So here's a different idea. Instead of trying to reduce the number of Open Source licenses, people should instead come up with a comparison chart. Much like the Unix rosetta stone except for legalese, identifying general contract features in common (or different) between them.
Is there any digital PVR type of machine that I can get without paying the $15/month fee? I'm wanting something to replace my VCR, but without the tapes. I don't want or need it to automatically record "suggested" shows for me. And I don't care about most other frilly Tivo features. I don't have cable TV, and I don't need it to play my MP3s or be connected to the 'net. Just plain-old record channel 4 at 8PM for one hour, etc. I want to pay $250, plug it in, and use it. Is there anything out there like that? Someone once mentioned that you could have a TiVo without the montly fee, but according to their website...
A TiVo® box is intended for use only with a paid subscription to the TiVo® service. Without the TiVo service, a TiVo box has extremely limited functionality. No functionality is represented or should be expected.
There's more than just device driver isolation. Think about all the virtualization techniques out there (Xen, User Mode Linux, VMware, QEmu, Plex86, Linux VServer, etc.) Now think about what it would be like if high levels of process isolation were available "Right-Out-of-the-Box". That's the whole idea behind a multi-server like the Hurd.
A running TUNES system will have many features that are just unimaginable on current systems (see below). Many of them are seperately implemented as isolated pieces of software on various different systems. Only by basing the system on semantics-based reflectivity can these features truly be integrated, and whatever other features users will develop, to be dynamically combined in a decentralized way, freeing the world from existing rackets.
To sum up the main features in technical terms, TUNES is a project to replace existing Operating Systems, Languages, and User Interfaces by a completely rethought Computing System, based on a fully reflective architecture with standard support for unification of system abstractions, security based on formal proofs from explicit negociated axioms, higher-order functions, self-extensible syntax, fine-grained composition, distributed networking, orthogonally persistent storage, fault-tolerant computation, version-aware identification, decentralized (no-kernel) communication, dynamic code regeneration, high-level models of encapsulation, hardware-independent exchange of code, migratable actors, yet (eventually) a highly-performant set of dynamic compilation tools (phew).
These are not buzzwords, but technical terms, and you should find precise definitions in the Glossary.
Dasher is a pretty interesting new way to interact with text.
(In fact I wrote this note with Dasher.)
Dasher is an information-efficient text-entry interface, driven by natural continuous pointing gestures. Dasher is a competitive text-entry system wherever a full-size keyboard cannot be used.
But you really have to see it in action to understand what it is and how it works.
The MacOS is NOT a Unix workstation! Why would you think it is? When has it ever been put forth that way?
I count about 10 people in this article alone, that are busy proclaiming that their undying love for OSX is mostly due to is underlying Unix core, hidden below a nice GUI. Here's a sampling...
But you have to admit, concatenative languages are pretty interesting, even if the syntax is a little bit of a hassle. There also a newly released online book that might help.
If you're mostly looking for new experiences, you might also give something like Plan 9 a try. And if you're really looking for adventure, there is alway the Hurd.
Maybe you should look at a chart of age distribution for the U.S. and compare it to a chart of age distribution for the Congo.
One of those charts looks like it could support old people while having a minimal impact on younger generations for as far as the eye can see, the other, not-so-much. And it only gets worse for other countries, like Italy. Judge for yourself.
FYI, the bulk of SS payments go to middle class people, not to poor people "freezing in the streets". And if you know someone freezing in the steets because of poverty, you should at least have the decency to buy them a one-way bus ticket (senior discount!) to Florida (currently 64F in Miami).
Here's my sure-fire easy solution that I think everyone can agree on. There are two basic prongs to my plan. First, we're going to cut SS benefits in half. Then, when the old farts start whining, we'll merely remind them that they should be thankful that we don't throw the whole lot of them in jail for the criminal mismanagement of government finances which happened on *their* watch. Problem solved.
Because receipts (taxes) and payouts (entitlements) can be calculated quite accurately in the short term (five to ten years), and predicted (with a range of assumptions) for periods beyond that timeframe, there will never be a sudden collapse.
We'll, until the taxpayers who end up paying the bill realize how easy it is to move their assets/incomes offshore to a much friendlier jurisdiction with secret numbered bank accounts.
So I assume you are a proponent of means testing, i.e. making sure that the only people who collect social security are actually poor instead of merely being old. Here's the easy way to do it. After retirement (at say 65-70) the gov't will give enough so that you have at least X dollars per year (where X is a low value, say $25,000). If you earn $10,000 from your own personal investments/work, the gov't will pony up another 15 grand. You make $25k and up, you get squat.
The answer the problem of trusting articles could be solved very nicely by implementing a PGP-like Web of Trust idea. For example, if you came across an article that you found especially good, you could be given the option to digitally sign it. Then anyone who trusted you would have confidence that the article is sound. Or maybe they don't know you, but they trust someone who trusts you. And so on. Then you come across an article which stinks to high heaven. So you put the author on the untrusted list. And now the system would block you from seeing contributions from this user. And everyone who trusted you would end up censoring this user to some extent. In the end, everyone could end up with their own personal, customized fork of wikipedia.
Slashdot Mirror
You might also be interested in Haskell vs. Ada vs. C++ vs. Awk vs. ..., An Experiment in Software Prototyping Productivity
lisp in perl
300mm is the size of the silicon wafer, not the size of anything on the chip.
- CCured
- Cyclone
As well as more run-of-the-mill alternatives like Valgrind and other memory bounds checkers.How about Tunes?
There's more than just device driver isolation. Think about all the virtualization techniques out there (Xen, User Mode Linux, VMware, QEmu, Plex86, Linux VServer, etc.) Now think about what it would be like if high levels of process isolation were available "Right-Out-of-the-Box". That's the whole idea behind a multi-server like the Hurd.
And if you're really inclined to help the Hurd along, and have more money than hack time, you could always make adonation.
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Nobody says that OSX can't be "just another Unix" -- it just hides it by default
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my next desktop machine will also be a Mac because I love the UNIX base
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a unix OS with a nice consistent GUI AND the ability to run X11 apps
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I'd say if you want a unix workstation, OSX is by far the best
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As an operating system, Mac OS X and Linux are very similar; Unix was designed to be.
And apparently Apple itself thinks OSX might have something to do with Unix.If you're mostly looking for new experiences, you might also give something like Plan 9 a try. And if you're really looking for adventure, there is alway the Hurd.
Programmable programming languages? I'm sure it'll make the lisp-macro master Paul Graham smile.
Maybe you should look at a chart of age distribution for the U.S. and compare it to a chart of age distribution for the Congo. One of those charts looks like it could support old people while having a minimal impact on younger generations for as far as the eye can see, the other, not-so-much. And it only gets worse for other countries, like Italy. Judge for yourself.
FYI, the bulk of SS payments go to middle class people, not to poor people "freezing in the streets". And if you know someone freezing in the steets because of poverty, you should at least have the decency to buy them a one-way bus ticket (senior discount!) to Florida (currently 64F in Miami).
Question. If people aren't smart enough to save for their own retirement, are they smart enough to vote? Explain.
Here's my sure-fire easy solution that I think everyone can agree on. There are two basic prongs to my plan. First, we're going to cut SS benefits in half. Then, when the old farts start whining, we'll merely remind them that they should be thankful that we don't throw the whole lot of them in jail for the criminal mismanagement of government finances which happened on *their* watch. Problem solved.
So I assume you are a proponent of means testing, i.e. making sure that the only people who collect social security are actually poor instead of merely being old. Here's the easy way to do it. After retirement (at say 65-70) the gov't will give enough so that you have at least X dollars per year (where X is a low value, say $25,000). If you earn $10,000 from your own personal investments/work, the gov't will pony up another 15 grand. You make $25k and up, you get squat.
The answer the problem of trusting articles could be solved very nicely by implementing a PGP-like Web of Trust idea. For example, if you came across an article that you found especially good, you could be given the option to digitally sign it. Then anyone who trusted you would have confidence that the article is sound. Or maybe they don't know you, but they trust someone who trusts you. And so on. Then you come across an article which stinks to high heaven. So you put the author on the untrusted list. And now the system would block you from seeing contributions from this user. And everyone who trusted you would end up censoring this user to some extent. In the end, everyone could end up with their own personal, customized fork of wikipedia.