I'll wager that Microsoft insisted that intel only allow its customers to brand laptops as "centrino" if they came with Windows preinstalled. It wouldn't be the first time they've done something dubious.
You're right, though, everyone deserves to participate in the market on a level playing field.
I can't believe that something as high-profile and widely-used as fedora would not come with the standard open-source Xorg (or even Xfree) drivers for ATi cards.
I use Slackware, and I don't have to compile X from scratch unless I want to do something specific. Since 1995, Slackware has been shipping with XFree (and now Xorg) binary packages, and they come with ATi (rage, radeon and plain ati) drivers.
If I want to sell people some commercial software, or to give them some closed-source software, and provide them with MySQL as the accompanying database engine under the GPL, source and all (for MySQL) why the hell should I have to pay a single penny at all to MySQL?
You should get a grip. You can't do this, since the MySQL client libraries are GPL. Your application would be in violation of the GPL.
If you don't like it, write your own damn code or pony up the cash.
VESA was the only way to get it working? What are you talking about? I downloaded and compiled Xorg 6.8.1 and there were three (ati, radeon, and something else) ATi drivers to choose from depending on your graphics card. OK the performance wasn't brilliant but it worked and the system seemed fairly stable (3 days uptime without an X crash or major bug).
Because there are no such things as black holes. becoming a black hole is like traveling at the speed of light. You can get infinitely close, but you can't reach it.
I'm not sure I understand. Can you please provide a reference?
Surely, at the event horizon, all radiation becomes infinitely red-shifted, and I can accept that an observer far away would see a clock slowing down as it went towards the black hole, and stop on the event horizon (or almost stop almost at it).
How does this relate to the actual formation of the black hole?
As the star collapses and becomes more dense, its gravitational field will increase, i.e. spacetime will become more and more stretched, and, like you say, therefore it's collapse may be seen to slow down as the escape velocity of the collapsing star approaches that of light. All radiation emanating will become more and more red-shifted.
Just "at" the event horizon, there should be a "stopped" infinitely red-shifted image of the collapsing star which will last for ever.
However, as far as the collapsing star is concerned, in its own frame of reference, or any part of the star small enough that the curvature of spacetime can be considered negligible, things keep going.
So, how much can we predict about what happens "inside" the event horizon?
I'll say it again; it's the driver that's dangerous, not the vehicle. An evolved mind would see this and not make silly organ donor jokes.
You can drive your own vehicle are carefully as you like, and as defensively as you like, but you can not fully compensate for others' ignorance, stupidity or incompetence. The only way to avoid road accidents is not to use roads.
Yes, the Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the human eye,but he argues that it is not a single object but a collection of objects.
By that logic, niether is Betelgeuse. It's a collection of objects: atoms. The atoms are themselves collections of objects: neutrons, protons and electrons. The neutrons and protons are collections of quarks.
There's always some fool out there putting arbitrary limits on things, making artificial distinctions and generally talking nonsense.
Many people might not realise that "This call may be monitored" also applies to the time you're kept on hold listening to irritating music, cursing the company you're calling....
Another aspect to the excessive violence is that in India, the majority of the crime commited is petty in nature and the thieves are often dirt poor compulsives. Very often, the police simply decide to give the common thief a "sound thrashing", lock them up for a couple of days, and then release them. They don't have much experience with white-collared criminals and don't have a clue of how they should behave with them.
Here in the UK, the police employ similar tactics, only they just pick on people who look like they might have been guilty of something.
It's quite common for police vans to drive up to gangs of youths (especially in the large cities), to bundle several of them into the back of the van, beat and kick them and deposit them further along the road.
The "rationale" behind this is that crime is so common, everyone must be guilty of something, and why clog up the courts with needless beaurocracy etc.
Unfortunately, people who should know better just accept this. And as time goes by, our laws are becoming more draconian. Innocence until proven guilty has all but gone, the right to a jury trial is being eroded, one can be held indefinitely without charge or trial if suspected of certain crimes, there is no right to free assembly on public ground, in some places if two or more people are walking along together the police can order them to "disperse" and not return within 24 hours, there is the creeping suspicion that if you don't like these laws you "must have something to hide" etc.
This isn't East Germany, Nazi Germany or the USSR. This is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
There is no political choice. Not enough people vote for the Third Party (who oppose these things).
You can have conservative authoritarian with a red logo, or conservative authoritarian with a blue one.
Having said this, i do shudder to get into the wrong side of the law in India
Well, here the police just don't have to like the look of you (hair cut, skin colour, style of clothes, age etc.). Did I also mention that they are now allowed to impose on-the-spot fines which can not be appealed or contested in court?
Try them all for a while. Try KDE, GNOME and XFce. If you're feeling bold, try GNUstep.
You can install them all and run your favourite. As long as they're all installed, it doesn't matter which one you run, you can run all the applications for each, since you have all the support libraries and daemons installed.
The great thing about unil-like operating systems, and FOSS in particular is the healthy choice, competition and collaboration.
If you've been brought up in the Windows monoculture, this is a huge culture shock.
I don't run a desktop environment. I run a plain old window manager on Linux and Solaris (WindowMaker). I use GNOME and KDE apps, Java apps, Gtk+ apps, Motif apps, Qt apps, Fltk apps, you name it, often all at the same time, over the network on different hardware architectures (64-bit RISC, 64-bit x86, 32-bit x86) using X, VNC and the plain old text terminal.
This is the power and flexibility of the modern unix world.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, though, everyone deserves to participate in the market on a level playing field.
Yes another sign that Microsoft's strangle-hold on the market is weakening. Woo hoo! :-)
Welcome to slashdot :-)
I use Slackware, and I don't have to compile X from scratch unless I want to do something specific. Since 1995, Slackware has been shipping with XFree (and now Xorg) binary packages, and they come with ATi (rage, radeon and plain ati) drivers.
You get what you pay for, I suppose.
That's just some pervy bloke pretending...
These functions are usually documented in man pages.
You should get a grip. You can't do this, since the MySQL client libraries are GPL. Your application would be in violation of the GPL.
If you don't like it, write your own damn code or pony up the cash.
VESA was the only way to get it working? What are you talking about? I downloaded and compiled Xorg 6.8.1 and there were three (ati, radeon, and something else) ATi drivers to choose from depending on your graphics card. OK the performance wasn't brilliant but it worked and the system seemed fairly stable (3 days uptime without an X crash or major bug).
Yes, when I was very young. It seemed appropriate for this place. :-)
Except the Moon landings happened. Noah's Ark is just a myth. Oh wait, this is slashdot... :-)
Indeed. Or VxWorks, or Chorus...br?
I'm not sure I understand. Can you please provide a reference?
Surely, at the event horizon, all radiation becomes infinitely red-shifted, and I can accept that an observer far away would see a clock slowing down as it went towards the black hole, and stop on the event horizon (or almost stop almost at it).
How does this relate to the actual formation of the black hole?
As the star collapses and becomes more dense, its gravitational field will increase, i.e. spacetime will become more and more stretched, and, like you say, therefore it's collapse may be seen to slow down as the escape velocity of the collapsing star approaches that of light. All radiation emanating will become more and more red-shifted.
Just "at" the event horizon, there should be a "stopped" infinitely red-shifted image of the collapsing star which will last for ever.
However, as far as the collapsing star is concerned, in its own frame of reference, or any part of the star small enough that the curvature of spacetime can be considered negligible, things keep going.
So, how much can we predict about what happens "inside" the event horizon?
Or is that question stupid? It's been 10 years.
50% of my ebay transactions have resulted in the loss of my time and money. I don't use ebay any more.
You can drive your own vehicle are carefully as you like, and as defensively as you like, but you can not fully compensate for others' ignorance, stupidity or incompetence. The only way to avoid road accidents is not to use roads.
By that logic, niether is Betelgeuse. It's a collection of objects: atoms. The atoms are themselves collections of objects: neutrons, protons and electrons. The neutrons and protons are collections of quarks.
There's always some fool out there putting arbitrary limits on things, making artificial distinctions and generally talking nonsense.
That's what you get for indulging in the Sins of the Flesh! She should have listened to the preacher and stayed at home baking cookies.
Let that be a lesson to you all!
Many people might not realise that "This call may be monitored" also applies to the time you're kept on hold listening to irritating music, cursing the company you're calling....
Cheap plastic bolt-on spoilers and aerofoil wings for small hatchbacks with 1100cc engines?
And you have never heard of irony. Anyway, it seemed somewhat apropriate for this place.
This is slashdot. "We" don't like Sun or Java here. Take a browse at -1 and see for yourself.
You cretinous moderators. This is Informative, not Flamebait.
Here in the UK, the police employ similar tactics, only they just pick on people who look like they might have been guilty of something.
It's quite common for police vans to drive up to gangs of youths (especially in the large cities), to bundle several of them into the back of the van, beat and kick them and deposit them further along the road.
The "rationale" behind this is that crime is so common, everyone must be guilty of something, and why clog up the courts with needless beaurocracy etc.
Unfortunately, people who should know better just accept this. And as time goes by, our laws are becoming more draconian. Innocence until proven guilty has all but gone, the right to a jury trial is being eroded, one can be held indefinitely without charge or trial if suspected of certain crimes, there is no right to free assembly on public ground, in some places if two or more people are walking along together the police can order them to "disperse" and not return within 24 hours, there is the creeping suspicion that if you don't like these laws you "must have something to hide" etc.
This isn't East Germany, Nazi Germany or the USSR. This is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
There is no political choice. Not enough people vote for the Third Party (who oppose these things).
You can have conservative authoritarian with a red logo, or conservative authoritarian with a blue one.
Having said this, i do shudder to get into the wrong side of the law in India
Well, here the police just don't have to like the look of you (hair cut, skin colour, style of clothes, age etc.). Did I also mention that they are now allowed to impose on-the-spot fines which can not be appealed or contested in court?
The Beatles', Rolling Stones' and Michael Jackson's back catalogues?
You can install them all and run your favourite. As long as they're all installed, it doesn't matter which one you run, you can run all the applications for each, since you have all the support libraries and daemons installed.
The great thing about unil-like operating systems, and FOSS in particular is the healthy choice, competition and collaboration.
If you've been brought up in the Windows monoculture, this is a huge culture shock.
I don't run a desktop environment. I run a plain old window manager on Linux and Solaris (WindowMaker). I use GNOME and KDE apps, Java apps, Gtk+ apps, Motif apps, Qt apps, Fltk apps, you name it, often all at the same time, over the network on different hardware architectures (64-bit RISC, 64-bit x86, 32-bit x86) using X, VNC and the plain old text terminal.
This is the power and flexibility of the modern unix world.
Please no! I find it difficult enough making myself understood to other human beings.