The word you're looking for is "obsession".
One possible reason is that Apple is actually
making bold products (again). Starting from
the original iMac, the G3/G4 tower, G4 Cube,
iPod, Cinema Display, the new iMac, and of
course MacOS X all pack powerful features in
well designed packages. Their pricing might
prevent some from actually buying, but geeks
admire this sort of engineering adventures.
Have you forgotten the latest DMCA drama
over iDVD?
Uh, why should iDVD support third party
hardware? Third party vendors should write
their own software, and compete with Apple
hardware and iDVD as a complete hardware
and software package. Now, the DMCA is a
terrible law, and should be struck down, but
I don't see why anybody should pay for the
development of iDVD so that it helps somebody
else sell hardware.
Note, however, that rigging MacOS X so
third party drivers won't work, for example,
would be crossing the line.
Have you forgotten how Apple eats up
app developers by bundling similar features
into the OS?
This does suck. However, one of MacOS X's
(valid, I think) selling points over Windows
is the combined power of its bundled apps.
Even if Apple consciously limits the power
of these apps, inevitably they will hurt
competition, because the novice users will
no longer purchase an e-mail app, MP3 player,
and so on. Why should Watson be exempted
from competition?
This is actually one thing in which I agree
with Microsoft. You cannot draw a line
where the OS ends and the applications
begin. The ways they sought to exclude
Netscape (threatening hardware manufacturers)
is illegal, but the very act of improving
Windows with IE is not.
Having said that, since Apple is not in
Microsoft's position, they should think hard
about what their apps are doing to their
few but loyal developers. Microsoft can
afford not to care.
But how come recently every sneeze in
Cupertino becomes a fever at Slashdot?
Because nothing in the PC world is exciting
at all. CPU gets faster. Bus gets faster.
Big deal. About the most interesting thing
happening is case modding.
make it 25 cents a minute. [...]
I can't afford 99 cents per track.
Don't be silly. All that will accomplish
is make these songs 4 minutes long. Their
usual length today (~3.5 minutes) caters to
radio stations, and it's not really that
hard to add another 30 seconds.
Poor musicians. Years of practice, day job
at McDonald's, and probably weeks of hard work
on a song is worth less to you, per minute,
than phone sex. You can even listen to the
song again and again.
Between 90 and 99.9% of the species on
this planet were driven extinct. However
much time was given, it obviously wasn't
enough.
But we didn't cause it, and we couldn't
have helped it. If the cure for cancer
was lost because of that, that's really
just too bad.
However, if it was lost because we exploded
a nuclear warhead on a tropical island,
we could've studied first, and maybe
prevented it, for our own benefit.
we are the only species that does consider
the results of their actions on the enviroment,
and that mass extinctions can and do happen
without us. "Survival of the fittest" is a
harsh law
I don't challenge that. I just don't think
we consider our actions thoroughly or often
enough.
In the same vein, does anyone know if
it's possible to use the built in LCD panel
on an iMac as a monitor for a different
computer (i.e. a "video-in" for the iMac
monitor)?
I'm not sure I completely understand your
needs, but would VNC
be an incomplete but cheap solution?
Do you think the rabbit is conscious of changing the environment of Australia?
Or the pig the environment of Hawaii?
There's a very important difference. In
their native land, or the land they manage
to reach by slow migration, all other
animals are still bound by their ecosystem.
They have food supply problems, predators,
and even natural enemies. They are not
sentient like us, but their "dumbness" also
tempers the impact they have.
When humans start to move species (plants,
animals, and even micro-organisms) around,
it happens so much more quickly, and gives
the "invaded" land and native species so
little time to adapt that the new species
can end up lording over the place.
when plants started releasing oxygen, an
event that killed between 90 and 99% of
the species on this planet, do you think
they had a clue?
This was not an "event" in the way a
nuclear explosion is an "event".
Other species were given time to react and
adapt. Today we have the power to change
the ecosystem with such speed that no
species other than micro-organisms stands a
chance.
Unfortunately, I don't understand what your
point is. Are you saying that, despite our
supposed intelligence, we should act the way
other animals do? How exactly are we
"sentient" then?
Have you ever tried to write portable
software of any complexity at all?
Yes, I do that for a living. My code has
to run on a PC (where some bits are
emulated, but provides easier debugging)
and on small, custom, embedded hardware.
I also typically need very little knowledge
of the custom hardware - in some cases I
don't even know what CPU it uses.
How? Stick to standards, and separate
interface from function.
needlessly spending money on portability
would make you uncompetitive.
I'm talking about basic portability. For
example, test and deploy the full GUI app
for Windows, but be able to build command
line tools from the same source that would
run and work somewhat on Linux and OS X.
Even if they are relatively untested, they
remain an option to you in the future.
Another obvious solution: Java.
So your solution to running Windows
software on the Mac is to load it up with
an X server and use a Linux box as well?
No, I don't have a solution to running
Windows software on the Mac. If I did, I'd
sell it to Steve Jobs and retire. I was
talking specifically about CrossOver Office
Server, and how a Mac can probably work
with it.
We are the top of the food chain. We are
one of the few animals that changes the
environment to suit us rather than the other
way around.
To be more accurate, we are one of the only
species that has the ability to make lasting
impacts on our environment before we get
a clue on what we're doing. Case in
point: we domesticated the apple tree, and
over time narrowed thousands of varieties
(a fraction of which surviving only in
dedicated labs and preserves) down to a
handful. Today, the apple requires the most
amount of pesticides, because they no longer
have the genetic diversity to evolve along
with their parasites. Oops.
The pesticides we use, in turn, poison other
things we didn't intend to, like our own
water supply. Oops.
Note that I'm not talking about some
metaphorical Mother Earth, just that human
actions so frequently backfire even on
ourselves that your top-of-the-food-chain
arrogance is really quite unwarranted. It's
even worse if you do accept a moral
responsibility of stewardship for our
planet corresponding to our power.
A medium sized company can easily have
5000 desktops [...] so that's a cool £5,000,000 (about $7,500,000) just to replace hardware
What prevents you from replacing only hardware
that's really due for replacement with
Macs, and leaving the bulk alone until
their time comes up?
Answer: network and software compatibility,
of course, which Apple is clearly working
very hard on.
don't forget that most businesses have
at least 1 or 2 custom apps.
A very valid point. I blame the morons
who didn't know how to write portable code,
as well as the morons who didn't require it
in the first place. Yes, the Win32 GUI
isn't going to port, but if the app was
well written, porting it would be a
viable option.
The point is, your company needs to now
consider your own failure to build a
portable custom app as a big reason why
you cannot consider a competitor for
Windows PCs. Try to do a better job next
time, and you will have options.
with [...] CrossOver Office Server you
can pay for 1 copy of Office [...] but have
it serve hundreds of desktops. the Mac has
no equivalent
So what if the Mac has no equivalent, as
long as it can connect to the same CrossOver
Office server?
Easter eggs have always been security
threats, even if they were built with the
design or consent of the vendor. Let me
emphasize this: Every byte of code is
a security risk. Since easter eggs
are unnecessary code, they are also
unnecessary risks. Worse, easter eggs
are not likely to be well tested at all.
Unsanctioned easter eggs are worse still.
They simply mean that the vendor has no
ability to control what its programmers
put in, so you are vulnerable to their
unhappiest employee. The risks of such
a "development process" should be plainly
obvious.
I think it is very necessary to define
common patterns for widely used functions,
less every developer set up his own set,
which obviously would cause confusion among
users.
The good thing is that the gesture resulting
from that confusion is pretty universal and
standard.
We also noticed subtle differences in the role
of experts. In the UK shows, the experts act
as consultants, commenting on and refining the
designs proposed by the team. In the US shows,
the experts walk straight to the board and
more or less dictate their design.
I'd be interested to know what somebody who
hosted both versions thinks about this. Why
does it happen? What effect does that have
on team dynamics and the final product?
With GNU/Linux, Blender, Liquid, Aqsis,
Wings 3D, Film Gimp, Cinelerra, and other
free software packages it will soon be
possible for individuals to create feature
length movies of blockbuster quality
A movie - especially one involving live
actors - is considerably more difficult to
put together than a CD's worth of good
music (say, $5,000 equipment), or a good
novel ($500 PC). I think your home-grown
blockbuster movie will only appear after
the home-grown bestseller book or home-grown
platinum album, neither of which have yet
to be seen.
Shooting film-quality video requires very
expensive cameras - note the plural. It
will also require a suitable studio,
lighting, sets, costumes, and possibly
travel. This is assuming that you're not
going to pay any of your crew or actors.
You'll also need various editing, sound
recording, and musical equipment.
A CG film, on the other hand, also requires
a lot of work. Companies like Pixar have
dedicated and professional staffs, working
with the benefits of render farms and
in-house programmers. Yet it takes them a
few years to bring a project to fruition.
Now, that's not to say this is impossible
at all. A suitable script can tell a very
powerful story, yet require only very
little in the way of sets and costumes.
Project Greenlight, for example, is an
experiment to produce a TV movie for $1M -
a tiny sum by Hollywood standards. However,
you'll probably have to wait a while to
achieve your dream of ignoring the RIAA.
I really have no doubt that many of them
work well. The problem is that they don't
look finished, which sows doubt. By
"look finished", I'm not just talking about
a GUI front-end, but a stable set of basic
features, a clear list of supported (and
unsupported!) hardware, and other user-
oriented (rather than developer-oriented)
information.
Linux advocates need to be more
critical than "I've never done DV, but Kino
doesn't look too hard" or just admit that
you don't know.
I thought that's what I did... admit I
don't know much about DV.
Sorry, I didn't mean what you think it
meant. The "need to be critical" comment
refers to "Kino doesn't look too hard".
There are many many open source projects
out there, and we need to be clear about
which are ready to compete with commercial
equivalents (Linux, gcc) and which are
still works in progress. The alternative
is a newbie downloading something you heard
good things about and finding out that it's
not even finished. Newbie is just not
going to believe you again.
The hard drive is the bottleneck of modern
PCs. Making them slower slows the computer
down noticeably
This is quite misguided, and is symptomatic
of somebody who is obsessed with numbers.
First of all, it's crucial to note that the
article is quite vague: "enabling the
journaled file system will slow current
system performance by 10 percent to 15
percent." What is a "system performance"?
Editing a 100 KB document in Word is going
to generate a very different load on the
file system than streaming a 6 GB video.
Secondly, disk caches anticipate common
usage patterns, so that most accesses
(especially CPU instruction fetches) are
satisfied from the cache in RAM. This
means that the access that brought the
data in from the disk counts for a much
smaller percentage. Compression can also
reduce the need for raw bandwidth.
Thirdly, journalling typically does not
affect read performance, only write
performance. Many applications don't
require a great deal of write bandwidth,
and those that do typically require a
constant minimum bandwidth (capturing
video) rather than a high peak bandwidth.
Fourthly, 10% or 15% is quite difficult
to detect. Try to see if a friend can
tell the difference between 10 seconds or
11 seconds. Try other durations if you
wish. Then try to do it without counting
ticks.
Finally, users can be distracted by
appropriate eye candy. This is not a joke -
it's a serious (and cheap) engineering
solution.
In conclusion, no, the hard disk is not
necessarily a bottleneck, and no, the
computer may or may not slow down noticeably.
The benefits of journalling, on the other
hand, are well known.
any old digital camera and try to
download the pics
The web page says "Note that I have only
tested this software with the MX-700 digital
camera and Linux 2.0.27 with libc5. I'd like
to know whether you can make it work, or not,
with other cameras and other Unices." It
also mentions that the "disk full" and
"parity error" checking routines are not
tested.
DVD-R and try to burn a disc.
This link goes to an FTP page with dozens of
files. I hope you're not expecting a newbie
to figure this one out.
Windows Media
The web page says, "It seems that pre7 was
the most buggier pre-release ever... So time
to release a bugfix/hotfix one now."
Firewire DV Video Camera
The web page says, "here is an additional
list of required software, which are not yet
widely available on CDROM distributions,
you have to download and maybe compile them
yourself."
PDA
The page you linked to is quite old, and
discusses Red Hat 6.0 and KDE 1.1. Newer
PDAs tend to sync via the USB, not the
serial port.
I'm not trying to put down these projects
at all. I just think you've proven the
original poster's point by enumerating these
alpha or beta software. Linux is not ready
yet.
And really, Linux advocates (I am one)
need to be more critical than "I've never
done DV, but Kino doesn't look too hard"
or just admit that you don't know.
Sure there is. Application software and
device drivers are now easier and cheaper
to write and test because they cater only
to Windows. Compare this to having five
mutually incompatible operating systems,
each with 20% market share. This clearly
benefits consumers.
Note that I'm not saying that the other
problems caused by a specific monopoly
cannot outweigh its benefits. That's why
there are laws against certain behaviors.
MS is a convicted monopoly. This means
they coerced themselves into the marketplace.
This is something that would be apparent to
many even if MS weren't convicted.
You're wrong. MS was determined to be a
monopoly (they argued that they were not)
for legal purposes. This allows the anti-trust
suit to continue, because only monopolies
(which are legal) are subject to anti-trust
laws. MS was subsequently convicted of
violating these laws, not for just being a
monopoly.
Being a monopoly is wrong for any number
of reasons: it means the monopoly has an
unfair advantage with regard to a cash
safety reserve, time to screw up and then
try and try again until you get it right,
customer "choice", and any number of other
things.
Nonsense. How does a company, even if it
wanted to, avoid becoming a monopoly? What
if all your competitors ship crappy
products that nobody wants to buy? Do you
have to buy them?
Yes, they have an unfair advantage, but
business isn't about fair. Some companies
have more cash, some have more talents,
some have good reputation and connections,
and some are just plain luckier.
the DoJ has admitted that in their case
they see congress having total discression
of the "limited time" that a copyright has.
This is one thing that bugs me: why is it
the DoJ's job to defend a accusedly bad law
enacted by Congress? Their job is to
enforce the law - good or bad, but shouldn't
Congress be defending itself?
Put another way, if the DoJ doesn't really
like a particular law either, what prevents
them from just putting forth a lousy
argument and "throw the game"?
someone produces 100 prints in a 'limited edition'
[...]
again, further down the road they produce
another 100 prints but maintain it is still
a 'limited edition'
seen in this way their use of 'limited' is obviously bogus
More importantly, Lessig's point is that
you could've printed 10,000 copies the
first time, and it'll still be a "limited
edition" book. This avoids having the
Supreme Court decide what number to attach
to "limited", which they are likely to be
reluctant to do, since the framers of the
Constitution chose not to. However, it
also clearly shows that a second printing
(extension for existing works) violates the
meaning of "limited".
Under this argument, Congress can grant
copyright for 10,000 years, but cannot
extend the copyright of existing works by
even a minute.
not a perfectly legitimate reason to say
"It's the 21st century! Wake up! to a person
who has spent a good deal of his life working
for the common good, and not charging a
dime.
The best way to destroy Linux is to coddle
it with double standards, and make exceptions
because it's free. Linux will never be
successful on the desktop unless we demand of
it the way we treat products we pay for.
Just imagine for a moment how terrible it
would be if the talents working on the
kernel eventually forked into the "personal
hobby" and the "corporate needs" lines.
Note that I'm not talking about courtesy,
which should always be warranted, even to
people you pay.
Yes, there is. I haven't used Linux very
much in a few months now, but I had to
rebuild my kernel to support my IDE CD
writer. It is a ridiculously convoluted
process involving emulating a SCSI device
and "excluding" the CD writer from the
IDE driver's knowledge.
Now, because I had to enable that one thing,
I also had to go through the entire
configuration tree. There are two ways
this can be improved:
The kernel source tree from a distro
should contain the configuration that is
used to build the distribution's kernel,
so I don't have to start from scratch.
Autodetection.
Am I the most important customer? No.
Could I spend the time doing it? Yes.
However, there's a reason I'm running
Mac OS X right now.
Now, please feel free to tell me that the
problems have already been solved, because
your next problem is that I wasn't able to
find it.
If this all sounds demanding and arrogant,
that's because I like Linux, and I will not
use a double standard for it just because
it's free. It is time for Linux to "grow
up", and coddling it from any of the best
aspects that Microsoft or Apple can offer
is only hurting it.
The sexism is in the marketing and
packaging. It might be in the game itself
but I haven't played it. Maybe if we're
lucky the game defeats the old hollywood
sexist sterotypes where the lead female
role always sucscums to somethign that the
lead guy, or love intrest is immune to.
Lara Croft is a made-up character, and her
physical attributes are not realistic.
Let's get that out of the way first.
However, the portrayal of Lara Croft is
not sexist, which refers to gender-based
stereotypes. The "personality" of Lara
Croft is essentially those of Indiana Jones.
She raids tombs, crawls in tunnels, swims
in underground rivers, jumps, and
shoots. She does not wear dresses.
She rarely, if ever, needs to be rescued.
I wouldn't call her a role model for young
girls, but she's not a sexist stereotype.
As far as I know, there is no "lead guy".
Maybe you should actually try the game.
Slashdot Mirror
The word you're looking for is "obsession". One possible reason is that Apple is actually making bold products (again). Starting from the original iMac, the G3/G4 tower, G4 Cube, iPod, Cinema Display, the new iMac, and of course MacOS X all pack powerful features in well designed packages. Their pricing might prevent some from actually buying, but geeks admire this sort of engineering adventures.
Have you forgotten the latest DMCA drama over iDVD?
Uh, why should iDVD support third party hardware? Third party vendors should write their own software, and compete with Apple hardware and iDVD as a complete hardware and software package. Now, the DMCA is a terrible law, and should be struck down, but I don't see why anybody should pay for the development of iDVD so that it helps somebody else sell hardware.
Note, however, that rigging MacOS X so third party drivers won't work, for example, would be crossing the line.
Have you forgotten how Apple eats up app developers by bundling similar features into the OS?
This does suck. However, one of MacOS X's (valid, I think) selling points over Windows is the combined power of its bundled apps. Even if Apple consciously limits the power of these apps, inevitably they will hurt competition, because the novice users will no longer purchase an e-mail app, MP3 player, and so on. Why should Watson be exempted from competition?
This is actually one thing in which I agree with Microsoft. You cannot draw a line where the OS ends and the applications begin. The ways they sought to exclude Netscape (threatening hardware manufacturers) is illegal, but the very act of improving Windows with IE is not.
Having said that, since Apple is not in Microsoft's position, they should think hard about what their apps are doing to their few but loyal developers. Microsoft can afford not to care.
But how come recently every sneeze in Cupertino becomes a fever at Slashdot?
Because nothing in the PC world is exciting at all. CPU gets faster. Bus gets faster. Big deal. About the most interesting thing happening is case modding.
No, because passion sets off the halon.
Don't be silly. All that will accomplish is make these songs 4 minutes long. Their usual length today (~3.5 minutes) caters to radio stations, and it's not really that hard to add another 30 seconds.
Poor musicians. Years of practice, day job at McDonald's, and probably weeks of hard work on a song is worth less to you, per minute, than phone sex. You can even listen to the song again and again.
But we didn't cause it, and we couldn't have helped it. If the cure for cancer was lost because of that, that's really just too bad.
However, if it was lost because we exploded a nuclear warhead on a tropical island, we could've studied first, and maybe prevented it, for our own benefit.
we are the only species that does consider the results of their actions on the enviroment, and that mass extinctions can and do happen without us. "Survival of the fittest" is a harsh law
I don't challenge that. I just don't think we consider our actions thoroughly or often enough.
I'm not sure I completely understand your needs, but would VNC be an incomplete but cheap solution?
There's a very important difference. In their native land, or the land they manage to reach by slow migration, all other animals are still bound by their ecosystem. They have food supply problems, predators, and even natural enemies. They are not sentient like us, but their "dumbness" also tempers the impact they have.
When humans start to move species (plants, animals, and even micro-organisms) around, it happens so much more quickly, and gives the "invaded" land and native species so little time to adapt that the new species can end up lording over the place.
when plants started releasing oxygen, an event that killed between 90 and 99% of the species on this planet, do you think they had a clue?
This was not an "event" in the way a nuclear explosion is an "event". Other species were given time to react and adapt. Today we have the power to change the ecosystem with such speed that no species other than micro-organisms stands a chance.
Unfortunately, I don't understand what your point is. Are you saying that, despite our supposed intelligence, we should act the way other animals do? How exactly are we "sentient" then?
Yes, I do that for a living. My code has to run on a PC (where some bits are emulated, but provides easier debugging) and on small, custom, embedded hardware. I also typically need very little knowledge of the custom hardware - in some cases I don't even know what CPU it uses.
How? Stick to standards, and separate interface from function.
needlessly spending money on portability would make you uncompetitive.
I'm talking about basic portability. For example, test and deploy the full GUI app for Windows, but be able to build command line tools from the same source that would run and work somewhat on Linux and OS X. Even if they are relatively untested, they remain an option to you in the future.
Another obvious solution: Java.
So your solution to running Windows software on the Mac is to load it up with an X server and use a Linux box as well?
No, I don't have a solution to running Windows software on the Mac. If I did, I'd sell it to Steve Jobs and retire. I was talking specifically about CrossOver Office Server, and how a Mac can probably work with it.
To be more accurate, we are one of the only species that has the ability to make lasting impacts on our environment before we get a clue on what we're doing. Case in point: we domesticated the apple tree, and over time narrowed thousands of varieties (a fraction of which surviving only in dedicated labs and preserves) down to a handful. Today, the apple requires the most amount of pesticides, because they no longer have the genetic diversity to evolve along with their parasites. Oops.
The pesticides we use, in turn, poison other things we didn't intend to, like our own water supply. Oops.
Note that I'm not talking about some metaphorical Mother Earth, just that human actions so frequently backfire even on ourselves that your top-of-the-food-chain arrogance is really quite unwarranted. It's even worse if you do accept a moral responsibility of stewardship for our planet corresponding to our power.
What prevents you from replacing only hardware that's really due for replacement with Macs, and leaving the bulk alone until their time comes up?
Answer: network and software compatibility, of course, which Apple is clearly working very hard on.
don't forget that most businesses have at least 1 or 2 custom apps.
A very valid point. I blame the morons who didn't know how to write portable code, as well as the morons who didn't require it in the first place. Yes, the Win32 GUI isn't going to port, but if the app was well written, porting it would be a viable option.
The point is, your company needs to now consider your own failure to build a portable custom app as a big reason why you cannot consider a competitor for Windows PCs. Try to do a better job next time, and you will have options.
with [...] CrossOver Office Server you can pay for 1 copy of Office [...] but have it serve hundreds of desktops. the Mac has no equivalent
So what if the Mac has no equivalent, as long as it can connect to the same CrossOver Office server?
Easter eggs have always been security threats, even if they were built with the design or consent of the vendor. Let me emphasize this: Every byte of code is a security risk. Since easter eggs are unnecessary code, they are also unnecessary risks. Worse, easter eggs are not likely to be well tested at all.
Unsanctioned easter eggs are worse still. They simply mean that the vendor has no ability to control what its programmers put in, so you are vulnerable to their unhappiest employee. The risks of such a "development process" should be plainly obvious.
Oh, wait, is that going to be like the United States? Nevermind.
The good thing is that the gesture resulting from that confusion is pretty universal and standard.
I'd be interested to know what somebody who hosted both versions thinks about this. Why does it happen? What effect does that have on team dynamics and the final product?
A movie - especially one involving live actors - is considerably more difficult to put together than a CD's worth of good music (say, $5,000 equipment), or a good novel ($500 PC). I think your home-grown blockbuster movie will only appear after the home-grown bestseller book or home-grown platinum album, neither of which have yet to be seen.
Shooting film-quality video requires very expensive cameras - note the plural. It will also require a suitable studio, lighting, sets, costumes, and possibly travel. This is assuming that you're not going to pay any of your crew or actors. You'll also need various editing, sound recording, and musical equipment.
A CG film, on the other hand, also requires a lot of work. Companies like Pixar have dedicated and professional staffs, working with the benefits of render farms and in-house programmers. Yet it takes them a few years to bring a project to fruition.
Now, that's not to say this is impossible at all. A suitable script can tell a very powerful story, yet require only very little in the way of sets and costumes. Project Greenlight, for example, is an experiment to produce a TV movie for $1M - a tiny sum by Hollywood standards. However, you'll probably have to wait a while to achieve your dream of ignoring the RIAA.
Sorry, I didn't mean what you think it meant. The "need to be critical" comment refers to "Kino doesn't look too hard". There are many many open source projects out there, and we need to be clear about which are ready to compete with commercial equivalents (Linux, gcc) and which are still works in progress. The alternative is a newbie downloading something you heard good things about and finding out that it's not even finished. Newbie is just not going to believe you again.
This is quite misguided, and is symptomatic of somebody who is obsessed with numbers.
First of all, it's crucial to note that the article is quite vague: "enabling the journaled file system will slow current system performance by 10 percent to 15 percent." What is a "system performance"? Editing a 100 KB document in Word is going to generate a very different load on the file system than streaming a 6 GB video.
Secondly, disk caches anticipate common usage patterns, so that most accesses (especially CPU instruction fetches) are satisfied from the cache in RAM. This means that the access that brought the data in from the disk counts for a much smaller percentage. Compression can also reduce the need for raw bandwidth.
Thirdly, journalling typically does not affect read performance, only write performance. Many applications don't require a great deal of write bandwidth, and those that do typically require a constant minimum bandwidth (capturing video) rather than a high peak bandwidth.
Fourthly, 10% or 15% is quite difficult to detect. Try to see if a friend can tell the difference between 10 seconds or 11 seconds. Try other durations if you wish. Then try to do it without counting ticks.
Finally, users can be distracted by appropriate eye candy. This is not a joke - it's a serious (and cheap) engineering solution.
In conclusion, no, the hard disk is not necessarily a bottleneck, and no, the computer may or may not slow down noticeably. The benefits of journalling, on the other hand, are well known.
The web page says "Note that I have only tested this software with the MX-700 digital camera and Linux 2.0.27 with libc5. I'd like to know whether you can make it work, or not, with other cameras and other Unices." It also mentions that the "disk full" and "parity error" checking routines are not tested.
DVD-R and try to burn a disc.
This link goes to an FTP page with dozens of files. I hope you're not expecting a newbie to figure this one out.
Windows Media
The web page says, "It seems that pre7 was the most buggier pre-release ever... So time to release a bugfix/hotfix one now."
Firewire DV Video Camera
The web page says, "here is an additional list of required software, which are not yet widely available on CDROM distributions, you have to download and maybe compile them yourself."
PDA
The page you linked to is quite old, and discusses Red Hat 6.0 and KDE 1.1. Newer PDAs tend to sync via the USB, not the serial port.
I'm not trying to put down these projects at all. I just think you've proven the original poster's point by enumerating these alpha or beta software. Linux is not ready yet.
And really, Linux advocates (I am one) need to be more critical than "I've never done DV, but Kino doesn't look too hard" or just admit that you don't know.
Sure there is. Application software and device drivers are now easier and cheaper to write and test because they cater only to Windows. Compare this to having five mutually incompatible operating systems, each with 20% market share. This clearly benefits consumers.
Note that I'm not saying that the other problems caused by a specific monopoly cannot outweigh its benefits. That's why there are laws against certain behaviors.
MS is a convicted monopoly. This means they coerced themselves into the marketplace. This is something that would be apparent to many even if MS weren't convicted.
You're wrong. MS was determined to be a monopoly (they argued that they were not) for legal purposes. This allows the anti-trust suit to continue, because only monopolies (which are legal) are subject to anti-trust laws. MS was subsequently convicted of violating these laws, not for just being a monopoly.
Being a monopoly is wrong for any number of reasons: it means the monopoly has an unfair advantage with regard to a cash safety reserve, time to screw up and then try and try again until you get it right, customer "choice", and any number of other things.
Nonsense. How does a company, even if it wanted to, avoid becoming a monopoly? What if all your competitors ship crappy products that nobody wants to buy? Do you have to buy them?
Yes, they have an unfair advantage, but business isn't about fair. Some companies have more cash, some have more talents, some have good reputation and connections, and some are just plain luckier.
What does Mandrake 8 do if I have an existing NTFS partition?
Uhm, so that I don't have to look through somebody else's trash?
This is one thing that bugs me: why is it the DoJ's job to defend a accusedly bad law enacted by Congress? Their job is to enforce the law - good or bad, but shouldn't Congress be defending itself?
Put another way, if the DoJ doesn't really like a particular law either, what prevents them from just putting forth a lousy argument and "throw the game"?
[...]
again, further down the road they produce another 100 prints but maintain it is still a 'limited edition'
seen in this way their use of 'limited' is obviously bogus
More importantly, Lessig's point is that you could've printed 10,000 copies the first time, and it'll still be a "limited edition" book. This avoids having the Supreme Court decide what number to attach to "limited", which they are likely to be reluctant to do, since the framers of the Constitution chose not to. However, it also clearly shows that a second printing (extension for existing works) violates the meaning of "limited".
Under this argument, Congress can grant copyright for 10,000 years, but cannot extend the copyright of existing works by even a minute.
The best way to destroy Linux is to coddle it with double standards, and make exceptions because it's free. Linux will never be successful on the desktop unless we demand of it the way we treat products we pay for.
Just imagine for a moment how terrible it would be if the talents working on the kernel eventually forked into the "personal hobby" and the "corporate needs" lines.
Note that I'm not talking about courtesy, which should always be warranted, even to people you pay.
Yes, there is. I haven't used Linux very much in a few months now, but I had to rebuild my kernel to support my IDE CD writer. It is a ridiculously convoluted process involving emulating a SCSI device and "excluding" the CD writer from the IDE driver's knowledge.
Now, because I had to enable that one thing, I also had to go through the entire configuration tree. There are two ways this can be improved:
- The kernel source tree from a distro
should contain the configuration that is
used to build the distribution's kernel,
so I don't have to start from scratch.
- Autodetection.
Am I the most important customer? No. Could I spend the time doing it? Yes. However, there's a reason I'm running Mac OS X right now.Now, please feel free to tell me that the problems have already been solved, because your next problem is that I wasn't able to find it.
If this all sounds demanding and arrogant, that's because I like Linux, and I will not use a double standard for it just because it's free. It is time for Linux to "grow up", and coddling it from any of the best aspects that Microsoft or Apple can offer is only hurting it.
Lara Croft is a made-up character, and her physical attributes are not realistic. Let's get that out of the way first.
However, the portrayal of Lara Croft is not sexist, which refers to gender-based stereotypes. The "personality" of Lara Croft is essentially those of Indiana Jones. She raids tombs, crawls in tunnels, swims in underground rivers, jumps, and shoots. She does not wear dresses. She rarely, if ever, needs to be rescued. I wouldn't call her a role model for young girls, but she's not a sexist stereotype.
As far as I know, there is no "lead guy". Maybe you should actually try the game.