How is that Linux Standard Base coming along? I haven't heard anything in a while. If a software company can't release a product for "Linux" then fragmentation has already begun.
There is some number n of encryption keys on all DVDs. (I think n=128, IIRC) Then a key is handed out one by one, to licensees, by whoever it is that owns the standard. Damn antisocial if you ask me.
Disclaimer: Don't bother flaming me. I don't care.
Once you do that, the blind can use braille printers, speech synthesizers and even move around the screen having the computer report what character is at each character cell if necessary.
I had a friend who had a speech synthesizer card and DOS TSR programs in his laptop that let him use the computer with headphones. Once he got the stoned virus but didn't know it because the speech synthesizer code wasn't loaded until CONFIG.SYS. He used his computers to play MUDs. Also, he used EDLIN to write code because it is not visual, but line-by-line control, enter-something-get-a-response type of program.
When I was working making web pages for www.nmsu.edu we had to make it compatible with lynx. Besides being a good idea, it make it so the blind students could print course catalogs and other things on the braille printers in the computer center. It's also good for Linux users when they aren't running X.
The way I see it, the trend to purely GUI interfaces is not positive for everyone. A large group of people are getting locked out of computing.
Are you kidding? The analog pass-through to display video on the monitor looks like complete crap on the Dxr2. But the SVideo-out to the TV is absolutely perfect. It is like having a consumer electronics DVD player. What do you mean the picture is better than television? The DVD itself is made as a TV-video format. The scan lines themselves match the way the interlaced scan lines of the TV's CRT are drawn.
It is not possible to get the frame buffer of the dxr2, as far as I know (although this source may shed some light on that subject).
For his sake, let us hope that his financial analysis is better than his tech analysis.
What advice would you offer supporters of Linux? Go easy on Microsoft's employees.
Most criticism I have read of Microsoft usually say the employees are very smart people. The problem is elsewhere (marketing, etc.)
They have pride too and are very insulated from what is occurring. Regarding a product strategy, I would focus on providing what Windows has never done well, for example file compression, backups and directory management.
How preciously naive. I've never heard these brought up as the shortcomings of Windows before. There's that doublespace program nobody needs to use anymore since huge drives are so cheap, and programs like WinZip are pretty easy to use for people who feel the need to compress files. (Not many average users, I would guess.) I think when he says directory management he's talking about moving files around. If so, most people seem to find Windows Explorer does the trick pretty easily.
Rather than use software testers, I would test with teachers and nurses and focus on the front end.
They do usability testing all the time.
The big lesson regarding Unix was that too little attention was paid to the front-end. Most users are overwhelmed with managing information and want simplified direct access to the Internet, a few basic applications and a way to store things.
Thanks for the advice. I never knew that.
You may laugh at my website and think it unprofessional yet that kid with a slow line in Chile can access easily access the information as can people in South Africa and other countries because it is not bandwidth intensive nor burdoned by ridiculous Frontpage files and extensions.
No, I think it's unprofessional because of your spelling. Sites that load fast are good.
Intel will of course be critical to Linux.
Of course. That is why they are putting so much support behind porting Linux to Merced (I mean Itanium).
Anything that can be imbedded as native Linux code on a processor will do wonders for proliferating Linux.
Embedded. Also, that sentence is technobabble. I think I know what you're trying to say though, you just don't know how to state it.
That seems to have been the lesson of NSP which Intel was forced to remove due to objections from Microsoft. Encryption, compression and storage services based directory simplifications, i.e. drive designations, etc. would seem ideal.
I have no idea what you are talking about in either sentence. Thanks for the advice!
i didn't know anglophones use "sans" for "without", french rules
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the canon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
-- William Shakespeare
Most people just say "sans" to sound educated, like they read Shakespeare.:)
More importantly, it would be interesting to see the source code. Just because you transfer a paper checklist to a Visual Basic program doesn't make it right. People believe anything if it comes from a computer.
3 months to get *something* at that domain name (besides a 'coming soon' page from your registrar) or you lose it and your cash.
Would that apply to Transmeta? hmmm
Re:The Mystery of the Missing Killer App
on
$200 Linux PCs
·
· Score: 1
Games. PC technology is pushed forward the most by games. Color graphics, sound cards were considered fluff when they were available except to game users, until they became common enough that business can justify it. "Multimedia" was a pretty good excuse after the fact to incorporate sound cards and CDROMS which are now considered normal for business PCs.
The killer app is games. I know I have a seemingly continuous flow of money to make games play better. If it weren't for games I would still be using my 486. (I did use it until 1998, forgoing the ability to play Quake, but I didn't have any money then.) Once I had the chance I got the best computer I could afford. I got a PII/266 so I could play Quake II. I got a Voodoo I, then a voodoo II for beautiful and smooth graphics in Quake II. When I found out 32 megs of RAM was slowing me down I got an extra 64 megs. I got DSL so I could play Everquest for hours without tieing up the phone line. (high quality streaming audio (shoutcast) was also a factor for me) Also to improve my ping times for quake II servers. I recently got a celeron 466 and a tnt2 ultra when I noticed Everquest was getting choppy. (and freed up 3 pci slots in the process by taking out my pci 2d, 3d, and dvd cards) Now I'm getting a new motherboard because it isn't up to snuff in the agp slot area. Like I said, I was fine on the 486DX2 66 except for games, and even then it ran Duke Nukem 3D fine. I have to admit though, it doesn't take much money anymore to keep just one step behind the bleeding edge. (celeron 466 only $100 as compared to $500 for the fastest CPUs)
The point is not whether or not you agree with ESR's politics. Being a libertarian he has views about socialism that probably don't match most of yours, and you know what, I don't care.
The POINT is that what's-his-name's rebuttal hinges on the fact that ESR is some kind of socialist (I read the rebuttal and I don't remember that being the point though), at least according to ESR, and he is trying to set the record straight on what his position is.
ESR did not bother to discuss the rest of what's-his-name's paper because it was not really about cathedral and the bazarre anyway.
What right do you have to say that ESR can't be anti-communist anyway? WHO CARES?
Neal's Web Site and In the Beginning essay
on
The Big U
·
· Score: 1
Neal Stephenson's web site is: http://www.well.com/user/neal/
It has all the contact info you could want but don't bother him. I doubt anything you might say would interest him enough to reply since he is very particular about writing without interruptions.
One post linked to a list of his works but it missed the one that I think most slashdotters would like the most. "In the beginning was the command line..." is a brilliant essay on computers, OS's in general. It has praise for Linux and BeOS.
About that genetic purity crap: Eugenics was very popular around 1890 through WWII. In USENET they say that when anyone mentiones the Nazis in a debate that is pretty much the end of any rational discussion, so I won't. There are many rational reasons why Eugenics is lot logically valid. I have them in my genetics class notes (at home) but you could probably get a better explanation from any genetics professor.
The CD-R (gold disks) is currently shipping because they download the distribution and they can burn copies on a CD-R drive. This is labor intensive so it costs a certain amount. By now they have sent a gold master to a CD factory. The factory will produce many copies, the typical CD (silver) disks, for pennies a copy. So Cheapbytes can sell them for only $1.99 and still make a profit. Or at least you may see something else there you like and then they will make even more money.
It was a warm and fuzzy answer but I was disappointed it didn't actually answer Tom's question.
It seems to me there cannot be a 100% cooperation between GPL and BSD. There will always be downsides to the other license if your ideals side with one or the other.
On the positive side, doesn't the fact the Berkeley dropped the advertising clause open up the possibility for greater convergence of BSD and GPL code. (At least incorporating BSD code into GPL code.) True, the results would be GPL'd, so BSD idealists wouldn't go for it. Isn't there room now for a GNU/BSD distribution to compete with Free/Net/OpenBSD AND GNU/Linux and GNU/Herd? I realize the BSDs use some GNU tools (gcc), do Linux distros use any BSD licensed packages? If I download some BSD software, can I apply the change in the BSD license myself or do I need to start with what code Berkeley offers somehow? That is, Berkeley owns the copyright on all BSD software right? Therefore I can accept their new license without the approval of the *BSD maintainers who have added code to it. Can I copy code from some BSD program into a GPL program or vice versa? If so, who has the copyright on what?
At a presentation for my computer graphics class, one of the individuals involved in the production of Toy Story (the way he talked he was the master of Pixar but his name wasn't very high in any of the credits) came to talk and show videos. I believe there were 200 suns working on rendering for about two years. They said it was more economical than buying a cray. I don't know what an Onyx is or if it was even available in those speeds when the movie was rendered. Toy story was made with some pretty cpu intensive effects, NOT things that can currently be made realtime. Although he did say if moore's law proceeded we would be able to render toy story in real time by... 2005 I think he said. (The presentation was in 1996 I think).
Slashdot Mirror
How is that Linux Standard Base coming along? I haven't heard anything in a while. If a software company can't release a product for "Linux" then fragmentation has already begun.
There is some number n of encryption keys on all DVDs. (I think n=128, IIRC) Then a key is handed out one by one, to licensees, by whoever it is that owns the standard. Damn antisocial if you ask me.
Disclaimer: Don't bother flaming me. I don't care.
I always wondered what the hell Bill was talking about when he said Digital Nervous System.
Make it lynx compatible.
Once you do that, the blind can use braille printers, speech synthesizers and even move around the screen having the computer report what character is at each character cell if necessary.
I had a friend who had a speech synthesizer card and DOS TSR programs in his laptop that let him use the computer with headphones. Once he got the stoned virus but didn't know it because the speech synthesizer code wasn't loaded until CONFIG.SYS. He used his computers to play MUDs. Also, he used EDLIN to write code because it is not visual, but line-by-line control, enter-something-get-a-response type of program.
When I was working making web pages for www.nmsu.edu we had to make it compatible with lynx. Besides being a good idea, it make it so the blind students could print course catalogs and other things on the braille printers in the computer center. It's also good for Linux users when they aren't running X.
The way I see it, the trend to purely GUI interfaces is not positive for everyone. A large group of people are getting locked out of computing.
Ya. Nobody would read CNN if it weren't for Slashdot. Uh-huh. I hope CNN can take all the hits. (sarcasm)
Are you kidding? The analog pass-through to display video on the monitor looks like complete crap on the Dxr2. But the SVideo-out to the TV is absolutely perfect. It is like having a consumer electronics DVD player. What do you mean the picture is better than television? The DVD itself is made as a TV-video format. The scan lines themselves match the way the interlaced scan lines of the TV's CRT are drawn.
It is not possible to get the frame buffer of the dxr2, as far as I know (although this source may shed some light on that subject).
For his sake, let us hope that his financial analysis is better than his tech analysis.
What advice would you offer supporters of Linux? Go easy on Microsoft's employees.
Most criticism I have read of Microsoft usually say the employees are very smart people. The problem is elsewhere (marketing, etc.)
They have pride too and are very insulated from what is occurring. Regarding a product strategy, I would focus on providing what Windows has never done well, for example file compression, backups and directory management.
How preciously naive. I've never heard these brought up as the shortcomings of Windows before. There's that doublespace program nobody needs to use anymore since huge drives are so cheap, and programs like WinZip are pretty easy to use for people who feel the need to compress files. (Not many average users, I would guess.) I think when he says directory management he's talking about moving files around. If so, most people seem to find Windows Explorer does the trick pretty easily.
Rather than use software testers, I would test with teachers and nurses and focus on the front end.
They do usability testing all the time.
The big lesson regarding Unix was that too little attention was paid to the front-end. Most users are overwhelmed with managing information and want simplified direct access to the Internet, a few basic applications and a way to store things.
Thanks for the advice. I never knew that.
You may laugh at my website and think it unprofessional yet that kid with a slow line in Chile can access easily access the information as can people in South Africa and other countries because it is not bandwidth intensive nor burdoned by ridiculous Frontpage files and extensions.
No, I think it's unprofessional because of your spelling. Sites that load fast are good.
Intel will of course be critical to Linux.
Of course. That is why they are putting so much support behind porting Linux to Merced (I mean Itanium).
Anything that can be imbedded as native Linux code on a processor will do wonders for proliferating Linux.
Embedded. Also, that sentence is technobabble. I think I know what you're trying to say though, you just don't know how to state it.
That seems to have been the lesson of NSP which Intel was forced to remove due to objections from Microsoft. Encryption, compression and storage services based directory simplifications, i.e. drive designations, etc. would seem ideal.
I have no idea what you are talking about in either sentence. Thanks for the advice!
I vote Mint.
Penguin. Mint. Green.
No?
Oh well.
i didn't know anglophones use "sans" for "without", french rules
:)
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the canon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
-- William Shakespeare
Most people just say "sans" to sound educated, like they read Shakespeare.
It ate my angle brackets.
I meant to add "hehe" indicated just kidding about the Linux port.
Don't flame me because I'm beautiful.
Does it run under Linux?
Anyone know when the port will be available?
More importantly, it would be interesting to see the source code. Just because you transfer a paper checklist to a Visual Basic program doesn't make it right. People believe anything if it comes from a computer.
Is Sun's attitude the result of selling the Open Source concept while trying to downplay the Free Software aspect? Was Richard Stallman right after all?
Why ``Free Software'' is better than ``Open Source''
3 months to get *something* at that domain name (besides a 'coming soon' page from your registrar) or you lose it and your cash.
Would that apply to Transmeta? hmmm
Games. PC technology is pushed forward the most by games. Color graphics, sound cards were considered fluff when they were available except to game users, until they became common enough that business can justify it. "Multimedia" was a pretty good excuse after the fact to incorporate sound cards and CDROMS which are now considered normal for business PCs.
The killer app is games. I know I have a seemingly continuous flow of money to make games play better. If it weren't for games I would still be using my 486. (I did use it until 1998, forgoing the ability to play Quake, but I didn't have any money then.) Once I had the chance I got the best computer I could afford. I got a PII/266 so I could play Quake II. I got a Voodoo I, then a voodoo II for beautiful and smooth graphics in Quake II. When I found out 32 megs of RAM was slowing me down I got an extra 64 megs. I got DSL so I could play Everquest for hours without tieing up the phone line. (high quality streaming audio (shoutcast) was also a factor for me) Also to improve my ping times for quake II servers. I recently got a celeron 466 and a tnt2 ultra when I noticed Everquest was getting choppy. (and freed up 3 pci slots in the process by taking out my pci 2d, 3d, and dvd cards) Now I'm getting a new motherboard because it isn't up to snuff in the agp slot area. Like I said, I was fine on the 486DX2 66 except for games, and even then it ran Duke Nukem 3D fine. I have to admit though, it doesn't take much money anymore to keep just one step behind the bleeding edge. (celeron 466 only $100 as compared to $500 for the fastest CPUs)
Dude. They DO call it a GPU. Read the article. Then post.
If you can read this, you aren't hemos, or cmdrtaco, or anyone else who is responsible for slashdot.
This answers what I was always wondering: do they actually read the comments? Probably not considering they don't read their own web page.
The point is not whether or not you agree with ESR's politics. Being a libertarian he has views about socialism that probably don't match most of yours, and you know what, I don't care.
The POINT is that what's-his-name's rebuttal hinges on the fact that ESR is some kind of socialist (I read the rebuttal and I don't remember that being the point though), at least according to ESR, and he is trying to set the record straight on what his position is.
ESR did not bother to discuss the rest of what's-his-name's paper because it was not really about cathedral and the bazarre anyway.
What right do you have to say that ESR can't be anti-communist anyway? WHO CARES?
Neal Stephenson's web site is:
http://www.well.com/user/neal/
It has all the contact info you could want but don't bother him. I doubt anything you might say would interest him enough to reply since he is very particular about writing without interruptions.
One post linked to a list of his works but it missed the one that I think most slashdotters would like the most. "In the beginning was the command line..." is a brilliant essay on computers, OS's in general. It has praise for Linux and BeOS.
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html
About that genetic purity crap:
Eugenics was very popular around 1890 through WWII. In USENET they say that when anyone mentiones the Nazis in a debate that is pretty much the end of any rational discussion, so I won't. There are many rational reasons why Eugenics is lot logically valid. I have them in my genetics class notes (at home) but you could probably get a better explanation from any genetics professor.
The CD-R (gold disks) is currently shipping because they download the distribution and they can burn copies on a CD-R drive. This is labor intensive so it costs a certain amount. By now they have sent a gold master to a CD factory. The factory will produce many copies, the typical CD (silver) disks, for pennies a copy. So Cheapbytes can sell them for only $1.99 and still make a profit. Or at least you may see something else there you like and then they will make even more money.
Did you write all this just now? If so you must be some kind of genius. Either way, really nice essay. I learned a lot from it. :)
It was a warm and fuzzy answer but I was disappointed it didn't actually answer Tom's question.
It seems to me there cannot be a 100% cooperation between GPL and BSD. There will always be downsides to the other license if your ideals side with one or the other.
On the positive side, doesn't the fact the Berkeley dropped the advertising clause open up the possibility for greater convergence of BSD and GPL code. (At least incorporating BSD code into GPL code.) True, the results would be GPL'd, so BSD idealists wouldn't go for it. Isn't there room now for a GNU/BSD distribution to compete with Free/Net/OpenBSD AND GNU/Linux and GNU/Herd? I realize the BSDs use some GNU tools (gcc), do Linux distros use any BSD licensed packages? If I download some BSD software, can I apply the change in the BSD license myself or do I need to start with what code Berkeley offers somehow? That is, Berkeley owns the copyright on all BSD software right? Therefore I can accept their new license without the approval of the *BSD maintainers who have added code to it. Can I copy code from some BSD program into a GPL program or vice versa? If so, who has the copyright on what?
a pretty girl who naked is
is worth a million statues
Have the folks on segfault.org heard this one? They are always obsessing about girls naked and petrified.
Men don't dominate open source because no one can dominate it. It's free.
At a presentation for my computer graphics class, one of the individuals involved in the production of Toy Story (the way he talked he was the master of Pixar but his name wasn't very high in any of the credits) came to talk and show videos. I believe there were 200 suns working on rendering for about two years. They said it was more economical than buying a cray.
I don't know what an Onyx is or if it was even available in those speeds when the movie was rendered. Toy story was made with some pretty cpu intensive effects, NOT things that can currently be made realtime. Although he did say if moore's law proceeded we would be able to render toy story in real time by... 2005 I think he said. (The presentation was in 1996 I think).