No you haven't. I don't want a 'white box', I want a pre-installed OS with drivers installed for the particular hardware I purchase. More than that, I want the choice of pre-installed OS. The choice of Windows pre-installed or an empty PC requiring a DIY Linux install which may involve a hunt for specialised video or modem drivers, or even a kernel re-compile, is not a real choice for businesses or home users.
I'm bitching because companies have been coerced into bundling Windows through OEM licence agreements. I'm moaning because monopolistic practices mean I have restricted choice unless I work hard to find and install alternatives.
You can easily buy a PC without Windows on it... and if you don't like Microsoft you can use one of the many alternatives. If you are a business owner and want to stream media content, you can choose from one of the many alternatives.
Nonsense. I may be able to buy some sort of PC without Windows on it, but suppose, like most businesses, I have standardised on one supplier (like Dell). I go to their website. I pick my PC. Where is the Linux Desktop option? As for alternative media content. Downloading alternative players and installing them takes time and effort. This may not be much for an individual but for a company with 10,000 seats its time and money.
Until I can go to most major PC suppliers and get the option of alternative OSes and features pre-installed and configured for hardware there is no true competition.
Let's hope that the APIs that are published reveal as much embarrassing nerdy amateurism in MS as the release of undocumented APIs in previous versions of Windows. Who can forget the function names BEAR35, BUNNY73, PIGLET12 and the classic PRESTOCHANGOSELECTOR?
So, the second question is the hard one. Just because QM makes testable, correct predictions, does it really "explain" what is going on?
This is the value of string theory.
It may help calculate what is going on, but its a dismal failure if its intention is to explain what (if anything) the constituents of matter really are. An entity (such as a string) which has length and ends (and therefore has regions which have different qualities) cannot possibly be called 'fundamental' in any sense; mathematically or physically. If the strings are 'real', we will have to figure out what they are made of.
It has a lot to do with Java. It gets JVMs on the desktop. There are also a lot of java apps included with the desktop, such as jEdit, JDictionary and JGraphPad. Java WebStart is bundled for automated app deployment. Star Office is bundled, with Java as one of the main languages for writing extensions. The Java Media Frameword is bundled along with Ogg Vorbis. Single sign-on is supported with JavaCard and JSIS. Mozilla with full J2SE applet support is bundled.
It's called the.NET runtime, and when Longhorn comes out and EVERYTHING including Windows itself is running on.NET libraries, you're going to have some damn secure systems.
Er... I don't think so..Net on Windows relies hugely on the Win32 API. So, what happens - there is a new Win32 API that runs on.Net that runs on the Win32 API.....Net is, and will always be, a subset of Windows.
JSF isn't crappy, just widely misunderstood. JSF is a comprehensive framework that allows the development of structured and scalable java GUI applications independent of the implementation of the GUI. For example the JSF reference implementation provides code that allows server-side processing of HTML forms, but the GUI could be just about anything, including Swing, SWT, Flash... The supposed 'crap' is that many developers expected JSF to be a simple and/or visual design tool for web apps, whereas in reality JSF is a standard framework that IDEs are going to be using to build such tools.
Its not useless at all. Things would be back to where they were before Microsoft started cramming everything in the OS. PC sellers could give the customer a choice about what browser, mail client, media player etc. was preinstalled.
No, just go and buy a magazine costing less than 10 Euros and install from the cover CDs. How hard is that? Plus there's an article in the magazine covering installation.
Because when something is pre-installed all the bits are made to work together, and you don't end up with hacking the kernel to get a WinModem working or low-performance X-Windows because the chipset manufacturer hasn't released a quality driver.
There is also the 'why bother' factor - if Windows is installed, why bother to replace it?
Competition HAS to be at the level of what systems are pre-installed, otherwise choice is being restricted.
So your home user who unwraps their new PC is then going to connect to the internet with their 56k modem and download 4-5 CDs worth of Linux install software, and set it all up, including X-Windows?
As for choice. Go to Dell (or most other PC suppliers) and try and get a home pc with Linux pre-installed.
Being the pre-installed default system is a HUGE competitive (possibly un-competitive) advantage. That's why Explorer succeeded over Netscape, and that's why the Windows Media vs RealPlayer battle is so important.
Its a very good theory - we have got bits of Mars on Earth, and its highly unlikely that bits of Earth haven't gone the other way.
However, we do need to avoid contamination by higher life forms. Bacteria can easily get across interplanetary space, but algae and fungi are a lot less likely to do so, but may be able to grow in some martian environments.
Mars is already contaminated with Earth Bacteria. There has been significant exchange of materials between Earth and Mars as a result of meteor impacts splashing small bits of each planet into space. It has been demonstrated that lots of bacterial species can cope with the tremendous forces and pressures that these bits would be exposed to, so they could (and almost certainly do) easily survive an interplanetary trip. Discovery of DNA-based life on mars, or anywhere else in the solar system, would not answer the question about whether or not we are alone in the Universe, as all that life is very likely to have come from the same single source.
If you want to go back to 18th-century and before you will end up with the same philosophical paradoxes that those models of physics involved. Any thinker of those times would point out that a 1-dimensional object was nonsense. You can't have extent alone. If you have extent + diameter then you have to have a substance composing the volume.
I realise I am being pedantic here, but I'm simply after some honesty about string theory's implausibility as reality.
The wave equation is not a theory. Its an equation. You can't decide if the equation applies in nature - there is no way of knowing what Nature 'actually uses'. You can only decide whether the equation has predictive usefulness.
You're missing the point: the strings in string theory aren't made out of any simpler material: they are the simplest form of matter, just like in the Standard Model, electrons, etc. are the simplest form of matter, and aren't made out of anything more fundamental.
I know that is what string theory says. My point is that it is absurd. You can't assign 'vibration' and 'tension' to fundamental objects - its philosophical nonsense. It would be far better to declare honest ignorance about what might really be going on down at the particle level than to add complexity (replacing points with extended entities) simply to help with the math.
So if the model says that strings work better than particles, then why not assume it is actually is strings?
Because this restricts our thinking. Misleading ideas become dogma. Think of the confusion that is still caused by terms like 'electron orbits' and 'particle spins'. These are simply metaphors for quantum mechanical properties. We have no idea what these 'orbits' or 'spins' actually mean physically, yet because we use such terms, many physicists (and the general public) assume that we actually know what is going on in atoms. String theory is similarly misleading.
You're missing the point: the strings in string theory aren't made out of any simpler material: they are the simplest form of matter, just like in the Standard Model, electrons, etc. are the simplest form of matter, and aren't made out of anything more fundamental.
'tension' and 'vibration' are not abstractions, they are physical properties of which require an object to be composite.
You can either have something fundamental, or you can have something non-fundamental that can vibrate and experience tension (IF you are using those terms in any real sense). You can't have both.
Do you know any useful physical theories which do not boil down to methods of calculation? Any model of reality which predicts behavior and interactions is called a theory. Your semantic hairsplitting is useless. There are plenty of scientific theories that describe real entities. Some theories of cosmology predicted black holes and neutron stars, for example. The trouble with string theory is that there is a philosophical confusion between the mathematical model itself (vibrating strings) and what (if anything) actually exists. For example, someone might come up with an equally effective way of calculating particle behaviour that uses a different representation. Suppose, hypothetically, this involved coloured cubes. This does not mean that particles are in reality coloured cubes - its just a model.
This sentence is completely pointless. Do you have any evidence that fundamental particles are modeled better by point objects than strings? You never gave any damning evidence against the string metaphor. If you read what I wrote I said the exact opposite - particles are modelled better by strings.
Where is the infinite regress? Nobody claims that the fundamental strings are actually made of intertwined plant or polymer fiber. The name "vibrating string" is simply evocative of familiar phenomena to make excitations more amenable to study and discussion.
No - most physicists seem to claim that such strings actually exist, and aren't just evocative.
Shape and tension. Tension is a force. What is it 'between'? What are the force carriers of the 'string tension'? There is a considerable problem with positing a most fundamental entity which is just as complicated as the things you are using the entity to explain.
Science itself does not and cannot say what things "really are"; it merely describes how they behave, by means of theories and mathematics. Although you seem to be agreeing with me here that strings aren't "real", this is defeatist. Take biology for example. After the math of inheritance was discovered, no-one said that the biology could not say what really caused inheritance. There was a real underlying structure - DNA. There is no reason to suppose that there isn't an underlying reality.
"This just seems like a complacent, arrogant statement. Sure java is important now, but do you seriously think that things can't change? I could list example after example of how this kind of hubris has resulted in the death of companies, but I just don't feel like wasting the energy."
Java is not Sun's. If Sun were to crash, IBM would still do Java, as would Apple, HP, GNU etc. etc.
"And we aren't collaborating in a group right now? People don't use Intranets and Internet email for what they would have bought Notes for in the mid-90s?"
No - yet again you are confusing protocols with applications. E-mail is an appallingly bad collaboration system - security is an add-on, there is no document management system, there is no standard for generation of receipts, there is no version control.
"I was talking about XML in the large: XML+SOAP+WSDL, etc. Obviously these are both pitched as enterprise integration technologies and XML-based ones have a lot more traction in business today (think.NET and Axis) than CORBA does." You said 'XML', not 'SOAP'. Soap is the mechanism, XML is the protocol. Soap is very new, but not proven for scalable high-performance work. (I use Axis, and its great, but its not a fast system).
I stand corrected regarding the applications. GNUe looks interesting!
Regarding the numerical work - in your example Python is NOT used for the numerics: It simply makes calls to pre-compiled C libraries. I think that is called cheating! Java can deliver high-performance math with nothing but pure Java code, and can even exceed the equivalent C code.
"1994: Anyone actually working in the IT industry today knows that Internet Email and the Web are hardly a competitor to Lotus Notes. (or you could use Compuserve)"
They aren't competitors. Notes is a collaboration/groupware suite.
"1998: Anyone actually working in the IT industry today knows that XML is hardly a competitor to CORBA."
They aren't competitors. XML is just one of many protocols that can be used to implement CORBA. Corba is an Architecture, XML is a data transmission format.
"Now here we are in 2004: anyone actually working in the IT industry today knows that Perl and Python are hardly competitors to Java."
They aren't competitors. You don't use Java to bind apps together or to write small scripts. You don't (if you are sane) use a scripting language to write enterprise-level apps like finance or CRM software, or secure distributed systems, or high-performance numerical software. Java and scripting languages complement each other - you can embed Python in Java using Jython, or you can use Java itself as a scripting language via the Bean Shell.
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I just refuted all of the points you made.
No you haven't. I don't want a 'white box', I want a pre-installed OS with drivers installed for the particular hardware I purchase. More than that, I want the choice of pre-installed OS. The choice of Windows pre-installed or an empty PC requiring a DIY Linux install which may involve a hunt for specialised video or modem drivers, or even a kernel re-compile, is not a real choice for businesses or home users.
I'm bitching because companies have been coerced into bundling Windows through OEM licence agreements. I'm moaning because monopolistic practices mean I have restricted choice unless I work hard to find and install alternatives.
Oh, and by the way, its 'Linux', not 'Linix'.
You can easily buy a PC without Windows on it... and if you don't like Microsoft you can use one of the many alternatives. If you are a business owner and want to stream media content, you can choose from one of the many alternatives.
Nonsense. I may be able to buy some sort of PC without Windows on it, but suppose, like most businesses, I have standardised on one supplier (like Dell). I go to their website. I pick my PC. Where is the Linux Desktop option? As for alternative media content. Downloading alternative players and installing them takes time and effort. This may not be much for an individual but for a company with 10,000 seats its time and money.
Until I can go to most major PC suppliers and get the option of alternative OSes and features pre-installed and configured for hardware there is no true competition.
Let's hope that the APIs that are published reveal as much embarrassing nerdy amateurism in MS as the release of undocumented APIs in previous versions of Windows. Who can forget the function names BEAR35, BUNNY73, PIGLET12 and the classic PRESTOCHANGOSELECTOR?
So, the second question is the hard one. Just because QM makes testable, correct predictions, does it really "explain" what is going on?
This is the value of string theory.
It may help calculate what is going on, but its a dismal failure if its intention is to explain what (if anything) the constituents of matter really are. An entity (such as a string) which has length and ends (and therefore has regions which have different qualities) cannot possibly be called 'fundamental' in any sense; mathematically or physically. If the strings are 'real', we will have to figure out what they are made of.
It has a lot to do with Java. It gets JVMs on the desktop. There are also a lot of java apps included with the desktop, such as jEdit, JDictionary and JGraphPad. Java WebStart is bundled for automated app deployment. Star Office is bundled, with Java as one of the main languages for writing extensions. The Java Media Frameword is bundled along with Ogg Vorbis. Single sign-on is supported with JavaCard and JSIS. Mozilla with full J2SE applet support is bundled.
It's called the .NET runtime, and when Longhorn comes out and EVERYTHING including Windows itself is running on .NET libraries, you're going to have some damn secure systems.
.Net on Windows relies hugely on the Win32 API. So, what happens - there is a new Win32 API that runs on .Net that runs on the Win32 API.... .Net is, and will always be, a subset of Windows.
Er...
I don't think so.
JSF isn't crappy, just widely misunderstood. JSF is a comprehensive framework that allows the development of structured and scalable java GUI applications independent of the implementation of the GUI. For example the JSF reference implementation provides code that allows server-side processing of HTML forms, but the GUI could be just about anything, including Swing, SWT, Flash... The supposed 'crap' is that many developers expected JSF to be a simple and/or visual design tool for web apps, whereas in reality JSF is a standard framework that IDEs are going to be using to build such tools.
Its not useless at all. Things would be back to where they were before Microsoft started cramming everything in the OS. PC sellers could give the customer a choice about what browser, mail client, media player etc. was preinstalled.
No, just go and buy a magazine costing less than 10 Euros and install from the cover CDs. How hard is that? Plus there's an article in the magazine covering installation.
Because when something is pre-installed all the bits are made to work together, and you don't end up with hacking the kernel to get a WinModem working or low-performance X-Windows because the chipset manufacturer hasn't released a quality driver.
There is also the 'why bother' factor - if Windows is installed, why bother to replace it?
Competition HAS to be at the level of what systems are pre-installed, otherwise choice is being restricted.
So your home user who unwraps their new PC is then going to connect to the internet with their 56k modem and download 4-5 CDs worth of Linux install software, and set it all up, including X-Windows?
As for choice. Go to Dell (or most other PC suppliers) and try and get a home pc with Linux pre-installed.
Being the pre-installed default system is a HUGE competitive (possibly un-competitive) advantage. That's why Explorer succeeded over Netscape, and that's why the Windows Media vs RealPlayer battle is so important.
When you say you don't like Microsoft, you really don't like the choices millions of people make.
Its not a choice millions of people make. Windows is bundled with virtually all PCs. How is this choice?
Its a very good theory - we have got bits of Mars on Earth, and its highly unlikely that bits of Earth haven't gone the other way.
However, we do need to avoid contamination by higher life forms. Bacteria can easily get across interplanetary space, but algae and fungi are a lot less likely to do so, but may be able to grow in some martian environments.
Given the energy of meteor impacts, the atmosphere has almost no significance for this effect.
If you want to see how easily material gets out of the atmosphere consider how high stuff gets in volcanic plumes.
Mars is already contaminated with Earth Bacteria. There has been significant exchange of materials between Earth and Mars as a result of meteor impacts splashing small bits of each planet into space. It has been demonstrated that lots of bacterial species can cope with the tremendous forces and pressures that these bits would be exposed to, so they could (and almost certainly do) easily survive an interplanetary trip. Discovery of DNA-based life on mars, or anywhere else in the solar system, would not answer the question about whether or not we are alone in the Universe, as all that life is very likely to have come from the same single source.
If you want to go back to 18th-century and before you will end up with the same philosophical paradoxes that those models of physics involved. Any thinker of those times would point out that a 1-dimensional object was nonsense. You can't have extent alone. If you have extent + diameter then you have to have a substance composing the volume.
I realise I am being pedantic here, but I'm simply after some honesty about string theory's implausibility as reality.
The wave equation is not a theory. Its an equation. You can't decide if the equation applies in nature - there is no way of knowing what Nature 'actually uses'. You can only decide whether the equation has predictive usefulness.
You're missing the point: the strings in string theory aren't made out of any simpler material: they are the simplest form of matter, just like in the Standard Model, electrons, etc. are the simplest form of matter, and aren't made out of anything more fundamental.
I know that is what string theory says. My point is that it is absurd. You can't assign 'vibration' and 'tension' to fundamental objects - its philosophical nonsense. It would be far better to declare honest ignorance about what might really be going on down at the particle level than to add complexity (replacing points with extended entities) simply to help with the math.
So if the model says that strings work better than particles, then why not assume it is actually is strings?
Because this restricts our thinking. Misleading ideas become dogma. Think of the confusion that is still caused by terms like 'electron orbits' and 'particle spins'. These are simply metaphors for quantum mechanical properties. We have no idea what these 'orbits' or 'spins' actually mean physically, yet because we use such terms, many physicists (and the general public) assume that we actually know what is going on in atoms. String theory is similarly misleading.
You're missing the point: the strings in string theory aren't made out of any simpler material: they are the simplest form of matter, just like in the Standard Model, electrons, etc. are the simplest form of matter, and aren't made out of anything more fundamental.
'tension' and 'vibration' are not abstractions, they are physical properties of which require an object to be composite.
You can either have something fundamental, or you can have something non-fundamental that can vibrate and experience tension (IF you are using those terms in any real sense). You can't have both.
Do you know any useful physical theories which do not boil down to methods of calculation? Any model of reality which predicts behavior and interactions is called a theory. Your semantic hairsplitting is useless.
There are plenty of scientific theories that describe real entities. Some theories of cosmology predicted black holes and neutron stars, for example. The trouble with string theory is that there is a philosophical confusion between the mathematical model itself (vibrating strings) and what (if anything) actually exists. For example, someone might come up with an equally effective way of calculating particle behaviour that uses a different representation. Suppose, hypothetically, this involved coloured cubes. This does not mean that particles are in reality coloured cubes - its just a model.
This sentence is completely pointless. Do you have any evidence that fundamental particles are modeled better by point objects than strings? You never gave any damning evidence against the string metaphor. If you read what I wrote I said the exact opposite - particles are modelled better by strings.
Where is the infinite regress? Nobody claims that the fundamental strings are actually made of intertwined plant or polymer fiber. The name "vibrating string" is simply evocative of familiar phenomena to make excitations more amenable to study and discussion.
No - most physicists seem to claim that such strings actually exist, and aren't just evocative.
Shape and tension. Tension is a force. What is it 'between'? What are the force carriers of the 'string tension'? There is a considerable problem with positing a most fundamental entity which is just as complicated as the things you are using the entity to explain.
Science itself does not and cannot say what things "really are"; it merely describes how they behave, by means of theories and mathematics. Although you seem to be agreeing with me here that strings aren't "real", this is defeatist. Take biology for example. After the math of inheritance was discovered, no-one said that the biology could not say what really caused inheritance. There was a real underlying structure - DNA. There is no reason to suppose that there isn't an underlying reality.
"This just seems like a complacent, arrogant statement. Sure java is important now, but do you seriously think that things can't change? I could list example after example of how this kind of hubris has resulted in the death of companies, but I just don't feel like wasting the energy."
Java is not Sun's. If Sun were to crash, IBM would still do Java, as would Apple, HP, GNU etc. etc.
"And we aren't collaborating in a group right now? People don't use Intranets and Internet email for what they would have bought Notes for in the mid-90s?"
.NET and Axis) than CORBA does."
No - yet again you are confusing protocols with applications. E-mail is an appallingly bad collaboration system - security is an add-on, there is no document management system, there is no standard for generation of receipts, there is no version control.
"I was talking about XML in the large: XML+SOAP+WSDL, etc. Obviously these are both pitched as enterprise integration technologies and XML-based ones have a lot more traction in business today (think
You said 'XML', not 'SOAP'. Soap is the mechanism, XML is the protocol. Soap is very new, but not proven for scalable high-performance work. (I use Axis, and its great, but its not a fast system).
I stand corrected regarding the applications. GNUe looks interesting!
Regarding the numerical work - in your example Python is NOT used for the numerics: It simply makes calls to pre-compiled C libraries. I think that is called cheating! Java can deliver high-performance math with nothing but pure Java code, and can even exceed the equivalent C code.
What a lot of false comparisons!
"1994: Anyone actually working in the IT industry today knows that Internet Email and the Web are hardly a competitor to Lotus Notes. (or you could use Compuserve)"
They aren't competitors. Notes is a collaboration/groupware suite.
"1998: Anyone actually working in the IT industry today knows that XML is hardly a competitor to CORBA."
They aren't competitors. XML is just one of many protocols that can be used to implement CORBA. Corba is an Architecture, XML is a data transmission format.
"Now here we are in 2004: anyone actually working in the IT industry today knows that Perl and Python are hardly competitors to Java."
They aren't competitors. You don't use Java to bind apps together or to write small scripts. You don't (if you are sane) use a scripting language to write enterprise-level apps like finance or CRM software, or secure distributed systems, or high-performance numerical software. Java and scripting languages complement each other - you can embed Python in Java using Jython, or you can use Java itself as a scripting language via the Bean Shell.
The article was talking about client-side components running on enhanced browsers:
.Net this will not arise.
".NET boasts components on both the client and the server"
Obviously if you use only server-side