Speculation on the Be-related forums is running rampant. FYI, here is a list of the companies people have speculated about:
AOL - compete for the internet w/ MS
Sony - continued support for the eVilla
Palm - compete w/ WinCE for the PDA market
IBM - no idea what IBM would want w/ BeOS
Nokia - multimedia cell phones
EPOC/Symbian - same as above
Compaq - something to run on alpha???
QNX - add more multimedia capabilities
Sun - compete for the desktop w/ MS
Microsoft - final nail in a competitor's coffin
Gobe - compete w/ MS for the office suite market
Amiga - bring AmigaOS back to life
As you can see, people are letting their imagination run away with them. Some of the above speculation is pretty interesting, though. You can check out BeNews for the latest.
I was working on a program that accessed a MS Access database. The database was encrypted so that the customer's valuable information would only be accessable to the program. We sent them a demo, and one of the comments that came back was "you can open the database by double-clicking on it".
My boss argued with them, saying you can open it but everything is encrypted, so you can't actually see anything in it w/o the password. They said, "no, it needs to be encrypted" (I have no idea what their idea of 'encryption' was).
So I just changed the file extension of the database to my initials, and changed the filename in the program to the same thing, and sent that out to them for the next demo. They came back and said "Thanks for encrypting the database!".
My (former) company at the time was working on a trusted X server to run atop a partner's trusted operating system. For those who've never used a trusted X server, each window runs at its own security level, and a small stripe on the top of the screen displays the security of whatever window has the current focus. Well, our programming team fell behind schedule (way, way behind) and we had a demo coming up for some high-level military types.
So the lead programmer hacked together a quick program where the screen stripe would change at a preset interval. The idea was that the demonstrator would move the mouse around and hopefully hit each window border just as the stripe changed. Our demoer practiced nonstop for three days before the demo, but the demo was much too long, and he could never get the timing exactly right. We couldn't cancel the demo because our CEO had pretty much bet the house on getting this government contract.
We went to the demo, and the demoer was very nervous, with the fate of the company riding on the next ten minutes or so. He was so nervous, his hand shook, and he was worried about moving through the demo too quickly, so he slowed down on purpose. Sure enough, he slowed down a little too much, and was just slightly behind changing the window focus, so the stripe changed just ahead of the focus change.
At the end of the demo, in a suspicious tone, one of the brass asked why the stripe changed slightly before the focus. The demoer opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. The lead programmer, who had been standing behind the demoer, jumped in and said:
"The X server tries to predict when a focus change is about to occur and attempts to update the stripe ahead of time. We did it this way because of the high overhead of determining what the contents of the stripe are. Otherwise, the overhead would be too much, and the stripe would change long _after_ the focus shift. Unfortunately, that code is extremely optimized, and we just need to shorten the time before it begins its prediction cycle."
The brass was very impressed and we ended up getting the contract. We later found out that our competitor's product actually did take a while to update their screen stripe after a focus shift, and during their demo (which actually worked) they were asked why they didn't try to predict focus shifts to syncronize with the stripe updates.
If there's a lot of traffic at that moment, cable modems can be painfully slow. It often depends on the service provider.
If you're looking into cable service, there are a few things you can do:
Talk to other people who are using the service, and see what they think.
Look at your neighbors. If there are a lot of computer users, then local traffic will be higher and you will have a slower connection.
See how many units your local node serves. Be especially careful if it serves an apartment complex or some other sort of high-density housing.
Look at the age/quality of the cable itself. I know that it's not supposed to make any difference, but I live in an older part of my subdivision, while a co-worker lives in the newer part. He consistently gets higher bandwidth, though we share the same node.
You may also want to consider DSL if it's cheaply available in your area. You don't have to deal as much with things like congestion, but you have to be fairly close to the provider.
I have a friend who made a laser light show for a 4th of July festival. He had a heck of a time getting the colors to come out right. Apparently, there are some severe restrictions in the US with regard to laser intensity at various colors. He had to get a special permit to display his show in a public forum. You can find out about the standards here.
Now, this is some very cool stuff. I've actually seen him make holograms using his laser projector. But if you want to do anything out in public, you'll need to be sure you have the right papers.
If for no other reason, this scheme is horrific for the fact that it intentionally degrades audio. From the article:
... the system deliberately gives some of the digital code on the CD "grossly erroneous values", adding bursts of hiss to the audio signal. In addition, the error-correction codes on the CD, which would normally correct such errors, are distorted. So error correction fails, leaving tiny gaps in the music.
The company claims that no one can notice the difference, but I think their test group was too limited. I have a friend whose wife will only use fresh VCR tapes because the distortion caused by reusing a tape is noticable to her. She also can tell the difference between CDs and analog sources, such as cassette tapes. Again from the article:
But this doesn't placate hi-fi buffs. "It's a dreadful, dreadful thing to contaminate the sound deliberately, says Martin Colloms, a British hi-fi expert whose columns are syndicated around the world. "We all hate piracy but the idea of mucking up the sound of a recording is reprehensible. It's like slashing paintings in a gallery to stop someone stealing them."
Irrespective of his/her origin, race and his/her
religion, anyone can become a citizen of the Principality of Sealand if he is prepared to
make use his/her talents to establish and boost the acceptance of an emerging state.
If you think you'd like a second (or third, or fourth...) citizenship, you can contact them at INFO@PRINCIPALITY-SEALAND.NET
Quote: "It strikes a blow against corporate America," Braun continued. "It might tip the balance too far towards First Amendment rights. Defamation is not protected by the First Amendment."
Does Fatbrain pay someone to link to their site for every book review? They are not even close to the cheapest site on the net. If you want a good price comparison, go to AddAll. Just type in the title, and it will search about 30 online book retailers for the lowest price, including coupons and shipping/handling.
Besides, does anyone else besides me think "Fatbrain" is a stupid name?
Hardware is cool, we all know it. I live it, I love it. But when you get down to it, how long do you spend hacking your hardware in comparison to the time you spend hacking your OS? Not much for most of us, I would guess.
What OS you run says far more about you than whether you have an Intel or AMD chip, or whether you have an ATI vs. NVidia card. So what if the computer is a cheap black box? As long as it has an I/O port, someone will figure out a way to get your favorite OS on there.
NetBSD runs on a Dreamcast. I don't know if it does anything useful, but this is what I'm talking about. You just put your OS on your hardware, and that is what you customize.
People love to be able to point to something and say "I did that." It's just human nature.
The example from the story, modding cars, is not a good analogy. Federal standards caused cars to become more complex, and thus harder (impossible?) to modify. I can't think of any reason the same would be true of computers.
Besides, as long as there is a reasonable market, companies will still individual parts. Black boxes may become commonplace, but think about the server realm. It would be very expensive to replace a black-box server compared to the cost of swapping out bad components. So as long as the server market is alive (forever?), there will be a market.
What's really scary is that former weapons developers for the USSR are providing consulting services for other nations. Pakistan, anyone?
Weapons-grade fissionable materials in themselves are relatively easy to make. Any nation that has the know-how to build a nuclear reactor can build a breeder reactor to make weapons-grade uranium. The technology required to make the actual bomb, though, is pretty difficult to figure out. It's kind of like the DeCSS fiasco: once the technology gets out, there's nothing you can do to put it back in the bottle. Thankfully, everyone (so far) who has the tech wants to keep it private. Hope the servers they store the info on aren't running Windows!
We can't look at 100 years in the life of a billion year old planet and decide how it's going, it just can't happen.
You don't seem to realize how slow the rate of change really is. A climatic cycle takes tens of thousands of years, not 50 or so. Look at how little of the rainforest is left. Look at how the Sahara has grown. Look at all the extinct species. Each of these may have happened in the course of time, but there is no way that it would have happened in less than a thousand years, short of a cataclysm (like a major meteoric impact). Face it, mankind is destroying this planet, and something needs to be done about it very soon.
Besides, I like hot weather. Tank tops are comfortable.
So's having skin grafts to replace the cancerous lesions.
When a serious matter like medical research involving stem cells from frozen embryos arises, politicians worry at least as much about religious support as they do about what scientists advise.
There is one facet of slashdot, and the internet in general that disturbs me. Religion is often treated like a stepchild, and often when a religion-oriented comment is submitted and poster is derided. Why is this? Is there no tolerance for those who display a religious opinion? Katz himself, the impartial journalist, displays a slight disdain for those with religious leanings in the above quote, implying that listening to scientists is more important that listening to those with a religious point of view.
People with a religious inclination often labor under the stigma that they are close-minded. Why is this? They simply have a different viewpoint. True, there are people who will try to impose their religious viewpoint on others, but the same is true for Linux advocates towards Windows users.
I recall an article on/. a while ago (I think it was even a Katz article) about how some news portals risk destroying open thought because they allow you to select only news stories that correspond to your own viewpoint. Don't risk your open mind by acting this way - a closed mind is what got MS in power in the first place, what allows outrageous software patents to be granted, what allows an industry to control how you use your media.
People with a different viewpoint should be judged on what they have to say and their reasons for saying it, now on what they do on Sunday mornings.
AOL and the other companies who sic their lawyers on people for this sort of thing are protecting their trademarks. For those who aren't familiar with the US system, it's pretty much use it or lose it. In that sense, this sort of action is defendable.
On the other hand, in a common-sense sort of way, this thing is utterly deplorable. This is the behavior that make me imagine lawyers chasing ambulances or sueing those who can't afford to defend themselves.
The real problem is the messed-up system the US uses for this sort of thing. We have crap like this, and patents on algorithms or obvious ideas. It's almost as if it's designed to keep the rich on top and push the smaller ones to the bottom. Makes me want to move to Canada (well, that and our current President).
I had a real problem with the science behind the article. It states:
The maximum energy an ultimate laptop can contain is given by Einstein's famous formula relating mass and energy: E = m c2. Plugging in the laptop's mass, the speed of light, and combining the result with Eq. 2 tells us that the maximum number of operations per second a 1 kg lump of matter can be made to perform is 5.4258 * 10 50. This means that the speed of a computer is ultimately limited by the energy that is available to it.
What he's actually saying is that you are converting the mass of the computer to energy in order to power it. So what part do you convert first? The screen? The RAM? The case? Not to mention that you have to have some way to funnel the energy into the computer without loss - it reminds me of the "massless ropes" and "frictionless pulleys" of a first-semester physics class.
Sorry folks, this article is misleading. We're going to be stuck with batteries for some time to come.
I worked for MS as in intern a few summers ago, and I hung out with some the real high-level programmers (the ones who get to make REAL decisions) during my smoke breaks. They had an interesting perspective on free software.
Their most convincing argument is that programming is a job. It's work, and it can be hard work at times. But if all software is free, then who pays the programmers? It's pretty clear by this time that selling support contracts don't work. If a company can't pay its programmers, then who would work for them.
They were continually amazed at the amount of work that is poured into free software, and they wondered what Linux or *BSD would be like if there were some system for everyone who contributes to be compensated. I can recall one of the engineers saying something like, "We [MS] wouldn't have a chance if people with REAL talent [professional programmers] were contributing to the free software movement. Thank god the only people who really contribute are kiddies."
Now, I don't think everyone who contributes to free software is a kiddie, but it does bring up an interesting point: what would Linux be like today if it could attract top-tier engineers?
Slashdot Mirror
Speculation on the Be-related forums is running rampant. FYI, here is a list of the companies people have speculated about:
AOL - compete for the internet w/ MS
Sony - continued support for the eVilla
Palm - compete w/ WinCE for the PDA market
IBM - no idea what IBM would want w/ BeOS
Nokia - multimedia cell phones
EPOC/Symbian - same as above
Compaq - something to run on alpha???
QNX - add more multimedia capabilities
Sun - compete for the desktop w/ MS
Microsoft - final nail in a competitor's coffin
Gobe - compete w/ MS for the office suite market
Amiga - bring AmigaOS back to life
As you can see, people are letting their imagination run away with them. Some of the above speculation is pretty interesting, though. You can check out BeNews for the latest.
I was working on a program that accessed a MS Access database. The database was encrypted so that the customer's valuable information would only be accessable to the program. We sent them a demo, and one of the comments that came back was "you can open the database by double-clicking on it".
My boss argued with them, saying you can open it but everything is encrypted, so you can't actually see anything in it w/o the password. They said, "no, it needs to be encrypted" (I have no idea what their idea of 'encryption' was).
So I just changed the file extension of the database to my initials, and changed the filename in the program to the same thing, and sent that out to them for the next demo. They came back and said "Thanks for encrypting the database!".
My (former) company at the time was working on a trusted X server to run atop a partner's trusted operating system. For those who've never used a trusted X server, each window runs at its own security level, and a small stripe on the top of the screen displays the security of whatever window has the current focus. Well, our programming team fell behind schedule (way, way behind) and we had a demo coming up for some high-level military types.
So the lead programmer hacked together a quick program where the screen stripe would change at a preset interval. The idea was that the demonstrator would move the mouse around and hopefully hit each window border just as the stripe changed. Our demoer practiced nonstop for three days before the demo, but the demo was much too long, and he could never get the timing exactly right. We couldn't cancel the demo because our CEO had pretty much bet the house on getting this government contract.
We went to the demo, and the demoer was very nervous, with the fate of the company riding on the next ten minutes or so. He was so nervous, his hand shook, and he was worried about moving through the demo too quickly, so he slowed down on purpose. Sure enough, he slowed down a little too much, and was just slightly behind changing the window focus, so the stripe changed just ahead of the focus change.
At the end of the demo, in a suspicious tone, one of the brass asked why the stripe changed slightly before the focus. The demoer opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. The lead programmer, who had been standing behind the demoer, jumped in and said:
"The X server tries to predict when a focus change is about to occur and attempts to update the stripe ahead of time. We did it this way because of the high overhead of determining what the contents of the stripe are. Otherwise, the overhead would be too much, and the stripe would change long _after_ the focus shift. Unfortunately, that code is extremely optimized, and we just need to shorten the time before it begins its prediction cycle."
The brass was very impressed and we ended up getting the contract. We later found out that our competitor's product actually did take a while to update their screen stripe after a focus shift, and during their demo (which actually worked) they were asked why they didn't try to predict focus shifts to syncronize with the stripe updates.
If you're looking into cable service, there are a few things you can do:
- Talk to other people who are using the service, and see what they think.
- Look at your neighbors. If there are a lot of computer users, then local traffic will be higher and you will have a slower connection.
- See how many units your local node serves. Be especially careful if it serves an apartment complex or some other sort of high-density housing.
- Look at the age/quality of the cable itself. I know that it's not supposed to make any difference, but I live in an older part of my subdivision, while a co-worker lives in the newer part. He consistently gets higher bandwidth, though we share the same node.
You may also want to consider DSL if it's cheaply available in your area. You don't have to deal as much with things like congestion, but you have to be fairly close to the provider.I have a friend who made a laser light show for a 4th of July festival. He had a heck of a time getting the colors to come out right. Apparently, there are some severe restrictions in the US with regard to laser intensity at various colors. He had to get a special permit to display his show in a public forum. You can find out about the standards here.
Now, this is some very cool stuff. I've actually seen him make holograms using his laser projector. But if you want to do anything out in public, you'll need to be sure you have the right papers.
If for no other reason, this scheme is horrific for the fact that it intentionally degrades audio. From the article:
... the system deliberately gives some of the digital code on the CD "grossly erroneous values", adding bursts of hiss to the audio signal. In addition, the error-correction codes on the CD, which would normally correct such errors, are distorted. So error correction fails, leaving tiny gaps in the music.
The company claims that no one can notice the difference, but I think their test group was too limited. I have a friend whose wife will only use fresh VCR tapes because the distortion caused by reusing a tape is noticable to her. She also can tell the difference between CDs and analog sources, such as cassette tapes. Again from the article:
But this doesn't placate hi-fi buffs. "It's a dreadful, dreadful thing to contaminate the sound deliberately, says Martin Colloms, a British hi-fi expert whose columns are syndicated around the world. "We all hate piracy but the idea of mucking up the sound of a recording is reprehensible. It's like slashing paintings in a gallery to stop someone stealing them."
of Sealand is open to all those who want it.
Irrespective of his/her origin, race and his/her religion, anyone can become a citizen of the Principality of Sealand if he is prepared to make use his/her talents to establish and boost the acceptance of an emerging state.
If you think you'd like a second (or third, or fourth...) citizenship, you can contact them at INFO@PRINCIPALITY-SEALAND.NET
Quote: "It strikes a blow against corporate America," Braun continued. "It might tip the balance too far towards First Amendment rights. Defamation is not protected by the First Amendment."
As if corporate America doesn't violate the rights of American citizens.
Does Fatbrain pay someone to link to their site for every book review? They are not even close to the cheapest site on the net. If you want a good price comparison, go to AddAll. Just type in the title, and it will search about 30 online book retailers for the lowest price, including coupons and shipping/handling.
Besides, does anyone else besides me think "Fatbrain" is a stupid name?
Hardware is cool, we all know it. I live it, I love it. But when you get down to it, how long do you spend hacking your hardware in comparison to the time you spend hacking your OS? Not much for most of us, I would guess.
What OS you run says far more about you than whether you have an Intel or AMD chip, or whether you have an ATI vs. NVidia card. So what if the computer is a cheap black box? As long as it has an I/O port, someone will figure out a way to get your favorite OS on there.
NetBSD runs on a Dreamcast. I don't know if it does anything useful, but this is what I'm talking about. You just put your OS on your hardware, and that is what you customize.
People love to be able to point to something and say "I did that." It's just human nature.
The example from the story, modding cars, is not a good analogy. Federal standards caused cars to become more complex, and thus harder (impossible?) to modify. I can't think of any reason the same would be true of computers.
Besides, as long as there is a reasonable market, companies will still individual parts. Black boxes may become commonplace, but think about the server realm. It would be very expensive to replace a black-box server compared to the cost of swapping out bad components. So as long as the server market is alive (forever?), there will be a market.
I don't think customizable computers are dead.
What's really scary is that former weapons developers for the USSR are providing consulting services for other nations. Pakistan, anyone?
Weapons-grade fissionable materials in themselves are relatively easy to make. Any nation that has the know-how to build a nuclear reactor can build a breeder reactor to make weapons-grade uranium. The technology required to make the actual bomb, though, is pretty difficult to figure out. It's kind of like the DeCSS fiasco: once the technology gets out, there's nothing you can do to put it back in the bottle. Thankfully, everyone (so far) who has the tech wants to keep it private. Hope the servers they store the info on aren't running Windows!
We can't look at 100 years in the life of a billion year old planet and decide how it's going, it just can't happen.
You don't seem to realize how slow the rate of change really is. A climatic cycle takes tens of thousands of years, not 50 or so. Look at how little of the rainforest is left. Look at how the Sahara has grown. Look at all the extinct species. Each of these may have happened in the course of time, but there is no way that it would have happened in less than a thousand years, short of a cataclysm (like a major meteoric impact). Face it, mankind is destroying this planet, and something needs to be done about it very soon.
Besides, I like hot weather. Tank tops are comfortable.
So's having skin grafts to replace the cancerous lesions.
When a serious matter like medical research involving stem cells from frozen embryos arises, politicians worry at least as much about religious support as they do about what scientists advise.
/. a while ago (I think it was even a Katz article) about how some news portals risk destroying open thought because they allow you to select only news stories that correspond to your own viewpoint. Don't risk your open mind by acting this way - a closed mind is what got MS in power in the first place, what allows outrageous software patents to be granted, what allows an industry to control how you use your media.
There is one facet of slashdot, and the internet in general that disturbs me. Religion is often treated like a stepchild, and often when a religion-oriented comment is submitted and poster is derided. Why is this? Is there no tolerance for those who display a religious opinion? Katz himself, the impartial journalist, displays a slight disdain for those with religious leanings in the above quote, implying that listening to scientists is more important that listening to those with a religious point of view.
People with a religious inclination often labor under the stigma that they are close-minded. Why is this? They simply have a different viewpoint. True, there are people who will try to impose their religious viewpoint on others, but the same is true for Linux advocates towards Windows users.
I recall an article on
People with a different viewpoint should be judged on what they have to say and their reasons for saying it, now on what they do on Sunday mornings.
AOL and the other companies who sic their lawyers on people for this sort of thing are protecting their trademarks. For those who aren't familiar with the US system, it's pretty much use it or lose it. In that sense, this sort of action is defendable.
On the other hand, in a common-sense sort of way, this thing is utterly deplorable. This is the behavior that make me imagine lawyers chasing ambulances or sueing those who can't afford to defend themselves.
The real problem is the messed-up system the US uses for this sort of thing. We have crap like this, and patents on algorithms or obvious ideas. It's almost as if it's designed to keep the rich on top and push the smaller ones to the bottom. Makes me want to move to Canada (well, that and our current President).
I had a real problem with the science behind the article. It states:
The maximum energy an ultimate laptop can contain is given by Einstein's famous formula relating mass and energy: E = m c2. Plugging in the laptop's mass, the speed of light, and combining the result with Eq. 2 tells us that the maximum number of operations per second a 1 kg lump of matter can be made to perform is 5.4258 * 10 50. This means that the speed of a computer is ultimately limited by the energy that is available to it.
What he's actually saying is that you are converting the mass of the computer to energy in order to power it. So what part do you convert first? The screen? The RAM? The case? Not to mention that you have to have some way to funnel the energy into the computer without loss - it reminds me of the "massless ropes" and "frictionless pulleys" of a first-semester physics class.
Sorry folks, this article is misleading. We're going to be stuck with batteries for some time to come.
I worked for MS as in intern a few summers ago, and I hung out with some the real high-level programmers (the ones who get to make REAL decisions) during my smoke breaks. They had an interesting perspective on free software.
Their most convincing argument is that programming is a job. It's work, and it can be hard work at times. But if all software is free, then who pays the programmers? It's pretty clear by this time that selling support contracts don't work. If a company can't pay its programmers, then who would work for them.
They were continually amazed at the amount of work that is poured into free software, and they wondered what Linux or *BSD would be like if there were some system for everyone who contributes to be compensated. I can recall one of the engineers saying something like, "We [MS] wouldn't have a chance if people with REAL talent [professional programmers] were contributing to the free software movement. Thank god the only people who really contribute are kiddies."
Now, I don't think everyone who contributes to free software is a kiddie, but it does bring up an interesting point: what would Linux be like today if it could attract top-tier engineers?