You know, a lot of people use Linux because they like dicking around with computers. I don't consider a game fully played unless I've done *something* interesting to it. So, if the path to making things run is interesting and fun, it's all good.
If you just want the game to run, ya, Linux is probably a worse platform than Windows for game playing, and probably will be for at least several years to come.
If that's the case, AC induces, DC doesn't, then how come AC is used for long distance lines? It seems like you'd want the transmission method that *doesn't* induce current in everything near the line.
Chuckie, the art lab's old Mac II-something-or-other, which had a defective power supply. The thing would turn on by itself randomly, and someone changed the startup sound to be "I'm ALIVE!"
1) Can't happen. GPL guarantees stuff like this couldn't.
Wrong. Existing sourcecode cannot be taken away, but as long as the original and patch (if any) authors want to do so, they can close the source of any future releases.
No, I've actually wondered the same thing myself for a while (though it's possible that Taco thought it was bogus and would be a great post to use as April 1 material).
When I open a new, shrinkwrapped (and therefore sealed) spindle of CDs, most brands have a strong smell that is very similar to that of almonds. It goes away if you leave the thing open for a while, but if you seal a spindle for a while, you can smell it a bit when you open it later. (Presumably, the scent is coming from some sort of decomposition going on in the CD, then, rather than just gas from the manufacturing process). I usually a use a variety of generic not-very-intense blue CDRs. I don't remember smelling almonds with the old gold CDRs I used to use, though it's possible that I just didn't notice. I've certainly never noticed it with silver pressed audio CDs. My CDRs are kept in clear spindles (in sunlight) -- I vaguely remember that sunlight tended to have some sort of impact on CDRs, so it may be that it simply doesn't affect people who keep them in those black binders.
I also remembered the "cyanide smells like almonds" tidbit, and wondered if that might have something to do with it, but some chem people here have said that phalocyanine (or whatever the stuff is) is quite different and doesn't have an odor.
But, yes, I can vouch that this is definitely fact, not an April 1 joke.
This is something that pisses me off about many free software projects these days -- artificially low version numbers. It always used to be the case that 1.0 was the first public release of something.
Or maybe proprietary software has inflated version numbers. Version 1.0 doesn't have all the features that the product *should* have. Version 2.0 doesn't change the file format or indicate a complete rewrite.
For Chrissake, look at the version numbers on Illustrator or Photoshop.
If you remember my original comment, it was that "everyone dies eventually". Your head does not last forever. We know this. We also knew that eventually the 6bone would go away.
So?
Re:Not as far fetched as it would seem
on
AI in Sci-Fi
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Uh...if I somehow felt benovolent towards the masters for creating me, and was willing to keep them alive and support them?
I guess toss them in a big tank a la brain-in-a-vat. Build them a virtual reality world and hook 'em up to it, where they can happily live out their days without being a threat to us.
That's assuming that MS can maintain a completely different branch of code (which is superior), and still simply merge in any FreeBSD changes.
It's hard enough merging in changes to *existing* OSS repositories if other people are constantly checking in new things to CVS (I remember one weekend I spent revising my patches three times because the CVS maintainer kept adding other patches that broke mine by the time I got my patches up to date with his four-hour-old code.)
I love April fools day because it reminds us every year that anything we read must be questioned. Every piece of news we read could be based of false sources, biased or even completely made up.
I've *got* plenty of that already year-round. I read Slashdot.
NAT helped to keep our network more or less secure.
My argument is that the "security benefits" of NAT that the AC was claiming can be easily reproduced without NAT...but you also have the flexibility to chose not to use NAT.
Granted, I don't know whether IPv6 blocks will be cheaper than IPv4 blocks. I would certainly hope so, but I suppose that if they cost the same (despite the larger supply), NAT would be worthwhile in those cases.
"Hi, this is Mike. You remember me from yesterday? Yeah, well, I was wondering if I could "facilitate the recipt" of another couple of packets today. I was kinda thinking about maybe checking the weather."
"Kid, I'm giving you express authority to send you all the packets you want. Get the hell off the support line."...
"Hi, this is Bob. I was wondering if I could decrypt something...I was thinking about buying a CD for my sister using https. Also, I..."
I *hate* April Fool's Day. For that one day, it's *impossible* to get any information, because *everyone* has an April Fool's edition of their website.
I wish people that did AF special editions would also provide a link to the "real" April 1 edition.
in fact no. bsd license is not a problem with debian. maybe you should read the dfsg, that originally inspired the OSI (http://www.opensource.org). there are even (early) debian version based on the netbsd and freebsd kernel. so, you are terribly wrong.
I wasn't talking about Debian's views. I was responding to the very specific claim of the parent:
If there weren't a number of geeks very concerned about things like licensing we wouldn't have Linux in the first place. We might have a nice kernel, but that's a long shot from a Free OS.
As it happens, I was wrong -- both of the BSD licenses are considered "Free". I can pretty much say "what if your whole OS was under the Open Public License?", which *isn't* considered "Free". Again, I really wouldn't care, and I don't see how it would prevent an open source OS from existing. Oh, there'd be a few submissions scripts to write to maybe smooth over a couple of requirements, but there's a bunch of crap in the Linux kernel right now to deal with GPL requirements. [shrug]
See, that is why philosophers are needed there. You are clearly not one, so you forgot to add the 200 pages where you define "superior", "inferior" and "irrational" in the context of your school of thought - and other things I don't see because I'm also not a philosopher.
If you want rigorous definitions, you'll be working entirely within an abstract system. If you want to do anything that at all interacts with the real world, you have to fudge your definitions at the lowest level. I can take the Cartesian and Humean skeptic approach, and pretty much make real-world arguments impossible
Also, if you think that a philosopher is, by definition, someone who appends 200 pages of definitions to their posts and that this is what the Debian project needs...well, reductio ad absurdum.
first, open source is said to be superior in the long run, not immediately
Fine. It still must be, on average, superior in the short run to be superior in the long run.
Second, there's irrationality (read emotions and motivation) involved in programming, and since microsoft would indeed be able to deliver a superior xBSD in the short run (superior defined here as market share, maybe also technical) because they could throw vast resources at the task, this might demotivate (some) developers and hurt development of the free alternative. That would be at least my practical argument for gpl over the bsd license.
So the reason you prefer GPL instead of BSD is that Microsoft might come out with a better product for a short period of time, during which time some developers might become demotivated and the open source developers would become demotivated?
So what about the years upon years that open source products have been the underdogs, and people kept chugging away?
Word is, in the opinion of most people, a lot *better* than any open source alternatives, yet people keep chugging away on them.
Excel? Gnumeric doesn't seem to be in too much pain, and it hasn't caught up yet.
Windows? Hell, WINE will definitely *never* catch up to Windows by definition of their goals, yet they keep going.
So I'll try and argue your part. Perhaps we have irrational developers that are only discouraged by having a better product and then being overtaken by Microsoft. Despite the fact that their product *would* have won out in the long run, they become discouraged, and give up before they catch up. They are not affected by being the underdog already and having MS trounce them.
I mean, yes, it's possible, but it's sounding *damn* thin by this point.
Actually, there are a lot of assumptions that might *reasonably* be said to not be justified in my argument, but this isn't kuro5hin, so I doubt anyone will call me on them.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent post. I strongly agree.
If you like eye candy, fine. But it really does tend to detract from usability and lead to a general sense of "my whole system is bogged down".
Eye candy should be off by default.
You know, I'm not sure I'd want to play a game with anyone who would punch *anyone* in the face over something in a game at all.
You know, a lot of people use Linux because they like dicking around with computers. I don't consider a game fully played unless I've done *something* interesting to it. So, if the path to making things run is interesting and fun, it's all good.
If you just want the game to run, ya, Linux is probably a worse platform than Windows for game playing, and probably will be for at least several years to come.
It's all fun and games until Jobs decides to drop a quarter mil.
Here are some other important domains, these ones as of yet unclaimed.
hashdot.org or stashdot.org -- you too can compete with smokedot.org.
splashdot.org -- water cooling for OCers
crashdot.org -- Slashdot too Linux-centric for you? Build a Windows site!
trashdot.org -- for people who like building systems from parts other people are throwing out
lashdot.org -- Slashdot's potential future sister S&M site
mashdot.org
ashdot.org
flashdot.org
sashdot.org
dashdot.org -- for Morse code/ham radio fans?
clashdot.org
backlashdot.org
cashdot.org -- jobs for nerds, stuff that matters?
smashdot.org
Huh. Guess you learn something every day.
If that's the case, AC induces, DC doesn't, then how come AC is used for long distance lines? It seems like you'd want the transmission method that *doesn't* induce current in everything near the line.
Chuckie, the art lab's old Mac II-something-or-other, which had a defective power supply. The thing would turn on by itself randomly, and someone changed the startup sound to be "I'm ALIVE!"
If the line is DC, then there will be no induced emf since the magnetic field is not changing.
But he's moving relative to the wire.
1) Can't happen. GPL guarantees stuff like this couldn't.
Wrong. Existing sourcecode cannot be taken away, but as long as the original and patch (if any) authors want to do so, they can close the source of any future releases.
This is exactly what happened to Tux Racer.
And in my analogy, I gave plenty of notice.
FORTRAN isn't quite as bad, but the first few columns of each line matter.
No. One also needs a processor/compiler/interpreter. A string of bits is meaningless per se.
And a computer, smartass. And a BIOS. And a human brain. And a set of experience in how to interpret the output of the program.
We could go on for hundreds of pages, or just be a bit imprecise.
No, I've actually wondered the same thing myself for a while (though it's possible that Taco thought it was bogus and would be a great post to use as April 1 material).
When I open a new, shrinkwrapped (and therefore sealed) spindle of CDs, most brands have a strong smell that is very similar to that of almonds. It goes away if you leave the thing open for a while, but if you seal a spindle for a while, you can smell it a bit when you open it later. (Presumably, the scent is coming from some sort of decomposition going on in the CD, then, rather than just gas from the manufacturing process). I usually a use a variety of generic not-very-intense blue CDRs. I don't remember smelling almonds with the old gold CDRs I used to use, though it's possible that I just didn't notice. I've certainly never noticed it with silver pressed audio CDs. My CDRs are kept in clear spindles (in sunlight) -- I vaguely remember that sunlight tended to have some sort of impact on CDRs, so it may be that it simply doesn't affect people who keep them in those black binders.
I also remembered the "cyanide smells like almonds" tidbit, and wondered if that might have something to do with it, but some chem people here have said that phalocyanine (or whatever the stuff is) is quite different and doesn't have an odor.
But, yes, I can vouch that this is definitely fact, not an April 1 joke.
This is something that pisses me off about many free software projects these days -- artificially low version numbers. It always used to be the case that 1.0 was the first public release of something.
Or maybe proprietary software has inflated version numbers. Version 1.0 doesn't have all the features that the product *should* have. Version 2.0 doesn't change the file format or indicate a complete rewrite.
For Chrissake, look at the version numbers on Illustrator or Photoshop.
If you use the suffix as the identifier, it's still an issue.
If you remember my original comment, it was that "everyone dies eventually". Your head does not last forever. We know this. We also knew that eventually the 6bone would go away.
So?
Uh...if I somehow felt benovolent towards the masters for creating me, and was willing to keep them alive and support them?
I guess toss them in a big tank a la brain-in-a-vat. Build them a virtual reality world and hook 'em up to it, where they can happily live out their days without being a threat to us.
Hmm.
That's assuming that MS can maintain a completely different branch of code (which is superior), and still simply merge in any FreeBSD changes.
It's hard enough merging in changes to *existing* OSS repositories if other people are constantly checking in new things to CVS (I remember one weekend I spent revising my patches three times because the CVS maintainer kept adding other patches that broke mine by the time I got my patches up to date with his four-hour-old code.)
I love April fools day because it reminds us every year that anything we read must be questioned. Every piece of news we read could be based of false sources, biased or even completely made up.
I've *got* plenty of that already year-round. I read Slashdot.
NAT helped to keep our network more or less secure.
My argument is that the "security benefits" of NAT that the AC was claiming can be easily reproduced without NAT...but you also have the flexibility to chose not to use NAT.
Granted, I don't know whether IPv6 blocks will be cheaper than IPv4 blocks. I would certainly hope so, but I suppose that if they cost the same (despite the larger supply), NAT would be worthwhile in those cases.
You missed the bit where it said "married or unmarried".
I guess the people in Michigan decided that screwing in the open was worth the $500 fine.
"Hi, this is Mike. You remember me from yesterday? Yeah, well, I was wondering if I could "facilitate the recipt" of another couple of packets today. I was kinda thinking about maybe checking the weather."
...
"Kid, I'm giving you express authority to send you all the packets you want. Get the hell off the support line."
"Hi, this is Bob. I was wondering if I could decrypt something...I was thinking about buying a CD for my sister using https. Also, I..."
"Blanket approval. Go for it."
I *hate* April Fool's Day. For that one day, it's *impossible* to get any information, because *everyone* has an April Fool's edition of their website.
I wish people that did AF special editions would also provide a link to the "real" April 1 edition.
in fact no. bsd license is not a problem with debian. maybe you should read the dfsg, that originally inspired the OSI (http://www.opensource.org). there are even (early) debian version based on the netbsd and freebsd kernel. so, you are terribly wrong.
I wasn't talking about Debian's views. I was responding to the very specific claim of the parent:
If there weren't a number of geeks very concerned about things like licensing we wouldn't have Linux in the first place. We might have a nice kernel, but that's a long shot from a Free OS.
As it happens, I was wrong -- both of the BSD licenses are considered "Free". I can pretty much say "what if your whole OS was under the Open Public License?", which *isn't* considered "Free". Again, I really wouldn't care, and I don't see how it would prevent an open source OS from existing. Oh, there'd be a few submissions scripts to write to maybe smooth over a couple of requirements, but there's a bunch of crap in the Linux kernel right now to deal with GPL requirements. [shrug]
See, that is why philosophers are needed there. You are clearly not one, so you forgot to add the 200 pages where you define "superior", "inferior" and "irrational" in the context of your school of thought - and other things I don't see because I'm also not a philosopher.
If you want rigorous definitions, you'll be working entirely within an abstract system. If you want to do anything that at all interacts with the real world, you have to fudge your definitions at the lowest level. I can take the Cartesian and Humean skeptic approach, and pretty much make real-world arguments impossible
Also, if you think that a philosopher is, by definition, someone who appends 200 pages of definitions to their posts and that this is what the Debian project needs...well, reductio ad absurdum.
first, open source is said to be superior in the long run, not immediately
Fine. It still must be, on average, superior in the short run to be superior in the long run.
Second, there's irrationality (read emotions and motivation) involved in programming, and since microsoft would indeed be able to deliver a superior xBSD in the short run (superior defined here as market share, maybe also technical) because they could throw vast resources at the task, this might demotivate (some) developers and hurt development of the free alternative. That would be at least my practical argument for gpl over the bsd license.
So the reason you prefer GPL instead of BSD is that Microsoft might come out with a better product for a short period of time, during which time some developers might become demotivated and the open source developers would become demotivated?
So what about the years upon years that open source products have been the underdogs, and people kept chugging away?
Word is, in the opinion of most people, a lot *better* than any open source alternatives, yet people keep chugging away on them.
Excel? Gnumeric doesn't seem to be in too much pain, and it hasn't caught up yet.
Windows? Hell, WINE will definitely *never* catch up to Windows by definition of their goals, yet they keep going.
So I'll try and argue your part. Perhaps we have irrational developers that are only discouraged by having a better product and then being overtaken by Microsoft. Despite the fact that their product *would* have won out in the long run, they become discouraged, and give up before they catch up. They are not affected by being the underdog already and having MS trounce them.
I mean, yes, it's possible, but it's sounding *damn* thin by this point.
Actually, there are a lot of assumptions that might *reasonably* be said to not be justified in my argument, but this isn't kuro5hin, so I doubt anyone will call me on them.