I had an Ultra 5 with Solaris 9 where the IO would grind to a halt when the CD-ROM was being read, stick Linux on it and suddenly it *can* walk and chew gum.
Was that an IDE CD-ROM? (The Ultra 5 used IDE instead of SCSI to save money.) In the bad old days, the Solaris IDE driver was terrible and didn't use DMA, which would produce similar symptoms to what you describe (IO would grind to a halt because the CPU was too busy moving tiny pieces of data around manually).
Nobody intends the nsfw attribute to solve all nsfw situations for precisely the reasons you mention. Will it solve enough situations to be worthwhile? On the face of it, it sounds like it will. There are plenty of non-corner-case situations where it would help people. Within a given culture, there are things that are clearly nsfw that occasionally appear on otherwise acceptable-for-work sites.
The real question is: what happens when non-popular-linux-website folks attempt to install a Debian Etch on an old thinkpad? I'm not sure the report would be so peachy...
Good question...and the answer, my friend, explains why Linux won't make it to the mainstream desktop for quite some time.
Mainstream users don't install operating systems. Whether or not Linux will ever be "the" mainstream desktop is no longer constrained by installation issues. Other factors, such as agreements between software and hardware suppliers, are more important.
Untarring, symlinking and googling for answers are easy for power users, who are the ones called upon to install operating systems.
Both perl and python allow bad coding practices far too easily, whereas you can write very good code in them, but its better to learn the discipline first.
This is a key point, I think. Python doesn't force you to do the things that good programmers do anyway. Then again, C, Java etc. let you get away with all sorts of bad programming practices too.
I think it is easier to explain the concept of "type" with a language that forces you to declare your variables and their types before using them. But, that's a pretty minor advantage, and I think it's outweighed by the many practical advantages of Python.
Because, according to the game, killing non-christians is okay if you pray afterwards.
Praying afterwards appears to be how you get back your health points, or whatever. How does that make killing non-christians okay? Maybe you define "okay" as "a viable strategy for winning the game"?
It is usually bad if somebody bases their real-world actions on a video game. In most games, killing non-christians is ok even if you don't pray afterwards. My Civ body count is astronomical.
This game seems to be, quite literally, preaching hatred.
The player apparently loses points for killing people. How is that consistent with "preaching hatred"? Just because someone disagrees with me, or thinks I'm going to burn in hell forever because I chose the wrong god, doesn't mean they hate me.
Personally, I think it sounds like a stupid, offensive game. But people in this country are allowed to publish stupid, offensive things.
Your parent poster didn't ask about the BSD license, they asked about the Apache license and the MPL, which seem to be the same the GPL from your point of view. Do you prefer them over the GPL? If so, I too would like to hear your reasoning.
Does the 2011 prediction assume that the US won't push the date back again? Does it assume that the reasons for US politicians to push the date back don't apply to politicians in other countries?
The conversion from analog to digital TV is in progress. Trying to guess now when the tipping point will actually occur is useless.
I work for one of the larger contractors. My company has a strict policy against using any open source, not just GNU.
Smaller defense contractors use the GNU toolchain (gcc etc.) because its license guarantees availability. They want to ensure that they can maintain their current build environment indefinitely.
"a 2006 study showed that 30% of insiders who are caught launching an attack against their employers have arrest records, and that those charges don't generally include computer crimes."
That means a background check won't catch 70% of the malicious insiders.
It apparently also means that an arrest record is enough to disqualify somebody from employment. Jinkies!
So what you are saying is that the quality of commercial code has very little to do with business pressure and is mostly just a result of unskilled and/or unmotivated programmers.
No, I'm saying that commercial code quality is poor (mostly) because of business pressure and open source code quality is poor for (mostly) other reasons.
Some people say "cheap" when they mean "bargain" or "value". $1500 is not necessarily cheap in absolute terms, but $1500 for a 42" LCD HDTV is a bargain compared to what other 42" LCD HDTVs cost.
Time pressures and price are fundamentally incompatable with code quality, even amongst the best programmers. Ergo, great programming is incompatible with most business models (i.e., most businesses don't have the money to make the software they want at the quality they want).
Ok, then please explain why Open Source projects are full of flaws just like commercial products.
Because they often don't have what it takes either: time, discipline and ability. Just because one kind of software doesn't have it doesn't mean that open source software has to have it. Making high quality code is often not as fun, and when I code for myself it's usually for fun. Just because I'm making something for myself doesn't mean that I don't have time pressure, or that I'm inclined to be more disciplined than I am when I'm coding for work. If I'm only a mid level programmer at work, I don't magically get smarter when I program for myself at home.
If I was one of the corporations that Apple tried to extort by buying this patent I would just form a nice alliance of lawyers with the other "infringers" and fight the thing tooth and nail. There is probably a better chance of spending 100 million getting the patent voided than giving Apple a billion and bending over.
If you were one of the corporations that Apple tried to extort, you'd be a sociopath, willing to fund a shadow war of assassination and terror to dominate your market. Sue you for patent infringement? Be a shame if something were to happen to all those nice Apple stores. I, for one, am glad that you are not a corporation.
I don't think "utility" is the right word. The utility is clear, if the challenges can be surmounted. Of course, eye strain is a concern for any display technology.
I can even live with 640x480 resolution - just use a motion detector to scroll the view across a virtual desktop when I move my head.
And I challenge you to find any statistic that at least vaguely indicates that keeping loaded guns at home is a good idea.
Your parent poster did mention one such situation: when deaths due to home invasion are greater than deaths due to gun accidents. Ideally they'd be able to fortify their dwelling enough that they wouldn't need firearms for self defense, but ideally home invasions wouldn't occur in the first place.
While the *people on board* are powerless to give in to a hijackers, all the hijackers would have to do instead is radio some ATC station and tell *them* they'll start killing passengers unless the real pilot redirects the plane.
They could take it a step farther than that: the hijackers could kidnap people from a bus, or standing in line at McDonald's, or some other place without security at all, and then call up ATC and tell them to land the plane in Beirut or whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
Was that an IDE CD-ROM? (The Ultra 5 used IDE instead of SCSI to save money.) In the bad old days, the Solaris IDE driver was terrible and didn't use DMA, which would produce similar symptoms to what you describe (IO would grind to a halt because the CPU was too busy moving tiny pieces of data around manually).
Because it serves someone's political interests.
Nobody intends the nsfw attribute to solve all nsfw situations for precisely the reasons you mention. Will it solve enough situations to be worthwhile? On the face of it, it sounds like it will. There are plenty of non-corner-case situations where it would help people. Within a given culture, there are things that are clearly nsfw that occasionally appear on otherwise acceptable-for-work sites.
Mainstream users don't install operating systems. Whether or not Linux will ever be "the" mainstream desktop is no longer constrained by installation issues. Other factors, such as agreements between software and hardware suppliers, are more important.
Untarring, symlinking and googling for answers are easy for power users, who are the ones called upon to install operating systems.
There are many valid comparisons between apples and oranges.
This is the Internet. You're allowed to say "ass".
And so would they. This is, after all, slashdot.
"What is your home computer setup like?"
This is a key point, I think. Python doesn't force you to do the things that good programmers do anyway. Then again, C, Java etc. let you get away with all sorts of bad programming practices too.
I think it is easier to explain the concept of "type" with a language that forces you to declare your variables and their types before using them. But, that's a pretty minor advantage, and I think it's outweighed by the many practical advantages of Python.
Praying afterwards appears to be how you get back your health points, or whatever. How does that make killing non-christians okay? Maybe you define "okay" as "a viable strategy for winning the game"?
It is usually bad if somebody bases their real-world actions on a video game. In most games, killing non-christians is ok even if you don't pray afterwards. My Civ body count is astronomical.
"We can't do that! Think of how many Borg would die!" (paraphrased)
The player apparently loses points for killing people. How is that consistent with "preaching hatred"? Just because someone disagrees with me, or thinks I'm going to burn in hell forever because I chose the wrong god, doesn't mean they hate me.
Personally, I think it sounds like a stupid, offensive game. But people in this country are allowed to publish stupid, offensive things.
Your parent poster didn't ask about the BSD license, they asked about the Apache license and the MPL, which seem to be the same the GPL from your point of view. Do you prefer them over the GPL? If so, I too would like to hear your reasoning.
Does the 2011 prediction assume that the US won't push the date back again? Does it assume that the reasons for US politicians to push the date back don't apply to politicians in other countries?
The conversion from analog to digital TV is in progress. Trying to guess now when the tipping point will actually occur is useless.
Smaller defense contractors use the GNU toolchain (gcc etc.) because its license guarantees availability. They want to ensure that they can maintain their current build environment indefinitely.
It apparently also means that an arrest record is enough to disqualify somebody from employment. Jinkies!
It would be if there were any. The religion changes from place to place, but the whackjobbery is everywhere.
No, I'm saying that commercial code quality is poor (mostly) because of business pressure and open source code quality is poor for (mostly) other reasons.
Some people say "cheap" when they mean "bargain" or "value". $1500 is not necessarily cheap in absolute terms, but $1500 for a 42" LCD HDTV is a bargain compared to what other 42" LCD HDTVs cost.
Because they often don't have what it takes either: time, discipline and ability. Just because one kind of software doesn't have it doesn't mean that open source software has to have it. Making high quality code is often not as fun, and when I code for myself it's usually for fun. Just because I'm making something for myself doesn't mean that I don't have time pressure, or that I'm inclined to be more disciplined than I am when I'm coding for work. If I'm only a mid level programmer at work, I don't magically get smarter when I program for myself at home.
If you were one of the corporations that Apple tried to extort, you'd be a sociopath, willing to fund a shadow war of assassination and terror to dominate your market. Sue you for patent infringement? Be a shame if something were to happen to all those nice Apple stores. I, for one, am glad that you are not a corporation.
I don't think "utility" is the right word. The utility is clear, if the challenges can be surmounted. Of course, eye strain is a concern for any display technology.
I can even live with 640x480 resolution - just use a motion detector to scroll the view across a virtual desktop when I move my head.
OMG RADIATION!!1!
I don't think you realize the gravity of the situation, so I repeat:
OMG RADIATION!!1!
Your parent poster did mention one such situation: when deaths due to home invasion are greater than deaths due to gun accidents. Ideally they'd be able to fortify their dwelling enough that they wouldn't need firearms for self defense, but ideally home invasions wouldn't occur in the first place.
They could take it a step farther than that: the hijackers could kidnap people from a bus, or standing in line at McDonald's, or some other place without security at all, and then call up ATC and tell them to land the plane in Beirut or whatever.