yeah I think its kind of the national supercomputer centers that the US universities had in late 80s/early 90s. They were called NCSA.. thats where Mosiac came from.
If every nation first tried to feed its people and then did scientific research, then the nation would never progress. The US would first have to work to get every Bum off the street, before it could fund any research.
Ofcourse they are called Indians - I am from India.
Where do you think the incorrect name for Native Americans came from ?? Christopher Columbus was looking for a new route to India and landed on Islands off of North America and thought he had reached India. So he called those people Indians.
I was talking to some of the Chinese people in my office and its interesting to hear their viewpoint:
As far as they are concerned, the US have no right to be spying on China. First of all, the US is seen as the evil aggressor that is always trying to put them down - by supporting pro-democracy movements, Taiwan, bombing their embassy etc. And now their spy plane kills a loyal, brave fighter pilot.
One guy I talked to was so overcome by jingoism that he could not even begin to see the possibility that the American plane could not have been the cause of the accident because it can't make fast, sudden, big turns.
The Chinese govt. has twisted this thing to raise nationalistic sentiments in the country, because they have been reeling from recent Falan Gong (spelling ?) uprisings and the bombing of the school.
Like with all authoritarian regimes, the govt. depends on controlling what the people think and feel.
This is not going to be resolved easily !
We've already had a similar service at UC Irvine since last year. By summer of this year, it will become campus wide.. check it out at
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/ucinet/mobile/
There is a list of open source projects and benchmarks at
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~sumitg/CadPages.html#Ben ch
Open source projects are big boon for research groups. The biggest problem that research groups have is that they do not have access to industry standard processors and do no have the resources to design one from scratch. So a whole set of these in public domain will mean a lot to the research community.
Also, to all the software people here, who do not know much about hardware design: open source hardware designs are just as exciting to the hardware community as open source software is to the software community.
To clarify/correct what some posters have said - we do NOT fiddle around with gates and low level stuff like that. That is only done to optimize design (its like writing assembly line code for core kernels). A lot of processor blocks are designed in high level hardware description languages, such as VHDL and Verilog.
Increasingly, people are beginning to use C or variants of C (see http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~specc)
for hardware design and simulation. We are working on a high level synthesis tool that generates hardware starting from C - check it out
at
http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~spark
The most important thing you can do is give him a very solid math and physics basis. Programming is easy; any trained idiot can write code (not always good, but it will work). What is hard is abstract thought. We have few people who can do that well.
Once his fundamentals are strong (and I am not talking about elementary math; I am talking about advanced math), then he can figure out anything.
Here is a response from KDE developers
about the GNU/Stallman editorial.
Its an interesting view from the developer's pov.
To quote
Many of us woke up this morning and read Richard Stallman's editorial on
Linux Today with a growing sense of incredulity. At first, some of us thought it
was a joke -- it didn't make any logical sense, after all. But after it sunk in
that Stallman was doing yet another snowjob on KDE, a lot of our incredulity
turned to anger.
RMS seems like he wants to have an empire that he rules. His attitude is clear from his editorial and subtle words/phrases he uses.
First of all, he makes it look he along with his cronies decided to develop Gnome, then he insists on calling it GNU Gnome - everything is not GNU !
Its NOT GNU Linux and its NOT GNU Gnome !
I think RMS feels like if they call anything GNU, then he by default gets credit for it - thats why he insists on putting that label on all software he can.
Also, his tirade against KDE sounds so petty, it sounds like a 14 year old is complaining. Really,
what more can the KDE guys do to win our trust and full support !?
One of the reasons at least I don't share my stuff is because I am scared the feds will come after me ! You know downloading is less illegal than actually distributing - difference between buying drugs and selling them.
Also, some people use computers at office to do all this stuff - definitely don't want to get into legal trouble there !
Since a lot of people are asking these questions, let me give some statistics about India:
1 billion people 66 % literacy rate 20 Major/Different languages with 1000s of dialects each 30 % of the country can speak Hindi 10 % can speak, read and write English Official Govt language Hindi, however actual Government Language is English - nearly all communication from the government is in local language and English ! Home PC Penetration; a few million.
ISP and internet connections extremely affordable especially for students.
The reason why people so far have been embracing Windows and not Linux in India (an even among the young "hackers") is due to the fact that pirated copies of Windows can easily obtained.
Also, Microsoft is making bigger inroads because they already have "Indianized" versions of Windows.
Linux may be a smart alternative in India, but it still isn't a popular one. Majors such as Redhat need to put in a lot of money and advertising in India to capture the market and develop localized products.
I find it interesting that main stream Indian newspapers are giving thought to such geek dilemas such as why BSD is less widely used than Linux. It seems that the true test and fight of linux/unix variants versus Windows/Microsoft is going to be in Asia; China and India mainly. These are the huge markets of tomorrow with some of the highest growth rate in computer usage. Now is the time to capture market share; since it is always easier to capture market share as the market is created rather than have to take it from someone else. Also, these countries want and need inexpensive solutions; perfect for Linux marketing.
As Microsoft and others have shown us time and again, its marketing and not product quality which makes a mass selling/successful product. Linux has to improve customer perceptions, market more aggressively (75 % of the laymen still don't know about linux). Most importantly Linux should endaveour to capture opening markets such as in Latin America, China and India. These are markets still being built.
I think the author has neglected to point out some key things about the numbers given in that article. The fact that "In August, MP3.com sold 15,600 CDs on behalf of 26,700 artists listed" means nothing. My friend has some song of his on that site.. I downloaded it.. and I hope he doesn't read this.. but the song sucks !!
A better metric to guage how effective the mp3 sites would be to remove bottom 10-20 % artists and then look at the per artist number and also to look at the top 10 artists selling. As far as I know, the way these sites work, you can see which is the top selling artist and check them out. This seems to be something everyone would do if they came to the website for the first time.
Another thing that everyone assumes is that consumers are so net-savvy that they will download indie artists from these websites. This is the hardest part; the mp3.com type websites have to portray that David vs Goliath image to get people to actually visit their website and check out the artists. This will take time; its almost a social revolution. Traditionally, people always like to take recommendations for their music and movies. Also, only a percentage of net-savvy people are interested in indie-artists in the first place !!! Most prefer mainstream music.
This kid is being brain washed to use Windows.. somebody should donate a PC with linux on it;)
I don't think the case has anything to do with child labor - its like kids acting in movies. The kid is just going to be used for promotion of MSucks Windows. Good for him and his family. He can earn his college tution early in life:)
As an educationalist, I have often thought about this subject. I feel that it does not really matter if the information in books and that being taught in class is exactly accurate. What needs to be emphasized are the basics. Children have to be taught to think, to ask questions, to rationalize, to have a spirit of inquiry. Unfortunately, the classical model of education in high schools today is not equipped and not geared to do this.
Examples of this kind of educational system are ofcourse shown in movies such as Dead Poet's Society and To Sir with Love. However, Hollywood aside, it truely is a dilemna on how to teach teachers to better able to do their job. Half the problem stems from the fact that a lot of school teachers are teachers not by choice but due to a lack of other jobs. This leads to apathy and lack of the joy of teaching.
What can we do ? Well, we need to remodel our educational system to make classes more about children going out and discovering information on their own. Here the internet can play a profound role. A class assignment could be: - Read through the NASA web sites and find out as much information about Mars as possible. - Starting with the CIA World factbook and followed by whatever links you can find, make a presentation on a country of your choice.
Science and math require special attention. These are the subjects that teach us scientific and logical thinking. Children have to be thought rational and logical thinking at an early stage, instead of being asked to know by rote how to solve a certain class of problems (as is done today). We may want to look at the educational models of other countries which are producing so many mathematicians, scientists and engineers (examples, Germany, India, China)
Ofcourse, all of this can come about only if we do launch into debate about this in the first place. And its going to take more than a few slashdotters to make a difference:)
When I first came across Gnome and Kde, I was very confused about why there are 2 seemingly similar "free" efforts, why a lot of the linux community supports Gnome (since it is not based on QT), why instead of everyone getting behind one project and making sure we roll out something formidable together, there were 2 fragmented efforts. However, do you think that this competition/rivalry is actually healthy for the development of *good* window system ? Do you think that (unix-illiterate) consumers will be confused ? It seems that it is easy to spread FUD by saying that this will lead to several linux X application/API fragmentation.. we know thats bull but Tom, Dick, Harry and Sally may believe it.
The movie, Office Space, is a good and funny movie about computer programmers. However, it does not highlight computers or anything; its more about the office work environment.
I think the real danger of attacks on computer systems are to the civilian infrastructure. This happens to be exactly the target of terrorists; they want to terrorize the people and the govt. of a country.
Here are the scenerios: - there are a lot of foriegn contractors developing software for public utility, phone and other companies related to civilian infrastructure. So, the terrorist groups finds one who sympathizes with their cause (or their money) and this person inserts malicious back doors into the software.
- Most chip manufacturing is done abroad (ie the fabrication) and also a lot of design and development is also being done abroad. Again, insert a malicious hardware unit onto the processor which can be activated by only the right set of inputs. This is virtually impossible to detect.
To get an idea about how clear this danger is, read the article about the hacker group L0pht which was reported on/. yesterday. They claim they can take out most of America's electricity grid within minutes.
Slashdot Mirror
yeah I think its kind of the national supercomputer centers that the US universities had in late 80s/early 90s. They were called NCSA .. thats where Mosiac came from.
If every nation first tried to feed its people and then did scientific research, then the nation would never progress. The US would first have to work to get every Bum off the street, before it could fund any research.
You Idiot !!
Ofcourse they are called Indians - I am from India.
Where do you think the incorrect name for Native Americans came from ?? Christopher Columbus was looking for a new route to India and landed on Islands off of North America and thought he had reached India. So he called those people Indians.
I was talking to some of the Chinese people in my office and its interesting to hear their viewpoint: As far as they are concerned, the US have no right to be spying on China. First of all, the US is seen as the evil aggressor that is always trying to put them down - by supporting pro-democracy movements, Taiwan, bombing their embassy etc. And now their spy plane kills a loyal, brave fighter pilot. One guy I talked to was so overcome by jingoism that he could not even begin to see the possibility that the American plane could not have been the cause of the accident because it can't make fast, sudden, big turns. The Chinese govt. has twisted this thing to raise nationalistic sentiments in the country, because they have been reeling from recent Falan Gong (spelling ?) uprisings and the bombing of the school. Like with all authoritarian regimes, the govt. depends on controlling what the people think and feel. This is not going to be resolved easily !
We've already had a similar service at UC Irvine since last year. By summer of this year, it will become campus wide .. check it out at
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/ucinet/mobile/
(maybe its the dilbert zone time)
list of open source projects and benchmarks is at
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~sumitg/CadPages.html#Benc
people are beginning to use C or variants of C (see http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~specc)
for hardware design and simulation.
synthesis tool that generates hardware starting from C at
http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~spark
There is a list of open source projects and benchmarks atn ch
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~sumitg/CadPages.html#Be
Open source projects are big boon for research groups. The biggest problem that research groups have is that they do not have access to industry standard processors and do no have the resources to design one from scratch. So a whole set of these in public domain will mean a lot to the research community.
Also, to all the software people here, who do not know much about hardware design: open source hardware designs are just as exciting to the hardware community as open source software is to the software community.
To clarify/correct what some posters have said - we do NOT fiddle around with gates and low level stuff like that. That is only done to optimize design (its like writing assembly line code for core kernels). A lot of processor blocks are designed in high level hardware description languages, such as VHDL and Verilog.
Increasingly, people are beginning to use C or variants of C (see http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~specc)
for hardware design and simulation. We are working on a high level synthesis tool that generates hardware starting from C - check it out
at
http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~spark
Sumit
The most important thing you can do is give him a very solid math and physics basis. Programming is easy; any trained idiot can write code (not always good, but it will work). What is hard is abstract thought. We have few people who can do that well. Once his fundamentals are strong (and I am not talking about elementary math; I am talking about advanced math), then he can figure out anything.
about the GNU/Stallman editorial.
Its an interesting view from the developer's pov.
To quote
Many of us woke up this morning and read Richard Stallman's editorial on
Linux Today with a growing sense of incredulity. At first, some of us thought it
was a joke -- it didn't make any logical sense, after all. But after it sunk in
that Stallman was doing yet another snowjob on KDE, a lot of our incredulity
turned to anger.
Good reading at ZdNet
RMS seems like he wants to have an empire that he rules. His attitude is clear from his editorial and subtle words/phrases he uses.
First of all, he makes it look he along with his cronies decided to develop Gnome, then he insists on calling it GNU Gnome - everything is not GNU !
Its NOT GNU Linux and its NOT GNU Gnome !
I think RMS feels like if they call anything GNU, then he by default gets credit for it - thats why he insists on putting that label on all software he can.
Also, his tirade against KDE sounds so petty, it sounds like a 14 year old is complaining. Really,
what more can the KDE guys do to win our trust and full support !?
So, go KDE-ers !
Here is the complete article at San Jose Mercury's site.
One of the reasons at least I don't share my stuff is because I am scared the feds will come after me ! You know downloading is less illegal than actually distributing - difference between buying drugs and selling them. Also, some people use computers at office to do all this stuff - definitely don't want to get into legal trouble there !
Since a lot of people are asking these questions, let me give some statistics about India:
1 billion people
66 % literacy rate
20 Major/Different languages with 1000s of dialects each
30 % of the country can speak Hindi
10 % can speak, read and write English
Official Govt language Hindi, however actual Government Language is English - nearly all communication from the government is in local language and English !
Home PC Penetration; a few million.
ISP and internet connections extremely affordable
especially for students.
Did I miss anything ?
The reason why people so far have been embracing Windows and not Linux in India (an even among the young "hackers") is due to the fact that pirated copies of Windows can easily obtained.
Also, Microsoft is making bigger inroads because they already have "Indianized" versions of Windows.
Linux may be a smart alternative in India, but it still isn't a popular one. Majors such as Redhat need to put in a lot of money and advertising in India to capture the market and develop localized products.
I find it interesting that main stream Indian newspapers are giving thought to such geek dilemas such as why BSD is less widely used than Linux. It seems that the true test and fight of linux/unix variants versus Windows/Microsoft is going to be in Asia; China and India mainly. These are the huge markets of tomorrow with some of the highest growth rate in computer usage. Now is the time to capture market share; since it is always easier to capture market share as the market is created rather than have to take it from someone else. Also, these countries want and need inexpensive solutions; perfect for Linux marketing.
As Microsoft and others have shown us time and again, its marketing and not product quality which makes a mass selling/successful product. Linux has to improve customer perceptions, market more aggressively (75 % of the laymen still don't know about linux). Most importantly Linux should endaveour to capture opening markets such as in Latin America, China and India. These are markets still being built.
I think the author has neglected to point out some key things about the numbers given in that article. The fact that "In August, MP3.com sold 15,600 CDs on behalf of 26,700 artists listed" means nothing. My friend has some song of his on that site .. I downloaded it .. and I hope he doesn't read this .. but the song sucks !!
A better metric to guage how effective the mp3 sites would be to remove bottom 10-20 % artists and then look at the per artist number and also to look at the top 10 artists selling. As far as I know, the way these sites work, you can see which is the top selling artist and check them out. This seems to be something everyone would do if they came to the website for the first time.
Another thing that everyone assumes is that consumers are so net-savvy that they will download indie artists from these websites. This is the hardest part; the mp3.com type websites have to portray that David vs Goliath image to get people to actually visit their website and check out the artists. This will take time; its almost a social revolution. Traditionally, people always like to take recommendations for their music and movies. Also, only a percentage of net-savvy people are interested in indie-artists in the first place !!! Most prefer mainstream music.
Sumit
This kid is being brain washed to use Windows .. somebody should donate a PC with linux on it ;)
:)
I don't think the case has anything to do with child labor - its like kids acting in movies. The kid is just going to be used for promotion of MSucks Windows. Good for him and his family. He can earn his college tution early in life
Examples of this kind of educational system are ofcourse shown in movies such as Dead Poet's Society and To Sir with Love. However, Hollywood aside, it truely is a dilemna on how to teach teachers to better able to do their job. Half the problem stems from the fact that a lot of school teachers are teachers not by choice but due to a lack of other jobs. This leads to apathy and lack of the joy of teaching.
What can we do ? Well, we need to remodel our educational system to make classes more about children going out and discovering information on their own. Here the internet can play a profound role. A class assignment could be:
- Read through the NASA web sites and find out as much information about Mars as possible.
- Starting with the CIA World factbook and followed by whatever links you can find, make a presentation on a country of your choice.
Science and math require special attention. These are the subjects that teach us scientific and logical thinking. Children have to be thought rational and logical thinking at an early stage, instead of being asked to know by rote how to solve a certain class of problems (as is done today). We may want to look at the educational models of other countries which are producing so many mathematicians, scientists and engineers (examples, Germany, India, China)
Ofcourse, all of this can come about only if we do launch into debate about this in the first place. And its going to take more than a few slashdotters to make a difference :)
When I first came across Gnome and Kde, I was very confused about why there are 2 seemingly similar "free" efforts, why a lot of the linux community supports Gnome (since it is not based on QT), why instead of everyone getting behind one project and making sure we roll out something formidable together, there were 2 fragmented efforts. However, do you think that this competition/rivalry is actually healthy for the development of *good* window system ? Do you think that (unix-illiterate) consumers will be confused ? It seems that it is easy to spread FUD by saying that this will lead to several linux X application/API fragmentation .. we know thats bull but Tom, Dick, Harry and Sally may believe it.
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~sumitg/essays/MSvsPhd.htm
I think that the money is excellent as a Phd, so you can get both hapiness and money ! Comments welcome. Sumit
The movie, Office Space, is a good and funny movie about computer programmers. However, it does not highlight computers or anything; its more about the office work environment.
Sumit
That is the most lame article I have read on /.
/. is becoming so big that they are not able to control the quality of articles posted anymore.
Its amazing how
There have been so many articles that have been posted on some topic which was discussed just the day before.
CmdrTaco, are you listening ? And most importantly are you doing something about it !
I think the real danger of attacks on computer systems are to the civilian infrastructure. This happens to be exactly the target of terrorists; they want to terrorize the people and the govt. of a country.
/. yesterday. They claim they can take out most of America's electricity grid within minutes.
Here are the scenerios:
- there are a lot of foriegn contractors developing software for public utility, phone and other companies related to civilian infrastructure. So, the terrorist groups finds one who sympathizes with their cause (or their money) and this person inserts malicious back doors into the software.
- Most chip manufacturing is done abroad (ie the fabrication) and also a lot of design and development is also being done abroad. Again, insert a malicious hardware unit onto the processor which can be activated by only the right set of inputs. This is virtually impossible to detect.
To get an idea about how clear this danger is, read the article about the hacker group L0pht which was reported on