It sounds nice at first, but don't get the idea that Qt is replacing X on the desktop anytime soon.
Is Qt becoming its own windowing system as well? Will you be able to run more than one Qt app and have them windowed? Where are the video card drivers coming from without X??
Sure it's nice for embedded stuff, but a lot of people seem to have the idea that they're getting a small, fast, free X11 replacement for their desktops.
In case you haven't noticed, not only does Slashot "give back to the community" by simply existing and giving us a popular forum for discussion, but they also have developed some nice code for weblogs, which they kindly give away for free under the GPL, and which many sites use.
I've often wondered why there are no minidisc peripherals for computers. They would make great data storage devices if a standard format could be decided on. For that matter, why didn't the minidisc take off here in the states? If you've ever tried one you know that they can record incredible digital audio, they're rewritable, you can insert track markers and tap in your own labels for each track. It's also compact. Maybe someone else has more information.
(Offtopic): It seems many moderators misunderstand the meaning of "Troll". Many of you mark a post as Troll when it is really "Flamebait". To quote the Jargon file: "The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. "
Moral: Don't dignify a stupid post by labeling it a troll unless it really is subtle and clever enough to deserve it. Mark it flamebait or offtopic instead.
It's interesting that this keeps coming up, but the fear of intelligent machines gradually taking over the earth and subverting our freedom arises from a misunderstanding of what we create machines for.
People do not create machines to replace themselves and make decisions for them, they create machines to do small/repititive tasks efficiently, to accentuate human ability, and to add to the human's capability to do the things he needs to do. It's true that this nakes us more dependant on technology to some extent.
However, machines of the future, far from becoming seperate, sentient entities (pardon the alliteration), will exist to increase communication and facilitate better decision-making by humans, just as they do today.
David Gelernter's (sp?) books are very interesting in this regard. In Muse in the Machine he delves a little into psychology to postulate how we could make a "creative machine," but I think his book Mirror Worlds was more on the mark: how so-called intelligent technology will be used to facilitate decisions by people.
I believe computers will eventually become smart enough to reason much like a human, and to reach intelligent conclusions within their task space. However, it is quite a huge leap to say that somehow computers will begin acting in their own interests without regard to human convenience or life.
It's like I always say: Judges should not have the power to nullify a law for any reason. If the law is unconstitutional it should be repealed through the legislative process. The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly, as Abraham Lincoln said.
1: The proof is in the pudding. The strict enforcement of laws that are passed will show whether the law is beneficial in a practical sense.
2: If we didn't have this stupid judiciary back door for unconstitutional laws, there would be much more pressure on legislators to examine the law before it passes.
Well, I should have made it clear that the whole idea that life exists on some other planet's moon isn't stupid because of anything the Bible says or doesn't say...it's stupid because it's stupid. It's the longest long shot anyone could come up with.
Geez, I KNOW we've "gotten our money's worth" out of this billion-dollar tin can, but given the sheer, incredibly gargantuan odds that anything like a life form exists on Jupiter's moon seems like a big ol' waste to me.
Who else hear thinks of the TRS-80 when you hear OS/9 ? The famed UNIX lookalike for the Color Computer. I liked their version numbers: Level I and Level II. I'd like to see an Ars Technica retrocomputing article about OS/9 sometime....
HOORAY MOZILLA! Just when they've missed another on-the-wire date and you start to lose hope, they pop back up again. You guys are big encouragers, especially by jumping into the forums here and educating us all.
--- In th is usenet article, Jim Roskind goes into some of the plans for M14 and beyond. One point he brings up (and this is the where-you-can-help part) is that the main things which prevent a commercial-branded alpha/beta are the "beta-stopper" bugs; bugs which are first marked beta1 on submission, then reviewed and marked by authorization as PDT. These beta-stoppers, by virtue of their priority, draw human resources from across Netscape as well as just the seamonkey group.
So if you can, test the program. If you find a beta-stopper - some real bug like a crash or a performance problem - report it and mark it beta1. These draw special attention from the mozilla people, and if promoted to PDT status, will attract extra developers from Netscape.
--- Someone else at MozillaZine had some insights about a (possibly semi-official) name for the full completed package: Netscape 2001 or some such. Yes it is the year thing, but as Henrik points out, it could be succesfully tied into the air of cooless surrounding 2001, A Space Odyssey. Maybe they'd even give it a classical soundtrack:-)
I, like you and unlike others here, don't believe that software upgrades should only be posted on Freshmeat; the occasional upgrade is very nice to have here, where it has a better chance of getting a more lively discussion if people would actually TALK ABOUT THE SOFTWARE rather than complaining that it doesn't belong here. Almost no one posts comments on freshmeat. If fm had a more interesting and populous forum, I would also prefer to leave upgrades there.
Note however, that if I still had my moderator status, I would have moderated you right down to 0 from 1 where you are already. I very much agree with the other/.er who stated that people who anticipate and acknowledge that they will probably be moderated down should get what they ask for. Don't ruin an otherwise insightful post by claiming to be some kind of martyr.
I forgot that most people play games and things...since I don't ever play quake I guess my video and sound demands are lower. My cheap $16 sound card stopped working when I switched to Linux and I really haven't missed it. Don't really need Voodoo3 to play chess! I'm looking for a good computer to run a browser, email, word processor, and of course programming stuff. I always thought programming was better than most games but that's just an opinion.
Other than games, graphics-intensive stuff, or other multimedia, I don't know what you'd need a $4000 laptop for. I will probably get a docking station for the added comfort when I'm at home, however.
At my job, a major AEC firm, most of the salaried workers are being given leased thinkpads, and it has worked out just great. Something like that with an eight or nine-hour battery life would suit me just fine thanks:-)
My current computer is a "PR" 166 Cyrix chip. This (non-mediaGX) system is very trusty and reliable, but not incredibly fast. I did build a mediaGX system once, and man that thing was not only slow and ugly, it gave me all kinds of stupid problems besides the fact that the first motherboard they sent was defective.
My next machine, after I have worn this one out plenty, will be a Crusoe-powered laptop. I have seen the light: the days of big, ugly tower cases for workstation users are numbered. Traditional cases make sense for servers, but hey! who needs expansion slots or serial ports anymore? Most of the technology has plateued and doesn't need to be upgraded often anymore (cpu speed, sound cards, video cards, ethernet, etc.) So why not by a small, fast mobile laptop??
This chip is mildly interesting but it doesn't look like it will be able to compete anywhere. It's main use will probably be as an upgrade to old PGA machines at some point. Quite a narrow market.
Let me get this straight...you switched back to RC5 because you thought OGR was going to take forever?
Isn't RC5 the contest that has been dragging on for more than 2 years?? And they still haven't finished even a quarter of the keyspace!
With that kind of delay, D.net won't be proving anything about the vulnerability of RC5-64 when/if they find the solution. They may get a $10,000 check, but they won't score any usefulness or political points.
Who cares it takes 3 days for a single box to complete an OGR node if we still finish the project in only a month or two? I welcome useful, fast, record-breaking projects like this to break up the glacial RC5 stuff.
Rob, I know you do a lot of perl stuff; wouldn't it be great if they created a keyboard for perl hackers? The punctuation and symbol characters would be the default and you would have to use shift keys in order to type letters, rather than the other way 'round!
This makes sense because the only time you use letters is when you're calling a function, naming a function, or commenting your code. And who comments perl code anyway? And you really don't need user-def functions either. Most of the things that require calling functions in other languages are done with arcane operators in perl.
By the way guys, voice recognition is out unless you never do anything but word processing and email. Can you imagine trying to code perl with voice recognition? Unless perhaps you memorized and were able to use all the INTERCAL names for the characters:-) (spark, crunch, flatworm, half-mesh, etc.)
Well, most people have forgotten about a widely published, 2,000-4,000 year old book called the Bible. In it, God lays out His plan precisely so that we as humans can understand it. So it's not a matter of this person being arrogant.
I never did get the issue of cloning, though. First of all, it's not such a big deal. Nobody has created life in the cloning, they're just putting existing components together using a process that much less efficient, far more costly and less likely to succeed. Secondly, why would you want a "clone"? It's not as if they take some skin samples, pop them in a machine, and out walks a perfect duplicate of yourself. The "clone" has to grow up from a baby just like you did, so it would be more like your child than your new twin.
The question is, do we want to restrict libraries to materials that everybody can agree upon?
..to which the answer is no. Sorry, that is not the correct question! It is too broad.
I'm not talking about information or knowledge. Or Das Kapital. I'm talking about pornography. No one is trying to keep people from learning about various political philosophies on the Internet. But sorry, pornography does not and never should qualify as a valid use of public workstations.
Pornography is the primary reason most families support filtering software. Since when were the american nazis a part of this? My point was not that librarians should be actively guarding thise "portal of knowledge" as you call it, it is that librarians should be allowed to curb these offensive abuses of the public computers the same way they should be able to kick out a bunch of teenagers if they are swearing and smoking in the library.
The real question is not "should there be filtering software on public library computers?"
The question is also not "do I have a right to use publicly accessible computers, which my tax dollars paid for, to view pornography or whatever else I want?"
The question is: "Do I have a right to use publicly accessible computers, which everyone's tax dollars paid for, to view whatever I want to in a family-oriented place such as a library?"
I believe it would be a shame to have to stick the computers in the back room to prevent children from seeing what people use them for.
I also think that filtering software, particularly the blacklist (dominant) variety, is flawed and hopeless.
The individual librarians should have the right to warn or throw out habitual abusers of the workstations at their own discretion. Libraries should be allowed to post such a policy without being challenged by the ACLU. If this were the case, we would be able to rely on common sense rather than having to resort to filtering software.
They actually demo'd a bunch of computers running Windows and MS Office, as well as a "web pad" running mobile linux. Also, there was a quake contest between Dietzel and Linus "Mr. T" Torvalds using Crusoe computers. The whole reason Transmeta waited so long, according to dietzel, is that they wanted to wait until they had a working product to demonstrate to everyone. The crusoe chip is in full production right now, and Transmeta has a huge head start on AMD and Intel in the embedded market. So it is wrong to lable Transmeta's stuff as vaporware.
I'm in the market for a laptop right now, and I know it would sure reduce the effort I have to go to in researching which laptops use quality, linux-compatible hardware. If a company offers their laptop with Linux preinstalled, that gives me good assurance that the hardware works with Linux.
Most companies do not even tell you what network card, video chipset or sound chipset they use, so it's off to the Internet to see if there are any testimonials by other Linux'ers on that particular model. I'm glad Dell is making things easier for us and I hope other companies follow suit.
I can't believe how many people are naysaying the future of Transmeta and its processors. Just because OEMs weren't present at the press conference on the 19th and there aren't an 700mhz Crusoe laptops on the shelves doesn't mean Transmeta is about to exit stage left. It's been what, about a week now? Yes, we're all impatient for them to really roll this stuff out, but give it a little time. It's very unrealistic to write off a company after only ten days of inactivity when it has friends like IBM, S3, and a good bios company like Phoenix.
The Text Adventure Development System, or TADS as it is known, has been around for probably almost a decade. It compiles text adventures into a binary format that can be run by an interpreter on many platforms, including Linux, Unix, Mac, Windows, Amiga, OS/2, Acorn RISC, and Atari.
I believe either Zork or one of its predecessors can be readily found. The original Adventure as well as many new and interesting ones can be found as well, although I can't say I have played any of them. I found out about TADS back when I wasa interested in creating my own game. The freeware package includes compilers, debuggers and other things for creating your own text adventures.
I don't know anything about the Infocom games, but TADS is very interesting, and I think people should check it out. Source code is available.
Command-line software all but disappeared from the Windows world because the only available command-line interface, DOS, was such a limited system that it had to be pushed out of the way in order for the platform to evolve. As a result, most people do not know how to use it anymore. They never even learned to begin with.
It doesn't make sense to say that open source software is inherently hard to use. None of the graphical programs that came with my Mandrake 6.1 are hard to use even by Windows standards.
Are textmode tools hard to use? Maybe if you've never used them before. They're certainly not the paragon of interface design according to Tognazzini, but for many applications they're the only thing that makes sense. It may in fact be no harder to learn than Windows if you have never used a computer before; you don't approach the system with any preconceived notions about how the interface works.
Is vim hard to use? Maybe if you're used to Notepad or MS Word. It's all relative.
I was a bit frustrated with Linux at first because I had been a Windows user for a long time and had not used DOS for many moons. Administering your computer can be a little tough when all you have is a prompt and you have no idea where Linux puts everything. After you readjust, it all makes sense.
In fact, the only major real hurdle with open source software is having to compile it. Much software is available only in source format. I have had any number of compiles fail on me, and it's too much to ask of a typical user to have him poke around in the code or go out and grab some missing dependencies, even though I personally am capable of trying to fix the problem.
There should some sort of automated package tool that provides the both the performance benefits of compiling with the automation of a binary install. Rather than distributing a binary package, distribute a package containing a source tree and instructions for the package tool that allow it to automatically compile and install the program, without having a bunch of extra source files laying around if you don't want them.
Transmeta still has (technologically) the big advantage in mobile computing because of the extremely low power draw of its chips. No one would use a celeron in a web pad or palm-type device when they can use a Crusoe that draws a fraction of the power. (Yes, I know Transmeta claims not to be going after palmtops and cell phones right now, but who knows they may just have to take what they can get.)
These programs use *spare* cycles. When you start using the computer it moves out of the way and gives the majority of the CPU % back to your apps.
More accurately, on most OSs, the background client program for d.net or set signals to the OS that it is a low-priority process, so there is no performance hit.
So what's the big deal? If you had performance problems on those computers, it probably wasn't the d.net clients.
How, exactly, can Napster be used legally? This is not a free-speech issue. It is very plain that if you record just about any CD onto mp3 files and make them available for public copying, you have broken the law. I own quite a CD collection and every last one of them has the illegal reproduction warning on it. I tell you, 99% (if not more) of all files available on Napster are illegal copies.
If a large number of musical artists were releasing their music under some kind of GPL-type license, the situation might be different; people would probably be using napster for legal uses as well. Realistically, the percentage of legal files being transferred just might reach 40%.
However, that would not change the fact that most of the transfers on napster are illegal. It is not feasible to prosecute every offender, but here you have a service that knowingly allows all this illegal activity and doesn't even care, and shutting them down is the only thing that makes sense.
"The whole point of any communications protocol is that date can be copied for free (unlike a concrete thing like food) and very easily. So they be trying to ban all communication (including normal speech!) because you can copy music/films etc. with them."
Umm..that's not true, besides being a bit selfish. In fact, it's a bunch of baloney. I'll assume here that you meant data and not date. The whole point of any communications protocol is that the data can be copied, period. NOT that it can be copied for free. If that were the case we should be allowed to use our cell phones for free, right?? The protocol covers only how the information is copied, not whether or not it is free. I can make a VHS tape and give it away or sell it at my own discretion; the method of communication has nothing to do with whether I should be allowed to charge for the data itself.
A lot of people have religiously bought into the (false) philosophy that "information wants to be free therefore give me your stuff." All is sacrificed at the altar of free flow of information. Maybe you don't realize it, but when you use a university's or a company's telecom infrastructure, you use it on their terms, not yours. They paid for it. They probably paid a LOT for it. If they find that excessive use of a service for illegal file transfers is bogging down the network for everyone, the only good thing to do is ban the service.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds nice at first, but don't get the idea that Qt is replacing X on the desktop anytime soon.
Is Qt becoming its own windowing system as well? Will you be able to run more than one Qt app and have them windowed? Where are the video card drivers coming from without X??
Sure it's nice for embedded stuff, but a lot of people seem to have the idea that they're getting a small, fast, free X11 replacement for their desktops.
-JD
In case you haven't noticed, not only does Slashot "give back to the community" by simply existing and giving us a popular forum for discussion, but they also have developed some nice code for weblogs, which they kindly give away for free under the GPL, and which many sites use.
-JD
I've often wondered why there are no minidisc peripherals for computers. They would make great data storage devices if a standard format could be decided on. For that matter, why didn't the minidisc take off here in the states? If you've ever tried one you know that they can record incredible digital audio, they're rewritable, you can insert track markers and tap in your own labels for each track. It's also compact. Maybe someone else has more information.
(Offtopic): It seems many moderators misunderstand the meaning of "Troll". Many of you mark a post as Troll when it is really "Flamebait". To quote the Jargon file: "The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. "
Moral: Don't dignify a stupid post by labeling it a troll unless it really is subtle and clever enough to deserve it. Mark it flamebait or offtopic instead.
-JD
It's interesting that this keeps coming up, but the fear of intelligent machines gradually taking over the earth and subverting our freedom arises from a misunderstanding of what we create machines for.
People do not create machines to replace themselves and make decisions for them, they create machines to do small/repititive tasks efficiently, to accentuate human ability, and to add to the human's capability to do the things he needs to do. It's true that this nakes us more dependant on technology to some extent.
However, machines of the future, far from becoming seperate, sentient entities (pardon the alliteration), will exist to increase communication and facilitate better decision-making by humans, just as they do today.
David Gelernter's (sp?) books are very interesting in this regard. In Muse in the Machine he delves a little into psychology to postulate how we could make a "creative machine," but I think his book Mirror Worlds was more on the mark: how so-called intelligent technology will be used to facilitate decisions by people.
I believe computers will eventually become smart enough to reason much like a human, and to reach intelligent conclusions within their task space. However, it is quite a huge leap to say that somehow computers will begin acting in their own interests without regard to human convenience or life.
It's like I always say: Judges should not have the power to nullify a law for any reason. If the law is unconstitutional it should be repealed through the legislative process. The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly, as Abraham Lincoln said.
1: The proof is in the pudding. The strict enforcement of laws that are passed will show whether the law is beneficial in a practical sense.
2: If we didn't have this stupid judiciary back door for unconstitutional laws, there would be much more pressure on legislators to examine the law before it passes.
-JD
Well, I should have made it clear that the whole idea that life exists on some other planet's moon isn't stupid because of anything the Bible says or doesn't say...it's stupid because it's stupid. It's the longest long shot anyone could come up with.
Geez, I KNOW we've "gotten our money's worth" out of this billion-dollar tin can, but given the sheer, incredibly gargantuan odds that anything like a life form exists on Jupiter's moon seems like a big ol' waste to me.
Who else hear thinks of the TRS-80 when you hear OS/9 ? The famed UNIX lookalike for the Color Computer. I liked their version numbers: Level I and Level II. I'd like to see an Ars Technica retrocomputing article about OS/9 sometime....
JD
HOORAY MOZILLA! Just when they've missed another on-the-wire date and you start to lose hope, they pop back up again. You guys are big encouragers, especially by jumping into the forums here and educating us all.
:-)
---
In th is usenet article, Jim Roskind goes into some of the plans for M14 and beyond. One point he brings up (and this is the where-you-can-help part) is that the main things which prevent a commercial-branded alpha/beta are the "beta-stopper" bugs; bugs which are first marked beta1 on submission, then reviewed and marked by authorization as PDT. These beta-stoppers, by virtue of their priority, draw human resources from across Netscape as well as just the seamonkey group.
So if you can, test the program. If you find a beta-stopper - some real bug like a crash or a performance problem - report it and mark it beta1. These draw special attention from the mozilla people, and if promoted to PDT status, will attract extra developers from Netscape.
---
Someone else at MozillaZine had some insights about a (possibly semi-official) name for the full completed package: Netscape 2001 or some such. Yes it is the year thing, but as Henrik points out, it could be succesfully tied into the air of cooless surrounding 2001, A Space Odyssey. Maybe they'd even give it a classical soundtrack
-- If you lived here, you'd be home by now.
I, like you and unlike others here, don't believe that software upgrades should only be posted on Freshmeat; the occasional upgrade is very nice to have here, where it has a better chance of getting a more lively discussion if people would actually TALK ABOUT THE SOFTWARE rather than complaining that it doesn't belong here. Almost no one posts comments on freshmeat. If fm had a more interesting and populous forum, I would also prefer to leave upgrades there.
/.er who stated that people who anticipate and acknowledge that they will probably be moderated down should get what they ask for. Don't ruin an otherwise insightful post by claiming to be some kind of martyr.
Note however, that if I still had my moderator status, I would have moderated you right down to 0 from 1 where you are already. I very much agree with the other
JD
I forgot that most people play games and things...since I don't ever play quake I guess my video and sound demands are lower. My cheap $16 sound card stopped working when I switched to Linux and I really haven't missed it. Don't really need Voodoo3 to play chess! I'm looking for a good computer to run a browser, email, word processor, and of course programming stuff. I always thought programming was better than most games but that's just an opinion.
:-)
Other than games, graphics-intensive stuff, or other multimedia, I don't know what you'd need a $4000 laptop for. I will probably get a docking station for the added comfort when I'm at home, however.
At my job, a major AEC firm, most of the salaried workers are being given leased thinkpads, and it has worked out just great. Something like that with an eight or nine-hour battery life would suit me just fine thanks
JD
My current computer is a "PR" 166 Cyrix chip. This (non-mediaGX) system is very trusty and reliable, but not incredibly fast. I did build a mediaGX system once, and man that thing was not only slow and ugly, it gave me all kinds of stupid problems besides the fact that the first motherboard they sent was defective.
My next machine, after I have worn this one out plenty, will be a Crusoe-powered laptop. I have seen the light: the days of big, ugly tower cases for workstation users are numbered. Traditional cases make sense for servers, but hey! who needs expansion slots or serial ports anymore? Most of the technology has plateued and doesn't need to be upgraded often anymore (cpu speed, sound cards, video cards, ethernet, etc.) So why not by a small, fast mobile laptop??
This chip is mildly interesting but it doesn't look like it will be able to compete anywhere. It's main use will probably be as an upgrade to old PGA machines at some point. Quite a narrow market.
JD
Let me get this straight...you switched back to RC5 because you thought OGR was going to take forever?
Isn't RC5 the contest that has been dragging on for more than 2 years?? And they still haven't finished even a quarter of the keyspace!
With that kind of delay, D.net won't be proving anything about the vulnerability of RC5-64 when/if they find the solution. They may get a $10,000 check, but they won't score any usefulness or political points.
Who cares it takes 3 days for a single box to complete an OGR node if we still finish the project in only a month or two? I welcome useful, fast, record-breaking projects like this to break up the glacial RC5 stuff.
JD
Rob, I know you do a lot of perl stuff; wouldn't it be great if they created a keyboard for perl hackers? The punctuation and symbol characters would be the default and you would have to use shift keys in order to type letters, rather than the other way 'round!
:-) (spark, crunch, flatworm, half-mesh, etc.)
This makes sense because the only time you use letters is when you're calling a function, naming a function, or commenting your code. And who comments perl code anyway? And you really don't need user-def functions either. Most of the things that require calling functions in other languages are done with arcane operators in perl.
By the way guys, voice recognition is out unless you never do anything but word processing and email. Can you imagine trying to code perl with voice recognition? Unless perhaps you memorized and were able to use all the INTERCAL names for the characters
Well, most people have forgotten about a widely published, 2,000-4,000 year old book called the Bible. In it, God lays out His plan precisely so that we as humans can understand it. So it's not a matter of this person being arrogant.
I never did get the issue of cloning, though. First of all, it's not such a big deal. Nobody has created life in the cloning, they're just putting existing components together using a process that much less efficient, far more costly and less likely to succeed. Secondly, why would you want a "clone"? It's not as if they take some skin samples, pop them in a machine, and out walks a perfect duplicate of yourself. The "clone" has to grow up from a baby just like you did, so it would be more like your child than your new twin.
JD
The question is, do we want to restrict libraries to materials that everybody can agree upon?
..to which the answer is no. Sorry, that is not the correct question! It is too broad.
I'm not talking about information or knowledge. Or Das Kapital. I'm talking about pornography. No one is trying to keep people from learning about various political philosophies on the Internet. But sorry, pornography does not and never should qualify as a valid use of public workstations.
Pornography is the primary reason most families support filtering software. Since when were the american nazis a part of this? My point was not that librarians should be actively guarding thise "portal of knowledge" as you call it, it is that librarians should be allowed to curb these offensive abuses of the public computers the same way they should be able to kick out a bunch of teenagers if they are swearing and smoking in the library.
The real question is not "should there be filtering software on public library computers?"
The question is also not "do I have a right to use publicly accessible computers, which my tax dollars paid for, to view pornography or whatever else I want?"
The question is: "Do I have a right to use publicly accessible computers, which everyone's tax dollars paid for, to view whatever I want to in a family-oriented place such as a library?"
I believe it would be a shame to have to stick the computers in the back room to prevent children from seeing what people use them for.
I also think that filtering software, particularly the blacklist (dominant) variety, is flawed and hopeless.
The individual librarians should have the right to warn or throw out habitual abusers of the workstations at their own discretion. Libraries should be allowed to post such a policy without being challenged by the ACLU. If this were the case, we would be able to rely on common sense rather than having to resort to filtering software.
They told us CmdrTaco was voted favorite /. author.
:-)
What we really want to know was how many people actually voted for jon katz
To make it fair, why not give us the results for every entry, instead of just telling us who won?
JD
They actually demo'd a bunch of computers running Windows and MS Office, as well as a "web pad" running mobile linux. Also, there was a quake contest between Dietzel and Linus "Mr. T" Torvalds using Crusoe computers. The whole reason Transmeta waited so long, according to dietzel, is that they wanted to wait until they had a working product to demonstrate to everyone. The crusoe chip is in full production right now, and Transmeta has a huge head start on AMD and Intel in the embedded market. So it is wrong to lable Transmeta's stuff as vaporware.
I'm in the market for a laptop right now, and I know it would sure reduce the effort I have to go to in researching which laptops use quality, linux-compatible hardware. If a company offers their laptop with Linux preinstalled, that gives me good assurance that the hardware works with Linux.
Most companies do not even tell you what network card, video chipset or sound chipset they use, so it's off to the Internet to see if there are any testimonials by other Linux'ers on that particular model. I'm glad Dell is making things easier for us and I hope other companies follow suit.
I can't believe how many people are naysaying the future of Transmeta and its processors. Just because OEMs weren't present at the press conference on the 19th and there aren't an 700mhz Crusoe laptops on the shelves doesn't mean Transmeta is about to exit stage left. It's been what, about a week now? Yes, we're all impatient for them to really roll this stuff out, but give it a little time. It's very unrealistic to write off a company after only ten days of inactivity when it has friends like IBM, S3, and a good bios company like Phoenix.
The Text Adventure Development System, or TADS as it is known, has been around for probably almost a decade. It compiles text adventures into a binary format that can be run by an interpreter on many platforms, including Linux, Unix, Mac, Windows, Amiga, OS/2, Acorn RISC, and Atari.
I believe either Zork or one of its predecessors can be readily found. The original Adventure as well as many new and interesting ones can be found as well, although I can't say I have played any of them. I found out about TADS back when I wasa interested in creating my own game. The freeware package includes compilers, debuggers and other things for creating your own text adventures.
I don't know anything about the Infocom games, but TADS is very interesting, and I think people should check it out. Source code is available.
JD
Command-line software all but disappeared from the Windows world because the only available command-line interface, DOS, was such a limited system that it had to be pushed out of the way in order for the platform to evolve. As a result, most people do not know how to use it anymore. They never even learned to begin with.
It doesn't make sense to say that open source software is inherently hard to use. None of the graphical programs that came with my Mandrake 6.1 are hard to use even by Windows standards.
Are textmode tools hard to use? Maybe if you've never used them before. They're certainly not the paragon of interface design according to Tognazzini, but for many applications they're the only thing that makes sense. It may in fact be no harder to learn than Windows if you have never used a computer before; you don't approach the system with any preconceived notions about how the interface works.
Is vim hard to use? Maybe if you're used to Notepad or MS Word. It's all relative.
I was a bit frustrated with Linux at first because I had been a Windows user for a long time and had not used DOS for many moons. Administering your computer can be a little tough when all you have is a prompt and you have no idea where Linux puts everything. After you readjust, it all makes sense.
In fact, the only major real hurdle with open source software is having to compile it. Much software is available only in source format. I have had any number of compiles fail on me, and it's too much to ask of a typical user to have him poke around in the code or go out and grab some missing dependencies, even though I personally am capable of trying to fix the problem.
There should some sort of automated package tool that provides the both the performance benefits of compiling with the automation of a binary install. Rather than distributing a binary package, distribute a package containing a source tree and instructions for the package tool that allow it to automatically compile and install the program, without having a bunch of extra source files laying around if you don't want them.
JD
Transmeta still has (technologically) the big advantage in mobile computing because of the extremely low power draw of its chips. No one would use a celeron in a web pad or palm-type device when they can use a Crusoe that draws a fraction of the power. (Yes, I know Transmeta claims not to be going after palmtops and cell phones right now, but who knows they may just have to take what they can get.)
These programs use *spare* cycles. When you start using the computer it moves out of the way and gives the majority of the CPU % back to your apps.
More accurately, on most OSs, the background client program for d.net or set signals to the OS that it is a low-priority process, so there is no performance hit.
So what's the big deal? If you had performance problems on those computers, it probably wasn't the d.net clients.
How, exactly, can Napster be used legally? This is not a free-speech issue. It is very plain that if you record just about any CD onto mp3 files and make them available for public copying, you have broken the law. I own quite a CD collection and every last one of them has the illegal reproduction warning on it. I tell you, 99% (if not more) of all files available on Napster are illegal copies.
If a large number of musical artists were releasing their music under some kind of GPL-type license, the situation might be different; people would probably be using napster for legal uses as well. Realistically, the percentage of legal files being transferred just might reach 40%.
However, that would not change the fact that most of the transfers on napster are illegal. It is not feasible to prosecute every offender, but here you have a service that knowingly allows all this illegal activity and doesn't even care, and shutting them down is the only thing that makes sense.
"The whole point of any communications protocol is that date can be copied for free (unlike a concrete thing like food) and very easily.
So they be trying to ban all communication (including normal speech!) because you can copy music/films etc. with them."
Umm..that's not true, besides being a bit selfish. In fact, it's a bunch of baloney. I'll assume here that you meant data and not date. The whole point of any communications protocol is that the data can be copied, period. NOT that it can be copied for free. If that were the case we should be allowed to use our cell phones for free, right?? The protocol covers only how the information is copied, not whether or not it is free. I can make a VHS tape and give it away or sell it at my own discretion; the method of communication has nothing to do with whether I should be allowed to charge for the data itself.
A lot of people have religiously bought into the (false) philosophy that "information wants to be free therefore give me your stuff." All is sacrificed at the altar of free flow of information. Maybe you don't realize it, but when you use a university's or a company's telecom infrastructure, you use it on their terms, not yours. They paid for it. They probably paid a LOT for it. If they find that excessive use of a service for illegal file transfers is bogging down the network for everyone, the only good thing to do is ban the service.
JD