"You've said it! You have to port C code!! Java is cross-platform by design, not portable."
Uh, I think anyone rolling-out a government-wide payroll system will know how to use a compiler.
GNU runs on pretty much every computer yet invented, thanks to automake, autconf, gcc, the GNU libraries (GTK, gnome, glibc...), and the GNU application standards. I didn't see anyone re-writing grep in java, and when people needed massively cross-platform applications (mozilla, gimp, kaffe), they weren't looking at Java for those either.
"porting C code is just a matter of making sure the library you use on OS A is also ported on OS B"
Kind of like making sure the virtual machine you use on OS A is also ported to OS B? Or that the Java AWT libraries you use in OS A are also ported to OS B?
The only true cross-platform GUI code I've seen recently is Konspire2B, and that was pure C, using an http://localhost:6065/ web-interface for the GUI. They chose not to use java because you'd need to install a java machine to use it. With C, you can just run the program as-is.
Look at any of the user-interface modules for perl, for ruby, or for java, and the chances are they'll be written in C.
"If tomorrow Linux is declared illegal because of the SCO suit"
What on earth could convince people to make that sort of statement? As far as I (or anyone) understands, SCO doesn't have any such suit, and if they did, they would be accusing themselves. SCO is like some drunken wino shouting at passers-by. So badly in fact, that they've been ordered by the courts to stop lying.
"If tomorrow linux is declared illegal". Huh. I can shout all the threats I like at the sky, and nobody will stop depending on it for light. Why should anybody doubt IBM/Linux's continued success because of an absurd threat which was universally considered false the moment it was uttered?
"Did we look for James Huberty's inspiration when he gunned down people at McDonald's? What did Timothy McVeigh like to watch? What about David Koresh?"
"Why not require that they not be communists? Why not require that they be conservative or liberal or white or black?"
The easy way to do this is to put such people in prison. If you were (for example) to make common things criminal, apply selective enforcement, and ensure that not only 1/100 of the population is in prison, but that 5/6 of those people are African-American, then you have indeed achieved your aim of limiting the number of non-white non-literate voters.
Not that that would ever happen in a free country...
"But there is a bad thing - the system they are promoting runs on MS Windows - including Win 95/98 - using Internet Explorer (5.5 and up) and Netscape."
Hmmm, we thought electronic voting was bad, but voting on a home computer? Are they mad?
The idea of having to turn up at a polling station is that voters can't be coerced, and they can't sell their votes. Both are necessary precautions.
The idea of paper votes is that they can be counted. This is a requirement which seems to be missing in some of the toy "voting-machines" being proposed.
Even if electronic voting machines can be made to work (this requires open-source software, it requires representatives of each party at the compilation, it requires signed linux distros and MD5 hashes for the voting software, the south-americans seem to have it sorted), even if electronic voting machines can be made to work, they need to be at the polling stations, otherwise who knows what software they're running.
C'mon, you can't even run a counterstrike server without people cheating, and people are proposing the same technology for an election?
What will be the headlines? "Linux users not invited to vote?"
"A better idea would be to educate those who need to understand the vocabulary wouldn't it?"
Perhaps starting by defining the GigaByte:
1024 * 1000 * 1000
No wonder they're having trouble explaining hard-disk sizes, mixing SI and computing units.
Next thing to define: processor speed:
AMD Athlon 1700+
1533 MHz, but you're not allowed to tell anyone that. Nice, clear terminology for the customers.
What else? Ah yes, software:
Windows XP: fast, modern, reliable
Having trouble with the terminology already I think...
What else? Howabout speakers:
8 watt
That'll be 8W so long as you don't test it for more than a millisecond, with a single pulse, and don't mind damaging the speaker. So about 0.3W in real terms.
Anything else? Soundcards?
24-bit resolution
With 16-bit inputs, outputs, and processing. Nice clear terms from Creative Labs.
Headphones?
Digital headphones
As in, you can connect them to something which is digital, so long as you use the analogue output.
Modems?
56K modem
3.5 Kilobytes per second, and even slower in the other direction.
Sparking between various parts of metal tend to cause corrosion when you microwave anything non-smooth. Even with an old microwave, I'd prefer not to have to put new purchases in it.
Any tags need to be attached to the garment in such a way that they can be removed after purchase.
"finding a higher ``defect density'' in such a development codebase compared with commercial offerings is not exactly unexpected."
Except they didn't. Apache is equivalent.
Not that it matters, testing a named product against an unnamed product. This webserver washes whites whiter than a famous supermarket-stocked webserver.
"Unless they can't spell other things like... inklude dephine retern brake... etc."
Add a spellchecker to the compiler if you like: "35 warnings: 1 undefined symbol and 34 spelling errors in the comments".
Problem is, many coders know a lot more about linguistics than the spellchecker, you'd hardly be a unix programmer (i.e. hyper-literate) if you didn't regularly invent words because there weren't any good enough to describe what you want to describe.
"Are you retarded? Word is not part of the operating system."
This is an operating system problem: investigate it if you want. Filenames are supplied to the program by the operating system when you double-click on a file.
"If I put up a billboard (or rent one for a month), and my competitor comes around and puts his ad overtop of mine, thats vandalism. How exactly is this different than this case?"
when your billboard consists of spraypainting the poster on someone's windshield?
"The problem is that there is zilch technical support for linux, outside of the open source community."
Yet people are lining up outside of your house to support your Windows installations for free? Pay people to support linux, and they'll support linux. Pay them to support Windows, and they'll support Windows. You can hardly complain about lack of Linux support when you've hired a support team of trained monkeys who know only Windows.
If you're anywhere remotely technical, then half the people in your office are part of that 'open-source community'. Zilch support indeed!
"Most of the boutique hardware vendors cant afford the huge support teams to handle calls on every version of linux and all distros out there."
Yet they can somehow get enough people to support a vastly less stable, less predictable operating system which changes more between versions than linux does between distributions?
GNU has tools called automake and autoconf. They allow the same software to be installed correctly on machines so varied that microsoft hasn't even heard of them, yet your linux software will compile without a problem on them all. Even if you're only designing for Intel-compatible computers, it's nice to know that./configure will work on every linux distribution ever created.
Please don't reply pointing out that your software won't install on a linux firewall or other specialised machine: the Windows install CDs don't work on palmtops either.
"Plus, they have a good deal of their IP in the software"
There's no such thing. You're deliberately trying to cause confusion by using the word IP to describe trade secrets.
"Not to mention, there is no partner marketing bennifits with linux"
Putting a "works with linux" penguin sticker on a product costs a lot less than getting microsoft certification, and will be a lot more use when people are wandering around the stores looking for hardware which works with their linux home PC. When my family are wandering around PC_world, and every single modem has a "minimum spec: Windows 95" on it, imagine how much safer they'd feel if they found a modem which actually claimed to work with their computer. (since all these devices work 100% on linux, it's not exactly a difficult claim to make)
Support costs? Bullshit. Tell me the last time you phoned a modem manufacturer in taiwan hoping for technical support on windows dial-up? My modem manufacturer doesn't even have an english website, and the store sure as hell won't do technical support, MS-Windows or no.
"Designed for Mandrake 9.1 or later. Compatible with Linux" -- 10 seconds to write on the packaging, and you've suddenly got sales to everyone who runs linux and wants to buy hardware.
Do the manufacturers of keyboards and mice really understand that Windows is not actually required for their product?
Shops are there to make things easy to buy. I shouldn't have to consult enthusiasts' websites to find out if I can even use something that the shop is selling.
"I once sent a link via MS Outlook to an MS share that had spaces in the path"
It's somewhat amusing how Windows seems to have invented the idea of putting spaces in directory names, even requiring them for system files, yet is the one operating system least able to handle such files.
Tried it on my mom's computer: just double-click a word file in the home directory, and Word will tell you: I can't open "c:\my", and neither can I open "documents\cv.doc"
"I can't help but think that the GIA will only cover a fraction of what our government really does."
The real question is how it balances the accuracy of information with the amount of information it wants. It could become The authority for information, with carefully researched and triple-checked data, like the FAS of government details. At the other extreme, it could become a wiki of rumours where much more gets published (think "I saw Ashcroft talking to..." type of reports) which would give a lot more information, but of slightly less value.
At the moment, it seems like a gathering of data from the various official sources, opensecrets.org, and such like. But with a massive database of lower-grade intelligence, it could become even more significant.
"Will it include the same information they collect? Things like credit card purchases, phone bills, personal contact information, organizational affiliations, travel history, books checked out from the library..."
There's always hope. After all, it only takes a few people who work in bars, restaurants, etc. to get the travel history, eating habits, partners' descriptions, etc. of the entire congress...
Slashdot Mirror
"You've said it! You have to port C code!! Java is cross-platform by design, not portable."
Uh, I think anyone rolling-out a government-wide payroll system will know how to use a compiler.
GNU runs on pretty much every computer yet invented, thanks to automake, autconf, gcc, the GNU libraries (GTK, gnome, glibc...), and the GNU application standards. I didn't see anyone re-writing grep in java, and when people needed massively cross-platform applications (mozilla, gimp, kaffe), they weren't looking at Java for those either.
"porting C code is just a matter of making sure the library you use on OS A is also ported on OS B"
Kind of like making sure the virtual machine you use on OS A is also ported to OS B? Or that the Java AWT libraries you use in OS A are also ported to OS B?
The only true cross-platform GUI code I've seen recently is Konspire2B, and that was pure C, using an http://localhost:6065/ web-interface for the GUI. They chose not to use java because you'd need to install a java machine to use it. With C, you can just run the program as-is.
Look at any of the user-interface modules for perl, for ruby, or for java, and the chances are they'll be written in C.
"If tomorrow Linux is declared illegal because of the SCO suit"
What on earth could convince people to make that sort of statement? As far as I (or anyone) understands, SCO doesn't have any such suit, and if they did, they would be accusing themselves. SCO is like some drunken wino shouting at passers-by. So badly in fact, that they've been ordered by the courts to stop lying.
"If tomorrow linux is declared illegal". Huh. I can shout all the threats I like at the sky, and nobody will stop depending on it for light. Why should anybody doubt IBM/Linux's continued success because of an absurd threat which was universally considered false the moment it was uttered?
"Even the article gets it wrong now. Sklyarov! "
It's all a conspiracy to halve his google-ranking.
"Why not require that they not be communists? Why not require that they be conservative or liberal or white or black?"
The easy way to do this is to put such people in prison. If you were (for example) to make common things criminal, apply selective enforcement, and ensure that not only 1/100 of the population is in prison, but that 5/6 of those people are African-American, then you have indeed achieved your aim of limiting the number of non-white non-literate voters.
Not that that would ever happen in a free country...
"But there is a bad thing - the system they are promoting runs on MS Windows - including Win 95/98 - using Internet Explorer (5.5 and up) and Netscape."
Hmmm, we thought electronic voting was bad, but voting on a home computer? Are they mad?
The idea of having to turn up at a polling station is that voters can't be coerced, and they can't sell their votes. Both are necessary precautions.
The idea of paper votes is that they can be counted. This is a requirement which seems to be missing in some of the toy "voting-machines" being proposed.
Even if electronic voting machines can be made to work (this requires open-source software, it requires representatives of each party at the compilation, it requires signed linux distros and MD5 hashes for the voting software, the south-americans seem to have it sorted), even if electronic voting machines can be made to work, they need to be at the polling stations, otherwise who knows what software they're running.
C'mon, you can't even run a counterstrike server without people cheating, and people are proposing the same technology for an election?
What will be the headlines? "Linux users not invited to vote?"
"A better idea would be to educate those who need to understand the vocabulary wouldn't it?"
Perhaps starting by defining the GigaByte:
1024 * 1000 * 1000
No wonder they're having trouble explaining hard-disk sizes, mixing SI and computing units.
Next thing to define: processor speed:
AMD Athlon 1700+
1533 MHz, but you're not allowed to tell anyone that. Nice, clear terminology for the customers.
What else? Ah yes, software:
Windows XP: fast, modern, reliable
Having trouble with the terminology already I think...
What else? Howabout speakers:
8 watt
That'll be 8W so long as you don't test it for more than a millisecond, with a single pulse, and don't mind damaging the speaker. So about 0.3W in real terms.
Anything else? Soundcards?
24-bit resolution
With 16-bit inputs, outputs, and processing. Nice clear terms from Creative Labs.
Headphones?
Digital headphones
As in, you can connect them to something which is digital, so long as you use the analogue output.
Modems?
56K modem
3.5 Kilobytes per second, and even slower in the other direction.
Oh, and monitors:
15" monitor
That'll be 13.5 inches, then.
Tech lingo is hard? Surely not.
"How hard would it be to build a RFID spoofing tool that emits gazillions of random RFID numbers whenever it is polled?"
That's the best idea I heard on this page. Yes, a spoofing transmitter is by far the best attack against RFID tags.
"neither does your microwave hurt the metal"
Sparking between various parts of metal tend to cause corrosion when you microwave anything non-smooth. Even with an old microwave, I'd prefer not to have to put new purchases in it.
Any tags need to be attached to the garment in such a way that they can be removed after purchase.
"finding a higher ``defect density'' in such a development codebase compared with commercial offerings is not exactly unexpected."
Except they didn't. Apache is equivalent.
Not that it matters, testing a named product against an unnamed product. This webserver washes whites whiter than a famous supermarket-stocked webserver.
"Unless they can't spell other things like...
inklude
dephine
retern
brake... etc."
Add a spellchecker to the compiler if you like: "35 warnings: 1 undefined symbol and 34 spelling errors in the comments".
Problem is, many coders know a lot more about linguistics than the spellchecker, you'd hardly be a unix programmer (i.e. hyper-literate) if you didn't regularly invent words because there weren't any good enough to describe what you want to describe.
Codepoet, etc.
"Are you retarded? Word is not part of the operating system."
This is an operating system problem: investigate it if you want. Filenames are supplied to the program by the operating system when you double-click on a file.
"If I put up a billboard (or rent one for a month), and my competitor comes around and puts his ad overtop of mine, thats vandalism. How exactly is this different than this case?"
when your billboard consists of spraypainting the poster on someone's windshield?
"what if another ad program placed another ad over that ad?"
Modify AdAware so that every time you view the website of someone who advertises on Gator it displays an "x is fraudulent" advert over it?
"The problem is that there is zilch technical support for linux, outside of the open source community."
./configure will work on every linux distribution ever created.
Yet people are lining up outside of your house to support your Windows installations for free? Pay people to support linux, and they'll support linux. Pay them to support Windows, and they'll support Windows. You can hardly complain about lack of Linux support when you've hired a support team of trained monkeys who know only Windows.
If you're anywhere remotely technical, then half the people in your office are part of that 'open-source community'. Zilch support indeed!
"Most of the boutique hardware vendors cant afford the huge support teams to handle calls on every version of linux and all distros out there."
Yet they can somehow get enough people to support a vastly less stable, less predictable operating system which changes more between versions than linux does between distributions?
GNU has tools called automake and autoconf. They allow the same software to be installed correctly on machines so varied that microsoft hasn't even heard of them, yet your linux software will compile without a problem on them all. Even if you're only designing for Intel-compatible computers, it's nice to know that
Please don't reply pointing out that your software won't install on a linux firewall or other specialised machine: the Windows install CDs don't work on palmtops either.
"Plus, they have a good deal of their IP in the software"
There's no such thing. You're deliberately trying to cause confusion by using the word IP to describe trade secrets.
"Not to mention, there is no partner marketing bennifits with linux"
Putting a "works with linux" penguin sticker on a product costs a lot less than getting microsoft certification, and will be a lot more use when people are wandering around the stores looking for hardware which works with their linux home PC. When my family are wandering around PC_world, and every single modem has a "minimum spec: Windows 95" on it, imagine how much safer they'd feel if they found a modem which actually claimed to work with their computer. (since all these devices work 100% on linux, it's not exactly a difficult claim to make)
Support costs? Bullshit. Tell me the last time you phoned a modem manufacturer in taiwan hoping for technical support on windows dial-up? My modem manufacturer doesn't even have an english website, and the store sure as hell won't do technical support, MS-Windows or no.
"Designed for Mandrake 9.1 or later. Compatible with Linux" -- 10 seconds to write on the packaging, and you've suddenly got sales to everyone who runs linux and wants to buy hardware.
Do the manufacturers of keyboards and mice really understand that Windows is not actually required for their product?
Shops are there to make things easy to buy. I shouldn't have to consult enthusiasts' websites to find out if I can even use something that the shop is selling.
"Manco had been selling this idea for years! and you get 3yd instead of 18"."
Well there's your innovation then! Patent accepted.
"I once sent a link via MS Outlook to an MS share that had spaces in the path"
It's somewhat amusing how Windows seems to have invented the idea of putting spaces in directory names, even requiring them for system files, yet is the one operating system least able to handle such files.
Tried it on my mom's computer: just double-click a word file in the home directory, and Word will tell you: I can't open "c:\my", and neither can I open "documents\cv.doc"
Well d'uh!
"Security isn't a major issue for home users. That's why they don't treat it as such. Sorry guys."
Don't apologise to us: we get to read their email and watch their wireless cameras.
"I can't help but think that the GIA will only cover a fraction of what our government really does."
The real question is how it balances the accuracy of information with the amount of information it wants. It could become The authority for information, with carefully researched and triple-checked data, like the FAS of government details. At the other extreme, it could become a wiki of rumours where much more gets published (think "I saw Ashcroft talking to..." type of reports) which would give a lot more information, but of slightly less value.
At the moment, it seems like a gathering of data from the various official sources, opensecrets.org, and such like. But with a massive database of lower-grade intelligence, it could become even more significant.
DIA = Distributed intellience agency, anyone?
"Perhaps they [government] should reconsider much of their classified data"
Perhaps normal people should start classifying their data. Plaintext emails indeed...
Who's got google cookies?
"Will it include the same information they collect? Things like credit card purchases, phone bills, personal contact information, organizational affiliations, travel history, books checked out from the library..."
There's always hope. After all, it only takes a few people who work in bars, restaurants, etc. to get the travel history, eating habits, partners' descriptions, etc. of the entire congress...
"I wonder if it's just a coincidence that this site was put up on the 4th of July?"
Bloody good idea regardless! This is the kind of thing which gives you hope for the country once more.
How well's it going to scale? With a few million people putting input into this, it could become a fantastic piece of kit.
"And even if MS orders to take their site down, google will still have it."
But will the next Windows Update cause archive.org to return a host-not-found error in Internet Explorer?
"How about pure "overlay" purple, so when digital cameras pick us up we become transparent? That would be awesome."
Best idea I heard yet! nice one.
p.s. non-Americans wouldn't enter the competition anyways... ThinkGeek charge $30 to post T-shirts, and we can just print them ourselves for a tenner.
"As you said, someone might have to violate the soft walls in order to avoid a collision."
Perhaps we should go back to barrage balloons...?
Or even duct-tape. Lots of duct tape, and some huge sheets of bubble-wrap.