You can make all the Unix propritary software you want and it'll run great Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, whatever. The only difference is that existing Linux distros like Ubuntu are a bit more polished for general purpose desktops.
It's not like there's some amazing market for kernel modifications. The base OS works fine, what people want more of is apps.
What are they doing with these computers that they couldn't do with a Ubuntu installation? Seriously. I've stuck a couple people (who don't play video games) randomly with Ubuntu and they haven't had any problems.
Open Source solutions obviously have better extreme-case support properties - in 50 years you'll still be able to hire programmers to fix it because you have the source code, even if Novel (or whoever) got hit by a meteor and all their employees died.
The more interesting question is smaller scale things like "normal" phone support. This is available for all major Open Source software from a number of different companies at reasonable prices.
In conclusion, Open Source software is similar to propriatary software if the support issue isn't extreme enough to require hiring programmers - and hiring programmers is *possible* if that ever becomes nessisary.
Don't get confused about Microsoft and piracy. Microsoft *loves* it when its software gets pirated.
For Microsoft, the best case is that you buy their software. The next best case is that you pirate their software. What they hate to see is when you use someone else's software.
There is a simple reason for this: Business have money, and business tend to properly licence their software. If Microsoft Office is what everyone knows, then Microsoft Office will be licenced.
In developing countries, Microsoft is looking further ahead but it's basically the same. They want to get people in those countries *assuming* that Microsoft software is the normal way to do things. It doesn't matter if they pay, that can come later.
As the SVG tools get better, there should be tools to let you downscale the "accuracy" of a graphic like that. The graphic you describe is definately a perfect example of what should be far smaller as a vector image than as a raster image.
Once scaling graphics in web pages becomes commonplace, the problem will fix itself.
The graphic developers who wanted their pixel perfect renderings will first try to write javascript to stop their webpages from being scaled. Once that doesn't work, they'll give in and use scalable graphics because they'll look better than scaled raster graphics.
Flash is the funniest shit ever. It generally uses vector graphics and scales perfectly - except that the dimensions for the flash plugin are usually hard coded in the HTML in pixels.
Luckily this is an easy fix - Opera supposedly already zooms flash stuff properly.
The real problem was that the software designers understood that fixed sizes in pixels woudn't work, but the graphics designers saw that scalable graphics didn't really work at low resolutions, which resulted in stupid compromises.
As we approach printer-level screen resoltions (I'm looking at 150 dpi as the break point), graphics designers will finally start to accept the scalable solutions that the software designers have been insisting are "correct" the whole time. I know that MacOS has had this right the whole time - hopefully Windows and X get their acts together soon.
All modern operating systems have a mechanism to tell their GUI applications the *real* resolution of the display (in DPI), so applications can easily calculate the actual dimensions of any windows they are displaying.
Currently those mechanisms are not generally being used properly, because screen resolutions aren't generally high enough for scalable graphical elements to look right (which actually has the annoying side effect of retarding progress in this area, but...). As display resolutions approach aprox. 150 dpi, I expect that operating system developers will get their act together and default to resolution-independant display systems.
The monitor driver knows exactly what model monoitor you have. Even if the physical dimensions aren't actually returned by the device itself, the OS developers can easily build a database that maps model numbers to physical dimensions.
Have you even tried to use the web at a decent screen resolution?
Laptops are available now with 15" screens with native resolutions of 1920x1200. The web should work at that resolution, rather than looking like microprint or "zooming in" to overlapping text.
How else can an author with terminal cancer provide for his or her family?
People who are dying have no right to randomly get money for it, unless they decided to get life insurance.
If the family needs money, they can go ahead and get jobs like anyone else. If this dying author is the sole remaining parent of some underage children, that's going to be really annoying - but it's no different than if the author were instead a construction worker.
Another thing to consider is that the "child pornography" images and video are *excellent* evidence against the people involved in actually abusing the children. The sooner the cops get that stuff, the better. Making that data illegal to possess just forces people who have it to hide it from the cops... seems pretty counterproductive.
Should broadband connections be banned because they promote downloading child porn videos?
Should a kindergarden teacher be thrown in jail for hugging a student who just scraped their knee?
Child abuse is a fact of life. A certain amount can be done to decrease it. After that, you get diminishing returns, and at a certain point you've clearly gone too far.
Deciding what the policy should be entirely on the basis of the gut reactions of people who are emotionally close to abused children probably doesn't help.
Murder, like anything else, is allowed by default. The only reason it's illegal is because a specific law was passed against it. It seems like the specific wording of the law(s) against murder doesn't cover abortion (on the basis that there have been no murder trials due to abortions). Therefore, abortion will be allowed until a law is made against it.
That's the best possible answer that I'm aware of.
The only problem is getting that to happen. At least in the United States, there's a feedback loop between the profit of government-sanctioned utilities and the campaign budgets of the politicians will support those profits.
The planet can easily support a population ten times the current population, and we're extremely unlikely to actually get it there due to the gradual slowing of population growth. The problem comes with the well educated & rich people slowing their population growth first.
Here's the thing I'm afraid of: education is a cultural trait that's being evolutionarily selected against.
An important thing to watch though: In many of those countries, the population decrease is being heavily made up for by immigration. Soon, those immigrants will be the majority and it will take a couple generations before they stop having children too.
Re:prevent supersonic airspeeds at the intakes
on
Tilting At Windmills
·
· Score: 1
The spec specified by the intital poser required a tunnel 10 feet in diameter and over a hundred miles long. Given that, I'm perfectly willing to accept his assertion that it will produce supersonic wind speeds.
The question of the value of such an engineering project is an important question, but it has nothing to do with the implementation detail being discussed (tapering the ends of the tunnel).
There's this big company that makes video chipsets. Actually, they produce more video chipsets than Nvidia and ATI combined. Their chipsets are hardware accelerated with free software. I'm referring to Intel.
Slashdot Mirror
It's true for applications that are core parts of the desktop enviornment, when using the proper themes. I'd try Konqueror using the CrystalSVG theme.
Linux should need less maintnence, but it may well need more setup time.
Somehow I doubt that many people buy computer operating systems on CDs at markets - don't they tend to come with computers?
Why would the licensing difference matter?
You can make all the Unix propritary software you want and it'll run great Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, whatever. The only difference is that existing Linux distros like Ubuntu are a bit more polished for general purpose desktops.
It's not like there's some amazing market for kernel modifications. The base OS works fine, what people want more of is apps.
What are they doing with these computers that they couldn't do with a Ubuntu installation? Seriously. I've stuck a couple people (who don't play video games) randomly with Ubuntu and they haven't had any problems.
Open Source solutions obviously have better extreme-case support properties - in 50 years you'll still be able to hire programmers to fix it because you have the source code, even if Novel (or whoever) got hit by a meteor and all their employees died.
The more interesting question is smaller scale things like "normal" phone support. This is available for all major Open Source software from a number of different companies at reasonable prices.
In conclusion, Open Source software is similar to propriatary software if the support issue isn't extreme enough to require hiring programmers - and hiring programmers is *possible* if that ever becomes nessisary.
Don't get confused about Microsoft and piracy. Microsoft *loves* it when its software gets pirated.
For Microsoft, the best case is that you buy their software. The next best case is that you pirate their software. What they hate to see is when you use someone else's software.
There is a simple reason for this: Business have money, and business tend to properly licence their software. If Microsoft Office is what everyone knows, then Microsoft Office will be licenced.
In developing countries, Microsoft is looking further ahead but it's basically the same. They want to get people in those countries *assuming* that Microsoft software is the normal way to do things. It doesn't matter if they pay, that can come later.
As the SVG tools get better, there should be tools to let you downscale the "accuracy" of a graphic like that. The graphic you describe is definately a perfect example of what should be far smaller as a vector image than as a raster image.
Once scaling graphics in web pages becomes commonplace, the problem will fix itself.
The graphic developers who wanted their pixel perfect renderings will first try to write javascript to stop their webpages from being scaled. Once that doesn't work, they'll give in and use scalable graphics because they'll look better than scaled raster graphics.
Flash is the funniest shit ever. It generally uses vector graphics and scales perfectly - except that the dimensions for the flash plugin are usually hard coded in the HTML in pixels.
Luckily this is an easy fix - Opera supposedly already zooms flash stuff properly.
The real problem was that the software designers understood that fixed sizes in pixels woudn't work, but the graphics designers saw that scalable graphics didn't really work at low resolutions, which resulted in stupid compromises.
As we approach printer-level screen resoltions (I'm looking at 150 dpi as the break point), graphics designers will finally start to accept the scalable solutions that the software designers have been insisting are "correct" the whole time. I know that MacOS has had this right the whole time - hopefully Windows and X get their acts together soon.
All modern operating systems have a mechanism to tell their GUI applications the *real* resolution of the display (in DPI), so applications can easily calculate the actual dimensions of any windows they are displaying.
Currently those mechanisms are not generally being used properly, because screen resolutions aren't generally high enough for scalable graphical elements to look right (which actually has the annoying side effect of retarding progress in this area, but...). As display resolutions approach aprox. 150 dpi, I expect that operating system developers will get their act together and default to resolution-independant display systems.
Like he was saying, under Gnome and KDE those icons are SVG images and are dynamically resized depending on the system DPI setting.
The monitor driver knows exactly what model monoitor you have. Even if the physical dimensions aren't actually returned by the device itself, the OS developers can easily build a database that maps model numbers to physical dimensions.
Have you even tried to use the web at a decent screen resolution?
Laptops are available now with 15" screens with native resolutions of 1920x1200. The web should work at that resolution, rather than looking like microprint or "zooming in" to overlapping text.
People who are dying have no right to randomly get money for it, unless they decided to get life insurance.
If the family needs money, they can go ahead and get jobs like anyone else. If this dying author is the sole remaining parent of some underage children, that's going to be really annoying - but it's no different than if the author were instead a construction worker.
Another thing to consider is that the "child pornography" images and video are *excellent* evidence against the people involved in actually abusing the children. The sooner the cops get that stuff, the better. Making that data illegal to possess just forces people who have it to hide it from the cops... seems pretty counterproductive.
So... where does it stop?
Should broadband connections be banned because they promote downloading child porn videos?
Should a kindergarden teacher be thrown in jail for hugging a student who just scraped their knee?
Child abuse is a fact of life. A certain amount can be done to decrease it. After that, you get diminishing returns, and at a certain point you've clearly gone too far.
Deciding what the policy should be entirely on the basis of the gut reactions of people who are emotionally close to abused children probably doesn't help.
Murder, like anything else, is allowed by default. The only reason it's illegal is because a specific law was passed against it. It seems like the specific wording of the law(s) against murder doesn't cover abortion (on the basis that there have been no murder trials due to abortions). Therefore, abortion will be allowed until a law is made against it.
Folks, We have a winner.
That's the best possible answer that I'm aware of.
The only problem is getting that to happen. At least in the United States, there's a feedback loop between the profit of government-sanctioned utilities and the campaign budgets of the politicians will support those profits.
The planet can easily support a population ten times the current population, and we're extremely unlikely to actually get it there due to the gradual slowing of population growth. The problem comes with the well educated & rich people slowing their population growth first.
Here's the thing I'm afraid of: education is a cultural trait that's being evolutionarily selected against.
That's true.
An important thing to watch though: In many of those countries, the population decrease is being heavily made up for by immigration. Soon, those immigrants will be the majority and it will take a couple generations before they stop having children too.
The spec specified by the intital poser required a tunnel 10 feet in diameter and over a hundred miles long. Given that, I'm perfectly willing to accept his assertion that it will produce supersonic wind speeds.
The question of the value of such an engineering project is an important question, but it has nothing to do with the implementation detail being discussed (tapering the ends of the tunnel).
This is a serious Linux news item. The most popular desktop Linux distribution has released the beta of their most major release yet.
There's this big company that makes video chipsets. Actually, they produce more video chipsets than Nvidia and ATI combined. Their chipsets are hardware accelerated with free software. I'm referring to Intel.