Ok, as only partially-initiated, I must ask, in spite of the simplicity of the philosophy of Unix, why oh why are there so many damn interdependencies in applications? Example: I install RedHat (yeah, shut up, it was the only thing that would install over DHCP on this old ThinkPad, after trying FreeBSD, Slackware, NetBSD, and TurboLinux), and choose the most minimal of configurations, and also choosing some small tools like cvs, etc. Well all of a sudden it is prompting me for all sorts of other dependent packages. I could not believe it when it told me I needed the entirety of KDE, and *then* also GNOME to satisfy dependencies! That is bullshit. Tk, Tcl, Python, Perl, Expect (!)...how the hell many things do I need to install? Am I the only one who thinks that backending GUI or administrative applications by Perl is just a god-awful abuse?
Sure this is just one experience, but I've found the same general thing when installing other distributions. Is this just a commercial flaw? Or do other "non-commercial" distributions like Slackware and Debian not require this? I just boggle at the horrendous amount of crap that even the most trivial of applications is dependent upon.
So what? Who in their right mind would be using Millenium when dos and 9x are being phased out in the first place in favor of Windows 2000? I say good riddence.
My screwdriver and wrench still don't have 5 character LCD displays with which I can browse the well and get stock quotes. I say there is still a lot of convergence needed.
Yes there are a lot of clueless protesters who just protest because they have no life and think they are being alternative or something. These vandalizing idiots make it worse for legitimate protesters. Although I have to say I still think it would've been funny if they released those snakes into the convention.
Anyway, if any of you aren't yet convinced that both candidates are hollow puppets on the strings of major corporations, and really think they give a shit about you, do yourself a favor, look through the hype to the reality and history of both parties (not just the glossy stuff they feed you) and read up on Nader. I usually mind my own damn business but I think raising awareness is at least worth the shame of a gratuitous plug.
Re:Half-Life did not have a good story
on
New Doom Details
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· Score: 2
Well the Half-Life storyline was both realistic and intriguing. I mean, it was actually probable and along the way everything you encountered was pretty much feasable. It built a consuming reality, and have real goals that you *wanted* to achieve (if I get to the other side of the facility, the scientists might tell me what's going on; yay rescue is here - why the hell are they attacking me!)
Star Trek the Next Generation was high science fiction. It was very plausible. Every Star Trek past STNG has been a pathetic and lame soap opera and they should just shoot the franchise in the head to put it out of its pain.
And Independence Day sucked ass. (wow, aliens are attacking us, I feel scared, yet strangely patriotic and bonded to my fellow human being, disregarding any superficial differences we may have, let's fly fighter planes and upload a "virus" from a mac to the alien mothership). *YAWN* The only thing that was more hackneyed than that was Armageddon which couldn't even make the pretense of making any sense. (wow, I didn't know you could breath air without a space suit on an asteriod)
ditto. Java is designed so that even if you're program is poorly written, unless it's pathalogical, it won't crash or have any effect. Things that will have an effect are something like creating tons of objects just to try to run out of memory, or deadlocking due to poor threading code.
"Could copyright violation become stigmatized, much as smoking has, or could such an action be the final straw that turns public opinion against the large corporations once and for all?"
Copyright violation is (at least in my experience) and *should* be stigmatized. Just as stealing and murder. But as such, there are mitigating circumstances (stealing food because your family is starving, killing in self defense). To my knowledge there are a lot of people who like the flexibility of MP3 and are only using it because there *is* no way to legally buy the ones they want. Of course there is a majority of lamers who say they're doing it for the same purposes but just want warez. In any case, MP3 needs to be legitimized and business models incentivized so people don't *have* to steal/copy/copyright infringe.
"I may not agree with their moves all the time, but I trust that they are only concerned about the best interest of our country. Why would they go out of their way to harm the very citizens who keep them running?"
HA! Now that is funny. This is the organization that kept files on every major hollywood and artistic figure (lesse, Beatles, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, etc.), because they were all commies. Just ask them for the Dorothey Kilgallen files, and why she all of a sudden was found dead, supposedly a "suicide", right before she was about to break her story...all her files magically missing.
Remember, keep a VERY healthy skepticism of these been faceless organizations.
"Your television and cable services cost you money."
Yes, but any advertising on that medium, comes *from* the provider, so the content provider is paying for it (or actually, being paid for advertisement). It is not *costing* them anything, and anything it costs you, you pretty much knew of ahead of time anyway (even PBS now has "commercials").
"Your telephone services cost you money."
And there are several anti-telemarketing laws.
"Indeed, your mailbox cost you money to maintain."
Well, I don't know if there are any junk mail laws but there probably should be. Although that would probably take down the PO profit margin. According to the junk I get I'd say a third to a half of letter-sized mail the PO handles is junk.
Just visited LibertyBoard and the first ad I saw was: "Boycott Anheuser-Busch for Open Debates". That should give you a clue how much vested interest big corporations have in politics, and the myth of voting with your wallet.
"I think that everyone here knows that no company has a monopoly, virtual or otherwise, on either food or clothing."
Do you know where your food *really* comes from? Do you know the policies of the global supplier of soy beans for instance? How can you as a consumer possibly make an intelligent decision on what food products you buy when they all get their raw materials from nameless faceless multibillion dollar corporation whose policies and behavior you are unaware of?
"Even if every petrol company in the world did get together and raise their prices to the same level, it would simply spur innovation in alternative energy sources. That's exactly what happened in the 1970's OPEC oil crisis. The whole country started getting into alternative energy sources. There were ads everywhere for solar panels, wind-powered generators, etc. That's also when automakers started paying attention to fuel-efficiency."
They've been doing it for *decades*. So where they hell are all the solar and wind generators? Where is all this "research" and "innovation" in alternative forms of energy? It's bogus. Monopolies will never "spur innovation" as long as they control government.
Regulation in the *operational use* of technology can be a bad thing.
I agree, and never suggested it. (unless you consider imposing standards an operation use, in which case ANSI should probably be abolished)
These are dramatic exceptions which constitute a very small fraction of inventions/year. Yes, Japan comes out w/ gadgets, and Finland is ahead in mobile. But if you consider the technological-industrial economy as a *whole*, including pharmaceuticals, heavy machinery, electrical appliances, etc., US corporations are dominant in *most* sectors of the industrial economy.
It was my impression we were talking specifically about the computer/software industry. I have no doubt that we do pretty well in many industries.
Microsoft is less than 5% of the software industry. I guess it makes for a convenient shooting post to prove practically any point on/.
Again, I didn't say the *entire* software industry. I set desktop market. In which it is a monopoly (at least as far as market share).
In any case, vigorous competition in the OS arena before MS became a monopoly was better than the *govt*
picking a standard OS and instituting a National Commission on Operating Systems to regulate its standards
development. Surely you agree that letting OSes fight it out is the best approach? Obviously, you can't guarantee a
good result each time. Which is why the DOJ is there.
My point was exactly that. Unfettered capitalism doesn't *always* lead to the best result, as some seem to religiously claim. To disprove something you don't have to prove the opposite.
I didn't suggest pure capitalism.
Well if you didn't directly, you at least indicated "In almost every case, what you describe as a limitation (being unfettered by govt. regulation) is the key advantage that US business has over the rest of the world.". Seems like "unfettered by govt. regulation" is pretty close to "pure capitalism".
Sure, you need regulation on matters of environment, labor, etc., but NOT on *technical standards*. Let the companies fight it out and the best one win.
The observation was that a laissez-faire approach has left us behind. It was just an observation.
"Ideally, if consumers are abused, they will take it out on the company by complaining, or just moving to another product. Then the abusing company either rights their ways or dies."
And how exactly can a consumer complain or boycott companies which are virtual monopolies on necessities? You just can't. You have to eat, you have to have some sort of clothes, you pretty much need electricity and hot water. Also, voting with your wallet just means that the rich get a bigger vote. Boycott all you want, your vote doesn't count.
"I don't think it's the system that is broken so much as the consumer these days. This, I feel, is one of the biggest problems in America today. People don't accept their responsibility as consumers. I think that a lot of people are just too taken in by marketing to sit down and rationally consider their choices."
I think it's both. Corporations feed the consumers what they think they want to hear, and the consumers overloaded with pandering, just pick the ritziest presentation. Something is wrong when companies start spending considerable, if not more, money on advertisement and packaging, than actual product. If there were actually choice, then it would be the consumer's fault. But I think in many cases there is no choice, or the choices are just equally bad (so, how exactly are you going to *choose* the company with saner gasoline prices? you can't, they're all fixed the same).
"Govts. don't have a good reputation for knowing what they're talking about when they make decisions on technology."
Well, OUR (US) government at least doesn't.
"This pretty much explains why Europe lags behind the US in most technologies."
HUH? Europe and Japan are *ahead* of us because they don't have all sorts of legacy cruft. All those new whizbang gadgets, and ubiquitious connection is happening in Europe and Japan.
"In almost every case, what you describe as a limitation (being unfettered by govt. regulation) is the key advantage that US business has over the rest of the world. This is indeed why the best minds flock to the US - so that they can do what they want in peace without some bureaucrat telling them what to do."
No standards does not necessarily mean innovation. I mean, just take microsoft...they have the whole desktop market cornered. What great "innovation" have we seen in that sector? How about "unfettered" drug companies that abuse the patent system to patent every possible thing under the sun, and then when the patents are going to run out, trivially change their "inventions" to no practical effect, just so they are technically "different" and can get a new patent on it.
"Pure" capitalism just replicates the "natural state" we try to avoid by government in the first place.
Couldn't the reverse, then be done, to take a fractal "fingerprint" of a type of music (say, jazz), add some variables and come up with original music?
If you could get unhung on the "sycophancy" you'd realize that is an important event, because it is the *first* time a corporation with a history of writing proprietary code has actually asked RMS to come and talk to the directly about Free Software and the GPL.
Hmm. Create a weblog? If database stuff is too complicated you can avoid using a database and just write to flat files on the file system or something. Should be rather interesting and able to be broken up into parts, to teach encapsulation.
I.e., one group of 3 does the file storage/database structure, another does the backend scripting/programming for manipulating user accounts and preferences, and a third group does the web page scripting (jsp, perl), to take use the library provided by the second group to actually serve requests and fill in content.
So you have three layers of abstraction: content layer, logic layer, and finally data layer. Each group has to depend on the good design and encapsulation of the other groups' stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, as only partially-initiated, I must ask, in spite of the simplicity of the philosophy of Unix, why oh why are there so many damn interdependencies in applications? Example: I install RedHat (yeah, shut up, it was the only thing that would install over DHCP on this old ThinkPad, after trying FreeBSD, Slackware, NetBSD, and TurboLinux), and choose the most minimal of configurations, and also choosing some small tools like cvs, etc. Well all of a sudden it is prompting me for all sorts of other dependent packages. I could not believe it when it told me I needed the entirety of KDE, and *then* also GNOME to satisfy dependencies! That is bullshit. Tk, Tcl, Python, Perl, Expect (!)...how the hell many things do I need to install? Am I the only one who thinks that backending GUI or administrative applications by Perl is just a god-awful abuse?
Sure this is just one experience, but I've found the same general thing when installing other distributions. Is this just a commercial flaw? Or do other "non-commercial" distributions like Slackware and Debian not require this? I just boggle at the horrendous amount of crap that even the most trivial of applications is dependent upon.
Ok, I'm putting on my asbestos trousers...
So what? Who in their right mind would be using Millenium when dos and 9x are being phased out in the first place in favor of Windows 2000? I say good riddence.
My screwdriver and wrench still don't have 5 character LCD displays with which I can browse the well and get stock quotes. I say there is still a lot of convergence needed.
Yes there are a lot of clueless protesters who just protest because they have no life and think they are being alternative or something. These vandalizing idiots make it worse for legitimate protesters. Although I have to say I still think it would've been funny if they released those snakes into the convention.
Anyway, if any of you aren't yet convinced that both candidates are hollow puppets on the strings of major corporations, and really think they give a shit about you, do yourself a favor, look through the hype to the reality and history of both parties (not just the glossy stuff they feed you) and read up on Nader. I usually mind my own damn business but I think raising awareness is at least worth the shame of a gratuitous plug.
Well the Half-Life storyline was both realistic and intriguing. I mean, it was actually probable and along the way everything you encountered was pretty much feasable. It built a consuming reality, and have real goals that you *wanted* to achieve (if I get to the other side of the facility, the scientists might tell me what's going on; yay rescue is here - why the hell are they attacking me!)
Star Trek the Next Generation was high science fiction. It was very plausible. Every Star Trek past STNG has been a pathetic and lame soap opera and they should just shoot the franchise in the head to put it out of its pain.
And Independence Day sucked ass. (wow, aliens are attacking us, I feel scared, yet strangely patriotic and bonded to my fellow human being, disregarding any superficial differences we may have, let's fly fighter planes and upload a "virus" from a mac to the alien mothership). *YAWN* The only thing that was more hackneyed than that was Armageddon which couldn't even make the pretense of making any sense. (wow, I didn't know you could breath air without a space suit on an asteriod)
I thought they already had Steven King develop all their stories. They're so boring and hackneyed.
ditto. Java is designed so that even if you're program is poorly written, unless it's pathalogical, it won't crash or have any effect. Things that will have an effect are something like creating tons of objects just to try to run out of memory, or deadlocking due to poor threading code.
"Could copyright violation become stigmatized, much as smoking has, or could such an action be the final straw that turns public opinion against the large corporations once and for all?"
Copyright violation is (at least in my experience) and *should* be stigmatized. Just as stealing and murder. But as such, there are mitigating circumstances (stealing food because your family is starving, killing in self defense). To my knowledge there are a lot of people who like the flexibility of MP3 and are only using it because there *is* no way to legally buy the ones they want. Of course there is a majority of lamers who say they're doing it for the same purposes but just want warez. In any case, MP3 needs to be legitimized and business models incentivized so people don't *have* to steal/copy/copyright infringe.
"I may not agree with their moves all the time, but I trust that they are only concerned about the best interest of our country. Why would they go out of their way to harm the very citizens who keep them running?"
HA! Now that is funny. This is the organization that kept files on every major hollywood and artistic figure (lesse, Beatles, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, etc.), because they were all commies. Just ask them for the Dorothey Kilgallen files, and why she all of a sudden was found dead, supposedly a "suicide", right before she was about to break her story...all her files magically missing.
Remember, keep a VERY healthy skepticism of these been faceless organizations.
"Your television and cable services cost you money."
Yes, but any advertising on that medium, comes *from* the provider, so the content provider is paying for it (or actually, being paid for advertisement). It is not *costing* them anything, and anything it costs you, you pretty much knew of ahead of time anyway (even PBS now has "commercials").
"Your telephone services cost you money."
And there are several anti-telemarketing laws.
"Indeed, your mailbox cost you money to maintain."
Well, I don't know if there are any junk mail laws but there probably should be. Although that would probably take down the PO profit margin. According to the junk I get I'd say a third to a half of letter-sized mail the PO handles is junk.
Just visited LibertyBoard and the first ad I saw was: "Boycott Anheuser-Busch for Open Debates". That should give you a clue how much vested interest big corporations have in politics, and the myth of voting with your wallet.
"I think that everyone here knows that no company has a monopoly, virtual or otherwise, on either food or clothing."
Do you know where your food *really* comes from? Do you know the policies of the global supplier of soy beans for instance? How can you as a consumer possibly make an intelligent decision on what food products you buy when they all get their raw materials from nameless faceless multibillion dollar corporation whose policies and behavior you are unaware of?
"Even if every petrol company in the world did get together and raise their prices to the same level, it would simply spur innovation in alternative energy sources. That's exactly what happened in the 1970's OPEC oil crisis. The whole country started getting into alternative energy sources. There were ads everywhere for solar panels, wind-powered generators, etc. That's also when automakers started paying attention to fuel-efficiency."
They've been doing it for *decades*. So where they hell are all the solar and wind generators? Where is all this "research" and "innovation" in alternative forms of energy? It's bogus. Monopolies will never "spur innovation" as long as they control government.
I agree, and never suggested it. (unless you consider imposing standards an operation use, in which case ANSI should probably be abolished)
It was my impression we were talking specifically about the computer/software industry. I have no doubt that we do pretty well in many industries.
Again, I didn't say the *entire* software industry. I set desktop market. In which it is a monopoly (at least as far as market share).
In any case, vigorous competition in the OS arena before MS became a monopoly was better than the *govt*
picking a standard OS and instituting a National Commission on Operating Systems to regulate its standards
development. Surely you agree that letting OSes fight it out is the best approach? Obviously, you can't guarantee a
good result each time. Which is why the DOJ is there.
My point was exactly that. Unfettered capitalism doesn't *always* lead to the best result, as some seem to religiously claim. To disprove something you don't have to prove the opposite.
Well if you didn't directly, you at least indicated "In almost every case, what you describe as a limitation (being unfettered by govt. regulation) is the key advantage that US business has over the rest of the world.". Seems like "unfettered by govt. regulation" is pretty close to "pure capitalism".
The observation was that a laissez-faire approach has left us behind. It was just an observation.
"Ideally, if consumers are abused, they will take it out on the company by complaining, or just moving to another product. Then the abusing company either rights their ways or dies."
And how exactly can a consumer complain or boycott companies which are virtual monopolies on necessities? You just can't. You have to eat, you have to have some sort of clothes, you pretty much need electricity and hot water. Also, voting with your wallet just means that the rich get a bigger vote. Boycott all you want, your vote doesn't count.
"I don't think it's the system that is broken so much as the consumer these days. This, I feel, is one of the biggest problems in America today. People don't accept their responsibility as consumers. I think that a lot of people are just too taken in by marketing to sit down and rationally consider their choices."
I think it's both. Corporations feed the consumers what they think they want to hear, and the consumers overloaded with pandering, just pick the ritziest presentation. Something is wrong when companies start spending considerable, if not more, money on advertisement and packaging, than actual product. If there were actually choice, then it would be the consumer's fault. But I think in many cases there is no choice, or the choices are just equally bad (so, how exactly are you going to *choose* the company with saner gasoline prices? you can't, they're all fixed the same).
"Govts. don't have a good reputation for knowing what they're talking about when they make decisions on technology."
Well, OUR (US) government at least doesn't.
"This pretty much explains why Europe lags behind the US in most technologies."
HUH? Europe and Japan are *ahead* of us because they don't have all sorts of legacy cruft. All those new whizbang gadgets, and ubiquitious connection is happening in Europe and Japan.
"In almost every case, what you describe as a limitation (being unfettered by govt. regulation) is the key advantage that US business has over the rest of the world. This is indeed why the best minds flock to the US - so that they can do what they want in peace without some bureaucrat telling them what to do."
No standards does not necessarily mean innovation. I mean, just take microsoft...they have the whole desktop market cornered. What great "innovation" have we seen in that sector? How about "unfettered" drug companies that abuse the patent system to patent every possible thing under the sun, and then when the patents are going to run out, trivially change their "inventions" to no practical effect, just so they are technically "different" and can get a new patent on it.
"Pure" capitalism just replicates the "natural state" we try to avoid by government in the first place.
Couldn't the reverse, then be done, to take a fractal "fingerprint" of a type of music (say, jazz), add some variables and come up with original music?
Trekkies will recognize Epsilon Eridani as the sun of Spock's home planet Vulcan. I propose we name the planet Vulcan.
but you already pay twice when you buy it once
Slightly offtopic, but interesting:
Gore: Linux, Apache (PHP)
Nader: BSD/OS, Apache (PHP)
Bush: Windows 2000, IIS (!!!)
Buchanan: Linux, Apache (Frontpage, PHP)
(according to netcraft)
I think both Bush and Nader's are sort of indicative of the candidates.
If you could get unhung on the "sycophancy" you'd realize that is an important event, because it is the *first* time a corporation with a history of writing proprietary code has actually asked RMS to come and talk to the directly about Free Software and the GPL.
don't waste flames on this guy
Yeah, but if you browse with tv-paint on your shirt to 2600.com, you might be arrested for trafficking DeCSS.
Hmm. Create a weblog? If database stuff is too complicated you can avoid using a database and just write to flat files on the file system or something. Should be rather interesting and able to be broken up into parts, to teach encapsulation.
I.e., one group of 3 does the file storage/database structure, another does the backend scripting/programming for manipulating user accounts and preferences, and a third group does the web page scripting (jsp, perl), to take use the library provided by the second group to actually serve requests and fill in content.
So you have three layers of abstraction: content layer, logic layer, and finally data layer. Each group has to depend on the good design and encapsulation of the other groups' stuff.
Ralph Nader: Millionaire Hypocrite?
you really have friends?