Well, I've tried telling my Windows support leaches that I don't remember much about Windows any more, but it doesn't seem to help. They go on and on anyway about all the things they have already tried and still they get this message on start-up that doesn't stay up long enough for them to read but tells them that something is missing.
I suppose I COULD give them outright bogus advice... "Try deleting some of your registry keys. Too many of those can cause problems like that." But then, that wouldn't be very nice would it? On the other hand, once their system was totally toast maybe they'd be more inclined to give a true manly operating system a try.
"Dat girly-man operating system should be a ting of de past" - Ahnuld
Yes, I have noticed this. It used to be MUCH worse though. As you mention you have to browse for a good long time for it to become an issue. Every new version of Mozilla seems to make the problem less severe too.
If the comparison you are making is with IE though, I don't find it any better, in fact rather than just getting slower, IE tends to just blow up at some point, especially if you have viewed a lot of pages that contain calls to plug-ins.
If the only thing this does is wipe out the hard drive, how does it spread to other systems? Is there a dormant version of this, or does it postpone doing the damage for a certain number of hours? The articles didn't explain.
"Did anyone else read this interview and get the feeling that Anderer spoke a lot but didn't really say anything specific or all that relevant?"
Yes, my reaction to the article, as well as to the memo was that this guy was a total BS artist. Practiced, but not yet perfected. He fits right in with the SCO/MS crowd.
"With the Encyclopedia Britanica, as an example, I get articles on gannets written by the world's leading ornithologists."
I still mourn the current state of Britannica. Like so many of the pre-80's encyclopedias they focused on the book binding business and only paid lip-service to actual research. I paid $2000 for a nice set of blue leather EBs and another thousand or so for "The Great Books" which is all mostly public domain stuff available online.
As a customer in good standing I was entitled to the "Britannica Research Service" which I found out consisted of poorly Xeroxed typewritten manuscripts that did not match the quality of the Encyclopedia at all. On the other hand, anyone could go in and get a copy of the EB on a couple of CDs for less than $200, while at the same time a text-only version of the CD (which I really wanted) went for something like $1600.
In other words, EB was playing a value shell game, selling content bundled with dead cows and trees, giving away the content making it up with printing charges, while at the same time, being pressured by Microsoft to give away the data on CDs with programming that was much buggier than even Encarta. I think they could have cornered the market on this and discourages MS from getting involved had they gone electronic sooner and had they clearly understood the value of the content, the value of the hardcopy and unbundled those two things so as to let customers choose. Instead they tried to hang onto both paradigms and in the process, will lose both.
Of course they are not alone. Publishing companies are still doing the same thing. Where goes Britannica, so will go the Washington Post, NY Times, CNet and a few others who can't keep the focus on content rather than sheets of paper.
"what are they supposed to do- release feature patches every month the same way that hardware makers release revised editions and incremental models? Would you trust a microsoft patch which upgrades the filesystem? I'm not talking about a new media player or email client but some patch to the actual OS."
Have you been paying attention?
MS has been releasing patches to the OS on an almost daily basis for years. They _only recently_ went to a monthly process because network admins were screaming bloody murder trying to keep up with all the changes. Any operating system that has a serious flaw, whether security flaw or just plain old bug, should be fixed ASAP, if the existence of the bug can endanger user data.
Yes, fixes to the media player can wait. Better yet, Microsoft could get out of the media business, the income tax business, and the magazine publishing business for that matter, if it will help them focus on their core business, which is, the OS.
On the other hand, I think it is fairly inevitable that they transition to something else. No company in history has lasted this long just doing an OS (I count Office as little more than an extension of the OS as it is sold by MS). IBM, Novell, Sun, and many others were either hardware companies first, or diversified into services (Novell) rather quickly. Making and OS is a viable _part_ of a business, but it is not a viable _only_ business. People want to buy total _solutions_. Buying Windows is closer to buying a set of problems.
This is the most on-target article on the subject I've seen in a long time. The only thing he didn't emphasize enough is that there is a deference between software research and hardware research. The sort of research that Intel does CAN'T be done by small companies or people working at home (for the most part). Intel, IBM, AMD and a very few other companies have the capital to do these kind of hardware innovations, and they may be helped a bit by government funded universities etc.
Software research can be done at all levels, by individuals, small companies, groups of individual working together. There is, and always will be Open Source software. I can't forsee there ever being an "Open" architecture CPU, that could be manufactured on a small scale (it would be a great thing if there was though!).
Microsoft's day are numbered unless they find a new business model. I don't hate them, love them, or feel sorry for them, thats just the way it is. A free economy will eventually favor value. It moves at a snails pace sometimes, particularly when impeded by monopoly practices and governmental indifference. But one way or another things will change, and anyone or anything who blocks that change will find themselves bypassed or submerged.
The article "does the math" that I'm sure even Bill Gates is capable of following. I just don't' think Microsoft has figured out how to respond yet. The stock market will punish them until they offer a response, and this article wouldn't be appearing in the WSJ if that were not the case.
"How can you simulate low atmosphere martian conditions? Can you make a sealed wind tunnel with a 1% atmospere and do your test at scale?"
Actually I was surprised to see on one of the NASA videos that this is how they tested the balloons used in the landing system for the current rovers. They have a gigantic multi-story metal chamber that they can evacuate to near vacuum conditions (it takes hours). So I suspect they could at least do SOME realistic environment testing of this concept.
I know that this was JUST A TEST, but to produce something that is useful where there are no humans to take corrective measures when it gets stuck they had better come up with some form of self propulsion for the thing.
If the thing lands in even a small crater (like the one Opportunity is in) it will be stuck. The typical Martian winds (in a 1% atmosphere remember) won't push a beachball out of even such a small crater, much less around a rock outcrop placed in its path. So, as designed it would only be viable on known flat surfaces (such as our own antarctic region), and only if their was a persistently prevailing wind direction and we were able to guess what direction that was before landing the craft.
It would be nice though it it has some form of self propulsion, no matter how primitive, so that it could move around on its own absent any significant wind, and could perhaps intelligently navigate around obstacles.
"I use it for news sites, meaning I get the news as soon as it is updated, and most news sites (at least not in Norway) doesn't require any form of log-on etc, so no cookies. "
See, this is what I don't get...
You re implying that when some news site adds a headline it send a magic RSS signal that wakes up your computer. This would be pretty cool if it were true.
Of course, if it were true, the same people who Spam would be waking up your computer about a thousand times a second to tell you about Viagra!
RSS is abbreviated HTML (the irony here is that the original HTML syntax was more efficient than todays RSS).
Add, to that the fact that you think this RSS data is being "Sent" to you somehow, when in actuality, something you are running is probably hitting those poor news servers once a minute looking for updates. Even if you go on vacation for 2 weeks leaving your computer turned on, you'll be hitting those servers 20160 times looking for an update.
There is nothing magic about this, rather something very tragic. We've made web browsing so complex and inefficient that we have to invent a new thing to make it simpler again. Only problem is that RSS doesn't replace HTML, it only augments it. You still have to click on those headlines to get the full story, which will take you to the Slashdot page where you will see ALL of the stories, plus headlines from hundreds of other servers that have just now been impacted (plus the fact that your client proggy is hitting those same servers as well).
We seem to have forgotten that the slow part of the man/computer interface is man. Having thousands of feeds updated silently in the background while we watch TV doesn't really make us that much more aware. Just makes us feel like we have accomplished more.
I actually don't get what's so revolutionary about RSS. I continually see references to it as an example of "PUSH" technology. To me that means the server initiates the transfer of data to the client. I've never seen an example of RSS working this way. At best, I hit a web page, which has some RSS scripting which then goes and hits dozens of other pages with RSS feeds. This could all be done on the client, and in fact, I may not only be grabbing Slashdot headlines by visiting another server, but I may also be grabbing them at the same time by opening up Evolution, or any of dozens of other programs. I can't remember the last time I looked at Slashdot headlines using Evolution, but its right there on my summary page just the same.
It basically serves up headlines. It's pretty useless without conventional HTML/CSS behind it.
My concern is that once it REALLY takes off there are going to be millions of people running RSS harvesting programs 24 hours a day. That means servers having to respond to all these behind the scenes inquiries for data that is almost NEVER going to be looked at.
This sounds like something that could be done a lot more efficiently by the likes of Google. They scan everything anyway, no reason they can't summarize much of it too (and they are starting to do this).
And I still don't see how RSS will end Spam. Most legitimate advertisers have stopped using Spam already. The con artists who still Spam know that there are an endless supply of suckers. The only thing that will end e-mail Spam will be to either end e-mail, or create laws that will make e-mail useless.
I meant Perl and Python as examples, the actual point being that the user friendly setup does not have to be integral to the package, but can be built on top of it potenially by less specialized technical people.
With regard to IBM, its primary business today *IS* service, not hardware, and it has never been software. That's exactly why they have embraced Open Source.
In the long run, Microsoft will also become a service company. They are moving in that direction, just not fast enough.
"If there were patents in Medieval Times, surely Gutenberg would obtain a one, and no print as we know it would be possible."
Don't be silly! Of course there would be print today.
The Gutenberg/RIAA (hey, maybe they'd even call it project Gutenberg) foundation would monitor it all and make sure that the "right" things were done. Your newspaper would cost $15 or so and you'd have to make sure that when you were done with it you either shredded or burned it so that nobody else could ILLEGALLY read it.
Quoting from a newpaper, book , or magazine would of course be out of the question. The Internet would represent a big threat, in fact the GRIAA would attempt to pass laws that ALL written content be on PAPER DAMMIT! and not appear on our video screens. Both Democrats and Republicans would fall all over themselves to help the GRIAA maintain law and order, after all, our laws are recorded on paper, in writing, and all of that would be property of the GRIAA. Can't afford to piss them off (and besides, Orin Hatch is no doubt an author as well as an accomplished composer and would have all sorts of personal reasons to wish that GRIAA violators would have their houses burned down).
I think things will change. When a lot of the old farts at the head of these industries (and our government) die, and probably not before. Lets hope they are all heavy smokers and drinkers. Actually I think it's a safe bet. (Except for Orin that is).
"So...just thinking to myself, um, what happens if Linus is...snuffed out?;)"
Good question.
I think what NEEDS to happen is that more INSTITUTIONS become the drivers behind Open Source. That means companies, universities, governments. The notion that commercial software makes sense for organizations and Open Source is only for us geeks that are too cheap to buy a shrink-wrapped box is just plain wrong. From the article:
"This kind of crap is exactly why Linux has had such trouble gaining traction among nontechnical users; and it becomes less forgivable, not more, when it's surrounded by a boatload of GUI cotton candy that adds complexity without actually delivering friendliness to the user."
That kind of crap comes out of Microsoft too. You know, that registry editor that was supposed to be a temporary thing until we got all the GUI dialogs finished? Well, they'll never be finished, because it's a moving target and MS only wants the product good enough to ship, not perfect.
The same holds true for Open Source software. What's different is that in the past the typical Open Source software user LIKED to dig around in the source code, type a lot of long almost meaningless commands, and try every combination until it worked. Some people enjoy putting new plumbing into their basement too.
I think that eventually the Open Source systems will not only match, but exceed the commercial ones in user friendliness. It will probably take many splits to get there, and more people writing Python or Perl front-ends to some of these systems. Webmin is a great example of this. I've been know to install Webmin on a system just to get all the point-and-click ease rather than having to edit a bunch of files (along with reading the manpages etc). When I'm all done, I uninstall Webmin and update the control files by hand from there on out.
Of course once you get a system set up, copying a few/etc files from that first system to 20 others is a lot easier (and faster) than any point and click interface. Which is why, ultimately, the typical Windows based business is overstaffed with network admins that don't *quite* know what they are doing, because using a point-and-click interface exclusively never gives you the need to learn anything else.
I have a feeling this has a lot to do with Microsoft re-sanctifying the CLI for Longhorn. Maybe they "get it" that most programs don't need their setting recorded in a central registry at some point too.
"What the hell do you do to your Mac OS X box? I've never experienced anything like that."
Nothing unusual, I assure you. I use the X-windows interface (from Apple) to interact with Unix systems. I think I have TWO third party tools installed. One is fungu which is an FTP client written at a university somewhere. One is called "Mac Sweep" and that cleans up the problems I mentioned.
They don't explain very fully what they do, but it works for me:
http://www.macsweeper.cjb.net/
From what I have read in several places (Mac forums etc.) OS X is prone to screwing up it's own file permissions (which I would think is a major security exposure). The most frequently given advice in the Mac OS X forums is "Boot your install/utility disk and run 'repair permissions'".
I don't know about you, but I don't like having to carry my install disk with me every where I go (it's a laptop). Furthermore, I don't know why, if this problem has been around for more than a year, they haven't built the fix into the OS somehow.
As per my original post, this "Duh, we don't quite understand how our OS works yet." is something unique to the commercial OSs.
The other common problem with OS X is that it collects "log" information (Unix systems do this too). Also like Unix, it tries to clean up and archive its logs in various ways on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis (I think). It does that at something like 4AM. So the second most common advice on the Mac forums is: "Try leaving your machine on all the time for a while and see if it fixes itself".
Since I often leave my machine on for days at a time I suspect I have fewer problems than some people do, but occasionally strange things pop up out of thin air. The other day I burned a bad CD. Before I noticed that the CD was bad, I re-inserted it into the machine. It got hung for several minutes trying to read the thing. My guess is that in doing so it might have created a 40 meg error log file or something, because when I finally got control of it again and was able to re-boot it immediately started behaving badly, with the hard drive clicking loudly every 10 seconds or so and almost any activity accompanied by long appearances of the spinning beachball. Running the above mentioned utility fixed it right away. My only question is, if this problem and its fix are so well understood (the utility is pointed to on the mac.com download page) then why doesn't Apple just FIX the godam thing?!
As I said originally, there are only two explanations I can think of. Either they intentionally leave bugs like this active to encourage people to upgrade, or they don't have a very good understanding of their own OS.
I don't really care which is is either. If I wanted a Voodoo operating system: "Try spinning around three times while you hold your breath, that MIGHT clear up the problem", I'd go find a bunch of whitch doctors to sell me one.
And don't even get me started on all the people who have PAID to have their motherboards replaced for what was almost certainly a software issue (same problems as I described above). Just more good reasons why even Apple and Microsoft would be well served to open source their operating systems (if not everything else as well).
I don't mind paying for a "software license", but with that I expect a certain degree of professional service, and that is what is missing in todays PC operating systems. I find the professionalism that goes with Open Source to be much greater, and that, primarily, is why I use it. (Yes, YellowDog Linux runs flawlessly on my iBook too, no special utilities required).
I've noticed this about all commercial operating systems, since DOS that is (DOS was fine).
They all get "tired" after a while. OS/2 icons would start to disappear after a few months. You could run utilities to fix for a while, but generally you had to re-install to get good performance again. Same with all version of Windows, particularly since they came up with that *BRILLIANT* registry concept. Then they came out with unofficial registry clean-up tools (like REGCLEAN), then as of 2000 they tell you not to run those or you will screw your system.
They leave it to third parties like Norton to provide this type of clean-up tool, but then when the tools don't work, or even make your system worse, Microsoft can say "it's not our problem you ran a third party tool", and the toolmaker says "it's not our problem Microsoft keeps changing things and not telling us".
Apples OS X is the same way. I've already had to start running a cleanup tool about once a week or the system gets noticeably slower. If I let it go a month the disk drive starts bashing it's heads up against the enclosure trying to access cylinders that don't exist.
It's as though you are working with the temperamental robot in "Lost In Space". Going where *YOU* want to go, but only when its in the right mood.
I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but the only other explanation is that the people working on Linux and the BSD systems are a LOT smarter, because those systems don't have these problems, ever. You can upgrade when you feel like it, IF you feel like it, and pay little or nothing (Debian) for the privilege.
Maybe this will get better as more people move from "JUNKware" to software. I hope so. I really don't mind paying for software, I just don't want to own any more junk.
By the way I'm fairly sure that this release has more to do with revenue projections than technology. MS is in a revenue dry spell of its own creation. This has happened before (Remember Windows ME?) and it will keep happening as long as people put up with it.
Maybe there is something Darwinian going on here. Windows: the OS for people who really have no business using computers.
"One thing about Debian that is NOT simple is the install! I never have gotten X to work under Debian, and I DID get it to work under Slackware, and even FreeBSD."
Been there. Debian does install automatically on a FEW machines, particularly older machines that were popular and used "standard" components. I'm using a Dell GX1 that I got for $99.
Here s what I have done in the past when I got stuck without X-windows working...
Install Debian and go through the X-windows set-up process. Do the best you can at guessing your card information, refresh rates and whether or not to use framebuffers.
Locate the XF86Config(-4) file in/etc/X11 and take a look at where all of these decisions were recorded.
Now boot a copy of Knoppix (the bootable CD version of Linux), and, assuming it did a better job of setting up X-windows than you did, check the same settings for it (same location). Differences are likely to be in the horizontal and vertical refresh rates, the use of framebuffers, or the driver being used, also the list of module options such as "glx", "dri".
Surprisingly, X will fail to load properly even if your MOUSE settings are wrong. So you might have done everything right for video and gotten a trivial mouse parameter wrong and still have problems. (The systems DOES tell you this and tells you what log file to go read when this happens, but I remember being a bit intimidated by this process the first couple of times).
There are also some command line utilities you can run to straighten out your X setup, but I'm lazy and would rather just SEE that the system can work (using Knoppix, and then just copy what works.
Above process also works for diagnosing some network card and sound card problems.
Future versions of Debian will probably have better automatic device detection and configuration. In the mean time Knoppix (which is based on Debian) is a handy thing to have around.
" That is the comon pitfall of all latest MMORPG: desiners rely on player created content and player-driven economy. The problem is - it never work."
That's like saying that the Internet will never work because what most people want is to just sit in front of a TV set and watch.
There ARE online activities that you would like to just be a passenger in, but there are also things where you want to be the driver too. Why else would so many people have their own web pages, spend so much time creating textures and flash presentations, or post messages to something like Slashdot for that matter?
Early online games were tightly controlled because the technology didn't allow it to be otherwise. I think MOST, not just a few, 3D online content of the future will be open-ended. Once you have the proper infrastructure in place there is no reason to separate user created content from that provided by the infrastructure vendor.
Second Life is where There plans to be in two or three years. It needs a broadband connection and 3D graphics card, but if you have those there is no reason to be using a more primitive system such as There, or Sims Online. Might want to give it a try, if you have the hardware.
Yes, I think I subscribed for about a year, and bought almost every issue for several other years. Before the big super stores, Comp USA, Microcenter, and even Best Buy etc had tons of computer equipment on display Computer Shopper was a good source of information on new products. I skipped the articles and read the ads for that very reason.
That being said, I agree that ZD is fairly useless set of publications these days as are its parent CNet's offerings. Back when there were several viable operating systems and office suites they slanted their coverage toward Microsoft, probably to please their biggest ad customer.
Yes, there are some people at CNet/ZD that are not big fans of Microsoft, but there are more that seem to know nothing but the standard Microsoft line-up and when mentioning any alternatives do so tentatively.
I cancelled my paper subscriptions long ago, and only read their stuff online when linked to by Slashdot and the like. I occasionally check Anchordesk for its comedic value.
I have an equal lack of interest for anything coming out of CNet/Ziff/eWeek/etcetc. and have already cancelled all my subscriptions. I think they laid off much of their technical staff a year ago and have since specialized in ad placement in related articles. They hung onto the journalists with better name recognition, who are apparently more gadabouts than technologists.
I read Anchordesk for laughs these days. Where else can you find a tech journalist who has delayed his book on debugging Windows problems because his Windows machine has crashed and he doesn't know how to fix it?
Like everything else on the net, subject matter experts are easy to find on any topic, making traditional media relatively useless.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I've tried telling my Windows support leaches that I don't remember much about Windows any more, but it doesn't seem to help. They go on and on anyway about all the things they have already tried and still they get this message on start-up that doesn't stay up long enough for them to read but tells them that something is missing.
I suppose I COULD give them outright bogus advice... "Try deleting some of your registry keys. Too many of those can cause problems like that." But then, that wouldn't be very nice would it? On the other hand, once their system was totally toast maybe they'd be more inclined to give a true manly operating system a try.
"Dat girly-man operating system should be a ting of de past" - Ahnuld
Yes, I have noticed this. It used to be MUCH worse though. As you mention you have to browse for a good long time for it to become an issue. Every new version of Mozilla seems to make the problem less severe too.
If the comparison you are making is with IE though, I don't find it any better, in fact rather than just getting slower, IE tends to just blow up at some point, especially if you have viewed a lot of pages that contain calls to plug-ins.
I had trouble finding this from the supplied link, this one works much better:
Nanode Computer
I can see getting one of these. Finally a PC with the slickitude of the Apple iCube, and NO FAN!
If the only thing this does is wipe out the hard drive, how does it spread to other systems? Is there a dormant version of this, or does it postpone doing the damage for a certain number of hours? The articles didn't explain.
CNet publications got fairly useless a couple years ago. They've been running on fumes ever since. Good ridance.
Yeah, those homebrew IIS servers don't stand up to much traffic do they? :)
"Did anyone else read this interview and get the feeling that Anderer spoke a lot but didn't really say anything specific or all that relevant?"
Yes, my reaction to the article, as well as to the memo was that this guy was a total BS artist. Practiced, but not yet perfected. He fits right in with the SCO/MS crowd.
"With the Encyclopedia Britanica, as an example, I get articles on gannets written by the world's leading ornithologists."
I still mourn the current state of Britannica. Like so many of the pre-80's encyclopedias they focused on the book binding business and only paid lip-service to actual research. I paid $2000 for a nice set of blue leather EBs and another thousand or so for "The Great Books" which is all mostly public domain stuff available online.
As a customer in good standing I was entitled to the "Britannica Research Service" which I found out consisted of poorly Xeroxed typewritten manuscripts that did not match the quality of the Encyclopedia at all. On the other hand, anyone could go in and get a copy of the EB on a couple of CDs for less than $200, while at the same time a text-only version of the CD (which I really wanted) went for something like $1600.
In other words, EB was playing a value shell game, selling content bundled with dead cows and trees, giving away the content making it up with printing charges, while at the same time, being pressured by Microsoft to give away the data on CDs with programming that was much buggier than even Encarta. I think they could have cornered the market on this and discourages MS from getting involved had they gone electronic sooner and had they clearly understood the value of the content, the value of the hardcopy and unbundled those two things so as to let customers choose. Instead they tried to hang onto both paradigms and in the process, will lose both.
Of course they are not alone. Publishing companies are still doing the same thing. Where goes Britannica, so will go the Washington Post, NY Times, CNet and a few others who can't keep the focus on content rather than sheets of paper.
"what are they supposed to do- release feature patches every month the same way that hardware makers release revised editions and incremental models? Would you trust a microsoft patch which upgrades the filesystem? I'm not talking about a new media player or email client but some patch to the actual OS."
Have you been paying attention?
MS has been releasing patches to the OS on an almost daily basis for years. They _only recently_ went to a monthly process because network admins were screaming bloody murder trying to keep up with all the changes. Any operating system that has a serious flaw, whether security flaw or just plain old bug, should be fixed ASAP, if the existence of the bug can endanger user data.
Yes, fixes to the media player can wait. Better yet, Microsoft could get out of the media business, the income tax business, and the magazine publishing business for that matter, if it will help them focus on their core business, which is, the OS.
On the other hand, I think it is fairly inevitable that they transition to something else. No company in history has lasted this long just doing an OS (I count Office as little more than an extension of the OS as it is sold by MS). IBM, Novell, Sun, and many others were either hardware companies first, or diversified into services (Novell) rather quickly. Making and OS is a viable _part_ of a business, but it is not a viable _only_ business. People want to buy total _solutions_. Buying Windows is closer to buying a set of problems.
This is the most on-target article on the subject I've seen in a long time. The only thing he didn't emphasize enough is that there is a deference between software research and hardware research. The sort of research that Intel does CAN'T be done by small companies or people working at home (for the most part). Intel, IBM, AMD and a very few other companies have the capital to do these kind of hardware innovations, and they may be helped a bit by government funded universities etc.
Software research can be done at all levels, by individuals, small companies, groups of individual working together. There is, and always will be Open Source software. I can't forsee there ever being an "Open" architecture CPU, that could be manufactured on a small scale (it would be a great thing if there was though!).
Microsoft's day are numbered unless they find a new business model. I don't hate them, love them, or feel sorry for them, thats just the way it is. A free economy will eventually favor value. It moves at a snails pace sometimes, particularly when impeded by monopoly practices and governmental indifference. But one way or another things will change, and anyone or anything who blocks that change will find themselves bypassed or submerged.
The article "does the math" that I'm sure even Bill Gates is capable of following. I just don't' think Microsoft has figured out how to respond yet. The stock market will punish them until they offer a response, and this article wouldn't be appearing in the WSJ if that were not the case.
"How can you simulate low atmosphere martian conditions? Can you make a sealed wind tunnel with a 1% atmospere and do your test at scale?"
Actually I was surprised to see on one of the NASA videos that this is how they tested the balloons used in the landing system for the current rovers. They have a gigantic multi-story metal chamber that they can evacuate to near vacuum conditions (it takes hours). So I suspect they could at least do SOME realistic environment testing of this concept.
I know that this was JUST A TEST, but to produce something that is useful where there are no humans to take corrective measures when it gets stuck they had better come up with some form of self propulsion for the thing.
If the thing lands in even a small crater (like the one Opportunity is in) it will be stuck. The typical Martian winds (in a 1% atmosphere remember) won't push a beachball out of even such a small crater, much less around a rock outcrop placed in its path. So, as designed it would only be viable on known flat surfaces (such as our own antarctic region), and only if their was a persistently prevailing wind direction and we were able to guess what direction that was before landing the craft.
It would be nice though it it has some form of self propulsion, no matter how primitive, so that it could move around on its own absent any significant wind, and could perhaps intelligently navigate around obstacles.
"Writing outside its allocated memory will for example only force XP to crash the application."
hmmmm, sounds like something I've been hearing since NT 3.5 days.
"I use it for news sites, meaning I get the news as soon as it is updated, and most news sites (at least not in Norway) doesn't require any form of log-on etc, so no cookies. "
See, this is what I don't get...
You re implying that when some news site adds a headline it send a magic RSS signal that wakes up your computer. This would be pretty cool if it were true.
Of course, if it were true, the same people who Spam would be waking up your computer about a thousand times a second to tell you about Viagra!
RSS is abbreviated HTML (the irony here is that the original HTML syntax was more efficient than todays RSS).
Add, to that the fact that you think this RSS data is being "Sent" to you somehow, when in actuality, something you are running is probably hitting those poor news servers once a minute looking for updates. Even if you go on vacation for 2 weeks leaving your computer turned on, you'll be hitting those servers 20160 times looking for an update.
There is nothing magic about this, rather something very tragic. We've made web browsing so complex and inefficient that we have to invent a new thing to make it simpler again. Only problem is that RSS doesn't replace HTML, it only augments it. You still have to click on those headlines to get the full story, which will take you to the Slashdot page where you will see ALL of the stories, plus headlines from hundreds of other servers that have just now been impacted (plus the fact that your client proggy is hitting those same servers as well).
We seem to have forgotten that the slow part of the man/computer interface is man. Having thousands of feeds updated silently in the background while we watch TV doesn't really make us that much more aware. Just makes us feel like we have accomplished more.
I actually don't get what's so revolutionary about RSS. I continually see references to it as an example of "PUSH" technology. To me that means the server initiates the transfer of data to the client. I've never seen an example of RSS working this way. At best, I hit a web page, which has some RSS scripting which then goes and hits dozens of other pages with RSS feeds. This could all be done on the client, and in fact, I may not only be grabbing Slashdot headlines by visiting another server, but I may also be grabbing them at the same time by opening up Evolution, or any of dozens of other programs. I can't remember the last time I looked at Slashdot headlines using Evolution, but its right there on my summary page just the same.
It basically serves up headlines. It's pretty useless without conventional HTML/CSS behind it.
My concern is that once it REALLY takes off there are going to be millions of people running RSS harvesting programs 24 hours a day. That means servers having to respond to all these behind the scenes inquiries for data that is almost NEVER going to be looked at.
This sounds like something that could be done a lot more efficiently by the likes of Google. They scan everything anyway, no reason they can't summarize much of it too (and they are starting to do this).
And I still don't see how RSS will end Spam. Most legitimate advertisers have stopped using Spam already. The con artists who still Spam know that there are an endless supply of suckers. The only thing that will end e-mail Spam will be to either end e-mail, or create laws that will make e-mail useless.
I meant Perl and Python as examples, the actual point being that the user friendly setup does not have to be integral to the package, but can be built on top of it potenially by less specialized technical people.
With regard to IBM, its primary business today *IS* service, not hardware, and it has never been software. That's exactly why they have embraced Open Source.
In the long run, Microsoft will also become a service company. They are moving in that direction, just not fast enough.
"If there were patents in Medieval Times, surely Gutenberg would obtain a one, and no print as we know it would be possible."
Don't be silly! Of course there would be print today.
The Gutenberg/RIAA (hey, maybe they'd even call it project Gutenberg) foundation would monitor it all and make sure that the "right" things were done. Your newspaper would cost $15 or so and you'd have to make sure that when you were done with it you either shredded or burned it so that nobody else could ILLEGALLY read it.
Quoting from a newpaper, book , or magazine would of course be out of the question. The Internet would represent a big threat, in fact the GRIAA would attempt to pass laws that ALL written content be on PAPER DAMMIT! and not appear on our video screens. Both Democrats and Republicans would fall all over themselves to help the GRIAA maintain law and order, after all, our laws are recorded on paper, in writing, and all of that would be property of the GRIAA. Can't afford to piss them off (and besides, Orin Hatch is no doubt an author as well as an accomplished composer and would have all sorts of personal reasons to wish that GRIAA violators would have their houses burned down).
I think things will change. When a lot of the old farts at the head of these industries (and our government) die, and probably not before. Lets hope they are all heavy smokers and drinkers. Actually I think it's a safe bet. (Except for Orin that is).
"So...just thinking to myself, um, what happens if Linus is...snuffed out? ;)"
/etc files from that first system to 20 others is a lot easier (and faster) than any point and click interface. Which is why, ultimately, the typical Windows based business is overstaffed with network admins that don't *quite* know what they are doing, because using a point-and-click interface exclusively never gives you the need to learn anything else.
Good question.
I think what NEEDS to happen is that more INSTITUTIONS become the drivers behind Open Source. That means companies, universities, governments. The notion that commercial software makes sense for organizations and Open Source is only for us geeks that are too cheap to buy a shrink-wrapped box is just plain wrong. From the article:
"This kind of crap is exactly why Linux has had such trouble gaining traction among nontechnical users; and it becomes less forgivable, not more, when it's surrounded by a boatload of GUI cotton candy that adds complexity without actually delivering friendliness to the user."
That kind of crap comes out of Microsoft too. You know, that registry editor that was supposed to be a temporary thing until we got all the GUI dialogs finished? Well, they'll never be finished, because it's a moving target and MS only wants the product good enough to ship, not perfect.
The same holds true for Open Source software. What's different is that in the past the typical Open Source software user LIKED to dig around in the source code, type a lot of long almost meaningless commands, and try every combination until it worked. Some people enjoy putting new plumbing into their basement too.
I think that eventually the Open Source systems will not only match, but exceed the commercial ones in user friendliness. It will probably take many splits to get there, and more people writing Python or Perl front-ends to some of these systems. Webmin is a great example of this. I've been know to install Webmin on a system just to get all the point-and-click ease rather than having to edit a bunch of files (along with reading the manpages etc). When I'm all done, I uninstall Webmin and update the control files by hand from there on out.
Of course once you get a system set up, copying a few
I have a feeling this has a lot to do with Microsoft re-sanctifying the CLI for Longhorn. Maybe they "get it" that most programs don't need their setting recorded in a central registry at some point too.
NAH!
"What the hell do you do to your Mac OS X box? I've never experienced anything like that."
Nothing unusual, I assure you. I use the X-windows interface (from Apple) to interact with Unix systems. I think I have TWO third party tools installed. One is fungu which is an FTP client written at a university somewhere. One is called "Mac Sweep" and that cleans up the problems I mentioned.
They don't explain very fully what they do, but it works for me:
http://www.macsweeper.cjb.net/
From what I have read in several places (Mac forums etc.) OS X is prone to screwing up it's own file permissions (which I would think is a major security exposure). The most frequently given advice in the Mac OS X forums is "Boot your install/utility disk and run 'repair permissions'".
I don't know about you, but I don't like having to carry my install disk with me every where I go (it's a laptop). Furthermore, I don't know why, if this problem has been around for more than a year, they haven't built the fix into the OS somehow.
As per my original post, this "Duh, we don't quite understand how our OS works yet." is something unique to the commercial OSs.
The other common problem with OS X is that it collects "log" information (Unix systems do this too). Also like Unix, it tries to clean up and archive its logs in various ways on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis (I think). It does that at something like 4AM. So the second most common advice on the Mac forums is: "Try leaving your machine on all the time for a while and see if it fixes itself".
Since I often leave my machine on for days at a time I suspect I have fewer problems than some people do, but occasionally strange things pop up out of thin air. The other day I burned a bad CD. Before I noticed that the CD was bad, I re-inserted it into the machine. It got hung for several minutes trying to read the thing. My guess is that in doing so it might have created a 40 meg error log file or something, because when I finally got control of it again and was able to re-boot it immediately started behaving badly, with the hard drive clicking loudly every 10 seconds or so and almost any activity accompanied by long appearances of the spinning beachball. Running the above mentioned utility fixed it right away. My only question is, if this problem and its fix are so well understood (the utility is pointed to on the mac.com download page) then why doesn't Apple just FIX the godam thing?!
As I said originally, there are only two explanations I can think of. Either they intentionally leave bugs like this active to encourage people to upgrade, or they don't have a very good understanding of their own OS.
I don't really care which is is either. If I wanted a Voodoo operating system: "Try spinning around three times while you hold your breath, that MIGHT clear up the problem", I'd go find a bunch of whitch doctors to sell me one.
And don't even get me started on all the people who have PAID to have their motherboards replaced for what was almost certainly a software issue (same problems as I described above). Just more good reasons why even Apple and Microsoft would be well served to open source their operating systems (if not everything else as well).
I don't mind paying for a "software license", but with that I expect a certain degree of professional service, and that is what is missing in todays PC operating systems. I find the professionalism that goes with Open Source to be much greater, and that, primarily, is why I use it. (Yes, YellowDog Linux runs flawlessly on my iBook too, no special utilities required).
I've noticed this about all commercial operating systems, since DOS that is (DOS was fine).
They all get "tired" after a while. OS/2 icons would start to disappear after a few months. You could run utilities to fix for a while, but generally you had to re-install to get good performance again. Same with all version of Windows, particularly since they came up with that *BRILLIANT* registry concept. Then they came out with unofficial registry clean-up tools (like REGCLEAN), then as of 2000 they tell you not to run those or you will screw your system.
They leave it to third parties like Norton to provide this type of clean-up tool, but then when the tools don't work, or even make your system worse, Microsoft can say "it's not our problem you ran a third party tool", and the toolmaker says "it's not our problem Microsoft keeps changing things and not telling us".
Apples OS X is the same way. I've already had to start running a cleanup tool about once a week or the system gets noticeably slower. If I let it go a month the disk drive starts bashing it's heads up against the enclosure trying to access cylinders that don't exist.
It's as though you are working with the temperamental robot in "Lost In Space". Going where *YOU* want to go, but only when its in the right mood.
I'm not much for conspiracy theories, but the only other explanation is that the people working on Linux and the BSD systems are a LOT smarter, because those systems don't have these problems, ever. You can upgrade when you feel like it, IF you feel like it, and pay little or nothing (Debian) for the privilege.
Maybe this will get better as more people move from "JUNKware" to software. I hope so. I really don't mind paying for software, I just don't want to own any more junk.
By the way I'm fairly sure that this release has more to do with revenue projections than technology. MS is in a revenue dry spell of its own creation. This has happened before (Remember Windows ME?) and it will keep happening as long as people put up with it.
Maybe there is something Darwinian going on here. Windows: the OS for people who really have no business using computers.
WOW, I tried that Windows RG, I'm switching today. It was a lot more stable than my old Windows 2000 system. Solitare worked better too!
"One thing about Debian that is NOT simple is the install! I never have gotten X to work under Debian, and I DID get it to work under Slackware, and even FreeBSD."
/etc/X11 and take a look at where all of these decisions were recorded.
Been there. Debian does install automatically on a FEW machines, particularly older machines that were popular and used "standard" components. I'm using a Dell GX1 that I got for $99.
Here s what I have done in the past when I got stuck without X-windows working...
Install Debian and go through the X-windows set-up process. Do the best you can at guessing your card information, refresh rates and whether or not to use framebuffers.
Locate the XF86Config(-4) file in
Now boot a copy of Knoppix (the bootable CD version of Linux), and, assuming it did a better job of setting up X-windows than you did, check the same settings for it (same location). Differences are likely to be in the horizontal and vertical refresh rates, the use of framebuffers, or the driver being used, also the list of module options such as "glx", "dri".
Surprisingly, X will fail to load properly even if your MOUSE settings are wrong. So you might have done everything right for video and gotten a trivial mouse parameter wrong and still have problems. (The systems DOES tell you this and tells you what log file to go read when this happens, but I remember being a bit intimidated by this process the first couple of times).
There are also some command line utilities you can run to straighten out your X setup, but I'm lazy and would rather just SEE that the system can work (using Knoppix, and then just copy what works.
Above process also works for diagnosing some network card and sound card problems.
Future versions of Debian will probably have better automatic device detection and configuration. In the mean time Knoppix (which is based on Debian) is a handy thing to have around.
" That is the comon pitfall of all latest MMORPG: desiners rely on player created content and player-driven economy. The problem is - it never work."
That's like saying that the Internet will never work because what most people want is to just sit in front of a TV set and watch.
There ARE online activities that you would like to just be a passenger in, but there are also things where you want to be the driver too. Why else would so many people have their own web pages, spend so much time creating textures and flash presentations, or post messages to something like Slashdot for that matter?
Early online games were tightly controlled because the technology didn't allow it to be otherwise. I think MOST, not just a few, 3D online content of the future will be open-ended. Once you have the proper infrastructure in place there is no reason to separate user created content from that provided by the infrastructure vendor.
Second Life is where There plans to be in two or three years. It needs a broadband connection and 3D graphics card, but if you have those there is no reason to be using a more primitive system such as There, or Sims Online. Might want to give it a try, if you have the hardware.
Yes, I think I subscribed for about a year, and bought almost every issue for several other years. Before the big super stores, Comp USA, Microcenter, and even Best Buy etc had tons of computer equipment on display Computer Shopper was a good source of information on new products. I skipped the articles and read the ads for that very reason.
That being said, I agree that ZD is fairly useless set of publications these days as are its parent CNet's offerings. Back when there were several viable operating systems and office suites they slanted their coverage toward Microsoft, probably to please their biggest ad customer.
Yes, there are some people at CNet/ZD that are not big fans of Microsoft, but there are more that seem to know nothing but the standard Microsoft line-up and when mentioning any alternatives do so tentatively.
I cancelled my paper subscriptions long ago, and only read their stuff online when linked to by Slashdot and the like. I occasionally check Anchordesk for its comedic value.
I have an equal lack of interest for anything coming out of CNet/Ziff/eWeek/etcetc. and have already cancelled all my subscriptions. I think they laid off much of their technical staff a year ago and have since specialized in ad placement in related articles. They hung onto the journalists with better name recognition, who are apparently more gadabouts than technologists.
I read Anchordesk for laughs these days. Where else can you find a tech journalist who has delayed his book on debugging Windows problems because his Windows machine has crashed and he doesn't know how to fix it?
Like everything else on the net, subject matter experts are easy to find on any topic, making traditional media relatively useless.