I don't use Red Hat- I pillage it;) I'm currently trying to build a really small linux installation for 486es, and I'm getting the files from RH5.1 to do it. The CD originally came from linuxmall as a two-for-one at about $5. Red Hat is probably not the distribution I should be using, but it's the only one we got at the moment, we're real low budget:) Anyone who seriously thinks that cloning Windows is strategically vital had better go investigate the Interface Hall of Shame, and the reviews of the Windows Find applet, Explorer, and the common file dialogs. These are faithfully duplicated in environments like KDE (I'm thinking of Explorer in particular, it is _very_ similar), and the agenda to clone Windows will bring more and more of these horrible, appalling errors and awkwardnesses into whichever Linux environment goes that route. Meanwhile, I'll be messing around with largely text-oriented Window Maker implementations (and figuring out neat things to do with scripts), and Raster will presumably be constantly furthering the limits of wild and ornate window manager interface design, and we can damned well make our _own_ mistakes, thank you: we don't _have_ to make Windows' mistakes as well just to be taken seriously. I'll happily take Raster seriously- he talks like a designer, like someone willing to try something new, or make his own decisions. I hope he takes me seriously but hey, I haven't 'shipped' yet so I have to get results together before I can expect to even be noticed. At any rate, I think it's safe to say that neither of us give a damn for faithfully replicating Windows mistakes out of some misguided notion that it is expected of us;P So good luck, and if there's anything I can do to help, Raster, you're welcome to it. Here, it's not much, but I am good with GFX: use any or all of my Linux graphics such as tiles and textures and backgrounds. If I can do more I will, and if my own pursuits help you out I will rejoice, just as I daresay you'd rejoice if yours help out mine. And if Red Hat does not rejoice to see non-Red-Hat-style implementations being busily developed, if they do not rejoice to see their profitable standardization undercut by people like us, well, fsckem;) who knows, we may yet discover that something like Red Hat is simply not profitable. Over in Mac land we have recently suffered the loss of a _very_ historic third party company, Micro Conversions, the only ones doing Voodoo2 cards for the Mac officially. Hacks of their drivers drove them under. We might see Red Hat croak in similar fashion for two reasons:
if you want windows so badly, Microsoft is happy to sell you it
cheapbytes. Who pays the packager/distributor $80 for what is free, particularly if it isn't in turn funding the Rastermans of the world? Who'll pay Red Hat to make Linux more like Windows? Not me, I'll tell you. They are just another distribution.
Also, if I am not mistaken, Germany already _legally_ _requires_ government-funded computers to be Windows boxes. Germany is perhaps the safest place for Ballmer to be making such statements, because the government already outlaws Linux, Macs, OS2 etc with regard to 'what the government is literally paying for'. If this is in error please correct it. It is not illegal to own a Mac or run Linux in Germany: you simply cannot get one by government subsidy, if you are working for the government or getting an education grant there is only Windows.
I must say I am very disappointed with many of the responses I've seen. How many of these, I wonder, might be MS people on company time making sure 'libertarian' people protect MS from the consequences of their actions? Isn't 'Well, he with the gold wins, therefore you shouldn't even try involving the government because MS will buy it' a stinking admission of cowardice and refusal to be responsible? *ahem* hm, that's coming out a bit strong. What I'm saying is that this article is dead on the money, and some slashdot posters have begun to illustrate why. UL was mentioned. That is a very important clue to what is really at stake here. How many items do you have IN ARM'S REACH which are certified by Underwriters' Laboratories? My soldering gun is UL listed. Here's an old Atari power adapter, UL listed. An old Tascam power adapter, UL listed. Hell, every power cable and AC adapter and power strip- _and_ my AT&T answering machine and Wacom tablet. The phone, the modem, the keyboard etc do not have UL listings- but all comply with FCC regulations, and they all have "RU" and "SA" listings (what are these then?) What is so special about the software industry that it can't be accountable like everybody else? Hell, _you_ as a private citizen are accountable. Why does the software industry get rights you don't have yourself? The reason all the power strips are UL listed is because (as an earlier poster noted) people were having electrical hardware 'crash' a lot. Yes, this is more life threatening- but come on now, software is not that innocent! At the computer shop where I work, we _must_ have two PCs to do business. The one in the front runs some accounting software and is the answering machine. The one in back is the bench machine, and it is the one we risk with software and plugging stray hardware into, and it's been rebuilt a couple times. The reason we can't do it on one machine is because if we dared, we would be risking all our records and our means of doing business at all, on the daft notion that software crashing couldn't hurt us. No no no! And so we've taken longer to pay off our debts because we _must_ run two PCs in order to be able to function. Does this sound like accountability in action? Yes- ours. On the other hand it's a glaring admission of just how damaging the software industry can be. How many consumers can afford to buy an entirely separate computer to keep important documents and electronic accounts on? Need I even mention the strong bias the industry shows toward having consumers load even _more_ critical data into their computers? All the mortgage information! Every critical business contact! Dad's medical records and scheduling of appointments! All that onto the creaking PC, then install DirectX 9.3.0.0.0! And what do you do for safety? Back up... onto ZIP DISKS! Which of course are their own very serious accountability concern, and not acceptable as an archival medium what with click of death and all. But by god, are they cheap! We can't do this dance forever. Now, I've touched on one valid issue- DirectX 12.0.0.0, as it were- the trouble of someone like Microsoft breaking everybody's work. Who pays? Who apportions blame? It's bad enough MS can just about selectively target whoever they wish to break (proprietary means nobody sees the code that says "if vendor == id then crash.die_ungrateful_pup!"), but if they could do that and then hammer the hapless victim with regulatory fines things would be totally impossible. However, this isn't something to cower around whimpering about- it needs to be worked out. Just because something can't be done perfectly doesn't mean it shouldn't be done at all- I am sure there are scandals about UL abuses _somewhere_, or something is unjustifiably penalized, or some big company gets a break, but when did you last see an extension cord catch fire? A toaster explode? I'm sorry: I for one am not at all impressed by pseudo-libertarian ranting and desperation to spare the software industry any accountability. Grow up! And the software industry has got to GROW UP too. There is no excuse for the current merry band of pirates. I'm not talking about warezpuppies- I'm talking about the VENDORS. Lay down some rules- have everybody straighten out. I can tell you that this would very likely curtail some abuses Apple's been responsible for, producing good stuff and then betraying it and axing it to the detriment of developers and consumers. It would put a damper on Microsoft. It would chill out those game developers risking systems, violating privacy etc: the point is, you want rules? Fine- _we_ come up with what needs to be covered, we already know many troubling areas to be aware of. You want no rules? That may not be your privilege.
"I mean, if upper management at Pepsico is a bunch of babbling morons, that's okay, because Crystal Pepsi is harmless. By contrast, the securities industry is very heavily regulated because those morons are genuinely dangerous."
Seems to me that computer industry moronity is every bit as dangerous, potentially. It's not so much the consumer space (oh no, Word crashed again, up against the wall Gates you enemy of the people!), but the known agendas of the industry. Remember the article about the car-plane? Never mind that it's a daft design (which it is), suppose it works. It runs under a computer operating system. Want to bet Microsoft wouldn't pull out every stop and pay off anyone at all in order to have the car-plane run Windows CE? Then they hack in more DirectX support in the kernel to add DVD players for your cruise, and all the time they don't really give a rat's ass about risks or dangers in shoehorning one type of software into duties that really demand something more rigorous. Ever wondered how many nuclear power plants are controlled by Windows NT? How about wondering how many nuclear power plants are controlled by Windows _98_? How many automated factories with heavy machinery are controlled by Windows NT? By W98? You start seeing it at the point of sale. How many stores do you know which completely rely on POS systems that run on Windows 98? I've seen one I like become dependent on this, recently. They are _still_ struggling with it. They got it (it's really a very proprietary 3rd party system hosted on W98) because they knew other co-ops that used this system... There's a line there which is hard to draw. That store is _not_ as missioncritical as an airplane, or power plant, or five tons of computercontrolled machinery moving around human workers. But there comes a point at which _some_ line has to be drawn, because Microsoft (and any other top dog in the current system) _will_ expand outward into areas for which they are entirely unsuitable. It's sort of the Peter Principle for products- but when the result can be airplanes falling out of the sky into populated areas, factory machinery failing to respond to controls and tearing itself apart, potentially crushing workers, or even little stores dumping their entire profit margins into computer systems that have a risk of being complete money holes _and_ causing severe interruption of business- well, in these situations it becomes not okay for Darwin to take care of it. Somebody has to keep an eye on what's being decided. Perhaps there should be software OSHA regulations?
They can't do this. They _can_ threaten to, though
on
IBM & Microsoft Rift
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Microsoft is a business, people. They don't work for free, and they don't take courses of action that would gut their revenues. This absolutely cannot be a real plan- not even a backup plan- not even if you ignore antitrust statutes. Why? Because THEY NEED THE INCOME. Their valuation is paper. The last thing they can afford is a collapse in their valuation, and conceding the OS business (for the consumer) as unprofitable, in hopes of totally controlling all of it and making up the loss in control of media, is a damned dangerous game. This can only be vapor. If they were fools enough to _do_ it, it would be time for rejoicing- because they can't turn sustainable profit on that model. They cannot simply abandon profit centers so lightly.
I'm not so concerned with movies, but there are some things about 2001 that are not typical for movies but do correlate to geekdom. Several things, actually.
Boredom. The beginning of the film takes a huge amount of time to set the scene. The original cut took even _longer_. Non-geek people are more likely to object to this. Geeks are more likely to try and grok the sense of space and timeless waiting that this conveys.
The normal person dialogue is _humor_. It's insanely dull, stereotyped and boring. There is a _lot_ of 'talking without saying anything' in 2001. To a geek this is intellectual humor. "Is this the ham, or the tuna sandwiches?" "Well, they're getting better at it all the time..."
Effects and novelty, especially the 'trip' sequence, the monolith, and the relentless reality of the surroundings to set off the novelty in high relief. Kubrick got sued by Ligeti for taking that dissonant choral music and playing it backwards and breaking it up- he went to phenomenal length to produce sounds and visuals that were totally novel and unfamiliar. Even now they are impressive.
Resolution- in the computergeek sense;) 2001 was Cinemascope, extra wide, super high resolution, even the soundtrack is mixed for brutally clear and unforgiving sharpness. The technology is running flat-out at maximum res and intensity, oppressively clear and realistic. To a geek this can't help but be appealing:)
Genuine mystery- 2001 does not have a clear ending. It totally obliterates The Matrix regarding intellectual pretensions, and makes no concessions whatsoever. Because of this, it suffered critically- normal people don't want to be left with questions, they want to be left with answers, with conclusions. 2001 ended with powerful but inconclusive images that dragged the brain, kicking and shrieking, into full-on thinking, just to try and make some kind of sense out of what was happening- and there were no easy answers so the brain is left spinning. To a geek this is exhilirating (sp), and one is left with a sense of mystery and possibility and a very clear feeling of the unknown. To most normal people this is rather disturbing- you don't get the payoff, the answer, it doesn't finish.
I still don't think any movie can be a geek litmus test, and I question whether there _can_ be a geek litmus test- but if there was one I'd suggest 2001 is more appropriate for that role.
Indeed. My own take on his thesis was amused disbelief. I can't and won't talk about The Matrix: I haven't seen it and probably won't, unless some friend forcibly drags me to a movie theater. It's more likely I'll eventually see it on video. There are some films that I saw and got a kick out of on video, like Men In Black. In every case I watched my entire environment erupt in a weird spasm of sig lines and incessant references, and eventually figured I'd see what the fuss was about, as long as it didn't cost me anything and I didn't have to go to a movie house and be crammed in with other humans chomping popcorn and spilling pepsis on the floor;P I fail the litmus test for being a geek because I would rather reclusively hack a user environment out of a 486 linux box at 4 AM than go be with friends and watch movies? BZZZZZT I don't think so. This makes giant assumptions about who and what geeks really are- and aren't. Now, I'm not the most normal human. In fact I have Asperger's syndrome and keep to myself and live nocturnally and only find it easy to interact (a) with other geeks, (b) with other sorts of fellow travellers- I'm also a recovering drug addict, drugs were my only value and reason for living as a seriously fscked-up teenager, or (c) online, where I can take advantage of my verbal abilities at a pace I can cope with, suffering no jarring dislocations of my attention like you get with normal human conversation. Yet, for Jon, he sees none of this. He's written _articles_ on people very much like me, and still he sees only little Jon Katzes who happen to have special gifts for programming or linux hacking. This blocks him from true enlightenment, because he _cannot_ know himself unless he understands how unlike himself others can be. Instead, we are all bigger, better versions of Jon Katz, and we all slaver for spiritual development and self-actualization, and also love to take in a good movie with friends and unwind. Hey, who doesn't? It's only human... Well, hell... for years I felt so unhuman that I ended up identifying more strongly with cats than people. If I'd known that my traits were also geek-like, I might have been a bit less alienated: but I'm just coming up on thirty-one, and I am not a scared kid anymore- and guess what- I am _still_ not 'human' in the sense Jon Katz instinctively assumes he'll see in anyone he looks at. Hi, Jon! I'm the dark side. I'm living on disability because of a lifelong inability to cope with the 'human' routines. I don't do movies, and my friends are those who can deal with not seeing me very often and still understand that I love them, in my own way. I fail to fit your litmus tests in many ways- and you know what? I'm not going away, and I _will_ speak for anyone who wishes to be spoken for. It's easy to just slink off feeling marginalised yet again- oh dear, looks like I'm not good enough to be a geek because now I have to be socially acceptable- or at _least_ like normal things like socializing and movies and entertainment. I've travelled a hell of a path- at one point I was even voluntarily in a psych ward (it seemed better than the homeless shelter, and I declined to be drugged into submission). One thing I learned there which startled me- people seem to behave as if 'recreation' is some kind of requirement, and it has to be certain kinds and usually involve other people. I guess for most, it is. It startled me because what was being suggested seemed like work- and because I didn't understand the concept, because all I _was_ was an organic machine for having ideas and designing stuff- for hacking, basically, though I didn't know the term at the time. I am that which you do not understand, Jon, and I am not alone. I never was. There were other people like me all the time, and now I know who they are and what they do, and I even _work_ (not making much money but work) with two other geeks (more the 'peopler' kind, whereas I am shaping up to be the 'silverback' type, which astonishes me), who understand me and accept what they don't understand. I am the side of the force you don't want to face, Jon. You might think it is the dark side. You might fear it is 'more powerful than you can possibly imagine'. But it's neither- it's just alien to you. And unless you can embrace the alienness and not try to remake it into your own image, the better to control it, you will be killing that which you try to celebrate. As for the ideas which are _really_ what you mean as a litmus test... some people have read philosophy and cognitive science. You aren't the only guy in the late 90s who can read, Jon.
The claim is that it is a lifting body. It is definitely not a lifting body. Hell, a _brick_ will fly with big enough engines on it. There is _way_ too much drag and _way_ too little as far as lifting surfaces. When this fellow says it glides but not enough to land, that translates to 'about 4/1 at 500kph', with about as much as lift as a flung rock. If you had to do the 'glide and find a place to pop the chute' thing, you would be pointed back maybe twenty degrees, losing speed very rapidly, falling like a rock and unable to see the ground in front of you because of the very steep angle of attack. If the front nacelles take more of the lift and allow a saner AoA, drag increases severely. There are no good lifting surfaces in this design- it's basically a four-rotored helicopter. Not intrinsically a bad thing, but not to be downplayed: this is severely fuel-inefficient compared to normal aircraft of its class, and very unhelpful if power is lost.
The engine of the Geo Metro is beginning to be used in light aircraft where you'd normally find abrasive little Rotax two-strokes that sound like chainsaws:) And this is real, not weird vapor-design:) Frankly, I think I could design a better aircraft than this fellow. Though I'll give him this- seems to have no wing, so it's like a four-rotored helicopter that balances itself via computer. What this means is that the thing would in fact be easier to fly than a normal aircraft- at a really substantial fuel efficiency penalty:P There was the horizontal stab, some vertical stabs but no wing, therefore unless it's a lifting body, it can't really stall, and spins are also unlikely.
iCab uses the Apple MRJ for java, and had no problem showing the film, other than the minor jumpiness somebody was mentioning. No workaround necessary:)
How about, Obi-Wan does not get _killed_ by Darth: what happens is he provokes Darth into a burst of _fear_ powerful enough to kick Obi-Wan into some mystical realm? He clearly was goading Darth, provoking the fear that keeps him stuck in the Dark Side, and finally as Darth gives in to the fear and paranoia and moves to strike Obi-Wan down, _that_ emotion and action is what sends Obi-Wan off: sort of like Force Judo actually, a pretty cool explanation if you ask me:) Don't ask me about TPM: I haven't seen it and may not;)
I've never seen all of Jaws but I've seen the opening, which is just as powerful and defining as the ANH opening with that amazing huge spaceship shot. The Jaws opening is pretty sick- in that shot, the mechanism used to yank the actress under the water _broke_ her ankle (ankle? leg?) and her screams were 100% in earnest and not fake at all- they must have thought 'hot damn, is she acting up a storm!' They used _that_ shot. Even seeing it on a TV showing in passing, I found it seriously hard to sit through. It's just too intense... deeply disturbing, too real (because IT WAS) If that's a defining mood for the whole movie (and apparently it is) then I've no desire to see the whole movie;P ack! too strong for me:)
There are some nifty essays here. I've been doing essays for a while now, and mostly they've just sat on my website. Occasionally I link to one in a Slashdot post. Please do add my essays directory to your list:)
There are some nifty essays here. I've been doing essays for a while now, and mostly they've just sat on my website. Occasionally I link to one in a Slashdot post. Please do add my essays directory to your list:)
...sorta;) I'm putting together a small Linux dist for some 486es our shop is able to get real cheap. There are also basic Pentiums out there for almost as cheap. We can sell the 486es for $250 with Windows (an old version that's not much use with modern stuff!) or _$150_ with Linux. This is because it's an eyecatchingly low figure and because we get no nice deals from MS anyway and damned near pay list already. So Linux has to sell itself. Today a photocopier repairman saw the in-development Linux dist. First thing he asked was whether you could have a start menu. (Answer: not on 240M of HD! Unless you want the losing fvwm95;P) I answered that you could, but this was meant to be _different_. You know, the concept didn't even get an unkind word out of this fellow- it simply hadn't occurred to him that it _could_ be any different. It can be... DESKTOP OR BUST!;) (for some values of 'desktop' != 'not just a rehashing of exactly the way MS or Apple do it)
Airneil, nobody is asking you (if you are a juror) to be convinced beyond all shadow of a doubt. If you were there to watch Microsoft gangsters lay down ultimatums to top corporate execs and say "It's so nice that you are going with us, isn't it? Because there really aren't any other options. There are x,y and z but they're all going to die, trust us. Don't be counting on that..." you could still argue that you'd been hypnotized, or that they really weren't being pressured or anything, or that it was really RMS dressed up as Bill Gates. Can you _prove_ Bill Gates is not RMS in a rubber mask? Have you _personally_ checked him for rubber masks?;P For jurors, it's innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If you'd ever been a juror you'd have been specifically directed to _not_ require proof beyond all doubt- the jury is given such clarifications as a matter of course just to straighten out people like you. And if you were on a jury you would _still_ have the right to claim no doubts are reasonable, and to an extent you'd be right in so doing- if you _legitimately_ felt the charges were impossible to prove. However, if you simply stuck to 'proven guilty beyond all doubt' for the sake of it, you'd be going against your duty as a juror and insulting the integrity (such as it is) of the US legal system. _REASONABLE_ doubt. Remember that.
Good GOD! (!!!) Yah- I laughed! But I don't know whether I should be crying instead! 96 servers? That's an _awful_ lot of their own dogfood to be eating, wouldn't you say? Meanwhile, here in Brattleboro, somebody has sold the local Co-op a cash register system that all works on W98 (very possibly including some sort of NT server), and they're still struggling with it. It's easy to see those 'uh-oh' dialog boxes popping up and think the whole problem is unreliability, but it's worrying to think that even _if_ the system works perfectly (which it doesn't seem to be doing) the Co-op has no idea what kind of financial trouble it's now in, maintaining and paying off that system. How soon until they are deemed to need another NT server or three?:P Laugh _and_ cry. This sort of thing will kill stores you love, and make many people poorer.
You're not counting labor. Let's assume that NT admins are cheaper than Linux admins ($100/hr vs $200/hr, I'm being lenient w. NT and scorning the earning potentials of a MCSE:) ) Let's also assume that both boxes require an equal amount of maintenance (not necessarily so!)... but the Linux admin does it remotely, where the NT admin has to make house calls or wear a beeper. We'll average it out over the course of a year and say that the NT admin spends 2.5 as many hours working, and then let's call it six minutes of maintenance/2200 for the linux box, 15 minutes of maintenance/2200 for the NT box.
$800+25/2200 = $0.37500 a hit/sec
$80 +20/2200 = $0.04545 a hit/sec
It is not necessarily _true_ that Linux admins are paid twice what an MCSE earns, or that NT requires only 2.5 times the maintenance in billable hours (remember the 'server in the closet' paradigm linux has always had, unglamourous but low maintenance). However, even slanted towards NT in this heavyhanded way, NT is eight times the cost for the same performance _including_ administration.
Make two distributions. One, regular Apache, which would be used for actual HTTP serving. Two, 'Apache Pro!' which is tuned for static page serving at all costs and obliterates any other purpose including reliability, stability, dynamic pages, whatever, just to produce benchmarks. Then people can go on using Apache for _real_ web servers, but for the benchmarks, you ask them 'Why the hell aren't you using Apache Pro? You trying to handicap the race here?' and get them to use Apache Pro against NT- the 'bytemark version' (!) Wouldn't that work? It has to be called 'Apache Pro' though, because it has to have the name Apache and it has to seem like the 'more industrial strength' version. _We_ know that it'll be better to just run Apache, but PHBs and test runners will find it impossible not to use Apache Pro- they'll be trapped by their own assumptions of 'upgrading' and 'standards'. It would be much harder to get another webserver used in benchmarks, but if you call it 'Apache Pro'...
Jon, you're really missing the point badly. With luck I'll not waste too much time replying to this and will sum it up in one post: You did tremendous hype on RTTM. Lucas is doing more tremendous hype on Phantom Menace. The problem here is that you're behaving like hype is some kind of moral crime. I'd love to see Frank Zappa debate you on the subject (he's dead but might still win;P ): Zappa was another artist able to produce very extensive, elaborate and well-funded artworks by locking in to the business game and making it work on his own terms. Zappa fought record companies all his life, but he was not a monk, or a hippie- he was a _businessman_ and that is how he financed his art. Lucas is a businessman too, and I personally consider it ludicrous that you criticize the exact skills that allow him to _make_ Phantom Menace exactly how he wants- movies are _very_ expensive, much more than record albums, and the man wouldn't have _shipped_ the movie were it not for his ability to turn hype to his own ends and get companies to pay for his artistic freedom. No-one is making you buy Jar Jar Binks cup-holders, and in fact you are suffering from an annoying boomer trait, which is the assumption that most of the world are peasants who just consume what they're told to consume, and that there are _spiritual_ _elites_ which understand the triviality of modern life. This is insulting and wrong- as near as I can tell, most people, rich, poor, smart or dumb, have a native savvy that's enough to tell them what hype is, and they see no reason to be _angry_ or _betrayed_ by it- what do you expect from corporations, anyway? Dignity? _Apple_ had that for awhile (sort of) and it near kilt them off entirely. Your smug pride in not getting paid is strictly the product of a wealthy dilettante, and if you had to wonder where your food money was coming from for the end of the month, you'd be less pompous about Jar Jar Binks Toilet Paper... or maybe you'd be more pompous, but frankly it's hard to imagine why you didn't simply vote 'pissing me off' in the Slashdot PM Hype poll and be done with it. This article is poorer than any recent article you've done, capped off by the fact that you won't even see the movie. I'd think you might at least see it and watch for product placement opportunities >;) Right, moderate this down- I just had to get that off my chest. From the instant I saw the teaser I knew Katz was running amok again, and it turned out to be quite true. *feh* hippie!
I'm trying to put a little energy into this article's comments, because people are mentioning autism, but not everyone understands what it is or what they're talking about. Asperger's is _very_ much like being single-tasked- but that's not to write it off as a deficit! It's another 'mode' of being, just like ADD (lotsa ADD advocates sounding off, I think that's pretty cool). Someone earlier was talking about the mind's 'kernel' versus 'userland' and I thought that was a truly wonderful way of explaining what goes on with autism. In most people, the 'userland' is all over the place and can cover a lot of bases. In autistic people, the 'userland' might cover many or all of those bases, but it will do them one at a time and get stuck on them easily. It's like cooperative multitasking... _with_ the attendant advantages as well (yes, there are some if you constrain your requirements enough). Temple Grandin, a well known and successful autistic adult, has explained it as having many deficits and liabilities but also having a 'Sun workstation' in one's head, and given the opportunity this can be a serious advantage. It's not simply being incapacitated for complex interactions like hanging out with 5 people all of whom have subtly different reactions to all the others (gah! How do you normals do this?), it's also having this weird 'black box' processor that normals don't have, and learning what it can do or helping it grow. My own 'weird black box' has a lot to do with geometry and design (I was tested on a vocational test called the 'GATB' test and in one key part, a bit where you had to visualize what shape a flat figure could be folded into, I nailed a ten year high score on the test _and_ enjoyed the problems so much I wanted to keep doing them after the 5 minutes were up). I also have some of it devoted to English language and grammar, probably due to extensive reading:) I want it to also cover programming, but it's been very weird, as I simply cannot _comprehend_ the normal programming educational materials (it seems to jump all over the place with no center) and so I have to immerse myself in programming-related stuff and be _around_ people talking (or posting) about programming, and soak it up until a point comes when suddenly I start doing stuff that non-programmers would find completely incomprehensible (I dunno yet if it's stuff programmers would find brilliant. I'll have to wait and see...) Driving? I haven't renewed my license, and it's been maybe five years now? I didn't get it _taken_ away from me, it just expired. Looking back, I got in too many accidents anyway so I'm not sure I _want_ to drive. Part of it certainly was drugs (I'm clean and sober at all times now and prefer that), but that's not the whole story- even when not high, I'd suffer from information overload or my brain would want to think about something else, and I hit other cars in fenderbenders. I'm happy not to drive now- it was yet another thing that I 'should' have been able to do, that _normal_ people are able to do, but reality kept tapping me on the shoulder and saying "yo! *crunch* that was a pickup truck's rear bumper, your beloved old Rabbit GTI is now toast while the truck wasn't even scratched!...aren't you glad it wasn't a little kid in the road?" (shudder) However, a thought- I'm pretty good on a _bicycle_ because it requires more attention to keep it balanced and in the right place. Does anyone have opinions or experience regarding autistic/aspergers people on _motorcycles_? It only just occurred to me- it's possible that would be safer for all concerned, because a motorcycle would absolutely demand all one's attention, stick you out there in the wind with nothing between you and the road, and consequently travelling on a bike might easily result in total attention to the bike and the road and _no_ priority for interesting computer problems or whatever (my nemesis driving a comfortable automobile)
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I'm currently trying to build a really small linux installation for 486es, and I'm getting the files from RH5.1 to do it. The CD originally came from linuxmall as a two-for-one at about $5. Red Hat is probably not the distribution I should be using, but it's the only one we got at the moment, we're real low budget
Anyone who seriously thinks that cloning Windows is strategically vital had better go investigate the Interface Hall of Shame, and the reviews of the Windows Find applet, Explorer, and the common file dialogs. These are faithfully duplicated in environments like KDE (I'm thinking of Explorer in particular, it is _very_ similar), and the agenda to clone Windows will bring more and more of these horrible, appalling errors and awkwardnesses into whichever Linux environment goes that route.
Meanwhile, I'll be messing around with largely text-oriented Window Maker implementations (and figuring out neat things to do with scripts), and Raster will presumably be constantly furthering the limits of wild and ornate window manager interface design, and we can damned well make our _own_ mistakes, thank you: we don't _have_ to make Windows' mistakes as well just to be taken seriously. I'll happily take Raster seriously- he talks like a designer, like someone willing to try something new, or make his own decisions. I hope he takes me seriously but hey, I haven't 'shipped' yet so I have to get results together before I can expect to even be noticed. At any rate, I think it's safe to say that neither of us give a damn for faithfully replicating Windows mistakes out of some misguided notion that it is expected of us
So good luck, and if there's anything I can do to help, Raster, you're welcome to it. Here, it's not much, but I am good with GFX: use any or all of my Linux graphics such as tiles and textures and backgrounds. If I can do more I will, and if my own pursuits help you out I will rejoice, just as I daresay you'd rejoice if yours help out mine.
And if Red Hat does not rejoice to see non-Red-Hat-style implementations being busily developed, if they do not rejoice to see their profitable standardization undercut by people like us, well, fsckem
- if you want windows so badly, Microsoft is happy to sell you it
- cheapbytes. Who pays the packager/distributor $80 for what is free, particularly if it isn't in turn funding the Rastermans of the world? Who'll pay Red Hat to make Linux more like Windows? Not me, I'll tell you. They are just another distribution.
Good luck, Rasterman. Hack on.Also, if I am not mistaken, Germany already _legally_ _requires_ government-funded computers to be Windows boxes. Germany is perhaps the safest place for Ballmer to be making such statements, because the government already outlaws Linux, Macs, OS2 etc with regard to 'what the government is literally paying for'. If this is in error please correct it. It is not illegal to own a Mac or run Linux in Germany: you simply cannot get one by government subsidy, if you are working for the government or getting an education grant there is only Windows.
I must say I am very disappointed with many of the responses I've seen. How many of these, I wonder, might be MS people on company time making sure 'libertarian' people protect MS from the consequences of their actions? Isn't 'Well, he with the gold wins, therefore you shouldn't even try involving the government because MS will buy it' a stinking admission of cowardice and refusal to be responsible?
*ahem* hm, that's coming out a bit strong.
What I'm saying is that this article is dead on the money, and some slashdot posters have begun to illustrate why. UL was mentioned. That is a very important clue to what is really at stake here.
How many items do you have IN ARM'S REACH which are certified by Underwriters' Laboratories? My soldering gun is UL listed. Here's an old Atari power adapter, UL listed. An old Tascam power adapter, UL listed. Hell, every power cable and AC adapter and power strip- _and_ my AT&T answering machine and Wacom tablet. The phone, the modem, the keyboard etc do not have UL listings- but all comply with FCC regulations, and they all have "RU" and "SA" listings (what are these then?)
What is so special about the software industry that it can't be accountable like everybody else? Hell, _you_ as a private citizen are accountable. Why does the software industry get rights you don't have yourself?
The reason all the power strips are UL listed is because (as an earlier poster noted) people were having electrical hardware 'crash' a lot. Yes, this is more life threatening- but come on now, software is not that innocent! At the computer shop where I work, we _must_ have two PCs to do business. The one in the front runs some accounting software and is the answering machine. The one in back is the bench machine, and it is the one we risk with software and plugging stray hardware into, and it's been rebuilt a couple times. The reason we can't do it on one machine is because if we dared, we would be risking all our records and our means of doing business at all, on the daft notion that software crashing couldn't hurt us. No no no! And so we've taken longer to pay off our debts because we _must_ run two PCs in order to be able to function. Does this sound like accountability in action? Yes- ours. On the other hand it's a glaring admission of just how damaging the software industry can be. How many consumers can afford to buy an entirely separate computer to keep important documents and electronic accounts on? Need I even mention the strong bias the industry shows toward having consumers load even _more_ critical data into their computers? All the mortgage information! Every critical business contact! Dad's medical records and scheduling of appointments! All that onto the creaking PC, then install DirectX 9.3.0.0.0! And what do you do for safety? Back up... onto ZIP DISKS! Which of course are their own very serious accountability concern, and not acceptable as an archival medium what with click of death and all. But by god, are they cheap!
We can't do this dance forever.
Now, I've touched on one valid issue- DirectX 12.0.0.0, as it were- the trouble of someone like Microsoft breaking everybody's work. Who pays? Who apportions blame? It's bad enough MS can just about selectively target whoever they wish to break (proprietary means nobody sees the code that says "if vendor == id then crash.die_ungrateful_pup!"), but if they could do that and then hammer the hapless victim with regulatory fines things would be totally impossible.
However, this isn't something to cower around whimpering about- it needs to be worked out. Just because something can't be done perfectly doesn't mean it shouldn't be done at all- I am sure there are scandals about UL abuses _somewhere_, or something is unjustifiably penalized, or some big company gets a break, but when did you last see an extension cord catch fire? A toaster explode?
I'm sorry: I for one am not at all impressed by pseudo-libertarian ranting and desperation to spare the software industry any accountability. Grow up! And the software industry has got to GROW UP too. There is no excuse for the current merry band of pirates. I'm not talking about warezpuppies- I'm talking about the VENDORS. Lay down some rules- have everybody straighten out. I can tell you that this would very likely curtail some abuses Apple's been responsible for, producing good stuff and then betraying it and axing it to the detriment of developers and consumers. It would put a damper on Microsoft. It would chill out those game developers risking systems, violating privacy etc: the point is, you want rules? Fine- _we_ come up with what needs to be covered, we already know many troubling areas to be aware of. You want no rules? That may not be your privilege.
Same here: it seems to be fine for ISO 8859-1. I'm using iCab to read it, and I still get apostrophes etc. from Jon Katz articles, but this page doesn't seem to be in error. :)
Well, actually it is:
Altogether 26 errors found. Only 25 errors are listed below.
Warning (1/1): (!DOCTYPE) is missing.
Warning (6/1): The attribute "LEFTMARGIN" is not defined for the tag (BODY).
Warning (6/1): The attribute "TOPMARGIN" is not defined for the tag (BODY).
Error (6/1): In the tag (BODY) the attribute "MARGINWIDTH" is not allowed.
Error (6/1): In the tag (BODY) the attribute "MARGINHEIGHT" is not allowed.
Error (12/5): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Warning (12/5): The attribute "BACKGROUND" is not defined for the tag (TD).
Error (26/5): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (31/3): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (34/4): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Warning (37/4): The attribute "BACKGROUND" is not defined for the tag (TD).
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Error (51/3): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (HR).
Error (71/3): The start tag for (/FONT) can't be found.
Error (73/3): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (78/2): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (80/109): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (P).
Error (124/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (OL).
Error (146/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
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Error (173/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (182/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (P).
Error (195/71): The trailing ';' is missing in the definition "©".
Warning (210/5): The attribute "BACKGROUND" is not defined for the tag (TD).
Error (222/2): In the tag (INPUT) the attribute "BORDER" is not allowed.
Warning (222/2): The attribute "WIDTH" is not defined for the tag (INPUT).
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Error (242/4): The trailing ';' is missing in the definition "&image".
However, these are not about apostrophes
Remember the article about the car-plane? Never mind that it's a daft design (which it is), suppose it works. It runs under a computer operating system. Want to bet Microsoft wouldn't pull out every stop and pay off anyone at all in order to have the car-plane run Windows CE? Then they hack in more DirectX support in the kernel to add DVD players for your cruise, and all the time they don't really give a rat's ass about risks or dangers in shoehorning one type of software into duties that really demand something more rigorous. Ever wondered how many nuclear power plants are controlled by Windows NT? How about wondering how many nuclear power plants are controlled by Windows _98_? How many automated factories with heavy machinery are controlled by Windows NT? By W98? You start seeing it at the point of sale. How many stores do you know which completely rely on POS systems that run on Windows 98? I've seen one I like become dependent on this, recently. They are _still_ struggling with it. They got it (it's really a very proprietary 3rd party system hosted on W98) because they knew other co-ops that used this system...
There's a line there which is hard to draw. That store is _not_ as missioncritical as an airplane, or power plant, or five tons of computercontrolled machinery moving around human workers. But there comes a point at which _some_ line has to be drawn, because Microsoft (and any other top dog in the current system) _will_ expand outward into areas for which they are entirely unsuitable. It's sort of the Peter Principle for products- but when the result can be airplanes falling out of the sky into populated areas, factory machinery failing to respond to controls and tearing itself apart, potentially crushing workers, or even little stores dumping their entire profit margins into computer systems that have a risk of being complete money holes _and_ causing severe interruption of business- well, in these situations it becomes not okay for Darwin to take care of it. Somebody has to keep an eye on what's being decided. Perhaps there should be software OSHA regulations?
WOZ FOR YODA! ;)
Microsoft is a business, people. They don't work for free, and they don't take courses of action that would gut their revenues. This absolutely cannot be a real plan- not even a backup plan- not even if you ignore antitrust statutes. Why? Because THEY NEED THE INCOME. Their valuation is paper. The last thing they can afford is a collapse in their valuation, and conceding the OS business (for the consumer) as unprofitable, in hopes of totally controlling all of it and making up the loss in control of media, is a damned dangerous game.
This can only be vapor. If they were fools enough to _do_ it, it would be time for rejoicing- because they can't turn sustainable profit on that model. They cannot simply abandon profit centers so lightly.
Indeed. ;P
My own take on his thesis was amused disbelief. I can't and won't talk about The Matrix: I haven't seen it and probably won't, unless some friend forcibly drags me to a movie theater. It's more likely I'll eventually see it on video. There are some films that I saw and got a kick out of on video, like Men In Black. In every case I watched my entire environment erupt in a weird spasm of sig lines and incessant references, and eventually figured I'd see what the fuss was about, as long as it didn't cost me anything and I didn't have to go to a movie house and be crammed in with other humans chomping popcorn and spilling pepsis on the floor
I fail the litmus test for being a geek because I would rather reclusively hack a user environment out of a 486 linux box at 4 AM than go be with friends and watch movies? BZZZZZT I don't think so. This makes giant assumptions about who and what geeks really are- and aren't. Now, I'm not the most normal human. In fact I have Asperger's syndrome and keep to myself and live nocturnally and only find it easy to interact (a) with other geeks, (b) with other sorts of fellow travellers- I'm also a recovering drug addict, drugs were my only value and reason for living as a seriously fscked-up teenager, or (c) online, where I can take advantage of my verbal abilities at a pace I can cope with, suffering no jarring dislocations of my attention like you get with normal human conversation.
Yet, for Jon, he sees none of this. He's written _articles_ on people very much like me, and still he sees only little Jon Katzes who happen to have special gifts for programming or linux hacking. This blocks him from true enlightenment, because he _cannot_ know himself unless he understands how unlike himself others can be. Instead, we are all bigger, better versions of Jon Katz, and we all slaver for spiritual development and self-actualization, and also love to take in a good movie with friends and unwind. Hey, who doesn't? It's only human...
Well, hell... for years I felt so unhuman that I ended up identifying more strongly with cats than people. If I'd known that my traits were also geek-like, I might have been a bit less alienated: but I'm just coming up on thirty-one, and I am not a scared kid anymore- and guess what- I am _still_ not 'human' in the sense Jon Katz instinctively assumes he'll see in anyone he looks at. Hi, Jon! I'm the dark side. I'm living on disability because of a lifelong inability to cope with the 'human' routines. I don't do movies, and my friends are those who can deal with not seeing me very often and still understand that I love them, in my own way. I fail to fit your litmus tests in many ways- and you know what? I'm not going away, and I _will_ speak for anyone who wishes to be spoken for. It's easy to just slink off feeling marginalised yet again- oh dear, looks like I'm not good enough to be a geek because now I have to be socially acceptable- or at _least_ like normal things like socializing and movies and entertainment.
I've travelled a hell of a path- at one point I was even voluntarily in a psych ward (it seemed better than the homeless shelter, and I declined to be drugged into submission). One thing I learned there which startled me- people seem to behave as if 'recreation' is some kind of requirement, and it has to be certain kinds and usually involve other people. I guess for most, it is. It startled me because what was being suggested seemed like work- and because I didn't understand the concept, because all I _was_ was an organic machine for having ideas and designing stuff- for hacking, basically, though I didn't know the term at the time.
I am that which you do not understand, Jon, and I am not alone. I never was. There were other people like me all the time, and now I know who they are and what they do, and I even _work_ (not making much money but work) with two other geeks (more the 'peopler' kind, whereas I am shaping up to be the 'silverback' type, which astonishes me), who understand me and accept what they don't understand.
I am the side of the force you don't want to face, Jon. You might think it is the dark side. You might fear it is 'more powerful than you can possibly imagine'. But it's neither- it's just alien to you. And unless you can embrace the alienness and not try to remake it into your own image, the better to control it, you will be killing that which you try to celebrate.
As for the ideas which are _really_ what you mean as a litmus test... some people have read philosophy and cognitive science. You aren't the only guy in the late 90s who can read, Jon.
The claim is that it is a lifting body. It is definitely not a lifting body. Hell, a _brick_ will fly with big enough engines on it.
There is _way_ too much drag and _way_ too little as far as lifting surfaces. When this fellow says it glides but not enough to land, that translates to 'about 4/1 at 500kph', with about as much as lift as a flung rock.
If you had to do the 'glide and find a place to pop the chute' thing, you would be pointed back maybe twenty degrees, losing speed very rapidly, falling like a rock and unable to see the ground in front of you because of the very steep angle of attack. If the front nacelles take more of the lift and allow a saner AoA, drag increases severely. There are no good lifting surfaces in this design- it's basically a four-rotored helicopter. Not intrinsically a bad thing, but not to be downplayed: this is severely fuel-inefficient compared to normal aircraft of its class, and very unhelpful if power is lost.
The engine of the Geo Metro is beginning to be used in light aircraft where you'd normally find abrasive little Rotax two-strokes that sound like chainsaws :) :) :P There was the horizontal stab, some vertical stabs but no wing, therefore unless it's a lifting body, it can't really stall, and spins are also unlikely.
And this is real, not weird vapor-design
Frankly, I think I could design a better aircraft than this fellow. Though I'll give him this- seems to have no wing, so it's like a four-rotored helicopter that balances itself via computer. What this means is that the thing would in fact be easier to fly than a normal aircraft- at a really substantial fuel efficiency penalty
"web sites"?
iCab uses the Apple MRJ for java, and had no problem showing the film, other than the minor jumpiness somebody was mentioning. No workaround necessary :)
How about, Obi-Wan does not get _killed_ by Darth: what happens is he provokes Darth into a burst of _fear_ powerful enough to kick Obi-Wan into some mystical realm? He clearly was goading Darth, provoking the fear that keeps him stuck in the Dark Side, and finally as Darth gives in to the fear and paranoia and moves to strike Obi-Wan down, _that_ emotion and action is what sends Obi-Wan off: sort of like Force Judo actually, a pretty cool explanation if you ask me :) ;)
Don't ask me about TPM: I haven't seen it and may not
I've never seen all of Jaws but I've seen the opening, which is just as powerful and defining as the ANH opening with that amazing huge spaceship shot. ;P ack! too strong for me :)
The Jaws opening is pretty sick- in that shot, the mechanism used to yank the actress under the water _broke_ her ankle (ankle? leg?) and her screams were 100% in earnest and not fake at all- they must have thought 'hot damn, is she acting up a storm!'
They used _that_ shot. Even seeing it on a TV showing in passing, I found it seriously hard to sit through. It's just too intense... deeply disturbing, too real (because IT WAS) If that's a defining mood for the whole movie (and apparently it is) then I've no desire to see the whole movie
There are some nifty essays here. I've been doing essays for a while now, and mostly they've just sat on my website. Occasionally I link to one in a Slashdot post. Please do add my essays directory to your list :)
There are some nifty essays here. I've been doing essays for a while now, and mostly they've just sat on my website. Occasionally I link to one in a Slashdot post. Please do add my essays directory to your list :)
...sorta ;) ;P) I answered that you could, but this was meant to be _different_. You know, the concept didn't even get an unkind word out of this fellow- it simply hadn't occurred to him that it _could_ be any different. It can be... ;) (for some values of 'desktop' != 'not just a rehashing of exactly the way MS or Apple do it)
I'm putting together a small Linux dist for some 486es our shop is able to get real cheap. There are also basic Pentiums out there for almost as cheap. We can sell the 486es for $250 with Windows (an old version that's not much use with modern stuff!) or _$150_ with Linux. This is because it's an eyecatchingly low figure and because we get no nice deals from MS anyway and damned near pay list already.
So Linux has to sell itself. Today a photocopier repairman saw the in-development Linux dist. First thing he asked was whether you could have a start menu. (Answer: not on 240M of HD! Unless you want the losing fvwm95
DESKTOP OR BUST!
Airneil, nobody is asking you (if you are a juror) to be convinced beyond all shadow of a doubt. ;P
If you were there to watch Microsoft gangsters lay down ultimatums to top corporate execs and say "It's so nice that you are going with us, isn't it? Because there really aren't any other options. There are x,y and z but they're all going to die, trust us. Don't be counting on that..." you could still argue that you'd been hypnotized, or that they really weren't being pressured or anything, or that it was really RMS dressed up as Bill Gates. Can you _prove_ Bill Gates is not RMS in a rubber mask? Have you _personally_ checked him for rubber masks?
For jurors, it's innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If you'd ever been a juror you'd have been specifically directed to _not_ require proof beyond all doubt- the jury is given such clarifications as a matter of course just to straighten out people like you.
And if you were on a jury you would _still_ have the right to claim no doubts are reasonable, and to an extent you'd be right in so doing- if you _legitimately_ felt the charges were impossible to prove. However, if you simply stuck to 'proven guilty beyond all doubt' for the sake of it, you'd be going against your duty as a juror and insulting the integrity (such as it is) of the US legal system.
_REASONABLE_ doubt. Remember that.
Good GOD! (!!!) :P
Yah- I laughed! But I don't know whether I should be crying instead! 96 servers? That's an _awful_ lot of their own dogfood to be eating, wouldn't you say?
Meanwhile, here in Brattleboro, somebody has sold the local Co-op a cash register system that all works on W98 (very possibly including some sort of NT server), and they're still struggling with it. It's easy to see those 'uh-oh' dialog boxes popping up and think the whole problem is unreliability, but it's worrying to think that even _if_ the system works perfectly (which it doesn't seem to be doing) the Co-op has no idea what kind of financial trouble it's now in, maintaining and paying off that system. How soon until they are deemed to need another NT server or three?
Laugh _and_ cry. This sort of thing will kill stores you love, and make many people poorer.
Let's also assume that both boxes require an equal amount of maintenance (not necessarily so!)... but the Linux admin does it remotely, where the NT admin has to make house calls or wear a beeper. We'll average it out over the course of a year and say that the NT admin spends 2.5 as many hours working, and then let's call it six minutes of maintenance/2200 for the linux box, 15 minutes of maintenance/2200 for the NT box.
- $800+25/2200 = $0.37500 a hit/sec
- $80 +20/2200 = $0.04545 a hit/sec
It is not necessarily _true_ that Linux admins are paid twice what an MCSE earns, or that NT requires only 2.5 times the maintenance in billable hours (remember the 'server in the closet' paradigm linux has always had, unglamourous but low maintenance). However, even slanted towards NT in this heavyhanded way, NT is eight times the cost for the same performance _including_ administration.Make two distributions.
One, regular Apache, which would be used for actual HTTP serving.
Two, 'Apache Pro!' which is tuned for static page serving at all costs and obliterates any other purpose including reliability, stability, dynamic pages, whatever, just to produce benchmarks.
Then people can go on using Apache for _real_ web servers, but for the benchmarks, you ask them 'Why the hell aren't you using Apache Pro? You trying to handicap the race here?' and get them to use Apache Pro against NT- the 'bytemark version' (!)
Wouldn't that work? It has to be called 'Apache Pro' though, because it has to have the name Apache and it has to seem like the 'more industrial strength' version. _We_ know that it'll be better to just run Apache, but PHBs and test runners will find it impossible not to use Apache Pro- they'll be trapped by their own assumptions of 'upgrading' and 'standards'. It would be much harder to get another webserver used in benchmarks, but if you call it 'Apache Pro'...
Jon, you're really missing the point badly. With luck I'll not waste too much time replying to this and will sum it up in one post: ;P ): Zappa was another artist able to produce very extensive, elaborate and well-funded artworks by locking in to the business game and making it work on his own terms. Zappa fought record companies all his life, but he was not a monk, or a hippie- he was a _businessman_ and that is how he financed his art. Lucas is a businessman too, and I personally consider it ludicrous that you criticize the exact skills that allow him to _make_ Phantom Menace exactly how he wants- movies are _very_ expensive, much more than record albums, and the man wouldn't have _shipped_ the movie were it not for his ability to turn hype to his own ends and get companies to pay for his artistic freedom.
You did tremendous hype on RTTM. Lucas is doing more tremendous hype on Phantom Menace.
The problem here is that you're behaving like hype is some kind of moral crime. I'd love to see Frank Zappa debate you on the subject (he's dead but might still win
No-one is making you buy Jar Jar Binks cup-holders, and in fact you are suffering from an annoying boomer trait, which is the assumption that most of the world are peasants who just consume what they're told to consume, and that there are _spiritual_ _elites_ which understand the triviality of modern life. This is insulting and wrong- as near as I can tell, most people, rich, poor, smart or dumb, have a native savvy that's enough to tell them what hype is, and they see no reason to be _angry_ or _betrayed_ by it- what do you expect from corporations, anyway? Dignity? _Apple_ had that for awhile (sort of) and it near kilt them off entirely.
Your smug pride in not getting paid is strictly the product of a wealthy dilettante, and if you had to wonder where your food money was coming from for the end of the month, you'd be less pompous about Jar Jar Binks Toilet Paper... or maybe you'd be more pompous, but frankly it's hard to imagine why you didn't simply vote 'pissing me off' in the Slashdot PM Hype poll and be done with it. This article is poorer than any recent article you've done, capped off by the fact that you won't even see the movie. I'd think you might at least see it and watch for product placement opportunities >;)
Right, moderate this down- I just had to get that off my chest. From the instant I saw the teaser I knew Katz was running amok again, and it turned out to be quite true. *feh* hippie!
I'm trying to put a little energy into this article's comments, because people are mentioning autism, but not everyone understands what it is or what they're talking about. :) I want it to also cover programming, but it's been very weird, as I simply cannot _comprehend_ the normal programming educational materials (it seems to jump all over the place with no center) and so I have to immerse myself in programming-related stuff and be _around_ people talking (or posting) about programming, and soak it up until a point comes when suddenly I start doing stuff that non-programmers would find completely incomprehensible (I dunno yet if it's stuff programmers would find brilliant. I'll have to wait and see...) ...aren't you glad it wasn't a little kid in the road?" (shudder)
Asperger's is _very_ much like being single-tasked- but that's not to write it off as a deficit! It's another 'mode' of being, just like ADD (lotsa ADD advocates sounding off, I think that's pretty cool).
Someone earlier was talking about the mind's 'kernel' versus 'userland' and I thought that was a truly wonderful way of explaining what goes on with autism. In most people, the 'userland' is all over the place and can cover a lot of bases. In autistic people, the 'userland' might cover many or all of those bases, but it will do them one at a time and get stuck on them easily. It's like cooperative multitasking... _with_ the attendant advantages as well (yes, there are some if you constrain your requirements enough).
Temple Grandin, a well known and successful autistic adult, has explained it as having many deficits and liabilities but also having a 'Sun workstation' in one's head, and given the opportunity this can be a serious advantage. It's not simply being incapacitated for complex interactions like hanging out with 5 people all of whom have subtly different reactions to all the others (gah! How do you normals do this?), it's also having this weird 'black box' processor that normals don't have, and learning what it can do or helping it grow.
My own 'weird black box' has a lot to do with geometry and design (I was tested on a vocational test called the 'GATB' test and in one key part, a bit where you had to visualize what shape a flat figure could be folded into, I nailed a ten year high score on the test _and_ enjoyed the problems so much I wanted to keep doing them after the 5 minutes were up). I also have some of it devoted to English language and grammar, probably due to extensive reading
Driving? I haven't renewed my license, and it's been maybe five years now? I didn't get it _taken_ away from me, it just expired. Looking back, I got in too many accidents anyway so I'm not sure I _want_ to drive. Part of it certainly was drugs (I'm clean and sober at all times now and prefer that), but that's not the whole story- even when not high, I'd suffer from information overload or my brain would want to think about something else, and I hit other cars in fenderbenders. I'm happy not to drive now- it was yet another thing that I 'should' have been able to do, that _normal_ people are able to do, but reality kept tapping me on the shoulder and saying "yo! *crunch* that was a pickup truck's rear bumper, your beloved old Rabbit GTI is now toast while the truck wasn't even scratched!
However, a thought- I'm pretty good on a _bicycle_ because it requires more attention to keep it balanced and in the right place. Does anyone have opinions or experience regarding autistic/aspergers people on _motorcycles_? It only just occurred to me- it's possible that would be safer for all concerned, because a motorcycle would absolutely demand all one's attention, stick you out there in the wind with nothing between you and the road, and consequently travelling on a bike might easily result in total attention to the bike and the road and _no_ priority for interesting computer problems or whatever (my nemesis driving a comfortable automobile)
Book is 'The Mind of a Mnemonist'.