TiVo doesn't build the boxes, Sony and Philips do. Sony and Philips have paid TiVo for a license to build the boxes, and you pay TiVo to use the service. So, TiVo doesn't really care what you do with the unit (bigger hard drive, network interface for your TiVo Beowulf cluster, etc.), as long as you fork over your monthly service charge. Sony and Philips on the other hand...
Alpha transparency would be really nice in the case where you have a window hanging out in the
background of your display that doesn't change much, or has stuff that you don't need to devote your whole attention to, like a log file or biff or something. I would like to be able to set my
focussed window to be 25% transparent, so I can still work with it, and still easily see through the front window to the back one in case something
interesting happens there.
Then, a window would really be a like a window, not like
an opaque peice of paper.
IIRC, the reason why X fonts look like crap is that most servers cannot antialias the fonts, and again, IIRC, I believe they can't because of some issue with the X Protocol..
X with an alpha channel and antialiased fonts, with full compatibility with existing clients would be yummy...
So, how can the game makers prevent this sort of abuse in network play? Some sort of video card identification sent to the game server? They can't not send the positional data to the clients, as that would kill performace..
The 3L TDI Volkswagen Lupo is called "3L" because it is the first production car that can travel 100 kilometers (62 miles) on less than three liters (.75 gallons) of feul. That's about 83 miles per gallon. They are driving it around the world with 1000l of juice, covering 33,333km.
These reasons, in addition to some of the ArsTechnica (What's with this whole 'Ars' thing, anyway?) comments like The car doesn't exactly inspire confidence when taken hard around a bend in the road and The manual transmission is a bit notchy and the clutch is a bit lightweight (feels like a toy actually), are why I'd much rather drive the Lupo. Small VWs kick ass. (Though I now own a big VW.)
This, and you'll find it much easier to find a mechanic with the skills and equipment to diagnose and fix a pure deisel engine (even one as advanced as VW's TDi engines) than one who knows the internals of Honda's hybrid, which means maintenance costs will be lower.
Too bad you can't pick up the Lupo in the States, but you can get its cousin, the Golf, which is an awesome car for its price..
I hate to sound like a VW commercial here, but Honda may have a solution for something that's already been solved, at least in Europe..
Take a look at eCos, which is a freely available from formerly-Cygnus-now-RedHat... I'm not sure about the license, if it fits the blessed "Open Source" definition, but eCos is deisgned for these types of applications, and is gaining acceptance...
SOLID is a nice lightweight database that supports transactions, and even some load-sharing/replcation (though I've never used this particular feature..) They also have a good, reliable JDBC driver (for you Java fans out there), and 'traditional' C based client libraries for about a dozen platforms (Win32, FreeBSD, Linux, etc.)
The Java Foundation Classes, better known as Swing, are 'lightweight': They don't use the underlying GUIs' widgets.
Swing does however support 'look-n-feel' classes, and Sun ships looks and feels for Windows, Motif, and 'Metal' (which is the most aesthetically pleasing, IMNSHO). O've also seen a decent BeOS LnF. Theoretically, you can write a look-n-feel that knows how to use the same pixmap sources the KDE/Gnome/whatever themes. That exercise is left to the reader:^)
...if the source meterial is not licensed to you. In other words, you are allowed to make an archival backup copy of your CD, not anyone else's.
Think of it like this: When you bought the CD, say Metallica's MoP, you purchased license #12345 of MoP. However, you are downloading a recording of MoP with license #45678, for which you have not purchased a license. No, they are not the same thing, because #45678 may be the superdeluxe extra feature edition of MoP, for example...
So, the RIAA can't complain if you encode MP3's, make CD or MiniDisc copies of MoP #12345, for your own use. Distributing this would be a license violation.
This is why my.mp3.com is getting nailed to the wall, too.
Obviously, the 'genie' can never be put back into the bottle, no matter what the RIAA decides to attack this week. The MPAA had better take notice, because this will happen to them as prices for bandwidth and storage decreases.
I'd like to turn this around on you: mp3.com got started on the premise that they would bring unknown acts to the forefront of the Internet-using audience. I've found some really good local music via mp3.com. However, can any artist currently claim they got their Big Break from them? Probably not.
Did they deserve to get smacked by the RIAA? Absolutely. But that topic has been bashed to death, given recent events.
So, if you don't like the RIAA stance on this, don't support them by buying albums protected by them! Go to mp3.com, look up the local listings, and get at some really good, local music, and support them. They list a very wide variety of music, although the 'barrier of entry' can be too low.. [ Note: Bloops and bleeps from your Casio keyboard does *not* necessarily make you an "artist"..:^) ]
That said, a highly skilled C programmer will always be able to deliver a superior product - all other things considered equal (features, debug cycle, etc), the C programmer's product will always be better performing.
Of course, in all Real Life projects, there are lots of developers working on various parts of a project. You've got to be *extremenly careful* while making a C based application with lots of developers, as there are an incredible amount of gotchas that can sneak up on you.. Spending days to hunt down an obscure but critical memory leak costs money...
Java is more strongly typed, and the built-in GC makes that memory leak less critical (yes, you can still cause leaks in Java, but they typically won't kill you like they will in a non-GC environment.) These types of features make it much easier to develop a large application with a teams of programmers with various skill levels and backgrounds.
Linux is unlikely to find itself on this list, mostly because IT IS NOT A DESKTOP OS! I hate to burst the bubble, but examples of a Desktop OS (for the masses) - Windows, MacOS, Be - have been designed from the ground up as a desktop experience.
Perhaps, but you have more choice than you did a couple of years ago.. Linux has grown up (even as a desktop OS) considerably in the past few years, BeOS has come into vogue, I'd even guess *BSD is experiencing more popularity than it did...
And Java gets faster, more supported, etc., there is the possibility of more choice.. Which is a Good Thing.
More widespread use of digitally signing binary or source packages (via PGP, X.509, whatever), that would be automatically verified by rpm, apt, or some standalone tool (for you.tar.gz folks out there) would help out quite a bit, as you would be able to verify the source of the packaging. Of course, you would have to trust the folks you are downloading from. This technique would work well for protecting against rogue kernel patches and the like, if you trust Linus' or Alan's signatures.
This does not, however, protect against signed code that can be compromised. Obviously, if you compromise anything running as root, you own the system. The problem with Linux (and probably most *nix) is that security is based solely on ?uid, and not a more rich security model, such as determining which resources are granted to which process based on uid, some external certificate, etc...
If all of these things matter so much, then as a customer of the school, you should take your business elsewhere (ie, go to a different university).
They have reasons for these rules, and there are reasons for service restrictions, but the two together are fairly procrustean. Not that they're out of their rights to do so. But I think students always have the right to be outraged at the restrictions placed on them by administration.
Hey, students can be outraged about whatever they feel, so if they don't like how they are treaated, well, there are thousands of other universities to choose from, some of whom don't care about things like Napster and Dialpad. This is just one of the many criteria that should go in to your decision on what school to choose, and be weighted appropriately.
Wow, I wish I could moderate Metcalfe's article down..
So what I want to know is, if open-source is so cool, and if Torvalds "gets it," which isn't Crusoe open source? For a start, why aren't the Crusoe chip's mask sources published for modification and manufacture by anyone?
Just because Linus is an employee, doesn't mean he has any say whatsoever on the intellectual property policy of Transmeta. Have Intel, AMD, and IBM released mask sources for their products?
Worce, Crusoe is touted for running Intel X86 software, and in particular, Microsoft Windows. Doesn't the open-source community say Windows is beneath comtempt?
Sorry, there Bobby, I didn't know the 'open-source community' had that policy set. Dammit Linus, Alan, Bruce, RMS, why didn't any of you guys tell me that I must fanatically froth at the mount when the mere name Windows is uttered...
[...muttering about code fragmentation...]
As has been discussed in this forum before, the GPL is designed to allow, if not encourage fragmentation. Since all derivative works (such as Mobile Linux) are under GPL, the 'good' modifications will end up across all of the fragments, which may share so much that the fragments merge. Open source software is a living, breathing thing. Darwinian even: bad fragments will quickly wither and die. Good traits will be rewarded by being passwd down generation to generation.
Dave Taylor (formerly of id, founder of crack.com, currently at Transmeta)'s crack.com game Abuse (now open-sourced, I believe) uses LISP as its scripting/scenario engine... That was *really* cool, but couldn't survive the onslaught of the first-person shooters and real time clickfe^H^H^H^H^H^H^H strategy games during 1995 or so...
At this point, it's quite clear that Russia will have great difficulty contributing their share of resources on this project. Russia apparently has enough other problems to worry about. And the ISS is eating up a huge chunk of NASA's budget, which would be better spent on small, high-tech missions like the Mars probes.. The benefits of the space station are minimal compared to the cost to build it; it just doesn't make sense, economically.
One way it could make sense would be if corporations fund it, in exchange for research of manufacturing in a low-G environment... Once the doors are opened, we would likely see consumer demand for these products, which would spur more private funding, etc.
Hopefully, NASA will wake up to the fact that the only people to have witnessed man's walk on the moon are all over thirty years old.. Could NASA put another man on the moon? Let's forget about manned Mars missions for a bit, and let's go back to the moon, it's a lot closer...
<rant> And while I'm on the topic, I cringe every time any press release about Mars includes any comments to the fact that there 'may have been life' there. Who cares? Just trying to drum up NASA interest in the drooling media-sheep in the US... </rant>
[ Really idiotic crap about 'bandwidth jealosy', etc., deleted. ]
This gets into that whole "educational use only" argument. I live on campus, and the internet net connection that I *pay* for here is the only one I get. Are you about to tell me that just because it is hooked up to the campus network directly that I'm not allowed to use it for anything non-eductional? That I'm not allowed to look at anything interesting on the Internet?
So you pay for it. Did you look at the agreement you most likely signed? It probably had some sort of 'educational use only' clause in there. If you don't agree with that, you shouldn't have signed it. Move off campus and get a cable modem or DSL and you can download all the porn and illegal MP3s you want, and the campus IT folks would have no say over it.
I take great offense to that. This is my home. This is my Internet Connection. I have no other. I believe I have a right to download whatever the heck I want.
The dorm is your home? Unless you own the place, that's not true. Sure, you pay to live there, which by law grants you certain priveledges, such as physical privacy, but you are using the campus network. You have the right to download only what they allow you to download. If they disallow televisions, and you want one, you have to either a) deal with it, or b) move out.
First of all, I have to pay, as I said.
So, assuming you are a savvy consumer, you know what you payed for in the first place.
Secondly, the cost of the bandwidth here is mostly fixed cost which has already been paid for. Adding my small bandwidth usage to the pot cost almost nothing to the University.
Who cares.
Third, having a wired school is a selling point. It probably makes them more money by attracting students.
Again, who cares? That has nothing to do between the contract you signed with the school.
Fourth, high bandwidth for cheap encourages students to become net savvy, as you said. This is a good thing.
No, it encourages them to download porn and illegal MP3s. Unless you can think of any other educationally oriented high bandwidth uses for dorm networks, that use off-campus resources...
Did you ever use the phones to call a friend? Did you have cable at school? This isn't about enterntainment, this is about some basic things that people in the US expect of their living quarters. If my dorm wasn't networked, I wouldn't be here. It's that simple.
Most people wouldn't sign away their rights, and then bitch about it, like you apparently are. It's that simple.
More interesting than the actual product being sold, can this be a new model for funding science, as Congress slashes funding scientific efforts left and right (ie NASA)? It will be interesting to see if other commercial science orgs will do the same thing (build something for consumers that's "cool" to finance the real science)...
Ah yes, 300 baud, and we didn't have no stinkin' Hayes command set! I had to load the terminal program from tape (about 2 minutes), dial the (rotary) phone, wait for the tone, disconnect the headset, and plug it into the modem... But make sure the switch was in the 'originate' setting first!
23*22 charaters... You C-64 folks with 40 chars per line were spoiled... You even had more than 5K of RAM in that box.. Geez...
I remember using a teletypewriter in junior high. With acoustic coupler, no less.
Slashdot Mirror
TiVo doesn't build the boxes, Sony and Philips do. Sony and Philips have paid TiVo for a license to build the boxes, and you pay TiVo to use the service. So, TiVo doesn't really care what you do with the unit (bigger hard drive, network interface for your TiVo Beowulf cluster, etc.), as long as you fork over your monthly service charge. Sony and Philips on the other hand...
Then, a window would really be a like a window, not like an opaque peice of paper.
X with an alpha channel and antialiased fonts, with full compatibility with existing clients would be yummy...
Any ideas?
The Insight, gets only 70mpg, and has less power.
These reasons, in addition to some of the ArsTechnica (What's with this whole 'Ars' thing, anyway?) comments like The car doesn't exactly inspire confidence when taken hard around a bend in the road and The manual transmission is a bit notchy and the clutch is a bit lightweight (feels like a toy actually), are why I'd much rather drive the Lupo. Small VWs kick ass. (Though I now own a big VW.)
This, and you'll find it much easier to find a mechanic with the skills and equipment to diagnose and fix a pure deisel engine (even one as advanced as VW's TDi engines) than one who knows the internals of Honda's hybrid, which means maintenance costs will be lower.
Too bad you can't pick up the Lupo in the States, but you can get its cousin, the Golf, which is an awesome car for its price..
I hate to sound like a VW commercial here, but Honda may have a solution for something that's already been solved, at least in Europe..
Take a look at eCos, which is a freely available from formerly-Cygnus-now-RedHat... I'm not sure about the license, if it fits the blessed "Open Source" definition, but eCos is deisgned for these types of applications, and is gaining acceptance...
Solid Information Technology
No, being a Tommy billboard says to the world, "I am just another mall-fashion-wearing clone, just like you!"
Truly expensive (and fashionable) clothing has no logos.
Swing does however support 'look-n-feel' classes, and Sun ships looks and feels for Windows, Motif, and 'Metal' (which is the most aesthetically pleasing, IMNSHO). O've also seen a decent BeOS LnF. Theoretically, you can write a look-n-feel that knows how to use the same pixmap sources the KDE/Gnome/whatever themes. That exercise is left to the reader :^)
Think of it like this: When you bought the CD, say Metallica's MoP, you purchased license #12345 of MoP. However, you are downloading a recording of MoP with license #45678, for which you have not purchased a license. No, they are not the same thing, because #45678 may be the superdeluxe extra feature edition of MoP, for example...
So, the RIAA can't complain if you encode MP3's, make CD or MiniDisc copies of MoP #12345, for your own use. Distributing this would be a license violation.
This is why my.mp3.com is getting nailed to the wall, too.
I'd like to turn this around on you: mp3.com got started on the premise that they would bring unknown acts to the forefront of the Internet-using audience. I've found some really good local music via mp3.com. However, can any artist currently claim they got their Big Break from them? Probably not.
Did they deserve to get smacked by the RIAA? Absolutely. But that topic has been bashed to death, given recent events.
So, if you don't like the RIAA stance on this, don't support them by buying albums protected by them! Go to mp3.com, look up the local listings, and get at some really good, local music, and support them. They list a very wide variety of music, although the 'barrier of entry' can be too low.. [ Note: Bloops and bleeps from your Casio keyboard does *not* necessarily make you an "artist".. :^) ]
Of course, in all Real Life projects, there are lots of developers working on various parts of a project. You've got to be *extremenly careful* while making a C based application with lots of developers, as there are an incredible amount of gotchas that can sneak up on you.. Spending days to hunt down an obscure but critical memory leak costs money...
Java is more strongly typed, and the built-in GC makes that memory leak less critical (yes, you can still cause leaks in Java, but they typically won't kill you like they will in a non-GC environment.) These types of features make it much easier to develop a large application with a teams of programmers with various skill levels and backgrounds.
So after Uncle Sam breaks up Microsoft, Sun becomes a supplier to the military, and the rest is 23rd century history...
It runs UNICOS/mk, not Linux. Yet :^)
Perhaps, but you have more choice than you did a couple of years ago.. Linux has grown up (even as a desktop OS) considerably in the past few years, BeOS has come into vogue, I'd even guess *BSD is experiencing more popularity than it did...
And Java gets faster, more supported, etc., there is the possibility of more choice.. Which is a Good Thing.
This does not, however, protect against signed code that can be compromised. Obviously, if you compromise anything running as root, you own the system. The problem with Linux (and probably most *nix) is that security is based solely on ?uid, and not a more rich security model, such as determining which resources are granted to which process based on uid, some external certificate, etc...
They have reasons for these rules, and there are reasons for service restrictions, but the two together are fairly procrustean. Not that they're out of their rights to do so. But I think students always have the right to be outraged at the restrictions placed on them by administration.
Hey, students can be outraged about whatever they feel, so if they don't like how they are treaated, well, there are thousands of other universities to choose from, some of whom don't care about things like Napster and Dialpad. This is just one of the many criteria that should go in to your decision on what school to choose, and be weighted appropriately.
So what I want to know is, if open-source is so cool, and if Torvalds "gets it," which isn't Crusoe open source? For a start, why aren't the Crusoe chip's mask sources published for modification and manufacture by anyone?
Just because Linus is an employee, doesn't mean he has any say whatsoever on the intellectual property policy of Transmeta. Have Intel, AMD, and IBM released mask sources for their products?
Worce, Crusoe is touted for running Intel X86 software, and in particular, Microsoft Windows. Doesn't the open-source community say Windows is beneath comtempt?
Sorry, there Bobby, I didn't know the 'open-source community' had that policy set. Dammit Linus, Alan, Bruce, RMS, why didn't any of you guys tell me that I must fanatically froth at the mount when the mere name Windows is uttered...
[...muttering about code fragmentation...]
As has been discussed in this forum before, the GPL is designed to allow, if not encourage fragmentation. Since all derivative works (such as Mobile Linux) are under GPL, the 'good' modifications will end up across all of the fragments, which may share so much that the fragments merge. Open source software is a living, breathing thing. Darwinian even: bad fragments will quickly wither and die. Good traits will be rewarded by being passwd down generation to generation.
Dave Taylor (formerly of id, founder of crack.com, currently at Transmeta)'s crack.com game Abuse (now open-sourced, I believe) uses LISP as its scripting/scenario engine... That was *really* cool, but couldn't survive the onslaught of the first-person shooters and real time clickfe^H^H^H^H^H^H^H strategy games during 1995 or so...
One way it could make sense would be if corporations fund it, in exchange for research of manufacturing in a low-G environment... Once the doors are opened, we would likely see consumer demand for these products, which would spur more private funding, etc.
Hopefully, NASA will wake up to the fact that the only people to have witnessed man's walk on the moon are all over thirty years old.. Could NASA put another man on the moon? Let's forget about manned Mars missions for a bit, and let's go back to the moon, it's a lot closer...
<rant>
And while I'm on the topic, I cringe every time any press release about Mars includes any comments to the fact that there 'may have been life' there. Who cares? Just trying to drum up NASA interest in the drooling media-sheep in the US...
</rant>
This gets into that whole "educational use only" argument. I live on campus, and the internet net connection that I *pay* for here is the only one I get. Are you about to tell me that just because it is hooked up to the campus network directly that I'm not allowed to use it for anything non-eductional? That I'm not allowed to look at anything interesting on the Internet?
So you pay for it. Did you look at the agreement you most likely signed? It probably had some sort of 'educational use only' clause in there. If you don't agree with that, you shouldn't have signed it. Move off campus and get a cable modem or DSL and you can download all the porn and illegal MP3s you want, and the campus IT folks would have no say over it.
I take great offense to that. This is my home. This is my Internet Connection. I have no other. I believe I have a right to download whatever the heck I want.
The dorm is your home? Unless you own the place, that's not true. Sure, you pay to live there, which by law grants you certain priveledges, such as physical privacy, but you are using the campus network. You have the right to download only what they allow you to download. If they disallow televisions, and you want one, you have to either a) deal with it, or b) move out.
First of all, I have to pay, as I said.
So, assuming you are a savvy consumer, you know what you payed for in the first place.
Secondly, the cost of the bandwidth here is mostly fixed cost which has already been paid for. Adding my small bandwidth usage to the pot cost almost nothing to the University.
Who cares.
Third, having a wired school is a selling point. It probably makes them more money by attracting students.
Again, who cares? That has nothing to do between the contract you signed with the school.
Fourth, high bandwidth for cheap encourages students to become net savvy, as you said. This is a good thing.
No, it encourages them to download porn and illegal MP3s. Unless you can think of any other educationally oriented high bandwidth uses for dorm networks, that use off-campus resources...
Did you ever use the phones to call a friend? Did you have cable at school? This isn't about enterntainment, this is about some basic things that people in the US expect of their living quarters. If my dorm wasn't networked, I wouldn't be here. It's that simple.
Most people wouldn't sign away their rights, and then bitch about it, like you apparently are. It's that simple.
-joev
More interesting than the actual product being sold, can this be a new model for funding science, as Congress slashes funding scientific efforts left and right (ie NASA)? It will be interesting to see if other commercial science orgs will do the same thing (build something for consumers that's "cool" to finance the real science)...
Of course, now I live in an old house owned by a former geek roomate, with 100baseT jacks in the walls, hooked up to the cable modem...
Digital could, look where it go them.
-joev
23*22 charaters... You C-64 folks with 40 chars per line were spoiled... You even had more than 5K of RAM in that box.. Geez...
I remember using a teletypewriter in junior high. With acoustic coupler, no less.
-joev, old fogie at 23..