It seems that many things that we consider to be appliances began their lives as highly technical and esoteric devices. The early computers, the early radios, etc.
By the time things hit the median market for consumers, they've been simplified and tweaked into point and shoot devices.
Computer makers tried this but they kept being reverse engineered and hacked by slashdotters:)
--------- after thought.... OK--not to troll, but WTF was that page linked "not a good thing?" Definitely not a good thing. yikes...some serious engrish.
Well, there's an old saying, "You get what you pay for."
As long as broadband is a higher valued service, the price will reflect that. If an emerging technology becomes a disruptive technology, then the price wil go down.
Besides, broadband is a big fat cash cow giving lots of milk to fund the expanding infrastructure needs for the providers. It's also lining their pockets a bit. I doubt the price will go down but I do think it might get jacked up if nobody's watching. Utility companies love to pull that one.
However, the idea of taking the Unix kernel idea, building one for regular Intel hardware, and distributing for peer review/contribution isn't such a bad model to start with...I think that's probably the over-arching motif that Linus used more than actual code or programming design. I stand/sit/neal/bend corrected and I genuflect in the general direction of all those pasty little geeks who decided my metaphor was ill-placed.:-p
The function of what it DOES was probably the seed that began the kernel that loads under the penguin.
I may not be a snobby super geek who condescendingly retorts to slashdot posts with the pinache of a sysadmin ogre teaching intro to Unix, but I do know about the creative process and can recognize creative genius when I see it (and when I don't).
I think Linus gets credit for his ideas, enthusiasm, and tenacity if he doesn't get all the credit for the code. The creative juice for the entire Linux project started with him--even if he took more credit for more than he wrote.
If anything, that's the point I'm trying to illustrate while some are still mired in the myopic details and bashing "lesser" geeks.
Maybe I just don't know WTF I'm talking about...but at least I'm not bitter.
If you consider that Linus saw Minix and said, "Hey, that's a good idea--Unix on regular hardware. How did he do that? Let me take a crack at that by studying what he did..."
The metaphor isn't all that ill placed or misspelled.
Torvald's early kernels were very small and not extensive (and not too stable either). From the beginning, he's invited (publicly) the hacker community to contribute. The kernel grew and it became an open source project from the beginning. The organic growth of the kernel came from lots of people and was MANAGED by one person. Alot of the ground work had already been done by MINIX so, as a "novice programmer," Linus didn't have to re-invent the wheel-he used the structure of MINIX as a template and hacked it from there.
It's like a composer using the sonata form--the notes are different but the form is the form.
To extend the metaphor, the form has actually grown from simple tune to a full symphonic work as the motif began to grow and other musicians' contributed with different textures, sounds, and rhythms.
Aaron Copland's "Apalachian Spring" features an old "Shaker" tune called "The Gift To Be Simple." Copland didn't write the tune, but he did adapt the work into a larger polyphonic structure with variations and formal development. (It was a ballet score for a small ensemble then a full symphonic suite).
I suggest that Linus took Minix and did the same. Only Linus's symphony contains a bit of jazz improv by the use of extemporaneous solos from the contributing musicians in his orchestra under the baton of the conductor/composer.
I fail to see why Ken Brown feels a need to call out Linus as some sort of phoney. Maybe he can write about how Copland ripped off all those poor backward hillbillies in the Apalachians.
-Hostile take overs of competing countries -Stealing a language, bastardizing it, and forcing the "new" standard on the world. -Forcing other goverments to adopt our goverment model...Wait a minute...
It would probably a good idea to review what Schizophrenia is and what it isn't. Many people often confuse multiple personality disorder with schizophrenia. I imagine that schizo is a broad nomenclature for a disease much the way that cancer is. Putting a finer point on the diagnosis and its particular manifestations would probably benefit the family and friends the most. Of course, finding a suitable and effective treatment for the disease would be optimal, but getting one's head around the entire condition and learning to deal with it at face value would be the best starting point.
Hope that helps in some way beyond stating the obvious.
George Lucas scored a huge hit with the original 3 movies for several reasons:
1) He borrowed concepts that worked for others 2) The story was clear and classic: good vs. evil 3) The effects were new (not tired) 4) The film score was bold and complimentary to the action
All of these are (or at least at the time were) tried and true elements to storytelling that engaged viewers. The controlling narrative was tethered to redemption, justice, and heroic action. It was the rite of storytelling that goes all the way back to the Homeric tradition.
The new Lucas productions "suck" because he's abandoned those storytelling elements for what I consider "post modern." The characters are no longer good or evil they're somewhere in between. Lucas tries to explain too much and seems to fear that even "The Force" is beyond the ability for viewers to suspend disbelief and just believe in it for the 94 minutes they're in the theatre. (Midichlorians? That's harder to believe, George!) Darth Vader was more fun because he was just evil. We liked him turning back to the good side only because the hero wanted it. We, like Luke, didn't care how he fell, we just wanted to see how it worked out. George's initial decision to start in the middle was the right decision then and the right decision now.
How do you save episode 3?
1) Make Anakin evil and don't try to explain why--make us hate him because he's evil not because he's an abused child acting out. The audience should be afraid of the dark side not feel sorry for it. (We're supposed to enjoy seeing him get an asswhoopin' not think "awe, if he'd only had a better home life with a father figure...")
2) Ditch the Disneyesque fluffy crap. No Jar-Jar or other cutesy crap. You can be funny without making the characters saccharin-laced Care Bears from outer space. George, your kids don't have to laugh and giggle through "Daddy's" movie. They'll get their asses kicked at school.
3) If you're gonna steal material, steal GOOD material. Don't steal from half-baked postmodern mythological mumbo jumbo you pulled from Joseph Campbell's trash can. Use classic archetypes & don't try to re-invent them--your stories aren't strong enough to support explaining the characters' complexity. The audience doesn't care--we just want to see the characters play out the story not the other way around. We know who they are and what they do already, so the Hemingway treatment to every little thought just plain bores us. We want more light saber fights and less pouting moddy James Dean wannabe rebel without a clue b.s.! The most awesome moment was seeing Yoda get it on with Dooky or Dooku or whatever. We know who's good and who's evil--don't overtell the story. The clash was playing out what we ALREADY know.
The bottomline is that we don't like Anakin--he was a snot-nosed smart-assed child and we're glad to see it when he's partially dismemberedand burned so badly that he's forced to live the rest of his life in a big black helmet that hides that smarmy punk-assed smirk we've all reviled for the first 2 episodes.
Oh, crap. I started to rant didn't I? Well, so much for intellectualism.
Uh, I think Linus's claim to the first Linux kernel is quite valid and he cited prior art:
"As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I'm working on a free version of a minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers."
I think the lineage to Unix via minix is obvious. Linus wrote his own kernel. The other pieces may have already existed, but the kernel was new. Unless he stole it from another Linus who conveniently named the project "Linux" after himself.
Over the last 13 years, many others contributed to the kernel and development which, according to SCO, may have included some questionable copy-paste commands, but I think the beginning is clear and the origins are clearly cited.
See here: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Oc t5.0541 06.4647%40klaava.Helsinki.FI
I'm not sure the author of the article really understands what Linux is and what Linux is not. He is right about varying degress of fanaticism and the very loose definition of "open source." No matter where you get your software, you're at the mercy of the developer to maintain it--commercial or open source. For example, I think the Linux community has been very good about responding to security issues compared to much larger corporations who have a very loose definition of quality control. When those corporations begin to loose money to smaller groups who out perform, then those corporations pay for studies that skew the truth and spread FUD.
Dude...totally. They're spreading FUD. The tech issues are just smoke, chaff, and flare about technical issues when the real issue is about the definition of "ownership" of the content. The MPAA says they own it and you can "borrow" it under their conditions. Users say they bought a DVD and the content is now theirs to do as they please. I think the truth lies in the middle (with a little compromise) but bitching about lack of Linux support is kinda like a lawyer bitching to the judge & jury about his client's poor choices of TV channels while he's in the jail for a crime he didn't commit.
The interviewer is just hell-bent on getting DVD on his damn linux box--that's rather myopic if not selfish.
it's more "liberal" (probably a better word than socialist) to insist that you own something when you buy it and your rights to it are absolute; but the definition of ownership is the real question here. if you're just licensing the use of the medium under certain conditions and your purchase of the medium is a legally binding contract to the terms (as the MPAA would prefer it to be) then your rights as an owner are not as absolute as you (and many others complaining in this thread) would care for them to be. The capitalist angle comes in when those values are tweaked to change the rules from the buyer-seller relationship to the landlord-tennant relationship. Maybe that's more feudalist than capitalist.
your reply is indicative of your emotional attachment to your definition of ownership (which would be more on the side of absolute in the buyer-seller paradigm)--which is really the issue here. the ideological debate over the platform technicalities is obfuscating the ownership issue of the media and content. I'm saying that it's not the MPAA against Linux, it's the MPAA against all of us--or at least the status quo of "ownership."
i'd even say that the industry seems to have an agenda to abridge the rights of what we have long considered as our rights of ownership.
I meant socialist in the purer form of the word not the Stalinist version (which you allude to by government power reducing rights of ownership). Perhaps that was a poor choice of an analogy. I hereby retract it.
I'm trying to draw attention away from the straw man and to that damned naked MPAA emporeror running around clothed in his new ownership clothes. Work with me here, mate!
What we have here isn't a failure of logic or failure of communication, but it's a clash of ideologies. The MPAA reserves the right to make money off of its "product" (approx. the capitalist view) while the user community reserves their right to do as they please with purchased goods (approx. the socialist view).
It sounds like the MPAA wants the "product" to become licensed for your use but under their ownership rather than offering ownership of the product for sale individually. Reminds me of the licesning for software like SPSS and a few others where you just pay for the right to use it under certain terms.
The GNU-minded folks seem to have a hard time articulating (in this interview anyways) their reasons why this isn't fair to them and to Linux. The interviewer was very global in his assertation that he was entitled to do what he wants with "the product" after he purchases it.
There isn't anything wrong (to me) with either view, but the problem is that neither side will reach any kind of agreement as long as both sides keep posturing as the moral authority. To each side, this is perceived as arrogance. The battle shifts from the salient issue to that of ideals. This doesn't really help solve the immediate problem it just becomes a religious war with alot of collateral damage. --just my $.02.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems that many things that we consider to be appliances began their lives as highly technical and esoteric devices. The early computers, the early radios, etc.
:)
By the time things hit the median market for consumers, they've been simplified and tweaked into point and shoot devices.
Computer makers tried this but they kept being reverse engineered and hacked by slashdotters
---------
after thought....
OK--not to troll, but WTF was that page linked "not a good thing?" Definitely not a good thing. yikes...some serious engrish.
Well, there's an old saying, "You get what you pay for."
As long as broadband is a higher valued service, the price will reflect that. If an emerging technology becomes a disruptive technology, then the price wil go down.
Besides, broadband is a big fat cash cow giving lots of milk to fund the expanding infrastructure needs for the providers. It's also lining their pockets a bit. I doubt the price will go down but I do think it might get jacked up if nobody's watching. Utility companies love to pull that one.
--
...and Viva la difference!
:-p
However, the idea of taking the Unix kernel idea, building one for regular Intel hardware, and distributing for peer review/contribution isn't such a bad model to start with...I think that's probably the over-arching motif that Linus used more than actual code or programming design. I stand/sit/neal/bend corrected and I genuflect in the general direction of all those pasty little geeks who decided my metaphor was ill-placed.
The function of what it DOES was probably the seed that began the kernel that loads under the penguin.
I may not be a snobby super geek who condescendingly retorts to slashdot posts with the pinache of a sysadmin ogre teaching intro to Unix, but I do know about the creative process and can recognize creative genius when I see it (and when I don't).
I think Linus gets credit for his ideas, enthusiasm, and tenacity if he doesn't get all the credit for the code. The creative juice for the entire Linux project started with him--even if he took more credit for more than he wrote.
If anything, that's the point I'm trying to illustrate while some are still mired in the myopic details and bashing "lesser" geeks.
Maybe I just don't know WTF I'm talking about...but at least I'm not bitter.
[no venom or bad karma on you, +Newander+]
If you consider that Linus saw Minix and said, "Hey, that's a good idea--Unix on regular hardware. How did he do that? Let me take a crack at that by studying what he did..." The metaphor isn't all that ill placed or misspelled.
Torvald's early kernels were very small and not extensive (and not too stable either). From the beginning, he's invited (publicly) the hacker community to contribute. The kernel grew and it became an open source project from the beginning. The organic growth of the kernel came from lots of people and was MANAGED by one person. Alot of the ground work had already been done by MINIX so, as a "novice programmer," Linus didn't have to re-invent the wheel-he used the structure of MINIX as a template and hacked it from there.
It's like a composer using the sonata form--the notes are different but the form is the form.
To extend the metaphor, the form has actually grown from simple tune to a full symphonic work as the motif began to grow and other musicians' contributed with different textures, sounds, and rhythms.
Aaron Copland's "Apalachian Spring" features an old "Shaker" tune called "The Gift To Be Simple." Copland didn't write the tune, but he did adapt the work into a larger polyphonic structure with variations and formal development. (It was a ballet score for a small ensemble then a full symphonic suite).
I suggest that Linus took Minix and did the same. Only Linus's symphony contains a bit of jazz improv by the use of extemporaneous solos from the contributing musicians in his orchestra under the baton of the conductor/composer.
I fail to see why Ken Brown feels a need to call out Linus as some sort of phoney. Maybe he can write about how Copland ripped off all those poor backward hillbillies in the Apalachians.
Can you imagine Bill Gates as President?
...Wait a minute...
What if the U.S. was run like Microsoft?
-Hostile take overs of competing countries
-Stealing a language, bastardizing it, and forcing the "new" standard on the world.
-Forcing other goverments to adopt our goverment model
AHHHHH!
Maybe we can get that Noah's Ark guy to look into this one, too.
I had this lady promise to give me a hummer if I set up her LAN and mail server.
;)
I thought it worked out great...until these gas prices went up. This thing gets horrible mileage!
(my troll post of the day
It would probably a good idea to review what Schizophrenia is and what it isn't. Many people often confuse multiple personality disorder with schizophrenia. I imagine that schizo is a broad nomenclature for a disease much the way that cancer is. Putting a finer point on the diagnosis and its particular manifestations would probably benefit the family and friends the most. Of course, finding a suitable and effective treatment for the disease would be optimal, but getting one's head around the entire condition and learning to deal with it at face value would be the best starting point.
Hope that helps in some way beyond stating the obvious.
I think a couple of idiots with a backhoe/ditch witch would do that job nicely.
George Lucas scored a huge hit with the original 3 movies for several reasons:
1) He borrowed concepts that worked for others
2) The story was clear and classic: good vs. evil
3) The effects were new (not tired)
4) The film score was bold and complimentary to the action
All of these are (or at least at the time were) tried and true elements to storytelling that engaged viewers. The controlling narrative was tethered to redemption, justice, and heroic action. It was the rite of storytelling that goes all the way back to the Homeric tradition.
The new Lucas productions "suck" because he's abandoned those storytelling elements for what I consider "post modern." The characters are no longer good or evil they're somewhere in between. Lucas tries to explain too much and seems to fear that even "The Force" is beyond the ability for viewers to suspend disbelief and just believe in it for the 94 minutes they're in the theatre. (Midichlorians? That's harder to believe, George!) Darth Vader was more fun because he was just evil. We liked him turning back to the good side only because the hero wanted it. We, like Luke, didn't care how he fell, we just wanted to see how it worked out. George's initial decision to start in the middle was the right decision then and the right decision now.
How do you save episode 3?
1) Make Anakin evil and don't try to explain why--make us hate him because he's evil not because he's an abused child acting out. The audience should be afraid of the dark side not feel sorry for it. (We're supposed to enjoy seeing him get an asswhoopin' not think "awe, if he'd only had a better home life with a father figure...")
2) Ditch the Disneyesque fluffy crap. No Jar-Jar or other cutesy crap. You can be funny without making the characters saccharin-laced Care Bears from outer space. George, your kids don't have to laugh and giggle through "Daddy's" movie. They'll get their asses kicked at school.
3) If you're gonna steal material, steal GOOD material. Don't steal from half-baked postmodern mythological mumbo jumbo you pulled from Joseph Campbell's trash can. Use classic archetypes & don't try to re-invent them--your stories aren't strong enough to support explaining the characters' complexity.
The audience doesn't care--we just want to see the characters play out the story not the other way around. We know who they are and what they do already, so the Hemingway treatment to every little thought just plain bores us. We want more light saber fights and less pouting moddy James Dean wannabe rebel without a clue b.s.! The most awesome moment was seeing Yoda get it on with Dooky or Dooku or whatever. We know who's good and who's evil--don't overtell the story. The clash was playing out what we ALREADY know.
The bottomline is that we don't like Anakin--he was a snot-nosed smart-assed child and we're glad to see it when he's partially dismemberedand burned so badly that he's forced to live the rest of his life in a big black helmet that hides that smarmy punk-assed smirk we've all reviled for the first 2 episodes.
Oh, crap. I started to rant didn't I? Well, so much for intellectualism.
Maybe I'll tweak this one for my MTA to ascii art "SPAM" on all my junk mail.
Dude, you didn't see it? I left a few packets at the alter.
I was able to simulate hell freezing over! (Damn, I'm such a troll today)
True--that is the exception assuming that you have competent programmers to maintain the hack you created. Oftentimes, that's a road less traveled.
Yahoo news is a tool of da man!
ha!
if that doesn't work, they'll try something really desperate like patching Windows.
Those bastards! They matched me with goatse!
Uh, I think Linus's claim to the first Linux kernel is quite valid and he cited prior art:
c t5.0541 06.4647%40klaava.Helsinki.FI
"As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I'm working on a free version of a minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers."
I think the lineage to Unix via minix is obvious. Linus wrote his own kernel. The other pieces may have already existed, but the kernel was new. Unless he stole it from another Linus who conveniently named the project "Linux" after himself.
Over the last 13 years, many others contributed to the kernel and development which, according to SCO, may have included some questionable copy-paste commands, but I think the beginning is clear and the origins are clearly cited.
See here:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991O
I'm not sure the author of the article really understands what Linux is and what Linux is not. He is right about varying degress of fanaticism and the very loose definition of "open source." No matter where you get your software, you're at the mercy of the developer to maintain it--commercial or open source. For example, I think the Linux community has been very good about responding to security issues compared to much larger corporations who have a very loose definition of quality control. When those corporations begin to loose money to smaller groups who out perform, then those corporations pay for studies that skew the truth and spread FUD.
Read the article--the math isn't all that fuzzy.
...maybe a prize for "quality control" on some of those space craft, eh?
A lawyer joke:
A Lawyer's Moral Dilemma:
Did you hear about the lawyer who was overpaid by his client and he couldn't decide if should tell his partner?
I love to see lawyers fighting each other. Unfortunately, when the bills arrive, the costs of all this legal frivalty are passed down to the consumer.
that was my immediate thought as well!
Dude...totally. They're spreading FUD. The tech issues are just smoke, chaff, and flare about technical issues when the real issue is about the definition of "ownership" of the content. The MPAA says they own it and you can "borrow" it under their conditions. Users say they bought a DVD and the content is now theirs to do as they please. I think the truth lies in the middle (with a little compromise) but bitching about lack of Linux support is kinda like a lawyer bitching to the judge & jury about his client's poor choices of TV channels while he's in the jail for a crime he didn't commit.
The interviewer is just hell-bent on getting DVD on his damn linux box--that's rather myopic if not selfish.
the "appox" means closest analogous position.
it's more "liberal" (probably a better word than socialist) to insist that you own something when you buy it and your rights to it are absolute; but the definition of ownership is the real question here. if you're just licensing the use of the medium under certain conditions and your purchase of the medium is a legally binding contract to the terms (as the MPAA would prefer it to be) then your rights as an owner are not as absolute as you (and many others complaining in this thread) would care for them to be. The capitalist angle comes in when those values are tweaked to change the rules from the buyer-seller relationship to the landlord-tennant relationship. Maybe that's more feudalist than capitalist.
your reply is indicative of your emotional attachment to your definition of ownership (which would be more on the side of absolute in the buyer-seller paradigm)--which is really the issue here. the ideological debate over the platform technicalities is obfuscating the ownership issue of the media and content. I'm saying that it's not the MPAA against Linux, it's the MPAA against all of us--or at least the status quo of "ownership."
i'd even say that the industry seems to have an agenda to abridge the rights of what we have long considered as our rights of ownership.
I meant socialist in the purer form of the word not the Stalinist version (which you allude to by government power reducing rights of ownership). Perhaps that was a poor choice of an analogy. I hereby retract it.
I'm trying to draw attention away from the straw man and to that damned naked MPAA emporeror running around clothed in his new ownership clothes. Work with me here, mate!
What we have here isn't a failure of logic or failure of communication, but it's a clash of ideologies. The MPAA reserves the right to make money off of its "product" (approx. the capitalist view) while the user community reserves their right to do as they please with purchased goods (approx. the socialist view).
It sounds like the MPAA wants the "product" to become licensed for your use but under their ownership rather than offering ownership of the product for sale individually. Reminds me of the licesning for software like SPSS and a few others where you just pay for the right to use it under certain terms.
The GNU-minded folks seem to have a hard time articulating (in this interview anyways) their reasons why this isn't fair to them and to Linux. The interviewer was very global in his assertation that he was entitled to do what he wants with "the product" after he purchases it.
There isn't anything wrong (to me) with either view, but the problem is that neither side will reach any kind of agreement as long as both sides keep posturing as the moral authority. To each side, this is perceived as arrogance. The battle shifts from the salient issue to that of ideals. This doesn't really help solve the immediate problem it just becomes a religious war with alot of collateral damage. --just my $.02.