That is the problem. People will not cobble it up. For most of us (including me, who could possibly build this thing, but have no inclination to do so), a finished product sold in a box is required. AFAIK, the Zaurus is not even being sold in the US anymore.
Remember: The value is in having them made cheap and by the thousands and everybody having (or being able to buy) one so they can exchange their files.
I would keep this to myself, but, since it is highly unlikely I will ever develop it or even work seriously in its development, I will share this very simple requirements with you.
What I want (and what I think the market would love to) is an e-book reader I could hook up to my computer and see it as an USB hub connected to a disk and a printer. If I drag a bunch of PDF files to it (and a popular format is essential for this to work) I should be able to read them. If I print anything on the device, it will be PDFized and stored on it. The device should automatically index all documents as to make them searchable and provide a graphical search (maybe like the one I had with Folio Views). A timeline interface for locating stuff wouild be great. The device could have some DRM for books I buy in electronic format (if I ever buy any), but should be able to transmit non-protected documents by some wireless port (BlueTooth, IR, 802.11). Diffing PDFs would be a nice touch.
Also, making it become a PDA by allowing people to port software (hint - Qtopia should be rather easy) for it would make it a killer.
But I will say it is because it inspires people. It inspires the explorers in us. We, humans, tend to explore our environment, It was a valuable skill for our ancestors as it is valuable now. We are all curious.
Of course, space travel is somewhat between "damn hard" and "barely doable" and humans are also quite fragile. Putting people on other planets is going to be very complicated.
The second good reason is that bad things do happen. Given a very long timeframe, really bad things will happen to Earth and I bet we will be unable to counter at least one of them. And one really bad thing is enough to wipe our species out. I am not ready to give up on us, so, I am all for having Plan-B. Not now, not in the next hundred years perhaps, but, someday, we must start thinking hard about it.
If we are to sit on this planet and on this planet only, we will, someday, join our cousins the dinosaurs and trilobites.
I will be useful to search for bomb recipes after Homeland Security makes Google log or filter queries on this and other subjects that are only of interest to terrorists (like "freedom", "democracy", "civil rights", "secret prisions" and such)
Either Symantec will report lots of bugs they find and thus help improve the quality of open source or they will do nothing to improve it and, by reporting nothing, they will be stating FOSS is at least as secure as their own products.
Or they could also report lots of false bugs and get discredited by this.
Your DLL problems are a problem of Windows, not of C++. C++ does not try (nor it should) to fix Microsoft's architecural problems. C++ just tries to be as powerful and the least intrusive it can be.
I often find that programming with C++ for Windows is mostly programming for Windows, with a ver little tiny bit of C++ thrown in to bind things together. Expanding on the reasoning on the first paragraph, it seems C++ succeeds admirably well on this.
At first, Intel touted the Itanium as the next mainstream processor. The workstation-server rethinking came after they realized they coundn't make it cheap enough or fast enough - better yet - when they realized Microsoft coundn't make Windows run fast enough on it.
Itanium taught (again) no one should trust Microsoft to support their products or make a product that is only viable if Microsoft supports it. MIPS, PowerPC (non-Macintosh) and Alpha existed while there was a Windows version for them and vanished when there wasn't.
Your post implies the simplest viable life form is DNA based with highly specialized structures like ribosomes when, in fact, they are not required to form from the primordial soup.
Life can start simple. A single molecule that reacts with other molecules around it and makes imperfect copies of itself is enough. Given time, all suitable molecules will be used and live, even if primitive, will be everywhere.
Since the copies are not perfect, mutation does happen and you will have a lot of different "copiers" in your soup, some better that the others, some building more complex structures that can, in turn, copy themselves.
I agree with you. Expecting cell based lifeforms in the first week of a biosphere is ludicrous, but you are wrong. Cells, nuclei and DNA are only one way of life to express itself. It happens to be the way we know because once a certain kind of life dominates, there is little space left for other forms. It happened here.
There are sure other forms of organization that happened all over the place. Remember: billions of places over billions of years make a lot of attemps on life.
I would like to add that a software architect that thinks he can code and that nobody dares to contradict is a very dangerous kind of software architect.
No need to bash them or to compare their offer with gmaps... If it it good enough, it will stand on its own merits. If it is not, it will still depend on developer effort paid by Autodesk.
Anyway, the more people benefit from this, the better for all of us.
The cheap hosting options escaped me completely. There are people who are willing to live with PHP and MySQL as far as they don't have to pay too much for it.
All things equal, I prefer either JSF/JSTL/JSP or Zope/Plone. I know what you mean.
The single biggest problem with the MP part of the LAMP stack is that both PHP and MySQL attract the wrong kind of developers.
The developers who are willing to live with the shortcomings of PHP and MySQL should consider if they really want to develop software. They are just like the people who are willing to live with the shortcomings of VB6 and Jet databases - they live with them because they know nothing else. While the query language of MySQL has improved with the latest releases, it is still not quite on par with, say, PostgreSQL. Do a somewhat complex join and you will see MySQL's speed go down the drain. See what happens when you have lots of concurrent long-running transactions.
MySQL screams "cheap" since its beginning and no amount of engineering will make it look well built. It may look "overbuilt", at best.
Could it be possible that all religions evolve in similar paths?
The current muslim extremists and the catholic ones of a couple centuries ago and the current catholic church suprisingly enlightened stand about science (and the not-so-surprising stand on AIDS prevention) are interesting and could be important signs.
It seems to me this current stupidity about evolution is just a fad, bound to disappear in a couple decades.
Or centuries... It is hard to predict the future this way;-)
You can hardly fault a government from wielding its power to make the world better for its citizens (isn't that's their function, after all?).
I really didn't want to say that, but spending too much effort on making the world a better place for its own citizens without much regard to others resulted in a lot of theocracies, kleptocracies and dictatorships, a couple planes being flown into buildings, lots of dead people, a few questionable wars, a bunch of kafkesque prisions with kafkesque prisioners and a quite questionable presidential re-election.
Most definitely, the world is far worse a place now. For just about everybody.
Slashdot Mirror
To put it shortly, PHP is VB3 for the web.
That is the problem. People will not cobble it up. For most of us (including me, who could possibly build this thing, but have no inclination to do so), a finished product sold in a box is required. AFAIK, the Zaurus is not even being sold in the US anymore.
Remember: The value is in having them made cheap and by the thousands and everybody having (or being able to buy) one so they can exchange their files.
I would keep this to myself, but, since it is highly unlikely I will ever develop it or even work seriously in its development, I will share this very simple requirements with you.
What I want (and what I think the market would love to) is an e-book reader I could hook up to my computer and see it as an USB hub connected to a disk and a printer. If I drag a bunch of PDF files to it (and a popular format is essential for this to work) I should be able to read them. If I print anything on the device, it will be PDFized and stored on it. The device should automatically index all documents as to make them searchable and provide a graphical search (maybe like the one I had with Folio Views). A timeline interface for locating stuff wouild be great. The device could have some DRM for books I buy in electronic format (if I ever buy any), but should be able to transmit non-protected documents by some wireless port (BlueTooth, IR, 802.11). Diffing PDFs would be a nice touch.
Also, making it become a PDA by allowing people to port software (hint - Qtopia should be rather easy) for it would make it a killer.
Will someone please build it? I really need one.
I am tempted to say "because it is fun".
But I will say it is because it inspires people. It inspires the explorers in us. We, humans, tend to explore our environment, It was a valuable skill for our ancestors as it is valuable now. We are all curious.
Of course, space travel is somewhat between "damn hard" and "barely doable" and humans are also quite fragile. Putting people on other planets is going to be very complicated.
The second good reason is that bad things do happen. Given a very long timeframe, really bad things will happen to Earth and I bet we will be unable to counter at least one of them. And one really bad thing is enough to wipe our species out. I am not ready to give up on us, so, I am all for having Plan-B. Not now, not in the next hundred years perhaps, but, someday, we must start thinking hard about it.
If we are to sit on this planet and on this planet only, we will, someday, join our cousins the dinosaurs and trilobites.
I will be useful to search for bomb recipes after Homeland Security makes Google log or filter queries on this and other subjects that are only of interest to terrorists (like "freedom", "democracy", "civil rights", "secret prisions" and such)
It will just make Newton's past longer.
Would an Amiga emulator give Amiga a future? Would an MSX emulator give MSX one? Oops.. There are already Amiga and MSX emulators...
Sorry, Newton-ers. Life is not fair.
It could be funny to watch.
Either Symantec will report lots of bugs they find and thus help improve the quality of open source or they will do nothing to improve it and, by reporting nothing, they will be stating FOSS is at least as secure as their own products.
Or they could also report lots of false bugs and get discredited by this.
Worst of all: It's uglier and more expensive than Apple's 30 in Cinema Display.
A ppleStore?family=AppleDisplays
e tails.aspx/monitor_3007wfp?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/
against
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productd
Just out of curiosity, I wouild like to see how well NT performed on Clipper and SPARC. Anyone seen it?
Your DLL problems are a problem of Windows, not of C++. C++ does not try (nor it should) to fix Microsoft's architecural problems. C++ just tries to be as powerful and the least intrusive it can be.
I often find that programming with C++ for Windows is mostly programming for Windows, with a ver little tiny bit of C++ thrown in to bind things together. Expanding on the reasoning on the first paragraph, it seems C++ succeeds admirably well on this.
My USD 0.02
At first, Intel touted the Itanium as the next mainstream processor. The workstation-server rethinking came after they realized they coundn't make it cheap enough or fast enough - better yet - when they realized Microsoft coundn't make Windows run fast enough on it.
Itanium taught (again) no one should trust Microsoft to support their products or make a product that is only viable if Microsoft supports it. MIPS, PowerPC (non-Macintosh) and Alpha existed while there was a Windows version for them and vanished when there wasn't.
Itanium is just one more casualty.
They tried with Itanic. Many other candidates existed to dethrone the x86 - MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC. None succeeded.
Yet, we can blame AMD, not Intel, for lending some life into the x86 with the AMD64.
Your post implies the simplest viable life form is DNA based with highly specialized structures like ribosomes when, in fact, they are not required to form from the primordial soup.
Life can start simple. A single molecule that reacts with other molecules around it and makes imperfect copies of itself is enough. Given time, all suitable molecules will be used and live, even if primitive, will be everywhere.
Since the copies are not perfect, mutation does happen and you will have a lot of different "copiers" in your soup, some better that the others, some building more complex structures that can, in turn, copy themselves.
I agree with you. Expecting cell based lifeforms in the first week of a biosphere is ludicrous, but you are wrong. Cells, nuclei and DNA are only one way of life to express itself. It happens to be the way we know because once a certain kind of life dominates, there is little space left for other forms. It happened here.
There are sure other forms of organization that happened all over the place. Remember: billions of places over billions of years make a lot of attemps on life.
I would like to add that a software architect that thinks he can code and that nobody dares to contradict is a very dangerous kind of software architect.
No need to bash them or to compare their offer with gmaps... If it it good enough, it will stand on its own merits. If it is not, it will still depend on developer effort paid by Autodesk.
Anyway, the more people benefit from this, the better for all of us.
Sorry. I was unfair ;-)
The cheap hosting options escaped me completely. There are people who are willing to live with PHP and MySQL as far as they don't have to pay too much for it.
All things equal, I prefer either JSF/JSTL/JSP or Zope/Plone. I know what you mean.
Sorry for the collateral damage
The single biggest problem with the MP part of the LAMP stack is that both PHP and MySQL attract the wrong kind of developers.
The developers who are willing to live with the shortcomings of PHP and MySQL should consider if they really want to develop software. They are just like the people who are willing to live with the shortcomings of VB6 and Jet databases - they live with them because they know nothing else. While the query language of MySQL has improved with the latest releases, it is still not quite on par with, say, PostgreSQL. Do a somewhat complex join and you will see MySQL's speed go down the drain. See what happens when you have lots of concurrent long-running transactions.
MySQL screams "cheap" since its beginning and no amount of engineering will make it look well built. It may look "overbuilt", at best.
Could it be possible that all religions evolve in similar paths?
;-)
The current muslim extremists and the catholic ones of a couple centuries ago and the current catholic church suprisingly enlightened stand about science (and the not-so-surprising stand on AIDS prevention) are interesting and could be important signs.
It seems to me this current stupidity about evolution is just a fad, bound to disappear in a couple decades.
Or centuries... It is hard to predict the future this way
Neither Alpha nor SPARC
AMD or VIA could... OK. I should have used "Preview"...
AMD or VIA would build a cheap multi-core x86 based on VIA's or Geode cores... Sun could sell systems with them as developer boxes running Solaris 10.
BTW, what would happen to performance if you started with a Geode core and spent the rest of your wafer-area budget with Itanic-size caches?
For now, I have no hope to have one of these on my desktop anytime soon.
Well... That is debatable ;-)
I really didn't want to say that, but spending too much effort on making the world a better place for its own citizens without much regard to others resulted in a lot of theocracies, kleptocracies and dictatorships, a couple planes being flown into buildings, lots of dead people, a few questionable wars, a bunch of kafkesque prisions with kafkesque prisioners and a quite questionable presidential re-election.
Most definitely, the world is far worse a place now. For just about everybody.
Don't think murder. Think abortion.
It seems http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/ collapsed into a singularity due to overwhelming /. traffic...