I think that rewriting it on VB is somehow related to the repeated failures.
VB is nice for the small things or even for the unambitious GUI layer of something larger, but it is just not suited for long-life projects - it introduces too much ugliness too early into the product life and maintenance usually makes it even uglier.
You could burn the extra energy using parachutes, slowing the ship down until low altitude and then lighting up the engines for a soft landing.
Keep also in mind that most of the take-off weight is fuel - the ship is much lighter when landing than when taking off.
It is also designed to use cheap fuels propellants, so it could be cheaper to add more fuel than to add wings (and more fuel, as the wings would be dead weight during most of the flight and they would require additional propellant to take them up with the ship).
Is it ethical to build something that has the potential to be as smart and rich as humans, perhaps much smarter snd richer, and then cripple it by making it so dumb as not wanting to realize its full potential, just because we find it convenient?
If there is to be a rule, it should be to make them as good as we can and as wise as they can possibly be - exemplary human beings.
And unless we kill ourselves before, we will have to deal with these questions when the first sentient robot feels compassion and demands better treatment for its lesser brothers.
Kicking an Aibo may not hurt it or make it feel bad, but it is not less wrong because of it. The smarter the robot, the more wrong it is to abuse it.
First, we compare how you install a program in that paragon of user-friendlyness, Windows:
1- Find out what program you need (for, say, download illegal movies) 2- Google for it 3- Find a legitimate site to download it without spyware 4- Download the program to the desktop 5- Run it with admin privileges so it can wreak havoc on your system as it wants 6- Do the Next-Next-Finish dance
Now, let's compare it to the MacOS X way of doing:
1- Find out what program you need (for, say, download illegal movies) 2- Google for it 3- Find the site for downloading it (little risk of spyware) 4- Download the.dmg to the desktop 5- Open the.dmg 6- Drag the program to the Applications folder
And then, let's compare it with the Debian/Ubuntu way:
1- Start Aptitude (from the System/Administration menu) 2- Search for the keywords 3- Choose between the search hits 4- Select them for installation 5- Press Apply.
Now, let's compare what to do to keep your programs up-to-date
On Windows:
1- Check regularly all web-sites for all programs you installed and see if there is a new version 2- Repeat steps 4 through 6 3- It is possible to have to uninstall the previous version before doing step 2. Most probably you will find it out too late, anyway.
On a Macintosh:
1- Check regularly all web-sites for all programs you installed and see if there is a new version 2- Repeat steps 4 through 6 3- There may still be some application files under "Library", but Mac users don't care.
On Ubuntu:
1- You just press a button and enter your password when prompted
As you see, Linux still has a very long way to beat the ease of use of Windows.
It's a well known fact Greenland is not only harboring terrorists under the ice cap, but also developing nuclear weapons and other means of mass-destructions. They are also suspect of being major factors in the climate change.
They must be invaded so the threat can be neutralized.
I imagine that if, for example, everything shifted over to RPM with YUM repositories, installing, updating and deleting packages could be managed through a convenient GUI such as Yumex. (It works really well in FC5 and 6)
Last time I saw, RPM was plagued with some architectural problems. It also appears to be very slow. Since I moved to Debian and later to Ubuntu, I came to appreciate the APT package manager.
Maybe there will be some other package manager that can deal with different OSs placing files in different parts of the file-system. Maybe there is.
It was more or less like this (it was different, it was in Portuguese, but it embodied the same ideas): "I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due; I will be loyal to the profession of engineering and just and generous to its members; I will lead my life and practice my profession in uprightness and honor; whatever project I shall undertake, it shall be for the good of mankind to the utmost of my power; I will keep far away from wrong, from corruption, and from tempting others to vicious practice; I will exercise my profession solely for the benefit of humanity and perform no act for a criminal purpose, even if solicited, far less suggest it; I will speak out against evil and unjust practice wheresoever I encounter it; I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics, or social standing to intervene between my duty and my work; even under threat, I will not use my professional knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity; I will endeavour to avoid waste and the consumption of non-renewable resources. I make these promises solemnly, freely, and upon my honor."
Just an idea: what if you could level the playfield by requiring both sides to have state appointed lawyers with limited assistance from company lawyers upon request from one party?
If such a mechanism did exist, a small company could require this to avoid some of the costs of a legal battle without giving tha larger fish an undue advantage.
If both companies are big enough, say, IBM and Microsoft, they could give up such protection and have their own lawyers fight.
I don't know if the US employs the same ideas, but in Brazil there are certain rights (sadly, the only examples that come to my mind are consumer rights) you just can't waive - they are yours and they remain yours independent of what kind of document you sign.
Things like these remind me that we _should_ have more civil rights one cannot give up.
It's a very nice idea, mainly because baby seals are very cute creatures and because real seals smell really bad.
My girlfriend tells me a story that when she went to Namibia, she went to see a beach where seals were having a sunbath. She had to throw away the clothes she was wearing that day because the smell would not come off.
I can't imagine the bad breath of a whale that eats these things.
If you have to do a GUI app, let's call it "foo", I would suggest you spend a some time creating "libfoo" first, to get the bare functionalities in place, its unit-tests (to keep yourself sane), then do "foo", the command line version you will use yourself, and then "gfoo" (or "kfoo", if I were a KDE person), the dumbed-down versions users that can't be "smarted-up" will use.
This way you end-up with three parts - a piece that can be reused and tested in a simple way, a part you can use yourself and another part your users will be happy to use. This way you can mitigate the risk of making the GUI tool do everything you need, because you will have the command-line tool for that.
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Isn't it a bit over generalizing to call all Brazilian women sluts?
I am not certain how much of Brazil you know, but I know quite a few sluts who never set foot in Brazil.
I think that rewriting it on VB is somehow related to the repeated failures.
VB is nice for the small things or even for the unambitious GUI layer of something larger, but it is just not suited for long-life projects - it introduces too much ugliness too early into the product life and maintenance usually makes it even uglier.
You could burn the extra energy using parachutes, slowing the ship down until low altitude and then lighting up the engines for a soft landing.
Keep also in mind that most of the take-off weight is fuel - the ship is much lighter when landing than when taking off.
It is also designed to use cheap fuels propellants, so it could be cheaper to add more fuel than to add wings (and more fuel, as the wings would be dead weight during most of the flight and they would require additional propellant to take them up with the ship).
I say it looks good.
I could pay for your car and you could drop the charges.
You can't simply drop the charges on murder.
Maybe if we can make the machine much smarter than humans, it can solve the philosophical problem for us.
Yet, we may have a problem understanding its reasoning.
Is it ethical to build something that has the potential to be as smart and rich as humans, perhaps much smarter snd richer, and then cripple it by making it so dumb as not wanting to realize its full potential, just because we find it convenient?
If there is to be a rule, it should be to make them as good as we can and as wise as they can possibly be - exemplary human beings.
And unless we kill ourselves before, we will have to deal with these questions when the first sentient robot feels compassion and demands better treatment for its lesser brothers.
Kicking an Aibo may not hurt it or make it feel bad, but it is not less wrong because of it. The smarter the robot, the more wrong it is to abuse it.
Would you be arrested if you damaged a sentient robot beyond repair (killing it)?
I could have said "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade", but I guess yours is somewhat simpler (but updates less stuff)
With 3 AC fanboys replying I must have said something right.
First, we compare how you install a program in that paragon of user-friendlyness, Windows:
.dmg to the desktop .dmg
1- Find out what program you need (for, say, download illegal movies)
2- Google for it
3- Find a legitimate site to download it without spyware
4- Download the program to the desktop
5- Run it with admin privileges so it can wreak havoc on your system as it wants
6- Do the Next-Next-Finish dance
Now, let's compare it to the MacOS X way of doing:
1- Find out what program you need (for, say, download illegal movies)
2- Google for it
3- Find the site for downloading it (little risk of spyware)
4- Download the
5- Open the
6- Drag the program to the Applications folder
And then, let's compare it with the Debian/Ubuntu way:
1- Start Aptitude (from the System/Administration menu)
2- Search for the keywords
3- Choose between the search hits
4- Select them for installation
5- Press Apply.
Now, let's compare what to do to keep your programs up-to-date
On Windows:
1- Check regularly all web-sites for all programs you installed and see if there is a new version
2- Repeat steps 4 through 6
3- It is possible to have to uninstall the previous version before doing step 2. Most probably you will find it out too late, anyway.
On a Macintosh:
1- Check regularly all web-sites for all programs you installed and see if there is a new version
2- Repeat steps 4 through 6
3- There may still be some application files under "Library", but Mac users don't care.
On Ubuntu:
1- You just press a button and enter your password when prompted
As you see, Linux still has a very long way to beat the ease of use of Windows.
AIX, zOS, OpenVMS, HP-UX...
Windows is a cash-cow OS, but not for any hardware vendor.
It's a well known fact Greenland is not only harboring terrorists under the ice cap, but also developing nuclear weapons and other means of mass-destructions. They are also suspect of being major factors in the climate change.
They must be invaded so the threat can be neutralized.
Last time I saw, RPM was plagued with some architectural problems. It also appears to be very slow. Since I moved to Debian and later to Ubuntu, I came to appreciate the APT package manager.
Maybe there will be some other package manager that can deal with different OSs placing files in different parts of the file-system. Maybe there is.
I will wait for the new BeOS.
If these robo-deer prove as profitable as the OP said, they will hardly become extinct.
I for one welcome our new robotic-deer overlords.
When I graduated as an Engineer, I took an oath.
It was more or less like this (it was different, it was in Portuguese, but it embodied the same ideas): "I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity. I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude which is their due; I will be loyal to the profession of engineering and just and generous to its members; I will lead my life and practice my profession in uprightness and honor; whatever project I shall undertake, it shall be for the good of mankind to the utmost of my power; I will keep far away from wrong, from corruption, and from tempting others to vicious practice; I will exercise my profession solely for the benefit of humanity and perform no act for a criminal purpose, even if solicited, far less suggest it; I will speak out against evil and unjust practice wheresoever I encounter it; I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics, or social standing to intervene between my duty and my work; even under threat, I will not use my professional knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity; I will endeavour to avoid waste and the consumption of non-renewable resources. I make these promises solemnly, freely, and upon my honor."
I wish more of us took it seriously.
The fact that Soviet Union actually never nuked anyone would never convince the US to drop the production of nuclear bombs during the Cold-war.
They have the capability to threaten other companies - that's enough for me.
Just an idea: what if you could level the playfield by requiring both sides to have state appointed lawyers with limited assistance from company lawyers upon request from one party?
If such a mechanism did exist, a small company could require this to avoid some of the costs of a legal battle without giving tha larger fish an undue advantage.
If both companies are big enough, say, IBM and Microsoft, they could give up such protection and have their own lawyers fight.
I don't know if the US employs the same ideas, but in Brazil there are certain rights (sadly, the only examples that come to my mind are consumer rights) you just can't waive - they are yours and they remain yours independent of what kind of document you sign.
Things like these remind me that we _should_ have more civil rights one cannot give up.
Sure he will, most probably at Microsoft or a company connected to it, just like Rick Belluzzo did after ruining HP-UX and SGI.
They know how to show gratitude.
Watching the future of Darl McBride's career will prove interesting, as well as the rest of SCO's top executives.
Maybe Novell had a way to connecto SCO to Microsoft and that is part of the deal they signed (for about 350 million).
It's a very nice idea, mainly because baby seals are very cute creatures and because real seals smell really bad.
My girlfriend tells me a story that when she went to Namibia, she went to see a beach where seals were having a sunbath. She had to throw away the clothes she was wearing that day because the smell would not come off.
I can't imagine the bad breath of a whale that eats these things.
If you have to do a GUI app, let's call it "foo", I would suggest you spend a some time creating "libfoo" first, to get the bare functionalities in place, its unit-tests (to keep yourself sane), then do "foo", the command line version you will use yourself, and then "gfoo" (or "kfoo", if I were a KDE person), the dumbed-down versions users that can't be "smarted-up" will use.
This way you end-up with three parts - a piece that can be reused and tested in a simple way, a part you can use yourself and another part your users will be happy to use. This way you can mitigate the risk of making the GUI tool do everything you need, because you will have the command-line tool for that.
Can I fork the lawyer and rename it?
It's wonderful to hang out at slashdot. Where else would people get this joke?
wish I had modpoints...