Yep! CCD camera are very impressive at "seeing" IR. In fact, digital camera needs special filter to block out near visible IR light because they would ruin a photo. But using special purpose IR filter (which blocks visible light), you are still able to make some incredibly good IR shots.
physic experiment was the one in 1997 done in my father's car with my first girlfriend. I proved Einstein to be wrong. When the acceleration I applied was great, I tough that an hour as passed, but to her it was only a minute. And when I limited my acceleration as much as I could, 15 minutes to her were like years to me. Go figure!
He did not quote anything about patent, he quoted something about removing an appreciated product from the hand of the user for the sole benefit of another company. While I think that MS should open up their specs a bit more to enable interoperabillity. Face it, the current case will benefit OTHER companys who strive to play king-of-the-hill with microsoft long before it benefit the public and the open source movement. Saying otherwise is to lie to yourself.
I wonder how far they have tested this on human. Because, I'm sorry but if it works on rat, some crack head somewhere has probably tested that on a human being. And THAT scares me alot. We really do not understand much of how a brain works, but if there is any research on doing this kind of thing on a human, it really scares me a lot. It could probably have some good uses, but I can easily imagine an implant which controls what you can and cannot do. King of a law inforcing system. And the day we won't be able to revolt will be the end of freedom as we know it. Don't think it would not happen, those scarry things always happens. They are brought to you as something being good and of which you will benefit, and in the end, you are srewed.
Yeah, I came to the same conclusion whn I bought my digiCam. Canon/Nikon and the like are releasing new model every 8 months! after 1 year of waiting, I tried a few one and decided that what was mattering the most was to actually take pictures, not wish to. It should be the same for everything, but you know how it is, people don't want something usefull, they want something to show to there friends/familly/neibor and look superior. Like my uncle who calls me twice a year to tell me he just got a new PC which is just so hot! 4000$ a year on PC to do the same ol' shit on it, type letters/browse the web/check mail and play the latest Flight Simulator. The same goes on for the Playstation etc etc. At least, the marketing departement of all those company can be proud, they have succeeded in making us dependant of totally useless toys. (Useless in the sense of not being essential to an enjoyable life).
When I've bought my P2 266, I received a 50% discount off of a 4.3 gig Samsung HD. While it is pretty noisy, it runs almost 24h/24h since then (more or less 3 years) and it haven't crashed yet. I had also moved it a few times from my home to my job in winter. Samsung doesn't make the best/fastest/largest HD out there, but I have nothing to complain about them being reliable. I for sure wouldn't have tried all that with an IBM deskstar...
I don't want to argue... But it's to hard to resist:-) Anyway, just to discuss a point...
Like someone else has said, most programmer work on custom system for a client, I work for a small consulting company who devellop a product for a big company which they hope to sell to others. While it is not really custom development, we do customize the application for some client, adding and removing features on demand. On the other hand, we work with Application server (yep, it's in Java), with IDE's etc etc. Custom application will always be needed, being open-source or not, I don't really care. But application servers, IDE's and all that stuff could greatly benefit from being open source. Just think about Apache. It is, IIRC, a consortium of company which have sit together and decided to develop a standard web server, together, and for the benefit of everyone. THAT is the strenght of OSS. If n company needs an application to work, it really is great if they can sit together, work together and create that piece of software. In the long run, it cut on license expense and pays itself. Plus, the amount f people working on it is far more then if it as been closed-source. Even if you were not on the original dev team, and you spend time at home bugfixing the app and adding new stuff, freely, it will pay you to. In the end, you will have a product which meets your needs, reviewed by thousand of peoples and you will also save on future licensing fees and etc etc. Well, that is my vision of open source. Look at JBoss for exemple, they made an open source software, everyone id free to use it and it had benefit it's original creator because now he run its own consulting bizness. Same goes for RedHat and the like. Sure, it's not the same biz model has closed source software, so it can't be managed the same way. But by releasing new software and new solutions, you are also creating a new "need" which want to be filled. This has been a working strategy for a long time now, nothing new under the sun. So, people just have to start looking at how they can benefit of OSS instead of seeing what they loose. Sure, you won't sell has much boxes of your application, so you shouldn't try to live on tis stream of revenue. But, ont the other side, you save A LOT on dev cost, it makes you "free" advirtising and you can then go out in the field and take some consulting contract to install solutions or customize your open sourced application. Even an open source office solution could work that way. Imagine a company who could have the base office application free, and spend the saved cash on customizing some pieces of it for is company. It could pay to have that little piece of the package modified for its own need, or create a totally new package which could seemlesly integrate into the whole solution etc etc... As it has always been, to be in business, you need to be a visonaire, you need to have novel idea and to work hard. Even Bill Gate has been a visionaire, like it or not. He had been at the right place at the right moment, and it has paid. The other way of succeding is to herit your father company and pay someone better then you to do the administration. It's not my case, so i'll try to be innovative and opportunist.
Re:The main thing I think the article misses ...
on
The Next Generation
·
· Score: 1
if one thing, I would a lot less stressed to die any soon... A fobia maybe
I received a publicity clip one day from one of my friend, it was an XBox pub. It was a mother giving birth and then, the baby pop out of her, pass throu the window and was going high in the sky. And while he was "flying", we could see him aging and aging really fast and at the end, he falls into a coffin. All in about 1 minute. It's funny how fantasy can be so real sometimes:-)
When I ordered my DSL connection/modem, I asked what were their price on a static Ip address. The girl on the phone didn't understand my request (not surprising), but she had the amability to forward my call to an internal technician who had been able to answer my question and a few other one. Most people don't know how to connect to the internet, plain and simple. When you call, the persons who answers you have a nice little sheet or app with steps to follow to make it work. If they can't help you, they SHOULD forward your call to someone who can. I would never make any business, personal or not, with a company who just can't help you. I don't care if the first person to answer the phone can't help me, nothing personal because no one knows everything. BUT as a company, the one hiring them, it IS there responsability to have failover in case that there tech support couldn't help you. It is not the responsability of the employee answering the phone, it is the responsability of the company!
You are right about that, but this is exactly the problem here. It is that way, but it surely did not had to be that way. MS did it, they "forced" others to use their library and now it's a real mess. Rendering engine, codec and all should be standard and managed by a standard body. libraries api would be open and anybody could use it to develop a new "media player". Nothing would prevent MS from shipping windows with those library, but they would have control over it. That is the difference. Now, they LOST in court. They have to be punish. If it means that they should strip down windows, go for it. OTOH it doesn't mean to throw all their DLL to the trash, but open those API, give back the control over it and voila. Nothing would be "broke". And from that moment, real evolution would be able to occur. My problem isn't with windows having media nd html rendering engine embended deep in their OS, myproblem is having those closed and secret. Good design and reusabillity doesn't mean secret and closed.
Has been able to win against the best chess player. So if I understand correctly, the logic involved to win a game isn't really the problem, it is more of a mechanical problem, isn't it? Recent video games are already able to beat really good video game player, and there are not even super-killer-incredibly-intelligent applications. So I think that 2050 is a good goal to try to achieve. By then, the mechanic involved in robot should have marginally improved and also processor power. My guess is that I should not even take that long. On the other side, looking a robot playing sports would not give me the same excitement has watching a true local team kick the ass of it's oponent. I'm currently following the Canadian-Boston series (I'm from Montreal), and the thrill is really to see those guys fight to win and put all there energy into it. Even if they lose, in the end I'll be proud of "my team". Would it be robots playing, I'm not sure I would be so much partisan. It would only be an enhanced Robot War:-) But, it is quite interesting stuff, and great for the advancement of science. We should see more of this in more field. maybe also organize Geek Olympics!
It has been that way for everything EXCEPT windows, and it did not cause any problem? What's your point? If standard were used, you would really not care about what is install, as long as it is compliant. Dell would never sell a computer to Joe user without a mail client and a browser. But, does it really mather wether the browser is IE, Opera or Netscape?!? (Well, it sure does for netscape... let's say Mozilla)...
To put all their effort pushing a new technology, like this one. IBM has been quite creative in their devellopement over the year, maybe they felt it was time to pass to something else. Can't wait to see this...
Well, I ABSOLUTLY approve the idea that WAS behind patents, it's just thta it had taked ridiculous way more or so recently. I have no problem that a guy who has a VERY brilliant idea can benefit from time, cause patents are only representing time more or less, to market is idea. But when it came to software, I have major objection. I am myself a programmer and I would never EVER get a patent on a piece of software. I own a copyright on this piece of code, being GPL'ed or not. So basically I have the responsability of my own success. The problem is that mega-corp can take my idea, if it's really good, inject a few millions in the project and kill me (my project). But if legislations werre adequates, it would not happen and thus, there would be no need for "patent on software". On the other hand, my actual idea could enlighten someone else who could achieve a goal more or less the same as me and we would then have competitions occuring, encouraging innovaton and it would be to the best product to succeed. I remember having read some page of a book, don't know the real english title, but translate it would be "WHy bus always arrives by two", it is about maths. At one place in the book, they explain that if 2 company (exemple) co-exist. Then one company decides to make a publicity to increase it's sell. Well, it would ALSO increase it's competitor sells. I think that the same go's for "open" ideas and technologies. If their is no big gorilla to crush everyone out of the ring, everyone would benefit from the innovations of everyone else and vice-versa. Well, I think... I'm no market analyst:-) But I guess my vision of the world is a bit to optimistic to happen!
The basic 8-bit core, the bizarrely segmented registers
When I was pursuing my assembly class, I remember a student asked wy it was the way it is... And the prof answered that it was because at the time, 64k ough to be enough... I quoted the wrong guy in the wrong place, but the speech was the same anyway. Lack of vision or they didn't know at the time what they trully had in their hand?
Looks like AMD is getting their end of the bargain. Whether windows will even run on intels new chips or not, AMD looks like they have a headstart and the backing of M$
Reminds me of 3dFx and nVidia... The day that MS started to back nVidia was the day 3dFx started to disapear... I'm still running with my 3dFx voodoo 2000, very happy with it but I'll have to switch one day... Makes me sad because it was an independant api, not standard I must admit, but was a nice try to competition with directX...
IANAL, and I don't want to be one either, but could you explain me something here? I tough that patents were preventing you from doing patented things and to re-sell them. And that I was free to implement any of those patent for myself. If it is not the case, it's a serious treat to any hobbyist! But well, it is my understanding that we can. If it is the case, nothing prevents people from doing application has a hobby, working in team (all the world in this case) and try to "experiment", as long as they don't sell the application. I understand that GPL is free as in speech, not necessarily as in beer, but if it would infringe on some patents, it would sill be possible to develop an application "free as in beer" and be legal. Isn't it? And for what I know, the Gimp is free as in beer... So it could potentialy be as complete as Photoshop, using some of it's patent and still be legal. Could you clarify this for me? But anyway, we live in a pretty messed up world so it could be legal on paper but not in practice...
Don't worry about me being paranoiac, I know I am but...
When I was working at another company few years ago, my president was very fiendly and was enjoying teaching us "marketing" strategies. I found it interesting because it teached me at what levels big corporation are willing to brainwash you. One thing he explained me one day was that a common strategy was to "create the need". Well, we all know this strategy, but he explain me to what extend this could go sometimes. Some company would litteraly "create" you problems to further feed you with their main product. So, my point is this one:
We know that AntiVirus company make a lot of advertisment for their product, they are big selling software and seems to be a lucrative market. Am I the only thinking that they may feed the market themself? It's so easy to put virus in circulation, anyone can... Would it not be tempting to them to "inject" a few once in a while and release a "security alert"? Then, letting the media go, the hype boosts itself and scares people enough to boost sales? I'm sure it happens...
I've always found this one funny, because if you have the knowledge to install Linux, you certainly have the knowledge to remove it. (For now), on the other hand, most users can't install windows if it is not a bootable cd and once it is installed, they sure don't have a clue how to remove it!
Slashdot Mirror
Yep! CCD camera are very impressive at "seeing" IR. In fact, digital camera needs special filter to block out near visible IR light because they would ruin a photo. But using special purpose IR filter (which blocks visible light), you are still able to make some incredibly good IR shots.
What Constitutes Beauty in Physics?
The answer...
physic experiment was the one in 1997 done in my father's car with my first girlfriend. I proved Einstein to be wrong. When the acceleration I applied was great, I tough that an hour as passed, but to her it was only a minute. And when I limited my acceleration as much as I could, 15 minutes to her were like years to me. Go figure!
He did not quote anything about patent, he quoted something about removing an appreciated product from the hand of the user for the sole benefit of another company. While I think that MS should open up their specs a bit more to enable interoperabillity. Face it, the current case will benefit OTHER companys who strive to play king-of-the-hill with microsoft long before it benefit the public and the open source movement. Saying otherwise is to lie to yourself.
I wonder how far they have tested this on human. Because, I'm sorry but if it works on rat, some crack head somewhere has probably tested that on a human being. And THAT scares me alot. We really do not understand much of how a brain works, but if there is any research on doing this kind of thing on a human, it really scares me a lot. It could probably have some good uses, but I can easily imagine an implant which controls what you can and cannot do. King of a law inforcing system. And the day we won't be able to revolt will be the end of freedom as we know it. Don't think it would not happen, those scarry things always happens. They are brought to you as something being good and of which you will benefit, and in the end, you are srewed.
Once more, I skipped my medication...
Yeah, I came to the same conclusion whn I bought my digiCam. Canon/Nikon and the like are releasing new model every 8 months! after 1 year of waiting, I tried a few one and decided that what was mattering the most was to actually take pictures, not wish to. It should be the same for everything, but you know how it is, people don't want something usefull, they want something to show to there friends/familly/neibor and look superior. Like my uncle who calls me twice a year to tell me he just got a new PC which is just so hot! 4000$ a year on PC to do the same ol' shit on it, type letters/browse the web/check mail and play the latest Flight Simulator. The same goes on for the Playstation etc etc. At least, the marketing departement of all those company can be proud, they have succeeded in making us dependant of totally useless toys. (Useless in the sense of not being essential to an enjoyable life).
When I've bought my P2 266, I received a 50% discount off of a 4.3 gig Samsung HD. While it is pretty noisy, it runs almost 24h/24h since then (more or less 3 years) and it haven't crashed yet. I had also moved it a few times from my home to my job in winter. Samsung doesn't make the best/fastest/largest HD out there, but I have nothing to complain about them being reliable. I for sure wouldn't have tried all that with an IBM deskstar...
WARNING
Debugging STL errors can cause fatal heart diseases.Health Canada
They did not like the analogy I guess...
Yeah, but the more people passing in the company, the less secure it becomes anyway.
I don't want to argue... But it's to hard to resist :-) Anyway, just to discuss a point...
Like someone else has said, most programmer work on custom system for a client, I work for a small consulting company who devellop a product for a big company which they hope to sell to others. While it is not really custom development, we do customize the application for some client, adding and removing features on demand. On the other hand, we work with Application server (yep, it's in Java), with IDE's etc etc. Custom application will always be needed, being open-source or not, I don't really care. But application servers, IDE's and all that stuff could greatly benefit from being open source. Just think about Apache. It is, IIRC, a consortium of company which have sit together and decided to develop a standard web server, together, and for the benefit of everyone. THAT is the strenght of OSS. If n company needs an application to work, it really is great if they can sit together, work together and create that piece of software. In the long run, it cut on license expense and pays itself. Plus, the amount f people working on it is far more then if it as been closed-source. Even if you were not on the original dev team, and you spend time at home bugfixing the app and adding new stuff, freely, it will pay you to. In the end, you will have a product which meets your needs, reviewed by thousand of peoples and you will also save on future licensing fees and etc etc. Well, that is my vision of open source. Look at JBoss for exemple, they made an open source software, everyone id free to use it and it had benefit it's original creator because now he run its own consulting bizness. Same goes for RedHat and the like. Sure, it's not the same biz model has closed source software, so it can't be managed the same way. But by releasing new software and new solutions, you are also creating a new "need" which want to be filled. This has been a working strategy for a long time now, nothing new under the sun. So, people just have to start looking at how they can benefit of OSS instead of seeing what they loose. Sure, you won't sell has much boxes of your application, so you shouldn't try to live on tis stream of revenue. But, ont the other side, you save A LOT on dev cost, it makes you "free" advirtising and you can then go out in the field and take some consulting contract to install solutions or customize your open sourced application. Even an open source office solution could work that way. Imagine a company who could have the base office application free, and spend the saved cash on customizing some pieces of it for is company. It could pay to have that little piece of the package modified for its own need, or create a totally new package which could seemlesly integrate into the whole solution etc etc... As it has always been, to be in business, you need to be a visonaire, you need to have novel idea and to work hard. Even Bill Gate has been a visionaire, like it or not. He had been at the right place at the right moment, and it has paid. The other way of succeding is to herit your father company and pay someone better then you to do the administration. It's not my case, so i'll try to be innovative and opportunist.
if one thing, I would a lot less stressed to die any soon... A fobia maybe
I received a publicity clip one day from one of my friend, it was an XBox pub. It was a mother giving birth and then, the baby pop out of her, pass throu the window and was going high in the sky. And while he was "flying", we could see him aging and aging really fast and at the end, he falls into a coffin. All in about 1 minute. It's funny how fantasy can be so real sometimes :-)
When I ordered my DSL connection/modem, I asked what were their price on a static Ip address. The girl on the phone didn't understand my request (not surprising), but she had the amability to forward my call to an internal technician who had been able to answer my question and a few other one. Most people don't know how to connect to the internet, plain and simple. When you call, the persons who answers you have a nice little sheet or app with steps to follow to make it work. If they can't help you, they SHOULD forward your call to someone who can. I would never make any business, personal or not, with a company who just can't help you. I don't care if the first person to answer the phone can't help me, nothing personal because no one knows everything. BUT as a company, the one hiring them, it IS there responsability to have failover in case that there tech support couldn't help you. It is not the responsability of the employee answering the phone, it is the responsability of the company!
IIRC, I've read somewhere that they supply their driver only in a binary form and they supply an open source "Wrapper" around it.
You are right about that, but this is exactly the problem here. It is that way, but it surely did not had to be that way. MS did it, they "forced" others to use their library and now it's a real mess. Rendering engine, codec and all should be standard and managed by a standard body. libraries api would be open and anybody could use it to develop a new "media player". Nothing would prevent MS from shipping windows with those library, but they would have control over it. That is the difference. Now, they LOST in court. They have to be punish. If it means that they should strip down windows, go for it. OTOH it doesn't mean to throw all their DLL to the trash, but open those API, give back the control over it and voila. Nothing would be "broke". And from that moment, real evolution would be able to occur. My problem isn't with windows having media nd html rendering engine embended deep in their OS, myproblem is having those closed and secret. Good design and reusabillity doesn't mean secret and closed.
Has been able to win against the best chess player. So if I understand correctly, the logic involved to win a game isn't really the problem, it is more of a mechanical problem, isn't it? Recent video games are already able to beat really good video game player, and there are not even super-killer-incredibly-intelligent applications. So I think that 2050 is a good goal to try to achieve. By then, the mechanic involved in robot should have marginally improved and also processor power. My guess is that I should not even take that long. On the other side, looking a robot playing sports would not give me the same excitement has watching a true local team kick the ass of it's oponent. I'm currently following the Canadian-Boston series (I'm from Montreal), and the thrill is really to see those guys fight to win and put all there energy into it. Even if they lose, in the end I'll be proud of "my team". Would it be robots playing, I'm not sure I would be so much partisan. It would only be an enhanced Robot War :-) But, it is quite interesting stuff, and great for the advancement of science. We should see more of this in more field. maybe also organize Geek Olympics!
It has been that way for everything EXCEPT windows, and it did not cause any problem? What's your point? If standard were used, you would really not care about what is install, as long as it is compliant. Dell would never sell a computer to Joe user without a mail client and a browser. But, does it really mather wether the browser is IE, Opera or Netscape?!? (Well, it sure does for netscape... let's say Mozilla)...
To put all their effort pushing a new technology, like this one. IBM has been quite creative in their devellopement over the year, maybe they felt it was time to pass to something else. Can't wait to see this...
Well, I ABSOLUTLY approve the idea that WAS behind patents, it's just thta it had taked ridiculous way more or so recently. I have no problem that a guy who has a VERY brilliant idea can benefit from time, cause patents are only representing time more or less, to market is idea. But when it came to software, I have major objection. I am myself a programmer and I would never EVER get a patent on a piece of software. I own a copyright on this piece of code, being GPL'ed or not. So basically I have the responsability of my own success. The problem is that mega-corp can take my idea, if it's really good, inject a few millions in the project and kill me (my project). But if legislations werre adequates, it would not happen and thus, there would be no need for "patent on software". On the other hand, my actual idea could enlighten someone else who could achieve a goal more or less the same as me and we would then have competitions occuring, encouraging innovaton and it would be to the best product to succeed. I remember having read some page of a book, don't know the real english title, but translate it would be "WHy bus always arrives by two", it is about maths. At one place in the book, they explain that if 2 company (exemple) co-exist. Then one company decides to make a publicity to increase it's sell. Well, it would ALSO increase it's competitor sells. I think that the same go's for "open" ideas and technologies. If their is no big gorilla to crush everyone out of the ring, everyone would benefit from the innovations of everyone else and vice-versa. Well, I think... I'm no market analyst :-) But I guess my vision of the world is a bit to optimistic to happen!
The basic 8-bit core, the bizarrely segmented registers
When I was pursuing my assembly class, I remember a student asked wy it was the way it is... And the prof answered that it was because at the time, 64k ough to be enough...
I quoted the wrong guy in the wrong place, but the speech was the same anyway. Lack of vision or they didn't know at the time what they trully had in their hand?
Looks like AMD is getting their end of the bargain. Whether windows will even run on intels new chips or not, AMD looks like they have a headstart and the backing of M$
Reminds me of 3dFx and nVidia... The day that MS started to back nVidia was the day 3dFx started to disapear... I'm still running with my 3dFx voodoo 2000, very happy with it but I'll have to switch one day... Makes me sad because it was an independant api, not standard I must admit, but was a nice try to competition with directX...
IANAL, and I don't want to be one either, but could you explain me something here? I tough that patents were preventing you from doing patented things and to re-sell them. And that I was free to implement any of those patent for myself. If it is not the case, it's a serious treat to any hobbyist! But well, it is my understanding that we can. If it is the case, nothing prevents people from doing application has a hobby, working in team (all the world in this case) and try to "experiment", as long as they don't sell the application. I understand that GPL is free as in speech, not necessarily as in beer, but if it would infringe on some patents, it would sill be possible to develop an application "free as in beer" and be legal. Isn't it? And for what I know, the Gimp is free as in beer... So it could potentialy be as complete as Photoshop, using some of it's patent and still be legal. Could you clarify this for me? But anyway, we live in a pretty messed up world so it could be legal on paper but not in practice...
Don't worry about me being paranoiac, I know I am but...
When I was working at another company few years ago, my president was very fiendly and was enjoying teaching us "marketing" strategies. I found it interesting because it teached me at what levels big corporation are willing to brainwash you. One thing he explained me one day was that a common strategy was to "create the need". Well, we all know this strategy, but he explain me to what extend this could go sometimes. Some company would litteraly "create" you problems to further feed you with their main product. So, my point is this one:
We know that AntiVirus company make a lot of advertisment for their product, they are big selling software and seems to be a lucrative market. Am I the only thinking that they may feed the market themself? It's so easy to put virus in circulation, anyone can... Would it not be tempting to them to "inject" a few once in a while and release a "security alert"? Then, letting the media go, the hype boosts itself and scares people enough to boost sales? I'm sure it happens...
I shouldn't skip my medication anymore...
I've always found this one funny, because if you have the knowledge to install Linux, you certainly have the knowledge to remove it. (For now), on the other hand, most users can't install windows if it is not a bootable cd and once it is installed, they sure don't have a clue how to remove it!