The greatest single historical event in the next century is going to be the fall of the American (U.S.) empire. This downfall will result due to both pressures from within and from the outside. This is not meant to be anti-American rhetoric. A serious look at the state of this country and the world will show you that we are already headed towards that path.
As we enter the 21st century, the United States is one of the most hated, if not the most hated nation in the world. While we have done a great job of spreading democracy throughout the world, this expansion has come through rampant abuse of third world nations. At some point these nations are not going to take it anymore and will fight back. As the recent Balkan conflict shows, ethnic groups hold grudges for a long time, and nations such as Iraq, Lybia, Serbia, etc will not forget that we attacked them. Our foreign policy dictates that we should replace the current dictatorships in such countries with U.S. friendly democratic governments, but what will most probably happen is that the leaders in the 2030's or so will be people who grew up and faced much loss due to the U.S.'s agression (whether that agression was warranted or not is irrelevant at this point). These people will want revenge and with the proliferation of nuclear and biochemical technologies, that revenge could be very sweet for them. The problem for the U.S. is that we have not just one, but many enemies. Our armies are already spread thin throughout the world, and a coordinated attack against us on multiple fronts will be devastating.
In addition to current established enemies, the U.S. will continue to upset more countries, including our so called allies by idiotic plans such as Echelon or other wordwide espionage tactics. Just yesterday, Germany accused the US of using the CIA to conduct economic espionage on German industries.
When historians of the future look back at the collapse of the US, external threats will be the smallest factors in it's collapse. The internal collapse of the US can be summarized by the following: "What happens when the pot boils over and all that's left are the lumps in the bottom that don't want to stick together?" The US is composed of vastly divergent ethnic groups that have so far been able to live together with an understood peace between them that is enforced through governement policies such as affirmative action. As we go into the next century, the ethnic make up of the U.S will drastically change from being primarilly a white country to a nation where whites, blacks, and Latinos have almost equal shares in the population. With a rise in "minority" population, continued poor socio-economic conditions, and a legal system that continues to blatantly anti-minority, it will take just one or two major events in the next century to spark a nationwide ethnic revolution. The Rodney King veridict and ensuing riots were simply a preview of what is to come.
"Ethnic" minorities are not the only ones that will say "no more". There are simply far too many different groups in this country to continue living together indefinetely. There is a growing Christian fundamentalist movement that is spreading throughout the country. This movement goes completely against other groups that continue to push their agenda such as gay rights, enviromentalist groups, and other "progressive groups". At some point there will be a clash.
If you don't believe this, just look at what's happening throughout the world. East Timore, Chechnya(sp), Palestine are just a few examples of what happens when one group of people gets fed up of living under someone elses umbrella.
The U.S. will probably be the last great empire the world will ever see. With the continuing growth of the communications infrastrcutre, the concept of a large country such as the United States will simply not be needed as small groups of people will be able to self govern and and stay in contact with the rest of the world.
I don't mean to put down any groups (latinos, blacks, gays, progressives, etc) in the above, but just paint a picture of what might come.
Now I'll just sit here and wait for the FBI to come get me:)
I think it's important that we teach kids to be more comfortable with computers at a younger age, so that kids can determine on their own whether or not they are interested in learning more about them by pursueing programming languages and such, but it's wrong to shove the technology down kid's throats. Someone brought up the car analogy already and I will use it again. I know nothing when it comes to fixing my car. I don't even change my own oil. Does that make me less empowered? I don't think so. There are only 24 hours a day, 6-8 of which I like to spend sleeping, the rest I tend to spend on things I am interested in. Generally this means hacking away in fron of my computer. I do this because it's what I like to do. Some people choose to be car mechanics, other programmers...it's called choosing one's own destiny
I have no problem with forcing kids to take one or two intro programming classes to get some of them interested, but after that point, it should be each child's choice whether or not they pursue the technology further.
It seems that we geeks tend to forget as a community that there are other things that are other professions that are just as worthwile as sitting in front of a computer and hcaking.
Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
I'm always amazed at the hypocracy(sp?) that exists within the Linux community. We say that we don't want the government taxing the net, telling us what we can say or do the net, etc. Yet at the same time, we want the government to do something to Microsoft?
IMNHO, the government should stay out of the whole mess. The system will self-regulate. Take a look at history. All empires colapse at some point, either because they get to big for those in power to maintain control, or because they are too big and slow to deal with a rapidilly changing situation. This is exactly what will happen to MS.
Why do you think their products suck so much? Is it because their programmers are all idiots? No. It's simply because their leaders (BillG and friends) aren't always in sync with thier developers, testers, etc, etc. Why do you think BillG gave up leadership and went back to help make things better? For this exact reason. But it's probably to late. The empire has already started to crumble and will continue to do so.
Also, Microsoft is faced by small, quick moving enemies on all sides. PalmOS, Linux, network appliances, BeOS, and just a changing landscape in the computer world. They're not quick enough to react to all the threats, and they will fall. We should let it happen and not have the government step into it.
Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
I thought BWP was a very well done film. It's not a masterful work of art that will be looked at as one of the great achievements of the medium, but this movie achieves something that hollywood often fails in doing: It is entertaining and scary without being idiotic. No stupid jokes, no death and gruesomeness for the sake of death and gruesomeness, but just enough to keep you interested, to keep you wondering what will happen to the characters next.
I you want to see a really cool movie though, check out Run Lola, Run a new german flick making it's way across the country. You won't see it in Peoria, but should be at most towns that have some sort of art/indy theater. Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Yes, OSS makes it easy for disgruntled people to get trojan code into a program, but there are several ways to deal with this.
Only download code from trusted sources. This means that you only get the latest gnome patches from the gnome website or from official mirrors. If you follow this
In addition to this, use PGP/GPG signatures to validate what you are getting against the official distribution. If you download an official distribution of a package, it is safe to assume that patches have been looked at by several sets of eyes to ensure that they are OK before they were added to the code base.
There is a missconception by IT suits that there is a complete lack of change control in Open Source projects. The people where I work had this missconception that I could do a search for "linux device foobar2000x drivers" and would find hundreds of different patches. IMHO, Open Source projects are one of the best examples of change control as maintainers shift through many different patches before deciding what ones are worth applying.
Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
So do we non-code contributors to the Linux movement get any extra chance at this IPO? I run a LUG and do a lot of Linux advocacy in my spare time. I know many others who don't code for Linux but spend a _lot_ of time advocating it's use to non Linux users. Shouldn't these people also get a fair chance at the IPO since they're probably helping create new user for RedHat?
My guess is that they're just looking at people who have actually written code for the kernel and major software projects would be my guess.
Congratulations to everyone who did get in on it!!
Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Anyone know where/if more info is available on the tests? Like how many clients, what type of clients, what exact hardware, etc, etc...also, what about numbers like CPU utilization and interrupts/sec? Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Part of it is the fact that smb is built into the kernel. I've been running nt vs. linux tests at work and what happens is that samba forks a proc. for _each_ client that is connected. Imagine running a performance test with a large number of clients, and you end up context-switching as requests come in from different machines, and context switches are expensive operations! Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
We as a community really need to stop worshiping Linux. Yes, Linux is a good OS, but you know what, it's not the best OS. There is no single best OS, and as long as people keep innovating, that will always be the case. Yes Windows has problems, but not everything that Microsoft has done is bad. They've actually come up with some good things believe it or not.
Hmm...my point...can't we just all get along? The whole idea behind Linux is freedom, but if we as a community squash anyone who doesn't agree with our opinions or is misinformed about the facts, we're making Linux that much more worthless.
So please, before you hit the send key next time, think about what you're saying.
Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Given the patents we've seen from Transmeta, I wonder if this is the same sort of thing they are working on? The suspense of what exactly it is that they are doing is killing me. Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
All those packages are great for real time monitoring, but not for historical monitoring over a long period. Let's say I'm run a 6 hour long benchmark. I now tweak some stuff in my driver code and re-run that 6 hour benchmark. I want to be able to compare everything about my machine state during the two runs. CPU util., interrupts/second, etc, etc.
Plus, lets say that my system goes down during the test run. I want to be able to look at it the next day and determine at what point that happened and what the state of the machine was right around the time it happened, b/c that might help me track down what happened.
Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
I'm the one who posted this question [about two months ago!:O ], and have since then done some more research and asked around at the Performance BOF @ Linux Expo and didn't seem like there was anyting that providede me with everything I'm looking for. So...in the spirit of open source I've decided to write my own. The basic idea is to have an agent running on each machine you want to montor, and either a gtk or newt based UI on the machine you're sitting at. Email me if you're interested in more info or helping.
- Deepak Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
> Just curious though, is there much more to > GNOME programming that's not covered under GTK > programming?
Probably yes. It would be very useful to have a book that documented the GNOME component model (bonobo?) and othe GNOME specific APIs. Deepak Saxena Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Slashdot Mirror
As we enter the 21st century, the United States is one of the most hated, if not the most hated nation in the world. While we have done a great job of spreading democracy throughout the world, this expansion has come through rampant abuse of third world nations. At some point these nations are not going to take it anymore and will fight back. As the recent Balkan conflict shows, ethnic groups hold grudges for a long time, and nations such as Iraq, Lybia, Serbia, etc will not forget that we attacked them. Our foreign policy dictates that we should replace the current dictatorships in such countries with U.S. friendly democratic governments, but what will most probably happen is that the leaders in the 2030's or so will be people who grew up and faced much loss due to the U.S.'s agression (whether that agression was warranted or not is irrelevant at this point). These people will want revenge and with the proliferation of nuclear and biochemical technologies, that revenge could be very sweet for them. The problem for the U.S. is that we have not just one, but many enemies. Our armies are already spread thin throughout the world, and a coordinated attack against us on multiple fronts will be devastating.
In addition to current established enemies, the U.S. will continue to upset more countries, including our so called allies by idiotic plans such as Echelon or other wordwide espionage tactics. Just yesterday, Germany accused the US of using the CIA to conduct economic espionage on German industries.
When historians of the future look back at the collapse of the US, external threats will be the smallest factors in it's collapse. The internal collapse of the US can be summarized by the following: "What happens when the pot boils over and all that's left are the lumps in the bottom that don't want to stick together?" The US is composed of vastly divergent ethnic groups that have so far been able to live together with an understood peace between them that is enforced through governement policies such as affirmative action. As we go into the next century, the ethnic make up of the U.S will drastically change from being primarilly a white country to a nation where whites, blacks, and Latinos have almost equal shares in the population. With a rise in "minority" population, continued poor socio-economic conditions, and a legal system that continues to blatantly anti-minority, it will take just one or two major events in the next century to spark a nationwide ethnic revolution. The Rodney King veridict and ensuing riots were simply a preview of what is to come.
"Ethnic" minorities are not the only ones that will say "no more". There are simply far too many different groups in this country to continue living together indefinetely. There is a growing Christian fundamentalist movement that is spreading throughout the country. This movement goes completely against other groups that continue to push their agenda such as gay rights, enviromentalist groups, and other "progressive groups". At some point there will be a clash.
If you don't believe this, just look at what's happening throughout the world. East Timore, Chechnya(sp), Palestine are just a few examples of what happens when one group of people gets fed up of living under someone elses umbrella.
The U.S. will probably be the last great empire the world will ever see. With the continuing growth of the communications infrastrcutre, the concept of a large country such as the United States will simply not be needed as small groups of people will be able to self govern and and stay in contact with the rest of the world.
I don't mean to put down any groups (latinos, blacks, gays, progressives, etc) in the above, but just paint a picture of what might come.
Now I'll just sit here and wait for the FBI to come get me :)
--
Deepak Saxena
deepak@plexity.net
I have no problem with forcing kids to take one or two intro programming classes to get some of them interested, but after that point, it should be each child's choice whether or not they pursue the technology further.
It seems that we geeks tend to forget as a community that there are other things that are other professions that are just as worthwile as sitting in front of a computer and hcaking.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
IMNHO, the government should stay out of the whole mess. The system will self-regulate. Take a look at history. All empires colapse at some point, either because they get to big for those in power to maintain control, or because they are too big and slow to deal with a rapidilly changing situation. This is exactly what will happen to MS.
Why do you think their products suck so much? Is it because their programmers are all idiots? No. It's simply because their leaders (BillG and friends) aren't always in sync with thier developers, testers, etc, etc. Why do you think BillG gave up leadership and went back to help make things better? For this exact reason. But it's probably to late. The empire has already started to crumble and will continue to do so.
Also, Microsoft is faced by small, quick moving enemies on all sides. PalmOS, Linux, network appliances, BeOS, and just a changing landscape in the computer world. They're not quick enough to react to all the threats, and they will fall. We should let it happen and not have the government step into it.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
I you want to see a really cool movie though, check out Run Lola, Run a new german flick making it's way across the country. You won't see it in Peoria, but should be at most towns that have some sort of art/indy theater.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
First post!
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Yes, OSS makes it easy for disgruntled people to get trojan code into a program, but there are several ways to deal with this.
- Only download code from trusted sources. This means that you only get the latest gnome patches from the gnome website or from official mirrors. If you follow this
- In addition to this, use PGP/GPG signatures to validate what you are getting against the official distribution. If you download an official distribution of a package, it is safe to assume that patches have been looked at by several sets of eyes to ensure that they are OK before they were added to the code base.
There is a missconception by IT suits that there is a complete lack of change control in Open Source projects. The people where I work had this missconception that I could do a search for "linux device foobar2000x drivers" and would find hundreds of different patches. IMHO, Open Source projects are one of the best examples of change control as maintainers shift through many different patches before deciding what ones are worth applying.Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
My guess is that they're just looking at people who have actually written code for the kernel and major software projects would be my guess.
Congratulations to everyone who did get in on it!!
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Anyone know where/if more info is available on the tests? Like how many clients, what type of clients, what exact hardware, etc, etc...also, what about numbers like CPU utilization and interrupts/sec?
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Part of it is the fact that smb is built into the kernel. I've been running nt vs. linux tests at work and what happens is that samba forks a proc. for _each_ client that is connected. Imagine running a performance test with a large number of clients, and you end up context-switching as requests come in from different machines, and context switches are expensive operations!
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Hmm...my point...can't we just all get along?
The whole idea behind Linux is freedom, but
if we as a community squash anyone who doesn't agree with our opinions or is misinformed about the facts, we're making Linux that much more worthless.
So please, before you hit the send key next time,
think about what you're saying.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Given the patents we've seen from Transmeta, I wonder if this is the same sort of thing they are working on? The suspense of what exactly it is that they are doing is killing me.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Plus, lets say that my system goes down during the test run. I want to be able to look at it the next day and determine at what point that happened and what the state of the machine was right around the time it happened, b/c that might help me track down what happened.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
I'm the one who posted this question [about two months ago! :O ], and have since then done some more research and asked around at the Performance BOF @ Linux Expo and didn't seem like there was anyting that providede me with everything I'm looking for. So...in the spirit of open source I've decided to write my own. The basic idea is to have an agent running on each machine you want to montor, and either a gtk or newt based UI on
the machine you're sitting at. Email me if you're interested in more info or helping.
- Deepak
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
> Just curious though, is there much more to
> GNOME programming that's not covered under GTK
> programming?
Probably yes. It would be very useful to have a
book that documented the GNOME component model (bonobo?) and othe GNOME specific APIs.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99