Surely the point is that people can't work on open source full-time. You still have to have a day-job. Therefore people work for commercial software companies for 8 hours a day, and open source for 2 hours a day. How exactly can that mean that open source will take over? The point is that commercial software (aka day jobs) has to retain most of the market, otherwise most developers will be out of jobs.
Open source is an excellent _idea_ but in reality it is extremely difficult to make money from it. And let's face it, that _is_ what makes our world go round.
-s
I think my favourite bit is:
"Computer discipline is like a box of chocolates," he says wryly. "You never know what you're going to get."
There's something about this article which leaves a hideous sickly sweet 'aren't we great' taste in my mouth.
-s
I think most major oil companies have realised that they only have a limited time left selling petrol; most of them are funding research into alternatives such as direct combustion of ethanol, and various types of fuel cell. This means that when the time comes, it will be the oil companies selling you fuel cells, and/or hydrogen/ethanol/methanol to go in them.
I mean it's not as if they haven't seen this coming. The real losers will be countries that depend on exporting oil, but they will still be able to sell a large proportion of their oil to the chemicals industry.
-s
Actually afaik they've managed to keep the encryption standard for DVB under wraps in Europe - I don't think anyone has broken it yet.
Of course, people have reverse-engineered the authentication modules, and the encryption keys are freely available over the net...
-s
I thought Tachyons were a prediction, not experimentally verified?
You are right that there are a few inconsistencies with GR though, mainly with Quantum Physics.
-s
That example fails with Special Relativity since the train is accelerating (moving in a circle). However, I don't know how it behaves under General Relativity.
Note that when you are on the train, it is still the same length. Length contraction only applies for an observer moving at a different velocity to the train.
-s
afaik there are incompatabilities on the small scale between General Relativity and Quantum Physics - hence the sought-after theory of Quantum Gravity.
-s
Yep, Relativity is a very good book, with many excellent examples.
But note one of the axioms of Special Relativity is that the laws of Physics are the same in all inertial (non-accelerating) frames of reference. Hence by testing the theory of Relativity we are testing this very axiom.
Actually, I thought the handwriting recoqnition on the latest rev of WinCE was pretty good. I didn't even have to re-learn how to write, I just had to be a little bit clearer (but that goes for humans reading my writing too:) ).
-s
That is one of the most important aspects of any tablet IMHO. Whatever magic Transmeta do with their code-morphing and low transistor count, is a 1GHz processor really going to allow the machine to be operated for more that, say, 3 hours?
Previous review I have seen of cute Crusoe based machines (e.g. Somy C1 Picture Book) have said that the battery life is better than an average laptop, but hardly astonishing - a gain of something like 20%.
That is definitely the biggest disadvantage of machines such as the Compaq Ipaq already, and I don't see that putting a 1GHz processor in is going to help.
HTTP downloading is very good. But FTP browsing leaves a lot to be desired, although once you have found the file you're looking for, actually downloading it is is easy. Whilst downloading, Opera allows you to pause/resume from HTTP and FTP.
However, there are better programs than both IE and Opera for this; e.g. SmartFTP.
-s
Gestures, disabling pop-ups, custom searches, opening new pages inside Opera instead of on the desktop, easy download management including pausing and resuming, restarting browsing where you left off, improved stability.
Even the adverts don't annoy me.
The only advantages IE has over Opera is that some sites are written solely for IE, and that Opera's ftp client sucks (but who uses ftp in browsers anyway?).
I don't know about Mozilla, but IE really does suck compared to Opera.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely the point is that people can't work on open source full-time. You still have to have a day-job. Therefore people work for commercial software companies for 8 hours a day, and open source for 2 hours a day. How exactly can that mean that open source will take over? The point is that commercial software (aka day jobs) has to retain most of the market, otherwise most developers will be out of jobs. Open source is an excellent _idea_ but in reality it is extremely difficult to make money from it. And let's face it, that _is_ what makes our world go round. -s
I think my favourite bit is: "Computer discipline is like a box of chocolates," he says wryly. "You never know what you're going to get." There's something about this article which leaves a hideous sickly sweet 'aren't we great' taste in my mouth. -s
I think most major oil companies have realised that they only have a limited time left selling petrol; most of them are funding research into alternatives such as direct combustion of ethanol, and various types of fuel cell. This means that when the time comes, it will be the oil companies selling you fuel cells, and/or hydrogen/ethanol/methanol to go in them. I mean it's not as if they haven't seen this coming. The real losers will be countries that depend on exporting oil, but they will still be able to sell a large proportion of their oil to the chemicals industry. -s
Actually afaik they've managed to keep the encryption standard for DVB under wraps in Europe - I don't think anyone has broken it yet. Of course, people have reverse-engineered the authentication modules, and the encryption keys are freely available over the net... -s
I thought Tachyons were a prediction, not experimentally verified? You are right that there are a few inconsistencies with GR though, mainly with Quantum Physics. -s
That example fails with Special Relativity since the train is accelerating (moving in a circle). However, I don't know how it behaves under General Relativity. Note that when you are on the train, it is still the same length. Length contraction only applies for an observer moving at a different velocity to the train. -s
afaik there are incompatabilities on the small scale between General Relativity and Quantum Physics - hence the sought-after theory of Quantum Gravity. -s
Yep, Relativity is a very good book, with many excellent examples.
But note one of the axioms of Special Relativity is that the laws of Physics are the same in all inertial (non-accelerating) frames of reference. Hence by testing the theory of Relativity we are testing this very axiom.
-s
Except that it is implied by
"Also included are international cooperation on free application software development, with the results freely shared internationally"
which suggests Taiwan is going to continue in the spirit of which 'free software' was intended.
-s
Actually, I thought the handwriting recoqnition on the latest rev of WinCE was pretty good. I didn't even have to re-learn how to write, I just had to be a little bit clearer (but that goes for humans reading my writing too :) ).
-s
That is one of the most important aspects of any tablet IMHO. Whatever magic Transmeta do with their code-morphing and low transistor count, is a 1GHz processor really going to allow the machine to be operated for more that, say, 3 hours?
Previous review I have seen of cute Crusoe based machines (e.g. Somy C1 Picture Book) have said that the battery life is better than an average laptop, but hardly astonishing - a gain of something like 20%.
That is definitely the biggest disadvantage of machines such as the Compaq Ipaq already, and I don't see that putting a 1GHz processor in is going to help.
-s
HTTP downloading is very good. But FTP browsing leaves a lot to be desired, although once you have found the file you're looking for, actually downloading it is is easy. Whilst downloading, Opera allows you to pause/resume from HTTP and FTP. However, there are better programs than both IE and Opera for this; e.g. SmartFTP. -s
You could find a low share hub on Direct Connect, they do exist. But I get most of my music from the local CD library these days; rent-em & copy em.
-s
Opera/Win32 vs. IE:
Gestures, disabling pop-ups, custom searches, opening new pages inside Opera instead of on the desktop, easy download management including pausing and resuming, restarting browsing where you left off, improved stability.
Even the adverts don't annoy me.
The only advantages IE has over Opera is that some sites are written solely for IE, and that Opera's ftp client sucks (but who uses ftp in browsers anyway?).
I don't know about Mozilla, but IE really does suck compared to Opera.