Package management should be based centered around two things:
1 - Making it easy for the user to identify what he wants 2 - Doing whatever is necessary to make the user's desire a reality.
A good package management system needs to keep these two ideas at their very core.
Having said that, here are my proposed guidelines for satisfying those criteria:
1 - The list of things the user selected to install should be the only thing the user has to see. Thus, install by choice and install to satisfy dependency should be kept distinct (hereafter, chosen packages versus dependency packages). 2 - Any package that isn't installed by choice should be removed the moment all choice packages that depend on it are removed (reduces disk clutter) 3 - Conflicts among dependancy packages that are only needed at build time are not conflicts, just remove the package that's in the way and get the new one. A real conflict only occurs if it effects the user's chosen packages as installed in some way. This will require the package manager to be careful about build/install order, though. 4 - Don't force the user to choose between "sticking with the distro" and installing things for him/herself. "./configure; make; install" should be replaced with some kind of script that defines the package's dependencies and conflicts, and suggests a way to satisfy them before an attempt to compile is made. The suggested way(s) to satisfy can be any of the following three: 1, the name of a package that the package manager can get from the main distro; 2, a link to download the file necessary (download, decompression, and installation should be handled automatically); 3, as a last resort, instructions on where the user should go to get the dependancy, and where they should put the file once they download it (to maintain the distinction between chosen and dependent packages, the installer should say something like, "Please go to web page X, download Y, place the file in directory Z, and then press enter to continue."). Then the package list for the computer should include a manually installed section. 5 - Given the new freedom of number 4, conflicts will occur. To guard against the most flagrant ones (overwriting files needed by other files at install time), the file system will need to support metadata that describes what package a file is associated with. 6 - The user should, by default, be blissfully oblivious of what is going on in the background. No asking if a dependancy should be satisfied, only notification of conflicts. Said conflict notification should also be at the level of "_____ chosen package conflicts with new chosen package ______, what do you want to do? Install ______ and remove ______, or keep _______ and abandon installation of ______?" Then, hidden away in preferences (possibly as deep as being hidden by an advanced mode preference) should be the ability to turn on examination of the package tree, force full disclosure of what dependent packages need to be installed, etc.
At least, that's how I think a package manager should behave.
And the answer is: the almighty dollar. People are abandoning dialup because of $. If they can replace their cable (~$40) and phone (~$30) and internet (~$10 for uber-cheep dialup, ~$40+ for a fat pipe) with one nice fat pipe, at the proposed price of $28, that's a huge benefit, and you'll see people ditch the old services in droves to sign up for it.
All the same benefits, but more of them, for less money? Only a fool would turn that down.
That is, assuming that the sales pitch is honest, which I'm not sure of.
"Movies from the SOHO spacecraft show the flare in UV and the associated coronal mass ejection in visible light as they happened, "
You meant about 8 minutes after they happened, right? Or did the government finally unveil their partnership with the space aliens on faster than light communication? *pulls tin foil hat down over ears*
Carnot and thermodynamics only apply when the internal configuration of a system is unknown. Coherent, or in the case of sunlight semi-coherent, phenomena are not covered by thermodynamics, period. In other words, Carnot tells us how much energy we can expect to extract from a system about which we know nothing more than the average energy of the particles (tied to the temperature by the equipartition theorem ave(E) = nkT/2 where n is the number of ways the constituents of the system can store energy). Thus, even though wind blowing does virtually nothing to the temperature, the fact that it is somewhat coherent means that one can harness energy from it without appealing to heat engines of any kind. The exact same principle applies here.
On that same note, Maxwell's Demon doesn't violate any laws, because it can somehow "see" the the gas molecules and thus is not limited by thermodynamics. Though I have read claims that the entropy difference is balanced by information entropy somehow, I'm not very familiar with that concept.
"If this was a perfect mirror, the two temperatures (of incoming and reflected light) will be the same, and it follows that the mirror cannot act as a heat engine at all: no free energy can be obtained from the light. The proposed solar sail cannot be accelerated by sunlight."
His argument fails because the premise is wrong. In fact, the reflected light will be doppler shifted because there is a small but finite time between absorption and emission of the photons. I'm not going to bother with the exact proof (though I'll describe the process if someone else wants to do the calculations), so I'll have to admit that my argument is not conclusive. I will state, though, that without further calculations, I see no reason to accept the premise he presents.
The calculation: Figure out how much power would go in to a perfectly absorptive body (intensity times area). Then, for the body to be in thermal equilibrium with the radiation, it will have to emit exactly that much power as blackbody radiation. Figure out the blackbody spectrum from the power output, and calculate the temperature of the body from that spectrum. Do the same for the reflected and doppler shifted (in fact, doubly doppler shifted: once to put our observations in the frame of the mirror, once again to return to the sun's rest frame, and don't forget that the doppler shift back is infinitesimally greater in effect than the original doppler shift to the mirror frame) radiation from the mirror. I suspect that all laws of physics will hold fine.
I'm not upgrading until I'm sure that mng support will be there in the future. See here and here (Bugzilla, you'll have to copy and paste the URL manually) where they dropped support despite overwhelming protests and an offer for another coder to take up maintenance of the feature.
I agree that I dislike the whole uber powerful superman genre (see GI Joe, et al.), but only if the physical conflict is the point. In Trigun, though, the physical contact is almost never the point. Any time Vash is involved, in fact, the physical confrontation is more for comic relief or some other device. For me, Trigun was about the attempts of a man to live a moral life in a morally compromised world. Whether or not he could defeat his enemies was only really in question twice (both the Hornfreak and Knives had him on the ropes).
Also, if you didn't see any character growth in there, my gawd. Meryl, Millie, Wolfwood, and a host of minor characters all show a great deal of growth. Vash, too, battles an, at times, intense inner struggle that comes to a head near the end. It was the inner world that was important in Trigun, the outer world more often than not provided a needed rest from the intense emotional action.
That's probably why they're airing it at midnight. They would have had to cut, I think, ep 3 (a show about a gun maker turned to the drink) and big segments of a couple of others. They also have prostitutes (though you don't ever see anything, and Vash even tactfully rejects them, pretending to be asleep).
Reading your post I had assumed that his was a simple statement of "there is no centrifugal force." If you really want to know, the force that moves the car/trailer is not the force in the hitch. The force that moves the car/trailer is the force on the earth by the car. Both the Earth and the car move, of course, mostly the car. That is why the car and trailer move instead of remaining stationary.
The ending comment was a final sting for your incivility, now that you have apologized, I say thank you, and meh.
Wow, you're just dumb, aren't you? He's technically right: in an inertial frame of reference (the only frame where Newton's laws are valid) there is no centrifugal force. There is only the force necessary to keep the thing moving in a circle (a centripetal, or center seeking force). If you move in to a rotating reference frame, though, you would feel a tug on the string that appears to be due to nothing. That is the centrifugal force, not what you described. Here's a hint: the centripetal force does no work, so the difference has nothing to do with a power sorce, and everything to do with the fact that the mass at the center is so much bigger than the mass at then end of the string that it is reasonable to approximate the big mass as being in an inertial frame. The big mass doesn't experience a centrifugual force either, though. It, too, experiences a centripetal force, that is a force that seeks the center of mass of the system as a whole.
Why don't you fold your over-inflated ego up and take it home, little one, it isn't needed here.
"The greatest tension on the cable is at its center of gravity, because at that point, half the cable above it is centripetally trying to be flung into space, and the other half is trying to fall down to the earth."
You were doing so well until you said this. The point where gravity and the centrifugal force balance is at the center of mass of the platform + cable, not of the cable (unless there is no platform, of course). The reason it works like this is because the distance to geosynchronous orbit is the distance at which the centrifugal force of our rotating frame balances with the force due to gravity, and the center of mass is what will have to be at geosynch. There will be some tension in the cable, though, if you try to position it anywhere where it isn't natural for the cable to be. Basically, the longitude of the cable will be fixed by the logitude the platform sits above, the latitude, though, can be varied some (though the cable will want to hang straight down to the equator, more or less considering wind).
cmd is short for command, the official name of the button next to the spacebar with an apple and that clover-like symbol. You obviously know where the ` key is, so I'll leave it at that.
Remember that there are different open source models out there. The BSDs, for example, are very corporation friendly (even MS used the BSD networking stack).
"Service? Doesn't servicing open source software sound sort-of like a contradiction?"
To the average Luser? Nope. They may get the software for free, but they'll still need help, training, and maintenance (even the most robust system will break eventually).
Here's an example of a scene that makes no sense in the cut version: Outlaw Star, episode 7. Jean is hurt, and Jim keeps him from falling to the ground, and Jim looks at his own hand. In the original version, his hand had blood on it, and it made sense for him to look at it. In the edited version, I just watched and said, "wtf? It's a hand." It took a while to realize that there was supposed to be blood there, and it destroyed the impact of the scene.
Not to mention Outlaw Star episode 23, Hot Springs Planet Tenrei, all of it (i.e. the whole episode was cut).
...and the rights of copyright holders to be renumerated for their efforts...
No such right exists. In the strictest sense, I only have a right to however much others are willing to give me for my goods or services. I do not have a right to be paid for what I'm doing irrespective of the willingness of others to pay for it. They have the right to attempt to encrypt what they make, but they do not have the right to criminal or civil action if I break said encryption.
Admittedly, the law grants them a temporary monopoly on the market for said product, but that is all the law grants, no more, no less. Not everything the law grants is a right, though. Social Security, welfare, and a number of other things that the current law grants for are not rights. Perhaps we should refer to them as copygrants instead of copyrights from now on to make the distinction.
Slashdot Mirror
www.nist.gov
You'll have to dig around a bit, but it's all there.
BG
Package management should be based centered around two things:
1 - Making it easy for the user to identify what he wants
2 - Doing whatever is necessary to make the user's desire a reality.
A good package management system needs to keep these two ideas at their very core.
Having said that, here are my proposed guidelines for satisfying those criteria:
1 - The list of things the user selected to install should be the only thing the user has to see. Thus, install by choice and install to satisfy dependency should be kept distinct (hereafter, chosen packages versus dependency packages).
2 - Any package that isn't installed by choice should be removed the moment all choice packages that depend on it are removed (reduces disk clutter)
3 - Conflicts among dependancy packages that are only needed at build time are not conflicts, just remove the package that's in the way and get the new one. A real conflict only occurs if it effects the user's chosen packages as installed in some way. This will require the package manager to be careful about build/install order, though.
4 - Don't force the user to choose between "sticking with the distro" and installing things for him/herself. "./configure; make; install" should be replaced with some kind of script that defines the package's dependencies and conflicts, and suggests a way to satisfy them before an attempt to compile is made. The suggested way(s) to satisfy can be any of the following three: 1, the name of a package that the package manager can get from the main distro; 2, a link to download the file necessary (download, decompression, and installation should be handled automatically); 3, as a last resort, instructions on where the user should go to get the dependancy, and where they should put the file once they download it (to maintain the distinction between chosen and dependent packages, the installer should say something like, "Please go to web page X, download Y, place the file in directory Z, and then press enter to continue."). Then the package list for the computer should include a manually installed section.
5 - Given the new freedom of number 4, conflicts will occur. To guard against the most flagrant ones (overwriting files needed by other files at install time), the file system will need to support metadata that describes what package a file is associated with.
6 - The user should, by default, be blissfully oblivious of what is going on in the background. No asking if a dependancy should be satisfied, only notification of conflicts. Said conflict notification should also be at the level of "_____ chosen package conflicts with new chosen package ______, what do you want to do? Install ______ and remove ______, or keep _______ and abandon installation of ______?" Then, hidden away in preferences (possibly as deep as being hidden by an advanced mode preference) should be the ability to turn on examination of the package tree, force full disclosure of what dependent packages need to be installed, etc.
At least, that's how I think a package manager should behave.
BlackGriffen
I so wish I could mod you up.
Brilliant! That's exactly what they cram in to these execs heads in econ classes.
BlackGriffen
Yes, but they aren't stupid, and even a moron knows $40+ per month in savings (from consolidating the big three info/comm) is a good thing.
BlackGriffen
And the answer is: the almighty dollar. People are abandoning dialup because of $. If they can replace their cable (~$40) and phone (~$30) and internet (~$10 for uber-cheep dialup, ~$40+ for a fat pipe) with one nice fat pipe, at the proposed price of $28, that's a huge benefit, and you'll see people ditch the old services in droves to sign up for it.
All the same benefits, but more of them, for less money? Only a fool would turn that down.
That is, assuming that the sales pitch is honest, which I'm not sure of.
BlackGriffen
"Movies from the SOHO spacecraft show the flare in UV and the associated coronal mass ejection in visible light as they happened, "
You meant about 8 minutes after they happened, right? Or did the government finally unveil their partnership with the space aliens on faster than light communication? *pulls tin foil hat down over ears*
BG
This give the aluminum clad yet another excuse: they have to keep the alien signals out, and their own signals in.
BG
On that same note, Maxwell's Demon doesn't violate any laws, because it can somehow "see" the the gas molecules and thus is not limited by thermodynamics. Though I have read claims that the entropy difference is balanced by information entropy somehow, I'm not very familiar with that concept.
BlackGriffen
In his paper, Dr. Gold wrote:
"If this was a perfect mirror, the two temperatures (of incoming and reflected light) will be the same, and it follows that the mirror cannot act as a heat engine at all: no free energy can be obtained from the light. The proposed solar sail cannot be accelerated by sunlight."
His argument fails because the premise is wrong. In fact, the reflected light will be doppler shifted because there is a small but finite time between absorption and emission of the photons. I'm not going to bother with the exact proof (though I'll describe the process if someone else wants to do the calculations), so I'll have to admit that my argument is not conclusive. I will state, though, that without further calculations, I see no reason to accept the premise he presents.
The calculation: Figure out how much power would go in to a perfectly absorptive body (intensity times area). Then, for the body to be in thermal equilibrium with the radiation, it will have to emit exactly that much power as blackbody radiation. Figure out the blackbody spectrum from the power output, and calculate the temperature of the body from that spectrum. Do the same for the reflected and doppler shifted (in fact, doubly doppler shifted: once to put our observations in the frame of the mirror, once again to return to the sun's rest frame, and don't forget that the doppler shift back is infinitesimally greater in effect than the original doppler shift to the mirror frame) radiation from the mirror. I suspect that all laws of physics will hold fine.
BlackGriffen
BlackGriffen
The U-Vent?
Then they can finally move on to the X-Window, and finally the Y-Zipper!
BlackGriffen
I agree that I dislike the whole uber powerful superman genre (see GI Joe, et al.), but only if the physical conflict is the point. In Trigun, though, the physical contact is almost never the point. Any time Vash is involved, in fact, the physical confrontation is more for comic relief or some other device. For me, Trigun was about the attempts of a man to live a moral life in a morally compromised world. Whether or not he could defeat his enemies was only really in question twice (both the Hornfreak and Knives had him on the ropes).
Also, if you didn't see any character growth in there, my gawd. Meryl, Millie, Wolfwood, and a host of minor characters all show a great deal of growth. Vash, too, battles an, at times, intense inner struggle that comes to a head near the end. It was the inner world that was important in Trigun, the outer world more often than not provided a needed rest from the intense emotional action.
BlackGriffen
That's probably why they're airing it at midnight. They would have had to cut, I think, ep 3 (a show about a gun maker turned to the drink) and big segments of a couple of others. They also have prostitutes (though you don't ever see anything, and Vash even tactfully rejects them, pretending to be asleep).
BlackGriffen
Reading your post I had assumed that his was a simple statement of "there is no centrifugal force." If you really want to know, the force that moves the car/trailer is not the force in the hitch. The force that moves the car/trailer is the force on the earth by the car. Both the Earth and the car move, of course, mostly the car. That is why the car and trailer move instead of remaining stationary.
The ending comment was a final sting for your incivility, now that you have apologized, I say thank you, and meh.
BG
Wow, you're just dumb, aren't you? He's technically right: in an inertial frame of reference (the only frame where Newton's laws are valid) there is no centrifugal force. There is only the force necessary to keep the thing moving in a circle (a centripetal, or center seeking force). If you move in to a rotating reference frame, though, you would feel a tug on the string that appears to be due to nothing. That is the centrifugal force, not what you described. Here's a hint: the centripetal force does no work, so the difference has nothing to do with a power sorce, and everything to do with the fact that the mass at the center is so much bigger than the mass at then end of the string that it is reasonable to approximate the big mass as being in an inertial frame. The big mass doesn't experience a centrifugual force either, though. It, too, experiences a centripetal force, that is a force that seeks the center of mass of the system as a whole.
Why don't you fold your over-inflated ego up and take it home, little one, it isn't needed here.
BlackGriffen
"The greatest tension on the cable is at its center of gravity, because at that point, half the cable above it is centripetally trying to be flung into space, and the other half is trying to fall down to the earth."
You were doing so well until you said this. The point where gravity and the centrifugal force balance is at the center of mass of the platform + cable, not of the cable (unless there is no platform, of course). The reason it works like this is because the distance to geosynchronous orbit is the distance at which the centrifugal force of our rotating frame balances with the force due to gravity, and the center of mass is what will have to be at geosynch. There will be some tension in the cable, though, if you try to position it anywhere where it isn't natural for the cable to be. Basically, the longitude of the cable will be fixed by the logitude the platform sits above, the latitude, though, can be varied some (though the cable will want to hang straight down to the equator, more or less considering wind).
Otherwise, you're post is spot on, thank you.
BlackGriffen
cmd is short for command, the official name of the button next to the spacebar with an apple and that clover-like symbol. You obviously know where the ` key is, so I'll leave it at that.
BG
cmd-` is a common shortcut in apps to cycle windows (standard behavior in Cocoa, I think).
;).
As for keyboards of the future, there won't be any. People will simply "plug in" using a more direct neural interface
BG
Remember that there are different open source models out there. The BSDs, for example, are very corporation friendly (even MS used the BSD networking stack).
BG
"Service? Doesn't servicing open source software sound sort-of like a contradiction?"
To the average Luser? Nope. They may get the software for free, but they'll still need help, training, and maintenance (even the most robust system will break eventually).
BG
http://www.bnetd.org/
BG
Here's an example of a scene that makes no sense in the cut version: Outlaw Star, episode 7. Jean is hurt, and Jim keeps him from falling to the ground, and Jim looks at his own hand. In the original version, his hand had blood on it, and it made sense for him to look at it. In the edited version, I just watched and said, "wtf? It's a hand." It took a while to realize that there was supposed to be blood there, and it destroyed the impact of the scene.
Not to mention Outlaw Star episode 23, Hot Springs Planet Tenrei, all of it (i.e. the whole episode was cut).
BG
"a) CDDB is now evil [slashdot.org]"
Even freedb? http://www.freedb.org/
"b) CDDB has a known IP, which can be allowed."
Good point.
BlackGriffen
The kind who uses a CDDB, or who doesn't have a firewall.
BlackGriffen
...and the rights of copyright holders to be renumerated for their efforts...
No such right exists. In the strictest sense, I only have a right to however much others are willing to give me for my goods or services. I do not have a right to be paid for what I'm doing irrespective of the willingness of others to pay for it. They have the right to attempt to encrypt what they make, but they do not have the right to criminal or civil action if I break said encryption.
Admittedly, the law grants them a temporary monopoly on the market for said product, but that is all the law grants, no more, no less. Not everything the law grants is a right, though. Social Security, welfare, and a number of other things that the current law grants for are not rights. Perhaps we should refer to them as copygrants instead of copyrights from now on to make the distinction.
BG