if you change its user agent string to "seineeWerAsremmargorPrerolpxEtenretnI"?
Call me a traitor, but I'd love to have Internet Explorer for Linux. After avoiding IE (if not Windows) as much as possible, I became complacent and tried it out a little on my new laptop (which came with Win98), on which I didn't bother to install Netscape (or any other browser.)
I felt dirty, but wasn't displeased with the rendering performance and tried using IE a little at work (on NT4) where I'd diligently been using Netscape 4.something for a long time. Testing them side-by-side, I was impressed by how much faster IE renders some pages than Netscape on NT4. For another sample point, if I had the time, I wouldn't mind trying Mozilla on NT4 - my experience with it on Linux suggests it would be pretty quick on Windows too.
Someone please tell Bill Gates to call me collect when IE for Linux is ready, as long as it's not embedded in the kernel and I don't have to worry that it brings down my kernel when it dies.
Now if only they could crack the genome of the Blue (Screen of) Death.
When this copy-prevention crap starts hitting music that I would actually buy, it may be time to get that new player. Still, this is a drag, since I rip many of my disks on my PC at work, which beats shuttling disks back and forth.
Then again, by the time this technology makes it to the disks that I use, my PC will probably be illegal anyway.
Someone addressed this general issue recently and to summarize - the FBI's response is in proportion to financial damage done. I would imagine that would be expanded to number of lives lost at this point.
I've salvaged an otherwise hosed Linux machine that had run out of RAM from a bash prompt. It's been a while, but I used the fact that while I couldn't run new programs like top, or even ls, I could still use file-name completion at the prompt. I recall I used this in the /proc directory to get bash to tell me all the PIDs, then for each suspect (it was an out of control netscape in this case) I did something like "cat /proc/123/cmdline", which I guess did work. (I don't know why cat worked but ls didn't. As I said, details are sketchy now.)
What happens when the ants encounter a spider? Or a cookie?