The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.
This isn't as ignorant or errant as it sounds. What if you don't know if the given large number is prime to start with. An "easy way to factor" then becomes "a fast primality test". But yeah, it's probably not what he meant.
All the poetry has less meaning than anything a fourth-grader could make, and isn't that what poetry is about? Just because someone reads Eliot or Pinsky and sees fancy words and meaningless allutions, doesn't mean it is true.
For me, poetry is a means of expressing experience by employing particularly potent language in order to evoke an emotive or sensual response. Coleridge called it "the best words in the best order." It is by no means "meaningless" (I don't think I'd make a very good [post]structuralist).
Generating some rhymes using a limited lexicon doesn't constitute poetry.
Let's see, how often do M$ compromises happen? (Seems like every other week - if not more often) Now, how often does this happen with Debian? See the difference?
I know Microsoft were DoS'd some time ago, but having their internal servers (those which manage security and mailing lists) comprimised is a lot less frequent (TMK). Consider the amount of effort that would go into comprimising a Microsoft server versus comprimising a Debian servers (that is, a lot more people would be attempting to hack Microsoft for fame and fortune).
Don't be naive. Linux servers get comprimised, linux servers get hacked, and frequently. If you don't believe me, ask yourself where the script kiddies get all their bot shells from.
"Openoffice is slow and bloated, as well as difficult to use."
Lets start out with the "slow and bloated" comment first. Define slow. Slow to start? Slow to print? That is completely ambiguous at best and not completely bound in truth as far as my experience goes. I give you that it is slow as Christmas to start. After startup completes I find it to be faster than Word.
For me, OO.org is slow to do anything. I'm talking about starting up, clicking on menus, using autocomplete, selecting text, etc. There is lag. Don't believe me if you don't want to. This is on a Duron 700, 256mb RAM, 2.6.0-test9-mm2, XFree 4.3, xfce4, everything else as Debian unstable.
A common mistake is believing that the average home user won't want to perform any fine tuning of their machine; you run redhat so you can be forgiven. Simply put, the learning curve for configuring a linux machine is pretty steep for those who've been using windows for the last decade. For me, seeing how everything fits together by looking through the text files is/etc and their associated manpages is great; this isn't as fun for Uncle Joe who wants a firewall that lets him use kazaa. I'm not saying Windows has configuration right (Mac OS X is as close to perfect as I've seen), but the state of linux distributions has configuration somewhere between stupid (KDE and Gnome conf tools) and man-intensive (hand-hacking/etc).
No, it hasn't. Grandparent suggested "the light would stay green longer for whichever side had more traffic".
A proximity detector will only register the first car (in each lane if you're lucky). Last time I checked, democracy was about pleasing the majority. How can the presence of the first car be taken to represent the number of cars waiting there? Model the number of arrivals with a Poisson or similar distribution: unless the traffic lights are real clever, just the proximity detector is hardly democratic.
I wasn't saying that the meetings in themselves are a defense. However, I'd say that because of those meetings Miguel is a hell of a lot more knowledgeable about the Microsoft reaction to mono than, you or me. So the "looming threat of M$ sueing" FUD hasn't been too much of an impedance to development (although there might be more contributors if it wasn't as much of an issue).
However, the meetings could be taken as evidence that Microsoft wasn't actively defending their intellectual property (if they were they'd have mentioned a C&D), which is a valid defense.
Ever since mono was in its infancy all I've seen from the majority of linux enthusiasts and developers toward mono and.NET is unfair dismissal of it just being an "M$ replacement for java" that is "all very well until M$ decide to sue."
The mono developers (in particulap Miguel) have had enough meetings with Microsoft not to be too worried here. In addition, some of the patent issues fall apart since Microsoft has failed to defend it.
Although not all of mono is protected by the EMCA standard, the core is. Furthermore, since the implementations used in mono have (well, at least should) be independent from the.NET source it won't be simple for Microsoft to nab mono.
Lastly, the.NET framework isn't going to be the big revenue generator for Microsoft. Not even Visual Studio is that big a money-earner. It's the web-services that drive Microsoft, and if more people are using them thanks to mono, then all the better for Microsoft. Sure, they might lose some of their Windows users to Linux, but this will be a minor problem once they get web services earning them income (distributed Microsoft Office anyone?).
He probably has a stuffed penguin as a technical advisor, Given that this could potentially be seen as him advocating linux, I think its much more likely that he has an advisor in the form of a talking paper clip.
"It looks like you're writing some pro-microsoft FUD. Would you like some help with that?"
Aren't only high-profile actors/diretors/etc rewarded a percentage of the movie income, while all the others receive the same no matter what?
but piracing will make movies spend less money
Some (overly?)simple economics:
people pirating movies makes it harder for the producers to earn money (less revenue because people aren't paying to watch the movies). So in order to retain their profits, they must cut costs. One of the ways they can do this is to pay their employees (actors and non-actors) less. If piracy is affecting the industry as a whole, then since there are no higher paying jobs to go to (within the industry), these employees are going to have to accept lower wages.
Perhaps the current trends (to spend more money on better effects etc) are actually reflective of a need to get audiences to come to theatres (to get a better experience than they'd get with their home 5.1 surround and 17" monitor).
"Anidroccg to crad cniyrrag lcitsiugnis planoissefors at an uemannd, utisreviny in Bsitirh Cibmuloa, and crartnoy to the duoibus cmials of the ueticnd rcraeseh, a slpmie, macinahcel ioisrevnn of ianretnl cretcarahs araepps sneiciffut to csufnoe the eadyrevy oekoolnr."
I hate to say it, but as long as they have a reasonable grasp of English (and have some confidence in the developer's grasp of English, which isn't always easy), then a message:
press any key
is distinctly different from
press the Any key
So, unless you're Homer Simpson, you should be able to apply some analytical skills and your grasp of English (or even, dare I say it, experiment), and work out exactly what that not-so-esoteric message actually means.
So, don't blame this problem on the newbie-user not having the intimate knowledge that the more experienced user has. It's really a problem with their lack of intuition, or perhaps they have a fear of just going right ahead and pressing one of the 100+ keys that aren't marked "Any". Put a reasonably intelligent person in front of a screen , he doesn't have to be "born knowing this stuff," and he'll work out pretty quickly that any key will in fact do.
There's a difference between writing a good user interface and dealing with the imbeciles.
Anyway, I expect MS to die soon. Windows will wither without MS.
Care to place a wager? Plenty of companies (take Sun for example), are surviving on less (and with less prospects) than Microsoft at the moment.
I think you've got your logic the wrong way around anyway. It probably should be "MS will wither without Windows". However, even if Microsoft were to have its market share eroded more by competition, they're hardly going to "die". I use GNU/linux at home, because it fulfills my functional requirements (with gcc, emacs, xmms and mozilla), but the state of the linux desktop leaves a lot to be desired - in terms of ugliness, klunkiness (yes, even with the interactivity patch and O(1) scheduler), useability (take the gnome control centre for example), and compatibility (although this is improving in some regards). Gaim still blows. Some of this arises from the current stagnant state of XFree86.
I can't really recommend linux to my family and friends, I know it's just going to cause them pain. It might be suitable for your typical "type-it-up and email it to me" secretary, but not when you want to use commercial services that tend to have Windows only clients (a lot of economic software), and recommending TeX to someone who has written 250 pages of their thesis in Word, albeit structured using styles, isn't really helpful.
Mac OS X seems to be doing a lot better than linux in terms of desktop software, especially considering how new the (Aqua) API is. A new Powerbook is certainly enticing, but the price tag is the limiting factor.
--
Why is it that every article on/. so easily descends into M$-bashing/defending? I even managed to include some X bashing and Apple evangelism!
Actually, every IT project takes a*2^n time to complete, where a is the time you could do it in if you were dedicated, and n is the time in seconds you spend applying "twice as long as you think" rules.
Unlike OpenOffice.org running on linux 2.4.22, which only takes 15 seconds to load on the same hardware. But don't worry, it's using its liberty superpowers to make sure you can get productive all the more quickly!
Have you met many people who are MS sysadmins? A good proportion of those that I have met are Joe User types who have knowledge of how to set up, auto-reboot and backup machines, and not a lot more.
Just like a good proportion of the people who call themselves "linux sysadmins" I know have managed to work their way through the mandrake or redhat install process and are able to declare that they have triumphed against "M$" and that they are right now basking in the freedoms of open source and Free software. Armed with a knowledge of how to use KATE to edit whatever they can get their hands on in/etc/ to the point where they can setup proftpd and an httpd on their home box, they can then find their way into maintaining small-business webservers. To which,
So you get less-trained or less-capable or whatever people who are employed doing this, who look fine on the day-to-day, but who are damn-near useless at the harder stuff like security - which should, of course, be the day to day.
applies just as easily.
C'mon, MCSE quals aren't rocket science, but you can afford the windows sysadmins some dignity. It's not so much about the OS itself, it's about who's using it.
I like the way that just because someone is a pro-linux lawyer, this automatically makes them authoritative on slashdot. From reading Mettler's site, he doesn't really come across as the most intellectually advanced person I know:
"In other words, the a**h**** want to screw you" "The jerkheads at SCO" "If SCO can sell a pig in a poke" "If you need someone to help "put it together" let me know," I'll make sure I consider him next time I take apart a jigsaw.
His heart's in the right place, but something is seriously lacking here.
I'm not sure about over there in the US, but all my books (I'm in year 12 in.au) are quite good. None of them are focussed toward rote learning concepts (although chem has tendency to bombard me with formulae), to the point where our curriculum explicitly states that we should be "consolidating a conceptual understanding" rather than cramming.
It seems strange to me that you could get through high school and college without knowing "the basic concepts of algebra, chemistry, calculus, physics", because all of these are taught from the (compulsory) start of secondary school here, and in years 11 and 12 if you choose them as electives. If you're looking to be able to "supplement [your] own kids' education," just grab their textbooks (starting from year 8 if you're not even familiar with basic albebra).
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't as ignorant or errant as it sounds. What if you don't know if the given large number is prime to start with. An "easy way to factor" then becomes "a fast primality test". But yeah, it's probably not what he meant.
Generating some rhymes using a limited lexicon doesn't constitute poetry.
`Nerd' works.
Don't be naive. Linux servers get comprimised, linux servers get hacked, and frequently. If you don't believe me, ask yourself where the script kiddies get all their bot shells from.
For me, OO.org is slow to do anything. I'm talking about starting up, clicking on menus, using autocomplete, selecting text, etc. There is lag. Don't believe me if you don't want to. This is on a Duron 700, 256mb RAM, 2.6.0-test9-mm2, XFree 4.3, xfce4, everything else as Debian unstable.
A common mistake is believing that the average home user won't want to perform any fine tuning of their machine; you run redhat so you can be forgiven. Simply put, the learning curve for configuring a linux machine is pretty steep for those who've been using windows for the last decade. For me, seeing how everything fits together by looking through the text files is
A proximity detector will only register the first car (in each lane if you're lucky). Last time I checked, democracy was about pleasing the majority. How can the presence of the first car be taken to represent the number of cars waiting there? Model the number of arrivals with a Poisson or similar distribution: unless the traffic lights are real clever, just the proximity detector is hardly democratic.
RTFA! He needs to spam us all first to get the equipment to travel back in time to take back what was stolen from him! Or something...
I wasn't saying that the meetings in themselves are a defense. However, I'd say that because of those meetings Miguel is a hell of a lot more knowledgeable about the Microsoft reaction to mono than, you or me. So the "looming threat of M$ sueing" FUD hasn't been too much of an impedance to development (although there might be more contributors if it wasn't as much of an issue).
However, the meetings could be taken as evidence that Microsoft wasn't actively defending their intellectual property (if they were they'd have mentioned a C&D), which is a valid defense.
The mono developers (in particulap Miguel) have had enough meetings with Microsoft not to be too worried here. In addition, some of the patent issues fall apart since Microsoft has failed to defend it.
Although not all of mono is protected by the EMCA standard, the core is. Furthermore, since the implementations used in mono have (well, at least should) be independent from the
Lastly, the
He probably has a stuffed penguin as a technical advisor,
Given that this could potentially be seen as him advocating linux, I think its much more likely that he has an advisor in the form of a talking paper clip.
"It looks like you're writing some pro-microsoft FUD. Would you like some help with that?"
people pirating movies makes it harder for the producers to earn money (less revenue because people aren't paying to watch the movies). So in order to retain their profits, they must cut costs. One of the ways they can do this is to pay their employees (actors and non-actors) less. If piracy is affecting the industry as a whole, then since there are no higher paying jobs to go to (within the industry), these employees are going to have to accept lower wages.
Perhaps the current trends (to spend more money on better effects etc) are actually reflective of a need to get audiences to come to theatres (to get a better experience than they'd get with their home 5.1 surround and 17" monitor).
saepk for ylesruof
So where's your any topping?
Yes, we've all had a few chuckles about the mistakes of new pizza consumers. But remember that every one of us was a pizza-newbie at some point.
So, unless you're Homer Simpson, you should be able to apply some analytical skills and your grasp of English (or even, dare I say it, experiment), and work out exactly what that not-so-esoteric message actually means.
So, don't blame this problem on the newbie-user not having the intimate knowledge that the more experienced user has. It's really a problem with their lack of intuition, or perhaps they have a fear of just going right ahead and pressing one of the 100+ keys that aren't marked "Any". Put a reasonably intelligent person in front of a screen , he doesn't have to be "born knowing this stuff," and he'll work out pretty quickly that any key will in fact do.
There's a difference between writing a good user interface and dealing with the imbeciles.
Care to place a wager? Plenty of companies (take Sun for example), are surviving on less (and with less prospects) than Microsoft at the moment.
I think you've got your logic the wrong way around anyway. It probably should be "MS will wither without Windows". However, even if Microsoft were to have its market share eroded more by competition, they're hardly going to "die". I use GNU/linux at home, because it fulfills my functional requirements (with gcc, emacs, xmms and mozilla), but the state of the linux desktop leaves a lot to be desired - in terms of ugliness, klunkiness (yes, even with the interactivity patch and O(1) scheduler), useability (take the gnome control centre for example), and compatibility (although this is improving in some regards). Gaim still blows. Some of this arises from the current stagnant state of XFree86.
I can't really recommend linux to my family and friends, I know it's just going to cause them pain. It might be suitable for your typical "type-it-up and email it to me" secretary, but not when you want to use commercial services that tend to have Windows only clients (a lot of economic software), and recommending TeX to someone who has written 250 pages of their thesis in Word, albeit structured using styles, isn't really helpful.
Mac OS X seems to be doing a lot better than linux in terms of desktop software, especially considering how new the (Aqua) API is. A new Powerbook is certainly enticing, but the price tag is the limiting factor.
-- Why is it that every article on /. so easily descends into M$-bashing/defending? I even managed to include some X bashing and Apple evangelism!
Oh please tell me this is a joke.
*slaps some rh and mdk users around*.
Actually, every IT project takes a*2^n time to complete, where a is the time you could do it in if you were dedicated, and n is the time in seconds you spend applying "twice as long as you think" rules.
Unlike OpenOffice.org running on linux 2.4.22, which only takes 15 seconds to load on the same hardware. But don't worry, it's using its liberty superpowers to make sure you can get productive all the more quickly!
Is it likely that Reiser4 is going to make it in to 2.6?
I like the way that just because someone is a pro-linux lawyer, this automatically makes them authoritative on slashdot. From reading Mettler's site, he doesn't really come across as the most intellectually advanced person I know:
"In other words, the a**h**** want to screw you"
"The jerkheads at SCO"
"If SCO can sell a pig in a poke"
"If you need someone to help "put it together" let me know,"
I'll make sure I consider him next time I take apart a jigsaw.
His heart's in the right place, but something is seriously lacking here.
I'm not sure about over there in the US, but all my books (I'm in year 12 in .au) are quite good. None of them are focussed toward rote learning concepts (although chem has tendency to bombard me with formulae), to the point where our curriculum explicitly states that we should be "consolidating a conceptual understanding" rather than cramming.
It seems strange to me that you could get through high school and college without knowing "the basic concepts of algebra, chemistry, calculus, physics", because all of these are taught from the (compulsory) start of secondary school here, and in years 11 and 12 if you choose them as electives. If you're looking to be able to "supplement [your] own kids' education," just grab their textbooks (starting from year 8 if you're not even familiar with basic albebra).