So because they have rabid fans who will buy their music, they're somehow not "big crap artists"? I honestly don't follow your logic. However, since you're an admitted Radiohead fan, I do question your objective assessment of the band. It's like asking CmdrTaco if he thinks Linux is a good operating system.
As opposed to what, asking Bill Gates is he thinks Linux is a good operating system? Or my 82-year-old aunt who has never used a computer in her life? Take my word for it as someone who is not a "Radiohead" fan, in the sense of someone who thinks everything they do is good: they are not exactly Britney Spears.
SCO's claim that they own the Linux source code is clearly ridiculous--how can a person own an idea?
The same way one can own undeveloped land. The ownership of that land is merely the ownership of an abstract principle with regard to use of the land. The same is true of any object which cannot be shut up inside another locked object.
However I do remember the big deal about "oh they're using KHTML and not gecko", etc.
I think that was just because folks expected them to use Gecko: Gecko seemed more mature, and they had hired one of the fellows working on Chimera, a Gecko browser for OS X. At first it seemed like an insult to Gecko, but that is in part because noone was really paying much attention to KHTML. So you still get points for using KHTML before Apple; but it doesn't seem so surprising that everyone made a big deal out of Apple using it.
Who owns SCO? I have the impression that IBM should try buying it, if only to stop it from pissing everybody off.
That's the whole point. Most analysts think SCO is doing this simply to make themselves obnoxious enough for IBM to buy them. That's why SCO's stock goes up when they get obnoxious: buyers are betting that IBM will finally decide it's easier to pay to make it go away.
and if you click on the submitter's link, you find that she's Greek, so this is not the standard Slashduh illiteracy, but a symptom of polyglottalism.
Which, of course, was implied by my point: it is a language error; the author is writing in English, and using a Greek spelling (in the Latin alphabet).
Still I somewhat doubt that panakeia is the Greek spelling of anything.
No, technically, it is a transliteration into the Latin alphabet, following modern transliteration rules, of the Greek spelling of pi-alpha-nu-alpha-kappa-epsilon-iota-alpha.
I think the reason people made a big deal about Safari is because it is a commercial product from an established company that used an open-source framework that they themselves didn't develop: a win for OSS, not a loss for those of you who already knew about and used KHTML.
That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while. Do you think that hardware interfaces haven't been increasing in complexity until USB came out?
RTFA. He's talking about writing operating systems from scratch. Who do you think writes the abstraction layers?
The point is that as each new hardware interface is developed, it is significantly more complex than the preceding one, and it becomes harder and harder for a hobbyist programmer to comprehend it.
For Open Source and Free Software to succeed people need to stop making "yet another peice of software written from scratch". The strength of having the source is that you can modify it for your own use (like syllable is doing with the GNU tool chain) and not have to re-invent the wheel.
So in other words, Linus working on his own operating system kernel was just taking good developers away from HURD, right?
If we follow your logic, we'll be stuck with Linux and BSD forever. Not that Linux and BSD aren't great, but they are not perfect, and at some point "making them better" won't be enough anymore. You need to have constant experimentation with OSes or you'll never know what's possible (and you'll never replace all those OS programmers with a new generation).
The most interesting part to the interview is where he starts talking about the difficulty in coding for modern hardware interfaces; he suggests that as easier-to-code interfaces like PS/2 and the floppy are rplaced with harder-to-code interfaces like USB, the end of the hobby OS may be at hand. As the barrier-to-entry for coding OSes for commodity hardware grows larger, doesn't that suggest that the opportunity for new robust OSes to evolve to compete with the established players (not only Windows, but OS X, the other BSDs, and Linux) may not exist in the future? Is it possible that the evolution of the OS may be choked by the evolution of the hardware?
The panakeia / panacea error is not, technically speaking, a typo. It is a language error: panakeia is the Greek spelling of the Greek word, panacea the Latin transliteration. In English, words "naturalized" from Greek before ~1900 are spelled with the Latin transliteration (because most often they were, in fact, borrowed from Latin, which had borrowed them from Greek); after ~1900 with a stricter transliteration. The English spelling is of course panacea.
Why is a posting with obvious factual errors (e.g., Netscape did not originally give Navigator away for free: even the student licensed version of Navigator cost $; it was MICROSOFT who tried to leverage their monopoly by giving the browser away for free, in one fell swoop destroying Netscape's business model.)
In fact, I contend that if you find differences between IE6/Win and IE5/Mac, the issue is that IE6 doesn't follow the standards, but IE5/Mac does
Last time I checked, Unicode was a standard. And IE6 for Windows (like Mozilla and Safari) provides excellent support, while IE5 for Mac provides incredibly limited support.
Even with the change of subject from computer to human languages, I stand by my statement. The little I've seen of Dummies books for natural language learning did not impress me. If you want to learn a *real* language, you could not do better than to pick up one of the Cambridge or Routledge grammars (there are some exceptions, but most of those are very, very good), a good dictionary, a good introductory textbook (google Language Introductory course text and limit to.edu domains for some suggestions), and some good CDs or audio tapes.
I think the problem here is that the manager doesn't understand the distinction between programming and two subject matters where age really does matter:
1. Language learning. The younger you are, the faster you will learn HUMAN languages. This is a peculiarity of our neurological system and the way it handles (ambiguous human) syntax - as the brain is developing, the language centers of the brain are configured to better handle the sorts of linguistic tasks that the child's native language requires most. This is not a skill differential that I think is transferrable to learning purely symbolic languages like computer languages.
2. Higher math - great pure mathematicians tend to burn out around 30.
Don't buy Dummies books for languages. Period. If you can, try to find the O'Reilly Windows 95 in a Nutshell (yes, Windows *95*) book somewhere; it looks from the index like it has about 20 pages on QBASIC.
Perl's not ambiguous - no programming language is truly ambiguous; if one were, the same exact program could mean two different things in two different circumstances. But I can see the argument that Python would be a better learner's language.
All they've gotta do to make them more affordable is open up the clone market again. But, they won't do that.
Repeat after me: Apple is a HARDWARE company. Why would they want the competition from the clone market?
Don't compare Apple to Microsoft, they're in another sector. Don't compare them to IBM's PC business, because if IBM had it to do over again they wouldn't have used COTS parts and there would be no Intel clones today.
Why wait and why pay money if you can install Linux/PPC on it?
1. Because OS X has things going for it that Linux/PPC doesn't (and vice-versa). 2. Because I buy my Linux disks anyway: someone has to pay for development. 3. Because who says I should be limited to one OS? I use Linux for some things, and I use OS X for others, and even (shudder) Windows for others.
I dont understand how people can not 'get' the scene with the architect. Perhaps you are attempting to read into it too much? Here's a hint: he says everything straightforward.
Yes and no. The Architect is Yaldaboath, the blind god of Gnosticism who believes he he created the universe for his purposes, when all he created was the deception we see around us. He is opposed by Sophia, wisdom. Read some Phillip K. Dick and *The Nag Hammadi Codices* is you want to understand what the Architect is doing.
My guess is that the Oracle has a plan for Neo that is outside the scope of the Matrix's purpose for the One.
Slashdot Mirror
So because they have rabid fans who will buy their music, they're somehow not "big crap artists"? I honestly don't follow your logic. However, since you're an admitted Radiohead fan, I do question your objective assessment of the band. It's like asking CmdrTaco if he thinks Linux is a good operating system.
As opposed to what, asking Bill Gates is he thinks Linux is a good operating system? Or my 82-year-old aunt who has never used a computer in her life? Take my word for it as someone who is not a "Radiohead" fan, in the sense of someone who thinks everything they do is good: they are not exactly Britney Spears.
SCO's claim that they own the Linux source code is clearly ridiculous--how can a person own an idea?
The same way one can own undeveloped land. The ownership of that land is merely the ownership of an abstract principle with regard to use of the land. The same is true of any object which cannot be shut up inside another locked object.
the SCO Coyote throws everything but the Acme kitchen sink at the IBM Roadrunner. Meep meep!
Except this roadrunner is 300 feet tall, and says "MMMEEEEEEPPP MMMEEEEEEPPP".
However I do remember the big deal about "oh they're using KHTML and not gecko", etc.
I think that was just because folks expected them to use Gecko: Gecko seemed more mature, and they had hired one of the fellows working on Chimera, a Gecko browser for OS X. At first it seemed like an insult to Gecko, but that is in part because noone was really paying much attention to KHTML. So you still get points for using KHTML before Apple; but it doesn't seem so surprising that everyone made a big deal out of Apple using it.
Who owns SCO? I have the impression that IBM should try buying it, if only to stop it from pissing everybody off.
That's the whole point. Most analysts think SCO is doing this simply to make themselves obnoxious enough for IBM to buy them. That's why SCO's stock goes up when they get obnoxious: buyers are betting that IBM will finally decide it's easier to pay to make it go away.
and if you click on the submitter's link, you find that she's Greek, so this is not the standard Slashduh illiteracy, but a symptom of polyglottalism.
Which, of course, was implied by my point: it is a language error; the author is writing in English, and using a Greek spelling (in the Latin alphabet).
Still I somewhat doubt that panakeia is the Greek spelling of anything .
No, technically, it is a transliteration into the Latin alphabet, following modern transliteration rules, of the Greek spelling of pi-alpha-nu-alpha-kappa-epsilon-iota-alpha.
I think the reason people made a big deal about Safari is because it is a commercial product from an established company that used an open-source framework that they themselves didn't develop: a win for OSS, not a loss for those of you who already knew about and used KHTML.
That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while. Do you think that hardware interfaces haven't been increasing in complexity until USB came out?
RTFA. He's talking about writing operating systems from scratch. Who do you think writes the abstraction layers?
The point is that as each new hardware interface is developed, it is significantly more complex than the preceding one, and it becomes harder and harder for a hobbyist programmer to comprehend it.
It may not be a typo, but having two spellings of the same word definitely isn't oikonomical.
Somebody, please, mod quoted parent up funny. Just look up the word "economics" in a dicitonary and look at the etymology if you don't get the joke.
For Open Source and Free Software to succeed people need to stop making "yet another peice of software written from scratch". The strength of having the source is that you can modify it for your own use (like syllable is doing with the GNU tool chain) and not have to re-invent the wheel.
So in other words, Linus working on his own operating system kernel was just taking good developers away from HURD, right?
If we follow your logic, we'll be stuck with Linux and BSD forever. Not that Linux and BSD aren't great, but they are not perfect, and at some point "making them better" won't be enough anymore. You need to have constant experimentation with OSes or you'll never know what's possible (and you'll never replace all those OS programmers with a new generation).
The most interesting part to the interview is where he starts talking about the difficulty in coding for modern hardware interfaces; he suggests that as easier-to-code interfaces like PS/2 and the floppy are rplaced with harder-to-code interfaces like USB, the end of the hobby OS may be at hand. As the barrier-to-entry for coding OSes for commodity hardware grows larger, doesn't that suggest that the opportunity for new robust OSes to evolve to compete with the established players (not only Windows, but OS X, the other BSDs, and Linux) may not exist in the future? Is it possible that the evolution of the OS may be choked by the evolution of the hardware?
The panakeia / panacea error is not, technically speaking, a typo. It is a language error: panakeia is the Greek spelling of the Greek word, panacea the Latin transliteration. In English, words "naturalized" from Greek before ~1900 are spelled with the Latin transliteration (because most often they were, in fact, borrowed from Latin, which had borrowed them from Greek); after ~1900 with a stricter transliteration. The English spelling is of course panacea.
Why is a posting with obvious factual errors (e.g., Netscape did not originally give Navigator away for free: even the student licensed version of Navigator cost $; it was MICROSOFT who tried to leverage their monopoly by giving the browser away for free, in one fell swoop destroying Netscape's business model.)
In fact, I contend that if you find differences between IE6/Win and IE5/Mac, the issue is that IE6 doesn't follow the standards, but IE5/Mac does
Last time I checked, Unicode was a standard. And IE6 for Windows (like Mozilla and Safari) provides excellent support, while IE5 for Mac provides incredibly limited support.
Even with the change of subject from computer to human languages, I stand by my statement. The little I've seen of Dummies books for natural language learning did not impress me. If you want to learn a *real* language, you could not do better than to pick up one of the Cambridge or Routledge grammars (there are some exceptions, but most of those are very, very good), a good dictionary, a good introductory textbook (google Language Introductory course text and limit to .edu domains for some suggestions), and some good CDs or audio tapes.
I think the problem here is that the manager doesn't understand the distinction between programming and two subject matters where age really does matter:
1. Language learning. The younger you are, the faster you will learn HUMAN languages. This is a peculiarity of our neurological system and the way it handles (ambiguous human) syntax - as the brain is developing, the language centers of the brain are configured to better handle the sorts of linguistic tasks that the child's native language requires most. This is not a skill differential that I think is transferrable to learning purely symbolic languages like computer languages.
2. Higher math - great pure mathematicians tend to burn out around 30.
Yes, I was aware of all this stuff, but frankly, I didn't care enough to check the CIA World Factbook.
Kuwait is far, far too large to be considered a city-state - it's something like 17,000-18,000 mi^2.
Don't buy Dummies books for languages. Period. If you can, try to find the O'Reilly Windows 95 in a Nutshell (yes, Windows *95*) book somewhere; it looks from the index like it has about 20 pages on QBASIC.
These are independent city states
Singapore .sg
Vatican .va
These are semi-autonomous city states:
Hong Kong .hk
Macau .mo
Gibraltar .gi
Monaco is in effect a city-state, but the "capital" is Monte Carlo, so ...
Monaco .mc
These, on the other hand, are small countries about the size of US states:
Kuwait .kw
Luxembourg .lu
Israel .il is of a comparable size to these, as is Jordan
Lichtenstein (don't know TLD, much smaller than Kuwait and Luxembourg)
An independent Palestine would go around here
I'm not quite sure how large the island of St. Helena is.
Andorra and San Marino are tiny states that I think could be called city-states.
Perl's not ambiguous - no programming language is truly ambiguous; if one were, the same exact program could mean two different things in two different circumstances. But I can see the argument that Python would be a better learner's language.
Cost of Mac laptop: $1000. Half-Life license: $25. Cost of Intel laptop to play Half-Life on because Half-Life doesn't work on Macs: $1000
Cost of a real life so you don't waste all of your time on a Pentium laptop playing Half-Life: Priceless.
All they've gotta do to make them more affordable is open up the clone market again. But, they won't do that.
Repeat after me: Apple is a HARDWARE company. Why would they want the competition from the clone market?
Don't compare Apple to Microsoft, they're in another sector. Don't compare them to IBM's PC business, because if IBM had it to do over again they wouldn't have used COTS parts and there would be no Intel clones today.
Why wait and why pay money if you can install Linux/PPC on it?
1. Because OS X has things going for it that Linux/PPC doesn't (and vice-versa). 2. Because I buy my Linux disks anyway: someone has to pay for development. 3. Because who says I should be limited to one OS? I use Linux for some things, and I use OS X for others, and even (shudder) Windows for others.
I dont understand how people can not 'get' the scene with the architect. Perhaps you are attempting to read into it too much? Here's a hint: he says everything straightforward.
Yes and no. The Architect is Yaldaboath, the blind god of Gnosticism who believes he he created the universe for his purposes, when all he created was the deception we see around us. He is opposed by Sophia, wisdom. Read some Phillip K. Dick and *The Nag Hammadi Codices* is you want to understand what the Architect is doing.
My guess is that the Oracle has a plan for Neo that is outside the scope of the Matrix's purpose for the One.