saying Open source was reactionary might be correct but that is very different from giving Bill Gates the credit. (or in Bill Gates' case, self-claiming it.)
Giving Bill Gates credit for FS/OS is much like giving credit to all the criminals for a peaceful-lawful society. How you ask? Well, if it weren't for the criminals, we wouldn't have laws! If it weren't for tyrant rulers, we wouldn't have the notion of 'democracy'. So really, Hitler/Stalin/etc.. should have their faces on Mt. Rushmore and not our past presidents.
And, I disagree about FS/OS not growing as rapidly had MS not been there. I do agree that the zeal that is there wouldn't be. But progress progresses regardless. You get with it or it goes on without you. FS/OS is progress. IMO, FS/OS allows us to build a foundation of software that keeps on building. Commercial software keeps on building the same wheels over and over again. But that's a seperate discussion. So, with a foundation constantly building upon itself, progress is inevitable. All MS has managed to do is that it has tried to resist it. Built a dam of sorts. But leaks are springing and they're fighting tooth and nail to plug 'em. That was just a shareholder-PR hole they were trying to plug.
and i'll be handing over my paycheck to slashdot.;)
seriously tho, a lot of us depend on documentation online. especially in the open/free software crowd, it would cost an arm and a leg to access documentation online.
i know, i know, not all site would participate. but for how long?
We need micropayments. but at the same time, we need to be careful to not break the fundamental essence of the thing called the web (ie. http). as soon as this happens, i would want to know which links will cost me money. this will eventually lead to people being a lot more cautious on link-clickage. this in turn will lead to pretty much a static normal page full of plain text. quite a contrast from an inter-refrenced world of web-pages that it is now.
wouldn't the first step to holding out on MS be to first stop using their product in their own offices? I mean, Largo has successfully implemented Linux on their desktops. The government, i bet, is a big 'consumer' of MS products. If the government used linux, that should remedy things that lawsuits couldn't.
unless the estimate factors in the time it takes to load/. on any given day * 50 that estimate is no good. (because developers usually spend their time loading slashdot 50 times a day, silly.)
Re:grammar nazi Re:how about quadratic?
on
Ternary Computing
·
· Score: 1
well, they switched from Unix to linux. it *could* have been Unix to windows. who lost? if you've taken any business/financial/economics classes, you know what opportunity cost means. linux might not have managed to erode the windows market (at least in these cases). but seems to me , has managed to stop windows from eroding Unixes market share further.
i mean, around the time when NT4 came out, everyone and their brother were replacing big iron (with unix) with multiple NT boxens. seems like we've managed to check that. it's only a matter of time before linux invades the NT/w2k/(whatever they're calling it this week) market.
you gotta stop their advance before you can make 'em retreat.
if i were a redmondien, i would not be happy because linux is merely replacing Unix. i would be extreamly unhappy that linux is replacing Unix. it could have been winNT/(whatever...) that was replacing unix. opportunity costs for MS. no new revenue streams. no new market shares.
gottsa love how MS and winformants can put a spin on things.
well, equal to, greater than and less than coverage seems to be the strongest point for this puppy. how about the case where the operand is null? what then huh? dealing with databases everyday, this thing drives me nuts. we seriously need a quadritic computer with ==, >, and NULL.. native capabalities.
now that we're read it...
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
"...we are all now dumber..." -- from the 'nudie magazine day' movie.
lot of fun a bunch of you polked at the woody this guy built. wait till a mega corp decides that that's the new thing to go with your furniture and you'll all be lined up outside your favorite mall to pick one up for a fat wad of cash. i love the smell of corporate-brainwashed-gotta-buy-what-mega-corp-sel ls crowd in the morning.
seriously, i know half of the crowd here making fun of this woody is entirely because it was done by a guy in the remote parts of nepal. after all, what does he know right? had it been a global-multinational corp., we'd have preordered it. one guy went on to mention how woody wouldn't dessipate the heat. well maybe because it's so freaggin' cold up there in the mountains it doesn't get all that hot anyways. also, since the buildings aren't insulated, it's one big wind tunnel. ever thought of that? huh? huh?
open source/GNU hypocrats. it's 'for the people by the people' at it's finest. i seriously hope that this guys does everything himself without the help of some mega-corp.
i've read a bunch about BSA and licensing, the wooden boxes and something about the royal family massacare... here are the facts and my opinions as well:
1) the crown prince didn't kill his parents because the parents (the rulers) were oppressive. he killed them because he was under the influence of hashish and also because of frustrations that you and i can only imagine. he was brought up with a western education (he went to eaton in england) but his household (the parents) were extreamly eastern - you know, the clan thing and some extreamly 'backward' thinking. the people reveared the king. quite a different picture from being oppressive. some have criticized the king that got killed as non-ambitious but he was very far from being oppressive.
2) windows licenses... get a freaggin' grip on reality. these people barely have enough to eat. BSA can sue them all they want. what are they going to sue them for? a handful of rice? be my freaggin' guest. if anything, this guy deserves some kind of recognition of his genius yet home-built approach to teach and educate people that aren't as priviledged. if that's stealing, someone ought to be charged with hoarding.
3) about sending parts to nepal: save it. people need medicine, food more than they do 486es. i commend what this guy is doing. and he's doing what he knows best. save that money and give to UNICEF.
4) i've been priviledged to be able to make a very decent living and have been considering making some donations for all children that are not as priviledged. i have tried contacting UNICEF a number of times but i get a very bad response on the phone by their receptionist. i ask for brochures and i'm told they'll arrive soon but have not recieved any. on the other hand, the christien fund for children seems to be trying to reach out. but i believe that that fund forces children to check-into christianity in exchange for help. which i think is morally wrong. that's blackmail. i know this because i've seen this happenning in nepal. so i'm stuck between two organizations; one seems to do good without any strings attached but isn't interested in my measely contributions and the other is actively recruiting but does so only to spread it's religion thru blackmail of sorts. any other organizations you folks know of that gives my money to people that need it as i gave it to them -- unconditionally?
if this is true...
i've prsonally boycotted all CDs, DVDs etc. and just listen to the 'scan' channel on my car radio and NPR at home.
but if this is true, i'm going to be downloading a shit load of mp3s. i would like to see how the F**k they hack into my computer. if this is really true, i'm awed at the cluelessness of corporate lawyers. just because they heard that some people got into (hacked into) some unsecure servers, they seem to think that one can hack into computers regardless of the fact that they might not be running any services (servers). I for one, am behind a firewall and would really like to see one of them bozos get into my computer. if they do, i will go and buy 10 CDs as a sign of respect for them.
the terrorists have won. how, you ask. well, they struck WTC, for they are the symbols of american capitalism. with airplanes, for they are the symbols of freedom -- freedom of travels otherwise hardly possible and vital infrastructure for the commerce that is essintial americana.
As a quote from the movie 'red october' where when the generals from russia dflect to america, one of them says in bewilderment ".. i can travel without any papers?" -- capturing part of the essence of the freedom that is america.
With all the measures being taken in the name of security, we are starting to erode the frabic of freedom that america stands for. exactly what the terrorists wanted to do. their goal wasn't to put a hole in a tower. it was to put a hole in our freedom. and looks like our congress is helping them get there.
i didn't go into the details but i do listen almost exclusively to NPR 'cept when i'm in my car. then i keep switching stations if i hear ads. that way i get the music but don't pay the 'man' since i dont' listen to their ads.
"scan" happens to be my favorite station.;)
btw, whaddya know with michael feldman on NPR (saturday 11-1 central, least in chicago) is my favorite program.
my wife was recently asked by her prof to get an article. she asked me to help find it and i went to the internet and printed something from NYTimes. the prof didn't think that was 'an article' since it was a 'printout of the web'. my question to all the profs that read/. out there is this -- what difference does the media make when it's got content from the same provider? i don't believe in print media because i don't want to waste paper. i subscribed to Chicago Tribune for a couple of weeks and i was dismayed at the amount of paper stacked up by the end of each week. i don't have the time to read even 10% of what came to my house. what a waste. so i rely on online form of the same publication. same provider, different media. now, in rejecting the printout, my wife's prof. effectvely said to me the content would have been valid if printed on the tabloid paper but not on a letter sized paper. even tho the content provider is the same.
while in college myself, i have heard arguments that content from web-sites are not reliable while 'printed' media are. i beg to differ. think SUN, the Enquirer. nuff said. in addition, anyone could potentially fuzz the printout themselves.
Being a tech guy myself, i was infuriated at such discrimination of media. if it's from the same source, why is printed media more valid than a web-based media? for all those who argue that the source can't be verified on the web, what makes you think you can verify the source of a print media. a little sum of money is more than enough for some shady printhouse to print up a version of, say Chicago Tribune, on the type of paper CT uses.
I have resorted to rationalizing this behavior of professors as a techno-phobic discrimination as well as aversion to adopting to the times. i mean, what's user input? what's 'as-it-happens'?
in other words -- "i fear what i don't understand".
BTW, we had a TV in our conference room on 9/11. i was still on the net looking for news. on TV my sources are 10-20 reporters. on the web, it's everyone who's got something to say. i am smart enough to figure out who is reliable and who is not. i don't need my news handed to me. besides, pandering (of sorts) and sensationalizing the news to make headlines has not yet caught up with the web -- yet.
tho napster's 'business' model was questionable, it was questioning something more questionable.
bear with me. napster by itself -- wrong. but napstering the products of a cartel -- at least it brought to light the cartel that is the RIAA. hope something is done about the cartel. until then i have boycotted 'em by not buying any music (yeah, yeah, what difference can i make? right? well, you're not getting my $16.) no i don't steal it either. i just play what's on radio (that's still legal right? even tho i don't pay for the content 'streamed' to me thru my radio...) in other words, i have done away with the concept of owning any CDs or tapes. we don't 'own' them anyways right?
my $.01. what can i say, the economy is shit and i can't afford $.02 for this crap.
i've been involved in designing and implementing a site to support arabic, thai, japanese, chinese, russian, korean, hindi and some 15 other languages (the european ones) using , you guessed it, MySQL and PHP. php apparantly supports UNICODE strings (we're using version 3.x even). in MySQL, we set the field to binary. i'm sure that adds some overhead but it works. we've used java to 'convert' strings from x encoding to UTF-8. iconv works too. now users can switch the language of the site purley by selecting an appropriate radio button for the desired language. and the languages are 'translated' gettext() style but thru database instead of files. this is a survey type site so the hittage is quite high and the site along with the database shows no signs of slowing down. i'm not sure if that's what you wanted to know but since our client (the browser) is multiple encoding compatible we have no problem. you might want to look into String class in java as it provides some neat encoding conversion in a roundabout sort of way. you possibly could get the Unicode string and the convert it to ASCII but i'm not sure what it does with the non-ASCII characters. as for MySQL database, set the field to binary. i dont' know about oracle etc.. as i haven't found the need to use it.
Slashdot Mirror
Giving Bill Gates credit for FS/OS is much like giving credit to all the criminals for a peaceful-lawful society. How you ask? Well, if it weren't for the criminals, we wouldn't have laws! If it weren't for tyrant rulers, we wouldn't have the notion of 'democracy'. So really, Hitler/Stalin/etc.. should have their faces on Mt. Rushmore and not our past presidents.
And, I disagree about FS/OS not growing as rapidly had MS not been there. I do agree that the zeal that is there wouldn't be. But progress progresses regardless. You get with it or it goes on without you. FS/OS is progress. IMO, FS/OS allows us to build a foundation of software that keeps on building. Commercial software keeps on building the same wheels over and over again. But that's a seperate discussion. So, with a foundation constantly building upon itself, progress is inevitable. All MS has managed to do is that it has tried to resist it. Built a dam of sorts. But leaks are springing and they're fighting tooth and nail to plug 'em. That was just a shareholder-PR hole they were trying to plug.
well, you'd know vi users are idiots if you knew what vi stands for... 'Very Idiotic'.
emacs rules. in my case, XEmacs rules.
seriously tho, a lot of us depend on documentation online. especially in the open/free software crowd, it would cost an arm and a leg to access documentation online.
i know, i know, not all site would participate. but for how long?
We need micropayments. but at the same time, we need to be careful to not break the fundamental essence of the thing called the web (ie. http). as soon as this happens, i would want to know which links will cost me money. this will eventually lead to people being a lot more cautious on link-clickage. this in turn will lead to pretty much a static normal page full of plain text. quite a contrast from an inter-refrenced world of web-pages that it is now.
wouldn't the first step to holding out on MS be to first stop using their product in their own offices? I mean, Largo has successfully implemented Linux on their desktops. The government, i bet, is a big 'consumer' of MS products. If the government used linux, that should remedy things that lawsuits couldn't.
unless the estimate factors in the time it takes to load /. on any given day * 50 that estimate is no good. (because developers usually spend their time loading slashdot 50 times a day, silly.)
no it's communist. grammer communist. :P
well, they switched from Unix to linux. it *could* have been Unix to windows. who lost? if you've taken any business/financial/economics classes, you know what opportunity cost means. linux might not have managed to erode the windows market (at least in these cases). but seems to me , has managed to stop windows from eroding Unixes market share further.
i mean, around the time when NT4 came out, everyone and their brother were replacing big iron (with unix) with multiple NT boxens. seems like we've managed to check that. it's only a matter of time before linux invades the NT/w2k/(whatever they're calling it this week) market.
you gotta stop their advance before you can make 'em retreat.
if i were a redmondien, i would not be happy because linux is merely replacing Unix. i would be extreamly unhappy that linux is replacing Unix. it could have been winNT/(whatever...) that was replacing unix. opportunity costs for MS. no new revenue streams. no new market shares.
gottsa love how MS and winformants can put a spin on things.
VA va voom...
at least from NASDAQ.
well, equal to, greater than and less than coverage seems to be the strongest point for this puppy. how about the case where the operand is null? what then huh? dealing with databases everyday, this thing drives me nuts. we seriously need a quadritic computer with ==, >, and NULL.. native capabalities.
"...we are all now dumber ..." -- from the 'nudie magazine day' movie.
now, do i get to setup my own 900 number?
... 'bout sums it up.
lot of fun a bunch of you polked at the woody this guy built. wait till a mega corp decides that that's the new thing to go with your furniture and you'll all be lined up outside your favorite mall to pick one up for a fat wad of cash. i love the smell of corporate-brainwashed-gotta-buy-what-mega-corp-sel ls crowd in the morning.
seriously, i know half of the crowd here making fun of this woody is entirely because it was done by a guy in the remote parts of nepal. after all, what does he know right? had it been a global-multinational corp., we'd have preordered it. one guy went on to mention how woody wouldn't dessipate the heat. well maybe because it's so freaggin' cold up there in the mountains it doesn't get all that hot anyways. also, since the buildings aren't insulated, it's one big wind tunnel. ever thought of that? huh? huh?
open source/GNU hypocrats. it's 'for the people by the people' at it's finest. i seriously hope that this guys does everything himself without the help of some mega-corp.
there ain't much to teach when they're dead, are they amigo?
i've read a bunch about BSA and licensing, the wooden boxes and something about the royal family massacare... here are the facts and my opinions as well:
1) the crown prince didn't kill his parents because the parents (the rulers) were oppressive. he killed them because he was under the influence of hashish and also because of frustrations that you and i can only imagine. he was brought up with a western education (he went to eaton in england) but his household (the parents) were extreamly eastern - you know, the clan thing and some extreamly 'backward' thinking. the people reveared the king. quite a different picture from being oppressive. some have criticized the king that got killed as non-ambitious but he was very far from being oppressive.
2) windows licenses... get a freaggin' grip on reality. these people barely have enough to eat. BSA can sue them all they want. what are they going to sue them for? a handful of rice? be my freaggin' guest. if anything, this guy deserves some kind of recognition of his genius yet home-built approach to teach and educate people that aren't as priviledged. if that's stealing, someone ought to be charged with hoarding.
3) about sending parts to nepal: save it. people need medicine, food more than they do 486es. i commend what this guy is doing. and he's doing what he knows best. save that money and give to UNICEF.
4) i've been priviledged to be able to make a very decent living and have been considering making some donations for all children that are not as priviledged. i have tried contacting UNICEF a number of times but i get a very bad response on the phone by their receptionist. i ask for brochures and i'm told they'll arrive soon but have not recieved any. on the other hand, the christien fund for children seems to be trying to reach out. but i believe that that fund forces children to check-into christianity in exchange for help. which i think is morally wrong. that's blackmail. i know this because i've seen this happenning in nepal. so i'm stuck between two organizations; one seems to do good without any strings attached but isn't interested in my measely contributions and the other is actively recruiting but does so only to spread it's religion thru blackmail of sorts. any other organizations you folks know of that gives my money to people that need it as i gave it to them -- unconditionally?
are they going to be responsible for coming up with the 'double secret probation'?
one nut job meets another
IIS won't even talk to clients that are not IE.
IMNAEE but i think you can flip your image by switching the wires on the back of your CRT. if something blows up -- not my fault.
if this is true...
i've prsonally boycotted all CDs, DVDs etc. and just listen to the 'scan' channel on my car radio and NPR at home.
but if this is true, i'm going to be downloading a shit load of mp3s. i would like to see how the F**k they hack into my computer. if this is really true, i'm awed at the cluelessness of corporate lawyers. just because they heard that some people got into (hacked into) some unsecure servers, they seem to think that one can hack into computers regardless of the fact that they might not be running any services (servers). I for one, am behind a firewall and would really like to see one of them bozos get into my computer. if they do, i will go and buy 10 CDs as a sign of respect for them.
As a quote from the movie 'red october' where when the generals from russia dflect to america, one of them says in bewilderment ".. i can travel without any papers?" -- capturing part of the essence of the freedom that is america.
With all the measures being taken in the name of security, we are starting to erode the frabic of freedom that america stands for. exactly what the terrorists wanted to do. their goal wasn't to put a hole in a tower. it was to put a hole in our freedom. and looks like our congress is helping them get there.
btw, whaddya know with michael feldman on NPR (saturday 11-1 central, least in chicago) is my favorite program.
while in college myself, i have heard arguments that content from web-sites are not reliable while 'printed' media are. i beg to differ. think SUN, the Enquirer. nuff said. in addition, anyone could potentially fuzz the printout themselves.
Being a tech guy myself, i was infuriated at such discrimination of media. if it's from the same source, why is printed media more valid than a web-based media? for all those who argue that the source can't be verified on the web, what makes you think you can verify the source of a print media. a little sum of money is more than enough for some shady printhouse to print up a version of, say Chicago Tribune, on the type of paper CT uses.
I have resorted to rationalizing this behavior of professors as a techno-phobic discrimination as well as aversion to adopting to the times. i mean, what's user input? what's 'as-it-happens'?
in other words -- "i fear what i don't understand".
BTW, we had a TV in our conference room on 9/11. i was still on the net looking for news. on TV my sources are 10-20 reporters. on the web, it's everyone who's got something to say. i am smart enough to figure out who is reliable and who is not. i don't need my news handed to me. besides, pandering (of sorts) and sensationalizing the news to make headlines has not yet caught up with the web -- yet.
bear with me. napster by itself -- wrong. but napstering the products of a cartel -- at least it brought to light the cartel that is the RIAA. hope something is done about the cartel. until then i have boycotted 'em by not buying any music (yeah, yeah, what difference can i make? right? well, you're not getting my $16.) no i don't steal it either. i just play what's on radio (that's still legal right? even tho i don't pay for the content 'streamed' to me thru my radio...) in other words, i have done away with the concept of owning any CDs or tapes. we don't 'own' them anyways right?
my $.01. what can i say, the economy is shit and i can't afford $.02 for this crap.
i've been involved in designing and implementing a site to support arabic, thai, japanese, chinese, russian, korean, hindi and some 15 other languages (the european ones) using , you guessed it, MySQL and PHP. php apparantly supports UNICODE strings (we're using version 3.x even). in MySQL, we set the field to binary. i'm sure that adds some overhead but it works. we've used java to 'convert' strings from x encoding to UTF-8. iconv works too. now users can switch the language of the site purley by selecting an appropriate radio button for the desired language. and the languages are 'translated' gettext() style but thru database instead of files. this is a survey type site so the hittage is quite high and the site along with the database shows no signs of slowing down. i'm not sure if that's what you wanted to know but since our client (the browser) is multiple encoding compatible we have no problem. you might want to look into String class in java as it provides some neat encoding conversion in a roundabout sort of way. you possibly could get the Unicode string and the convert it to ASCII but i'm not sure what it does with the non-ASCII characters. as for MySQL database, set the field to binary. i dont' know about oracle etc.. as i haven't found the need to use it.