I have to use a pre-installed Windoze environment here at work:( but I'll check out my OOo install when I get home - I hadn't realised it did what I want.
I'd love to join you on those sites, but first I must get my reading speed and vocabulary count up. Look for me in a month or two! I keep phoning my local mosque to ask about help/lessons in my area, but there hasn't been an answer yet.
Thanks for the help.
J. (This time previewing and thus getting decent formatting)
Top article, really enjoyed reading that.
Now, I love visiting Egypt and diving in the Red Sea, and have just started learning Arabic to be able to talk more to the residents, so firstly... Ahlan Alaaosh! Ena esme Justin;-)
After that, I've a question: I'm having a hell of a time with the alphabet (specifically with the letters being different depending where in the word they are)! What's the best software for typing in Arabic letters? Is there anything decent?
Finally, armed police with not a lot of education about the world outside their country? Are we talking Egypt or the US?! (They don't worry me too much!)
Justin.
When lots of people pull together and give away the end result - and it's a barn - that's good (presumably except for barn manufacturers and they don't employ fud-factories like the above's author).
When lots of people pull together and give away the end result - and it's an OS - that's baaaaaad and scary foreigners will get you (if you read fuddy articles like the above)!
There's an assumption in there that the IP valuations companies put on 'their' IP are and have been correct. Personally, I would say that many US companies have overvalued their IP, as they have valued it according to how much money they can make off it - worldwide - in a year, and expected that income to continue indefinitely.
However, as soon as other countries start acquiring sufficient infrastructures (eg mobile phone nets in Africa) they are enabled to do their own development. Thus the US 'IP' is worth less than it was recorded as.
This does not mean, as Ken says, that the IP has been devalued, merely that it was over-valued.
The free market almost requires mfrs to use firware, as it cuts costs incredibly. And it's also a lot easier updating firmware over the net than hardware:)
Nobody's arguing with this bit, although I would add that it clearly leads to a lot of unfinished/untested software being released on the 'fix in the field' plan. Unfortunately, this means that we are back to the 'crap drivers -> crashing' stuff that Windows suffered from for years, without no chance to debug, fix and develop.
What I am suggesting is that there is a similarity here with the patenting of ideas. There is really no reason not to open-source these drivers, except that the manufacturers want to keep ideas secret just in case they can 'monetize' them in future and so their customers (us) are left in the lurch. After all, who would want a modem driver without the modem? And if anyone starts shouting 'hardware clones', then I suggest they remember that a good enough hardware clone will run with the binary driver!
Overall, I just don't agree with anyone claiming ownership of an idea, only the expression of an idea. But perhaps that's just my sense of British fair play;-)
This is a horrible perspective, and it ties in to the whole idea of software patenting.
Having purchased the hardware, the driver/firmware is nothing more than a set of instructions which may or may not be specific to that hardware (I'm thinking about WinModems for example).
If you accept that there can be IP (the famous nebulous phrase) in that driver/firmware then you are accepting that people should be allowed to protect ideas (patent-style), rather than expressions of ideas (copyright-style).
Open sourcing your driver/firmware does not remove your protection under copyright law. This is just about people trying to keep ideas that they can't patent under lock and key. It should be fought tooth and nail.
Hell man, I've been actively working on my paranoia and tin-foil-hat persona since I started writing code!
In fact, these days I believe Bill Hicks was killed by the Beiderbeck Group using carcinogenic material supplied by the CIA under the orders of undead vampire George Bush Snr!
Rot. Non-full-disclosure has generally meant that we didn't have any progress at all cos the vendors typically wouldn't do jack till they had to.
For instance, there was a mail on BugTraq not too long ago about a bug that the finder chased with whichever company it was for about six weeks. No reply. No acknowledgement, no fix. He gave up and went open - they fixed it in a week.
Now, how many other people had found that bug and were trying to make an exploit out of it? What if he had kepy schtum and the black-hats had got in?
That's what full-disclosure is for, to force vendors to fix stuff they could otherwise ignore.
There was some pretty damn obvious stock manipulation going on. I'd be guessing that *someone* was doing it (derr!), that if traced, it would be someone who knew Darl et al, and I would hope that from there you would have a decent chance of getting the SEC to investigate.
People should always remember: Correlation != Causality
While the article doesn't argue causality, its conclusions do support limiting kids' time in front of the TV (suggesting reversability), and every idiot journalist will take it that way.
It reminds me of a research article a few years ago showing that kids who didn't get breakfast didn't do well at school, so millions were spent enabling school cafeterias to serve breakfasts. When the results were in a few years later it became clear this had had little effect. The actual relationship was that parents who can't be bothered to feed their kids also don't make sure they study.
Similarly here, I suggest that parents who can't be arsed interacting with their kids will (a) dump them in front of the telly and (b) thereby/not/ teach them to concentrate.
If you'd read my reply, you'd have noticed that I said I was attempting to make a point for the layman. This is/. not a maths group.
Firstly, of course I did non-euclidean, at A-level initially. I didn't appeal to my own authority to debate a mathematical point, just to suggest that he should be less patronising. Finally, the branch of maths he is referring to is not mainstream maths, it's "philosophy of maths" and personally I don't think much of it. YMMV, of course.
What total crap. Look at the new thread scheduler and tell me anyone has ever written a scheduler that uses that technique before? Now look at the way drivers and modules are managed and tell me that's the same as HPUX or whatever.
Just because the user experience is similar doesn't mean what's under the hood (to use an americanism) is. Or do you not see the difference between a landrover and a kit car?
I used to be a caffeine addict.
on
Death by Coffee?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I used to love coffee. I drank espresso by the mug. My old landlady once asked me about it while we were watching a program on coffee addicts. After doing the maths they had just explained on the telly, I discovered I was drinking the equivalent of 56 cups/day. She asked if I had any side effects, and I thought about it and said "no... except I fall asleep in 15 minutes if I stop".
These days I drink a few small pots of tea.
Once, for a laugh, I ate two bags of chocolate covered coffee beans out of a bowl with a spoon and then went down the pub. I had a killer evening, really fast and witty (everyone thought I was on speed) followed by a night full of shivers and shakes and just wanting to stop being awake, but not being able to.
Worth doing the once;-)
For the record, I've also tried a cup of coffee on the half hour every half hour. Took me till lunch to get really weirded out and unhappy. Finally I've tried (with instant) making a saturated solution and drinking it. Not good either.
J.
Re:The Long Answer
on
Death by Coffee?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
AIUI, recent findings show that even though caffeine is a diuretic, it's such a weak one that you gain more water in a normal tea/coffee than you lose. It's only espressos that are actually dehydrating.
IIRC, as a result the National Health Service here in Britain recently changed decades-old advice and now allows people to have tea after operations. Any medics here confirm that?
All marketing information is clearly as close to lies as necessary, and any competent geek would cut off their net connection rather than make a decision based on it.
All marketing is aimed at CI/EOs because they're the only ones dumb enough to think it might be relevent.
I have a first class degree in Maths, and a lower second in Physics too. My post was intended to be understood by anyone, rather than representing what you called my 'overly simplistic view'. Try not to be so patronising in future till you know whom you are addressing.
Anyway, while there are internally self-consistent theories ("a=>b=>a"), there is no such thing as a proof without axioms. I'd love to hear one, if you claim to know of one. <thinks> The last person who tried to claim that to me was a philosophy student... what are you? I'm betting on a Christian</thinks>
For example, even logical standards such as "a==b && b==c => a==c" actually rely on underlying axioms, it's just that very few people realise that we are using some pre-existing part of the mind to make that leap, rather than pure mathematical logic. I would tell you the name of the ancient greek who realised that, if I could just remember it.
With regard to the stuff about 'heaven' and 'not in the physical world', I follow the school of the computational theory of mind which suggests that geometry, integer maths etc is all a part of the physical world we inhabit. In other words, the mind of any animal evolved in this universe will find 1+1=2, rather than that relationship being an arbitrary choice of any kind.
Finally: Uh oh, am I pointing out that the entire foundation of your science AND your math is religious in nature?
Sure it is. Cos maths hasn't been tested (proved!) at all, unlike God. Ha ha, right!
Newly revealed docs show that MS decided deliberately to start referring to Win 95 as 'an OS' even though it's actually an OS and a bunch of toys, which we usually call a distribution. An OS does five things only: hardware abstraction, thread control, memory management, file management, io control. Anything else is an application task.
Their purpose was to ensure that now, ten years later, they can lie through their teeth about bundling requirements for purposes of monopoly abuse. Hence they can now claim that, of all things, media player is an integral part of the 'OS'.
Don't propogate the meme - Windows is a distribution, not an OS. As such, Media Player, IE etc are removable without breaking the OS.
proofs really only exist in the world of mathematics
And all of those rely on 'axioms' aka assumptions too. Admittedly there aren't many of them (five arithmetic and eight geometric if I remember my first year), but still, nothing is provably 'true' on its own merits.
By way of example, one of the axioms is that parallel lines never meet. We don't actually know if that's true, but it's pretty close. If we do turn out to live in a curved universe, we'll have to throw away some bits of maths.
Popping back to science vs religion, the biggest weakness with claiming 'this is the word of God' is when it become inconvenient or clearly wrong. Consider Galileo - 'nough said!
Of course, allowing re-interpretation doesn't help whene there are believers involved. For example, right at the start, Moses was told "Thou shalt not kill". Immediately after that, he was told to go to land of Canaan and kill everyone there, thus enabling every religious leader since then from Mohammed to David Koresh to interpret "Thou shalt not kill" in his own way, as its most obvious interpretation clearly wasn't God's intent - or the Canaanites would still be around!
Slashdot Mirror
Nice work 'Anonymous Coward'!
Thanks for the help... if you find anything else, and want to continue this rather interesting game, please mail me at justin at aug24 dot co dot uk.
We'll show these dodgy buggers that the human community is stronger than any greed bastards' company!
Justin.
Interesting...! I think I'll email PJ with this little lot!
J.
I have to use a pre-installed Windoze environment here at work :( but I'll check out my OOo install when I get home - I hadn't realised it did what I want.
I'd love to join you on those sites, but first I must get my reading speed and vocabulary count up. Look for me in a month or two! I keep phoning my local mosque to ask about help/lessons in my area, but there hasn't been an answer yet.
Thanks for the help.
J.
(This time previewing and thus getting decent formatting)
Top article, really enjoyed reading that. Now, I love visiting Egypt and diving in the Red Sea, and have just started learning Arabic to be able to talk more to the residents, so firstly... Ahlan Alaaosh! Ena esme Justin ;-)
After that, I've a question: I'm having a hell of a time with the alphabet (specifically with the letters being different depending where in the word they are)! What's the best software for typing in Arabic letters? Is there anything decent?
Finally, armed police with not a lot of education about the world outside their country? Are we talking Egypt or the US?! (They don't worry me too much!)
Justin.
When lots of people pull together and give away the end result - and it's an OS - that's baaaaaad and scary foreigners will get you (if you read fuddy articles like the above)!
Justin.
However, as soon as other countries start acquiring sufficient infrastructures (eg mobile phone nets in Africa) they are enabled to do their own development. Thus the US 'IP' is worth less than it was recorded as.
This does not mean, as Ken says, that the IP has been devalued, merely that it was over-valued.
Justin.
I just start my gf's gui on tty7 and mine on tty8 (there's prolly a better way to put that!), then switch between them by hitting ctrl-shift-f6/7.
;-)
The only difference is that I don't have to move my hand to the mouse to change
Justin.
Nobody's arguing with this bit, although I would add that it clearly leads to a lot of unfinished/untested software being released on the 'fix in the field' plan. Unfortunately, this means that we are back to the 'crap drivers -> crashing' stuff that Windows suffered from for years, without no chance to debug, fix and develop.
What I am suggesting is that there is a similarity here with the patenting of ideas. There is really no reason not to open-source these drivers, except that the manufacturers want to keep ideas secret just in case they can 'monetize' them in future and so their customers (us) are left in the lurch. After all, who would want a modem driver without the modem? And if anyone starts shouting 'hardware clones', then I suggest they remember that a good enough hardware clone will run with the binary driver!
Overall, I just don't agree with anyone claiming ownership of an idea, only the expression of an idea. But perhaps that's just my sense of British fair play ;-)
Justin.
Absolutely. You shouldn't be able to patent maths. Copyright the expression of the idea, but not the idea itself.
J.
This is a horrible perspective, and it ties in to the whole idea of software patenting.
Having purchased the hardware, the driver/firmware is nothing more than a set of instructions which may or may not be specific to that hardware (I'm thinking about WinModems for example).
If you accept that there can be IP (the famous nebulous phrase) in that driver/firmware then you are accepting that people should be allowed to protect ideas (patent-style), rather than expressions of ideas (copyright-style).
Open sourcing your driver/firmware does not remove your protection under copyright law. This is just about people trying to keep ideas that they can't patent under lock and key. It should be fought tooth and nail.
Justin.
Hell man, I've been actively working on my paranoia and tin-foil-hat persona since I started writing code!
In fact, these days I believe Bill Hicks was killed by the Beiderbeck Group using carcinogenic material supplied by the CIA under the orders of undead vampire George Bush Snr!
Justin.
Rot. Non-full-disclosure has generally meant that we didn't have any progress at all cos the vendors typically wouldn't do jack till they had to.
For instance, there was a mail on BugTraq not too long ago about a bug that the finder chased with whichever company it was for about six weeks. No reply. No acknowledgement, no fix. He gave up and went open - they fixed it in a week.
Now, how many other people had found that bug and were trying to make an exploit out of it? What if he had kepy schtum and the black-hats had got in?
That's what full-disclosure is for, to force vendors to fix stuff they could otherwise ignore.
Justin.
There was some pretty damn obvious stock manipulation going on. I'd be guessing that *someone* was doing it (derr!), that if traced, it would be someone who knew Darl et al, and I would hope that from there you would have a decent chance of getting the SEC to investigate.
J.
People should always remember: Correlation != Causality
/not/ teach them to concentrate.
While the article doesn't argue causality, its conclusions do support limiting kids' time in front of the TV (suggesting reversability), and every idiot journalist will take it that way.
It reminds me of a research article a few years ago showing that kids who didn't get breakfast didn't do well at school, so millions were spent enabling school cafeterias to serve breakfasts. When the results were in a few years later it became clear this had had little effect. The actual relationship was that parents who can't be bothered to feed their kids also don't make sure they study.
Similarly here, I suggest that parents who can't be arsed interacting with their kids will (a) dump them in front of the telly and (b) thereby
Hence just taking the TV away won't help much...
Justin.
If you'd read my reply, you'd have noticed that I said I was attempting to make a point for the layman. This is /. not a maths group.
Firstly, of course I did non-euclidean, at A-level initially. I didn't appeal to my own authority to debate a mathematical point, just to suggest that he should be less patronising. Finally, the branch of maths he is referring to is not mainstream maths, it's "philosophy of maths" and personally I don't think much of it. YMMV, of course.
J.
Just because the user experience is similar doesn't mean what's under the hood (to use an americanism) is. Or do you not see the difference between a landrover and a kit car?
Justin.
Sadly, no.
I used to love coffee. I drank espresso by the mug. My old landlady once asked me about it while we were watching a program on coffee addicts. After doing the maths they had just explained on the telly, I discovered I was drinking the equivalent of 56 cups/day. She asked if I had any side effects, and I thought about it and said "no... except I fall asleep in 15 minutes if I stop".
;-)
These days I drink a few small pots of tea.
Once, for a laugh, I ate two bags of chocolate covered coffee beans out of a bowl with a spoon and then went down the pub. I had a killer evening, really fast and witty (everyone thought I was on speed) followed by a night full of shivers and shakes and just wanting to stop being awake, but not being able to.
Worth doing the once
For the record, I've also tried a cup of coffee on the half hour every half hour. Took me till lunch to get really weirded out and unhappy. Finally I've tried (with instant) making a saturated solution and drinking it. Not good either.
J.
IIRC, as a result the National Health Service here in Britain recently changed decades-old advice and now allows people to have tea after operations. Any medics here confirm that?
J.
All marketing information is clearly as close to lies as necessary, and any competent geek would cut off their net connection rather than make a decision based on it.
All marketing is aimed at CI/EOs because they're the only ones dumb enough to think it might be relevent.
Justin.
As I thought: philosophy of mathematics. Not useful for physics or engineering, but a great way to spend an afternoon in the sun with a beer.
J.
Forgive me, it was not meant as a literal truth, rather a comment about the nature of 'truth'! Your point is entirely correct.
J.
I have a first class degree in Maths, and a lower second in Physics too. My post was intended to be understood by anyone, rather than representing what you called my 'overly simplistic view'. Try not to be so patronising in future till you know whom you are addressing.
Anyway, while there are internally self-consistent theories ("a=>b=>a"), there is no such thing as a proof without axioms. I'd love to hear one, if you claim to know of one. <thinks> The last person who tried to claim that to me was a philosophy student... what are you? I'm betting on a Christian</thinks>
For example, even logical standards such as "a==b && b==c => a==c" actually rely on underlying axioms, it's just that very few people realise that we are using some pre-existing part of the mind to make that leap, rather than pure mathematical logic. I would tell you the name of the ancient greek who realised that, if I could just remember it.
With regard to the stuff about 'heaven' and 'not in the physical world', I follow the school of the computational theory of mind which suggests that geometry, integer maths etc is all a part of the physical world we inhabit. In other words, the mind of any animal evolved in this universe will find 1+1=2, rather than that relationship being an arbitrary choice of any kind.
Finally: Uh oh, am I pointing out that the entire foundation of your science AND your math is religious in nature?
Sure it is. Cos maths hasn't been tested (proved!) at all, unlike God. Ha ha, right!
J.
Their purpose was to ensure that now, ten years later, they can lie through their teeth about bundling requirements for purposes of monopoly abuse. Hence they can now claim that, of all things, media player is an integral part of the 'OS'.
Don't propogate the meme - Windows is a distribution, not an OS. As such, Media Player, IE etc are removable without breaking the OS.
J.
And all of those rely on 'axioms' aka assumptions too. Admittedly there aren't many of them (five arithmetic and eight geometric if I remember my first year), but still, nothing is provably 'true' on its own merits.
By way of example, one of the axioms is that parallel lines never meet. We don't actually know if that's true, but it's pretty close. If we do turn out to live in a curved universe, we'll have to throw away some bits of maths.
Popping back to science vs religion, the biggest weakness with claiming 'this is the word of God' is when it become inconvenient or clearly wrong. Consider Galileo - 'nough said!
Of course, allowing re-interpretation doesn't help whene there are believers involved. For example, right at the start, Moses was told "Thou shalt not kill". Immediately after that, he was told to go to land of Canaan and kill everyone there, thus enabling every religious leader since then from Mohammed to David Koresh to interpret "Thou shalt not kill" in his own way, as its most obvious interpretation clearly wasn't God's intent - or the Canaanites would still be around!
Justin.