Phew. I'm the April Fool. No underwear for me tomorrow.
But man, seriously, that's gotta be the harshest April Fools joke I've ever seen. Not only was it posted a day early (March 31st), but it *actually* seemed plausible.
Okay, so it might be an April Fools joke. Then again, I didn't think April Fools happened until April 1st.
If its just an April Fools joke, then I'm an April Fool and will wear no underwear tomorrow in honor of having been fooled. Though, it's pretty poor to have April Fools jokes played too soon... even if it is only early by one day.
I sincerely hope this isn't an April Fools joke, because if so it will go down in history as one of the most tasteless practical jokes on the Internet. Then again, I fucking hope this is a joke.
IF in fact Andover are suing these sites for this so-called 'copyright' and 'patent', then that is the end of Slashdot.org. For good.
There's not a geek out there who, having witnessed and participated in the many "Your Rights Online" articles posted to Slashdot over the last year or so, will not protest this unbelievably stupid action on the part of Andover.net.
There could be nothing more destructive than incurring the wrath of the Free Geek, and slapping sites like Advogado and Kuro5hin with an injunction for copying the 'look and feel' of Slashdot is a *HUGE* fucking mistake. Huge.
If this is a joke, it sucks.
If its not a joke, then *Heads Must Roll* at Andover for this, and there must be a widely-publicized retraction. If I don't hear about this retraction on *CNN*, then I will be seriously pissed off at Andover's control of its PR staff, and I will withdraw my investment, never to invest in Andover or any company helmed by its executive staff again.
Man, I'm really bummed. Space was supposed to be cool by the time I turned 30 (just a few weeks ago).
There were supposed to be places I could go on the moon to go 'lunar skiing'. Mars was supposed to have artifacts the size of small mountains for me to go hiking over, marvelling at the wonder of ancient lost alien civilizations, all the while humbly considering the revelation of Humanity in Space.
Mad scientists were supposed to be *allowed* to roam free, conducting Earth-dangerous experiments in the outer orbits on distant asteroids, where nobody would be particularly bothered if a few multimegaton-like nuclear explosions accidentally being set off occurred now and then.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, peace was supposed to have prevaled. Hover crafts were supposed to be everywhere, heck even hover *belts* were supposed to be purchasable at your local Sports Chalet. Medicine and science, given the wide vista's of space for development and research, were supposed to have cured Man of many ills, among them disease, arthritis, old age, and... boredom.
But no, here we are, all gathering around the feable fire of the modern space "program", occasionally warming our hairy hands on the few sparks and flares here and there, laughing like hyena's every time a piece of wood explodes and propels itself from the measly fire, all the while trying desperately to convince ourselves that we are safer just ignoring the deep inky black night of space.
Drats. I want my Space Civilization, and I want it now, danmit!
I can't imagine what you're talking about. My best guess is that your preacher neglected to tell you how much of the supposedly Christian value system actually predates Christianity by centuries, if not millenia.
Sigh. Such a shame that you are so effectively programmed as to instantly assume I was talking about Christianity.
What on earth gave you the idea that I'm talking about Christianity, or in fact *any particular* religion at all?
Hey, here's a though, try and get this novel new idea into your head:
"Religion" != Christianity.
Here's another one:
"Religion" != Worship of God.
I'm not, in fact, a Christian or Catholic. My religious ideals and practices do not in fact have *anything* to do with this - that's strictly my business. If I wanted a flame war, I'd have stated what my religious preferences are, but frankly I'd prefer to keep that to myself, as is my right.
I'm simply trying to point out that religions, as a whole, from Christianity all the way back to Paganism and beyond, have had an *organizational* role in the development of Man's civilization over the years.
I would even go so far as to posit that the modern practice of pure rejection of religion for the sake of rejecting religion is naive and misguided, mostly due to... wait for it... an anti-Christian perspective that's been carefully cultivated (as well as being a direct result of people wrongly calling themselves "Christians" while engaged in harmful acts, i.e. wars) over the last few hundred years.
So, please get a religious clue. There is more to religion than the worship of one god/deity, more to a religious body of knowledge than can be imparted in simple ritual. Christianity and its offshoots may have the modern religious limelight, but it by no means represents the entire show...
Early religions, such as those found in the cults of Mesopotamia, might even be considered to be indistinguishable from science by todays standards... its just a pity that the severely limited Anti-Christian/Worship=Religion perspective propagated in our modern culture is preventing intelligent people with a degree of literacy such as (I'm assuming, given your participation in this forum) yourself, from being able to learn this.
Look closely, ignore the Christian stigma, and you will see that there is more to religious contribution to the culture of Man than meets the eye...
Don't forget that without religious groundwork, a lot of what we take for granted today would be without basis.
The principles of most modern humanities can find allegiance to a lot of the fundamental principles of most of the modern religion bodies that have dominated the world for the past few thousand years. Without these fundamental principles, we may not have come so far.
Definitely, you must account for the destructive elements in religious movements over the years, but you cannot honestly do this without also asessing the positives.
And I believe that this is one of the foundations for Dyson having been awarded this prize - that he was willing and able intellectually and morally to look at the issue of religion in modern life and present an honest view that brings value to those that read it.
Too often, various world religions are lambasted for the harm they have caused (holy wars, etc), unfairly and with shadowed intent...
... and open-source (GPL/LGPL) Tarantella, thus propelling them to the forefront in the thin WinClient market.
Otherwise, I give 'em a year. They've lost the Intel/Unix OS battle, with Linux and BSD and other freely available *nixes cutting into their market. That leaves Tarantella, and in that regard they're competing against Microsoft...
So the only thing I figure they can do is get on the OSS bandwagon as soon as possible. I dunno what else they could do to maintain any form of economy.
Could any of the more Linux/Emulator scene savvier programmers out there give us a bit of an idea as to whether or not this will help the Wine effort at all, or is it tangential to the effort to getting Win32-code working in Linux?
This X-Box is just a vertical-market network computer.
Big deal. They (Microsoft) bally-hoo'ed it a few years ago, because, clearly, they weren't prepared for that particular computing revolution. (If the big kids can't play, they don't want anyone playing.)
There's nothing in this X-Box that even vaguely excites me - all it looks like is that Microsoft has worked out how to apply some of its billions to manufacture run-of-the-mill PC hardware for the masses... well, we'll see, anyway.
Whereas, the PSX2, with its revolutionary design and take-no-prisoners custom chip designs, appeals to my primordial developer roots at a fundamental level.
Sony is the undisputed master of mass manufacturing consumer electronic products, which is what gaming platforms have become, and I seriously doubt whether Microsoft has what it takes to prove that it can do this, properly, to its shareholders. Don't forget that they've gotta show profitability for the X-Box division relatively quickly...
Now, having said that, I will say that I will be watching the *developer* relationships that are fostered by these companies very closely. I wonder what lessons Sony have learned from the Net Yaroze program for the PSX - are they going to be a more developer friendly company with PSX2 this time around?
Obviously, developer relations is about the only thing that Microsoft has over Sony, so what's going to happen there, I wonder...
I predict, and time will tell, that at the very least (and possibly the very most) MS' X-Box release will have a *good* influence on the developer situation for the other platforms...
I don't think anyone would have a fair argument against having a tool that, as you say, allows you to do a bloody good job at building apps with a tool you are comfortable with.
One of the reasons everyone is so excited about Delphi on Linux is because Delphi is such an excellent rapid application tool, with a very good easy to use and easy to understand programming language, with great GUI capabilities.
Most technical/programmer people, in the Linux world at least, like well designed software that does a good job, and which fundamentally makes sense most of the time. The reason I personally find Delphi to be enjoyable as an environment, and which many people agree with me on, is that it makes programming *FUN* again - and the way that happens has a lot to do with the sensible design of the Delphi environment, and the Object Pascal language.
There is a lot of nonsensical design in Visual Basic however, which does *not* make sense. If you want to read a good article that describes a lot of problems with the way that Microsoft has designed Visual Basic, I suggest you read this article:
I point this out not to be inflammatory, but to show you one of the reasons why you get so much flack as a Visual Basic programmer, and to point out that Delphi on Linux is a really good thing because a) it provides the ease of use that you're used to on Visual Basic, without any of the utter stupidities of VB (see article for details), and b) it's a very powerful environment for creating world class apps in its own right.
And, lastly, the design of Object Pascal and the Delphi environment is so good that, dare I say it, it will actually c) make you a better programmer.
And that's why its exciting that Delphi is coming to Linux.
... the GUI tools for Linux are as easy to use as they are for Delphi/Win.
If Delphi/Linux requires a shift of paradigm in the way the GUI stuff works/integrates with code, I won't mind that so much - as long as I get the same sort of environment.
Porting most of my apps from Windows to Linux would be *good*, but it wouldn't disappoint me if I wasn't able to do this as a result of some design decision Borland/Inprise had to make in order to make Delphi/Linux work well, such as a difference in the way the various GUI toolkit/libs work compared to Win32 API's...
As a long-time Linux user, and a recent religious convert to the ways of Delphi (having, wrongly, abandoned my old faithful Turbo Pascal skills when Windows 3.0 came along in favor of C/C++, which was a *HUGE* mistake because I'd written about 3 million lines of Turbo Pascal code during the late 80's/early 90's), I am totally ready for Linux Delphi.
Delphi rocks, as a RAD tool. There really isn't much out there for Windows that can compare - Delphi *ACTUALLY* made Windows programming fun again - specifically the extremely well-designed VCL.
Prior to Delphi, Windows suffered the same fundamental problem that Linux currently does, at least for me anyway, which is that there are a large number of API's, and multiple different ways of doing things, from a developer standpoint.
The Delphi VCL changed all of that for me as a developer who cares about getting things done fast, as rock solid as possible - it encapsulates a lot of the dreck that is the Windows GUI API, and makes it productive.
Now, I'm not saying that Linux is the same - certainly, the GNOME/KDE efforts are very well designed projects, but there is still a last-step of organization that is required to make RAD a reality for those GUI environments, and I sincerely hope that Delphi can bring that into the Linux mix. Either way, Linux will still be a great platform to deploy apps on, and I use it every day regardless - its just that the Delphi way of doing RAD is going to make for a *huge* shift in developer focus away from such mundane things as library dependence, text-based GUI design, towards rapid application development.
And, since Linux needs apps, rapid app development can only be a good thing.
When I can use Delphi to build apps on Linux, I will ditch whatever last vestiges of control Microsofts operating systems have over my current development environment/requirements, and happily be a full-time Linux developer. Right now, I'm *forced* to use Windows as a client software deployment platform, because Delphi makes Windows programming so damned fast...
No kidding. I'm originally from Perth (live in Los Angeles now) and when I went back to Australia a few years ago (96), I stopped by Sydney to recover from jet lag before heading home to see the folks. I'd lived in Sydney for a year before I came to the US, and was horrified to find out just *how* American Sydney had become.
It could practically be excused for a typical US city - in fact, its annexation into America, while certainly not officially sanctioned by the US/Australian governments, has effectively taken place on an economic/corporate scale.
Subway Sandwich shops everywhere, Starbucks, all the standard US pickin's for a commercial franchises.
And, horror of horrors, it would appear that Sydney-ites have permitted the development of that depraved icon of American commercial culture, the strip mall!
So, if you're an American looking for an Australian vacation, don't go to Sydney expecting to see much in the way of Australian culture. Go to Darwin or Perth - no, better yet. Stay the hell away from Perth, go to Brisbane. You'll love it so much, you'll want to stay there - which is why you shouldn't go to Perth!
After all, there are perfectly good launch systems that are more efficient than the Shuttle already in place, already being used to achieve low-earth orbit.
Going to the Moon is something the shuttle (and its existing launch systems) is unable to do.
In the context of this discussion, rebuilding the Saturn V would only really be worth the effort if we wanted to go to the moon again in a historic sense... something akin to the 'build a boat out of reeds and sail it across the Atlantic' experiment a few years ago, which I've forgotten the name of.
Anyway, since most modern launch platforms for deep space are designed to be as efficient as possible, and I remember reading somewhere (don't have the link handy, sorry, somewhere on NASA's site) that the majority of the deep-space, outer-earth orbit stuff that NASA does is only possible due to the use of the Earth to 'slingshot' cargo out...
So, maybe we could use the shuttle system to get up into Earth orbit, and use the Earth itself to slingshot off to the moon again - thus not requiring the heavy industry for the Saturn V program.
Remember, our computers are much better now than they were in the 60's, and calculating space trajectories using the slingshot method may just be better than rebuilding heavy hardware to get us out to Lagrange...
As long as NASA remembers what measurement system to use, of course.:)
... but what the heck. I'd love to watch a Simpsons movie.
It's really sorta hard to imagine what it'd be like, though... I think part of the beauty of the Simpsons is the simplicity of the plots, buffed by the arcane insanity of the in-between stuff that goes on, often in the background. Dunno if I could handle a full hour and a half of that, but maybe... just maybe...
(Here in LA, Fox shows Simpsons 3 times daily... admittedly, there's a lot of repeats, but hey, it's Homer-ific!)
And for one, I don't get it. NASA news is news for nerds, and its generally about stuff that matters.
But, see, Slashdot stories are selected by Rob and Hemos and the gang. Its stuff that's interesting to them. Thus, Slashdot is a cult of personality - the personalities that are Hemos, CmdrTaco, etc.
In fact, why not spin a story about that? Imagine that some future, time-traveling age will share our own fascination with exceptional men and women of the past. Suppose they reach back to grab Bruno out of his pyre at the last moment, if only to repair and then enjoy a colorfully vivid person who surged so far ahead of his time, caroming about the realm of ideas like a joyous crank, shouting at his stupefied contemporaries to _wake up!_
Maybe this already has/had/happened is will happeningly happen. (Damn English tenses and their unwillingness to bend to time travel...)
Maybe this is why he was able to accurately hint that lightning might be harnessed, that distant stars contained distant worlds, with life. Maybe this explains Bruno's arrogance, his egocentrics... maybe he's been here, watched MTV, and, given a taste of the future, took some of it back with him.
... I really look forward to the day that Delphi, or C++ Builder, is available for software development on Linux.
And I hope that surveys like this are done honestly by the Linux community - Inprise/Borland have always been a great company for developers, and it can only make sense for them to be involved in the Linux movement.
It seems to me, that with Inprise/Borland on its turf, Linux would be an ideal software development platform. Better than the existing options, anyway.
After all, isn't it true that Sony make all of their profits from the Playstation empire from sales of the games, not the consoles? That in fact, the consoles themselves don't make *any* profit?
That sounds like software, to me... seems they'd have to be a pretty damned stupid company to not release their own PSX emulator.
Oh, wait. I just thought of a reason why they wouldn't release an emulator for the PSX: PSX2.
Since the PSX2 is supposed to be fully compatible with the PSX game titles, it would be a poor marketing move to release a software-PSX right around the time of the PSX2 release... this would dilute the feature set of the PSX2 a little, marketing-wise, and thus detract from the launch.
Bummer for Sony. Too bad they didn't think of doing the software-PSX thing a year ago, but then that's the breaks in the high tech world, and I guess they were already raking it in anyway with the game title profits...
I guess we're just not ready, politically and socially.
Some of us are, probably, but I fear thats only because we're not really facing up to whats in front of us, socially, politically, and technologically, as a species.
I mean, sure, if there were a cheap way to do it I'm sure there'd be a massive exodus to space by those in our society who'd like to do things they can't do on Earth, but that's a long ways off, I'm sure.
Slashdot Mirror
Phew. I'm the April Fool. No underwear for me tomorrow.
But man, seriously, that's gotta be the harshest April Fools joke I've ever seen. Not only was it posted a day early (March 31st), but it *actually* seemed plausible.
Thank god for April Fools. Phew! Nice one guys...
Okay, so it might be an April Fools joke. Then again, I didn't think April Fools happened until April 1st.
... even if it is only early by one day.
If its just an April Fools joke, then I'm an April Fool and will wear no underwear tomorrow in honor of having been fooled. Though, it's pretty poor to have April Fools jokes played too soon
I sincerely hope this isn't an April Fools joke, because if so it will go down in history as one of the most tasteless practical jokes on the Internet. Then again, I fucking hope this is a joke.
IF in fact Andover are suing these sites for this so-called 'copyright' and 'patent', then that is the end of Slashdot.org. For good.
There's not a geek out there who, having witnessed and participated in the many "Your Rights Online" articles posted to Slashdot over the last year or so, will not protest this unbelievably stupid action on the part of Andover.net.
There could be nothing more destructive than incurring the wrath of the Free Geek, and slapping sites like Advogado and Kuro5hin with an injunction for copying the 'look and feel' of Slashdot is a *HUGE* fucking mistake. Huge.
If this is a joke, it sucks.
If its not a joke, then *Heads Must Roll* at Andover for this, and there must be a widely-publicized retraction. If I don't hear about this retraction on *CNN*, then I will be seriously pissed off at Andover's control of its PR staff, and I will withdraw my investment, never to invest in Andover or any company helmed by its executive staff again.
And if this is just a bad joke, its fucked.
Man, I'm really bummed. Space was supposed to be cool by the time I turned 30 (just a few weeks ago).
... boredom.
There were supposed to be places I could go on the moon to go 'lunar skiing'. Mars was supposed to have artifacts the size of small mountains for me to go hiking over, marvelling at the wonder of ancient lost alien civilizations, all the while humbly considering the revelation of Humanity in Space.
Mad scientists were supposed to be *allowed* to roam free, conducting Earth-dangerous experiments in the outer orbits on distant asteroids, where nobody would be particularly bothered if a few multimegaton-like nuclear explosions accidentally being set off occurred now and then.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, peace was supposed to have prevaled. Hover crafts were supposed to be everywhere, heck even hover *belts* were supposed to be purchasable at your local Sports Chalet. Medicine and science, given the wide vista's of space for development and research, were supposed to have cured Man of many ills, among them disease, arthritis, old age, and
But no, here we are, all gathering around the feable fire of the modern space "program", occasionally warming our hairy hands on the few sparks and flares here and there, laughing like hyena's every time a piece of wood explodes and propels itself from the measly fire, all the while trying desperately to convince ourselves that we are safer just ignoring the deep inky black night of space.
Drats. I want my Space Civilization, and I want it now, danmit!
I can't imagine what you're talking about. My best guess is that your preacher neglected to tell you how much of the supposedly Christian value system actually predates Christianity by centuries, if not millenia.
... wait for it ... an anti-Christian perspective that's been carefully cultivated (as well as being a direct result of people wrongly calling themselves "Christians" while engaged in harmful acts, i.e. wars) over the last few hundred years.
Sigh. Such a shame that you are so effectively programmed as to instantly assume I was talking about Christianity.
What on earth gave you the idea that I'm talking about Christianity, or in fact *any particular* religion at all?
Hey, here's a though, try and get this novel new idea into your head:
"Religion" != Christianity.
Here's another one:
"Religion" != Worship of God.
I'm not, in fact, a Christian or Catholic. My religious ideals and practices do not in fact have *anything* to do with this - that's strictly my business. If I wanted a flame war, I'd have stated what my religious preferences are, but frankly I'd prefer to keep that to myself, as is my right.
I'm simply trying to point out that religions, as a whole, from Christianity all the way back to Paganism and beyond, have had an *organizational* role in the development of Man's civilization over the years.
I would even go so far as to posit that the modern practice of pure rejection of religion for the sake of rejecting religion is naive and misguided, mostly due to
So, please get a religious clue. There is more to religion than the worship of one god/deity, more to a religious body of knowledge than can be imparted in simple ritual. Christianity and its offshoots may have the modern religious limelight, but it by no means represents the entire show...
Early religions, such as those found in the cults of Mesopotamia, might even be considered to be indistinguishable from science by todays standards... its just a pity that the severely limited Anti-Christian/Worship=Religion perspective propagated in our modern culture is preventing intelligent people with a degree of literacy such as (I'm assuming, given your participation in this forum) yourself, from being able to learn this.
Look closely, ignore the Christian stigma, and you will see that there is more to religious contribution to the culture of Man than meets the eye...
Don't forget that without religious groundwork, a lot of what we take for granted today would be without basis.
The principles of most modern humanities can find allegiance to a lot of the fundamental principles of most of the modern religion bodies that have dominated the world for the past few thousand years. Without these fundamental principles, we may not have come so far.
Definitely, you must account for the destructive elements in religious movements over the years, but you cannot honestly do this without also asessing the positives.
And I believe that this is one of the foundations for Dyson having been awarded this prize - that he was willing and able intellectually and morally to look at the issue of religion in modern life and present an honest view that brings value to those that read it.
Too often, various world religions are lambasted for the harm they have caused (holy wars, etc), unfairly and with shadowed intent...
... and open-source (GPL/LGPL) Tarantella, thus propelling them to the forefront in the thin WinClient market.
Otherwise, I give 'em a year. They've lost the Intel/Unix OS battle, with Linux and BSD and other freely available *nixes cutting into their market. That leaves Tarantella, and in that regard they're competing against Microsoft...
So the only thing I figure they can do is get on the OSS bandwagon as soon as possible. I dunno what else they could do to maintain any form of economy.
Could any of the more Linux/Emulator scene savvier programmers out there give us a bit of an idea as to whether or not this will help the Wine effort at all, or is it tangential to the effort to getting Win32-code working in Linux?
(I would think its tangential, but not sure...)
Have they stopped selling 'em?
Homeworld is a 3d space strategy/action game in full 3D.
Check it out...
Thus, that 600mhz processor is a *REQUIREMENT* just to get the thing to boot fast enough...
;)
This X-Box is just a vertical-market network computer.
...
Big deal. They (Microsoft) bally-hoo'ed it a few years ago, because, clearly, they weren't prepared for that particular computing revolution. (If the big kids can't play, they don't want anyone playing.)
There's nothing in this X-Box that even vaguely excites me - all it looks like is that Microsoft has worked out how to apply some of its billions to manufacture run-of-the-mill PC hardware for the masses... well, we'll see, anyway.
Whereas, the PSX2, with its revolutionary design and take-no-prisoners custom chip designs, appeals to my primordial developer roots at a fundamental level.
Sony is the undisputed master of mass manufacturing consumer electronic products, which is what gaming platforms have become, and I seriously doubt whether Microsoft has what it takes to prove that it can do this, properly, to its shareholders. Don't forget that they've gotta show profitability for the X-Box division relatively quickly
Now, having said that, I will say that I will be watching the *developer* relationships that are fostered by these companies very closely. I wonder what lessons Sony have learned from the Net Yaroze program for the PSX - are they going to be a more developer friendly company with PSX2 this time around?
Obviously, developer relations is about the only thing that Microsoft has over Sony, so what's going to happen there, I wonder...
I predict, and time will tell, that at the very least (and possibly the very most) MS' X-Box release will have a *good* influence on the developer situation for the other platforms...
I don't think anyone would have a fair argument against having a tool that, as you say, allows you to do a bloody good job at building apps with a tool you are comfortable with.
One of the reasons everyone is so excited about Delphi on Linux is because Delphi is such an excellent rapid application tool, with a very good easy to use and easy to understand programming language, with great GUI capabilities.
Most technical/programmer people, in the Linux world at least, like well designed software that does a good job, and which fundamentally makes sense most of the time. The reason I personally find Delphi to be enjoyable as an environment, and which many people agree with me on, is that it makes programming *FUN* again - and the way that happens has a lot to do with the sensible design of the Delphi environment, and the Object Pascal language.
There is a lot of nonsensical design in Visual Basic however, which does *not* make sense. If you want to read a good article that describes a lot of problems with the way that Microsoft has designed Visual Basic, I suggest you read this article:
Thirteen Ways to Loath Visual Basic
I point this out not to be inflammatory, but to show you one of the reasons why you get so much flack as a Visual Basic programmer, and to point out that Delphi on Linux is a really good thing because a) it provides the ease of use that you're used to on Visual Basic, without any of the utter stupidities of VB (see article for details), and b) it's a very powerful environment for creating world class apps in its own right.
And, lastly, the design of Object Pascal and the Delphi environment is so good that, dare I say it, it will actually c) make you a better programmer.
And that's why its exciting that Delphi is coming to Linux.
... the GUI tools for Linux are as easy to use as they are for Delphi/Win.
If Delphi/Linux requires a shift of paradigm in the way the GUI stuff works/integrates with code, I won't mind that so much - as long as I get the same sort of environment.
Porting most of my apps from Windows to Linux would be *good*, but it wouldn't disappoint me if I wasn't able to do this as a result of some design decision Borland/Inprise had to make in order to make Delphi/Linux work well, such as a difference in the way the various GUI toolkit/libs work compared to Win32 API's...
As a long-time Linux user, and a recent religious convert to the ways of Delphi (having, wrongly, abandoned my old faithful Turbo Pascal skills when Windows 3.0 came along in favor of C/C++, which was a *HUGE* mistake because I'd written about 3 million lines of Turbo Pascal code during the late 80's/early 90's), I am totally ready for Linux Delphi.
Delphi rocks, as a RAD tool. There really isn't much out there for Windows that can compare - Delphi *ACTUALLY* made Windows programming fun again - specifically the extremely well-designed VCL.
Prior to Delphi, Windows suffered the same fundamental problem that Linux currently does, at least for me anyway, which is that there are a large number of API's, and multiple different ways of doing things, from a developer standpoint.
The Delphi VCL changed all of that for me as a developer who cares about getting things done fast, as rock solid as possible - it encapsulates a lot of the dreck that is the Windows GUI API, and makes it productive.
Now, I'm not saying that Linux is the same - certainly, the GNOME/KDE efforts are very well designed projects, but there is still a last-step of organization that is required to make RAD a reality for those GUI environments, and I sincerely hope that Delphi can bring that into the Linux mix. Either way, Linux will still be a great platform to deploy apps on, and I use it every day regardless - its just that the Delphi way of doing RAD is going to make for a *huge* shift in developer focus away from such mundane things as library dependence, text-based GUI design, towards rapid application development.
And, since Linux needs apps, rapid app development can only be a good thing.
When I can use Delphi to build apps on Linux, I will ditch whatever last vestiges of control Microsofts operating systems have over my current development environment/requirements, and happily be a full-time Linux developer. Right now, I'm *forced* to use Windows as a client software deployment platform, because Delphi makes Windows programming so damned fast...
No kidding. I'm originally from Perth (live in Los Angeles now) and when I went back to Australia a few years ago (96), I stopped by Sydney to recover from jet lag before heading home to see the folks. I'd lived in Sydney for a year before I came to the US, and was horrified to find out just *how* American Sydney had become.
It could practically be excused for a typical US city - in fact, its annexation into America, while certainly not officially sanctioned by the US/Australian governments, has effectively taken place on an economic/corporate scale.
Subway Sandwich shops everywhere, Starbucks, all the standard US pickin's for a commercial franchises.
And, horror of horrors, it would appear that Sydney-ites have permitted the development of that depraved icon of American commercial culture, the strip mall!
So, if you're an American looking for an Australian vacation, don't go to Sydney expecting to see much in the way of Australian culture. Go to Darwin or Perth - no, better yet. Stay the hell away from Perth, go to Brisbane. You'll love it so much, you'll want to stay there - which is why you shouldn't go to Perth!
After all, there are perfectly good launch systems that are more efficient than the Shuttle already in place, already being used to achieve low-earth orbit.
...
:)
Going to the Moon is something the shuttle (and its existing launch systems) is unable to do.
In the context of this discussion, rebuilding the Saturn V would only really be worth the effort if we wanted to go to the moon again in a historic sense... something akin to the 'build a boat out of reeds and sail it across the Atlantic' experiment a few years ago, which I've forgotten the name of.
Anyway, since most modern launch platforms for deep space are designed to be as efficient as possible, and I remember reading somewhere (don't have the link handy, sorry, somewhere on NASA's site) that the majority of the deep-space, outer-earth orbit stuff that NASA does is only possible due to the use of the Earth to 'slingshot' cargo out
So, maybe we could use the shuttle system to get up into Earth orbit, and use the Earth itself to slingshot off to the moon again - thus not requiring the heavy industry for the Saturn V program.
Remember, our computers are much better now than they were in the 60's, and calculating space trajectories using the slingshot method may just be better than rebuilding heavy hardware to get us out to Lagrange...
As long as NASA remembers what measurement system to use, of course.
... think about it, she's the sleeper character in the Simpsons.
If they did it right, they could grow Maggy into a new character that sustains the Simpsons for another couple of seasons.
... but what the heck. I'd love to watch a Simpsons movie.
...
It's really sorta hard to imagine what it'd be like, though... I think part of the beauty of the Simpsons is the simplicity of the plots, buffed by the arcane insanity of the in-between stuff that goes on, often in the background. Dunno if I could handle a full hour and a half of that, but maybe... just maybe
(Here in LA, Fox shows Simpsons 3 times daily... admittedly, there's a lot of repeats, but hey, it's Homer-ific!)
... either.
And for one, I don't get it. NASA news is news for nerds, and its generally about stuff that matters.
But, see, Slashdot stories are selected by Rob and Hemos and the gang. Its stuff that's interesting to them. Thus, Slashdot is a cult of personality - the personalities that are Hemos, CmdrTaco, etc.
So, tough.
Maybe this already has/had/happened is will happeningly happen. (Damn English tenses and their unwillingness to bend to time travel...)
Maybe this is why he was able to accurately hint that lightning might be harnessed, that distant stars contained distant worlds, with life. Maybe this explains Bruno's arrogance, his egocentrics... maybe he's been here, watched MTV, and, given a taste of the future, took some of it back with him.
Only time will tell ...
... I really look forward to the day that Delphi, or C++ Builder, is available for software development on Linux.
And I hope that surveys like this are done honestly by the Linux community - Inprise/Borland have always been a great company for developers, and it can only make sense for them to be involved in the Linux movement.
It seems to me, that with Inprise/Borland on its turf, Linux would be an ideal software development platform. Better than the existing options, anyway.
If you've got an xg9, join the mailing list:
xg9-list-subscribe@teklab.com
I have an XG9, and am actually pretty happy with it though I could've waited a month and picked up a better spec'ed F390 instead...
My DVD drive appears to have died on my XG9 too, though its probably a driver problem, I haven't had a chance to fix it.
Dunno about Linux compatability though...
... their own emulator.
... this would dilute the feature set of the PSX2 a little, marketing-wise, and thus detract from the launch.
After all, isn't it true that Sony make all of their profits from the Playstation empire from sales of the games, not the consoles? That in fact, the consoles themselves don't make *any* profit?
That sounds like software, to me... seems they'd have to be a pretty damned stupid company to not release their own PSX emulator.
Oh, wait. I just thought of a reason why they wouldn't release an emulator for the PSX: PSX2.
Since the PSX2 is supposed to be fully compatible with the PSX game titles, it would be a poor marketing move to release a software-PSX right around the time of the PSX2 release
Bummer for Sony. Too bad they didn't think of doing the software-PSX thing a year ago, but then that's the breaks in the high tech world, and I guess they were already raking it in anyway with the game title profits...
Good points, all true.
I guess we're just not ready, politically and socially.
Some of us are, probably, but I fear thats only because we're not really facing up to whats in front of us, socially, politically, and technologically, as a species.
I mean, sure, if there were a cheap way to do it I'm sure there'd be a massive exodus to space by those in our society who'd like to do things they can't do on Earth, but that's a long ways off, I'm sure.