The point is, there is a big difference between moderation based on 'quality' of individual posts, and a rating system based on credibility.
I might create a new account for myself, pretend to be from Cisco, or Microsoft, or Red Hat, or whoever, and post lots of interesting, detailed but totally bullshit comments. Many of them would get moderated upwards; after a while I might even become 'elite' and get all my comments posted at score=2. But unless you checked all my previous postings, you'd have no way of knowing that I were talking rubbish.
Ideally, there would be some way of replying to a post saying 'yes, this is factually correct', or 'no, this is rubbish', citing URLs or other facts as proof. We could then build up a credibility profile of each author.
Monterrey. The wildcard OS that might be a flop or might be the greatest Unix ever. In either case, you're covered. Unlike SCO by itself, which would die a flaming death on the failure of Monterrey, you always retain the option to cut your losses and bail (leaving IBM with another OS/2). But if it succeeds and doubts persist about Linux's scalability beyond 4-8 processor systems, you can position Monterrey as the high-end partner to Red Hat Linux.
But if Red Hat did buy SCO and acquire Monterey, they couldn't make it free, because the copyright is shared with IBM. They'd have to persuade IBM to release it as free software, or else start selling non-free stuff, or else ditch Monterey altogether.
Actually, I think the problem is with the DOS virtual machine. XaoS includes support for *text-mode* realtime fractal zooming, using AA-lib, and it is this I was trying to use. I also bluescreened just by asking for the usage message (which worked the first time).
I think I have finally found a use for Microsoft's obnoxious 'policy manager' - fix this security hole by stopping users from running DOS applications.
As long as he wants to "kill Unix", I don't think there's any other company out there who needs him.
There is only one operating system out there doing a passable job of killing Unix, and it's not from Microsoft.
I am curious why Compaq isn't doing something more agressive with OpenVMS; see my other comment. Maybe they could poach Cutler and the gang back from Microsoft.
I don't think that Digital could ever release NT source code. They will have licensed it under a strict NDA from Microsoft.
Given the similarities between VMS and NT (I would have included a link to 'Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story' published by Windows NT Magazine, but they won't let you read it any longer), I have wondered whether Compaq could free VMS, tweak it a little, slap X11 and WINE on top, and come up with a free replacement for Windows NT (if not 100% compatible, at least it would support NT concepts like the registry better than Unix does).
Unfortunately, although VMS and NT are very similar, and some NT 'features' such as the registry have been fed back into VMS, that doesn't mean they are the same. But wouldn't it be nice?
Stupid, but marginally better than 'OSF/1'. They can't call it 'Digital Unix' since the Digital brand has all but disappeared. I think we will have to call it 'DEC Unix' - the name 'DEC' will probably annoy the Compaq marketing people even more than it annoyed the Digital marketing people.
Personally, I prefer NT3.51 to 4.0. It *feels* more solid and stable as well as being more stable. Probably it's that clunky Win3.1 interface that gives the 'solid' feel, compared to the Win95 interface with Start Menus flitting up and down and random popups appearing all the time.
Anyway, I believe that between the release of Win95 and NT4, Microsoft released the new shell as an addon for NT3.51. If you ran 3.51 with the new shell, it might be a good way to get a stable Windows system with a modern interface (as well as lower system requirements than the 64MB minimum recommended for NT4SP5). I think it was freely downloadable, but I haven't found a copy on Microsoft's site (the filename was newshell.exe, I am told). Does anyone have a copy?
I can understand that businesses might be wary of letting their competitors know what they are buying, but I don't see why ordinary consumers *should* care.
If Amazon wants to take details of what books I buy, and share them with other book buyers to help them find books they want, I don't have a problem with that. In turn, I would hope that the other buyers will be happy to share their data to help me out.
It's not as if disclosing what type of books you like is any big breach of privacy. Many people put up web pages containing such things, or their lists of bookmarks, or whatever else.
I've bluescreened my NT4SP5 box twice today by running the DOS version of XaoS. This is a consistent, reproducible way to bluescreen NT (it worked on another machine with SP3, too.)
XaoS is an excellent realtime fractal zoomer, BTW. But don't run it on NT (even with the 'Windows-friendly' -i_love_bill switch) unless you have synced your disks first.
What kind of advantage is Joe User going to see with a 600 MHz PIII that he won't with a 500 MHz Celeron?
No, you don't understand! The Pentium III (r) makes the Internet come alive! It gives you dancing Intel bunnymen and strange viking-type people to enrich your Web experience! If you're not using a Pentium III (r) processor to browse the Web, you're missing out!
I don't know that the open source model will translate to books.
I'm not sure that the bazaar model would translate at all well to a Linux 'installation and getting started' book. To take one example, how much swap space is needed? Everyone has their own opinions on this; any 'collaborative' book could not be decisive. It might be like 'design by comittee'.
The point is, most books need an author with an opinion. Even though expert users may not always agree with the author's opinion, it's needed to pull things together and keep the book focussed.
One way this could be made to work is similar to how many successful free software projects work - make it modular. If the book is split into twenty chapters, with at most two people working on each chapter, then you wouldn't have people stepping on each others' toes. You'd also need a single editor who has the final say on what goes in and what goes out, with maybe a couple of sub-editors who check and revise things before sending them upwards.
I don't think they will choose Qt, because you can't develop proprietary software with it unless you pay hefty licence fees. Not only would Borland have to pay up, but possibly also every Delphi developer. Unless they cut a deal with Troll Tech, of course.
I have heard that sometimes, CPU makers get round the problem of low yields from cache by making two versions of a chip, one with cache and one without. The versions without cache are just those where the cache failed quality control, and has been disabled. If only part of the cache is flawed, you can disable just that part and produce a low-end version with smaller cache.
I heard that a particular 386 clone which came in two versions, with 4KB and 8KB cache, used this technique. The 4KB version was identical to the more expensive chip, but with half the cache disabled.
Firstly, Knuth has recently proposed a solution to this problem, where 'kilobyte' = 10 ** 3 bytes, and 'large kilobyte' = 2**10 bytes: see 'What is a kilobyte?' at his news page.
Secondly, the main reason hard disk manufacturers prefer the smaller decimal units is that it makes their disks sound bigger.
Thirdly, I believe that there is a difference in captialization for 'kilobyte' depending on which kind you mean. 1 kB = 1000 bytes, but 1 KB = 1024 bytes. (Don't forget also that the abbreviation for 'byte' is 'B'; lowercase 'b' is for 'bit'.)
I think that beer is actually free in the GNU sense, because once you have it, you can do anything you like with it. Unfortunately, trademark laws mean that you might have to change the name a little, but apart from that it is indeed 'free'. There is no licence agreement restricting what you can use it for, how many people can drink it at once, etc.
I am giving up the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and being deprived of a means of communication as a result.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'presumed innocent'. Do you mean that the government is trying to stop you doing something, not as punishment for a proven crime, but just because of what you might do? But there are plenty of examples of this elsewhere. Firearms laws are a classic examples, but there are many others. The question is, is it going too far in this case?
Your attitude that bureaucrats have the right to decide these things boggles my mind. Do you not understand your own constitution? For gods sakes, I'm a Canadian, and I seem to believe in the US Constitution more than you do!
Just for the record, I do not support banning of satellite phones just because they are difficult to tap. The loss of freedom does not justify the rather hazy benefits to law enforcement. But I understand that governments do sometimes have to make these decisions. BTW, I'm not American.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but just how multiuser is 3.1 (not 3.11)?
Just how multiuser is NT? There is Terminal Server, but most NT installations allow only one user at a time, although you can create multiple accounts.
Some people might say that Linux is becoming clogged up with newbies and 'lusers', and that they are moving on to more exclusive systems such as FreeBSD. Some Amiga users are actually pleased that the Amiga scene is dying, because it means that the only people left are the real diehards ().
But you can take the opposite view! Let's get as many clueless mainstream users into Linux as possible. Then all the poseurs and people who just use Linux because it's kewl will leave, and the 'real' users can be left in peace.
Slashdot Mirror
The point is, there is a big difference between moderation based on 'quality' of individual posts, and a rating system based on credibility.
I might create a new account for myself, pretend to be from Cisco, or Microsoft, or Red Hat, or whoever, and post lots of interesting, detailed but totally bullshit comments. Many of them would get moderated upwards; after a while I might even become 'elite' and get all my comments posted at score=2. But unless you checked all my previous postings, you'd have no way of knowing that I were talking rubbish.
Ideally, there would be some way of replying to a post saying 'yes, this is factually correct', or 'no, this is rubbish', citing URLs or other facts as proof. We could then build up a credibility profile of each author.
Perhaps I'm just too paranoid.
But if Red Hat did buy SCO and acquire Monterey, they couldn't make it free, because the copyright is shared with IBM. They'd have to persuade IBM to release it as free software, or else start selling non-free stuff, or else ditch Monterey altogether.
Actually, I think the problem is with the DOS virtual machine. XaoS includes support for *text-mode* realtime fractal zooming, using AA-lib, and it is this I was trying to use. I also bluescreened just by asking for the usage message (which worked the first time).
I think I have finally found a use for Microsoft's obnoxious 'policy manager' - fix this security hole by stopping users from running DOS applications.
Oh, and for those people who need a clue, It's Not Unix either :-)
There is only one operating system out there doing a passable job of killing Unix, and it's not from Microsoft.
I am curious why Compaq isn't doing something more agressive with OpenVMS; see my other comment. Maybe they could poach Cutler and the gang back from Microsoft.
I don't think that Digital could ever release NT source code. They will have licensed it under a strict NDA from Microsoft.
Given the similarities between VMS and NT (I would have included a link to 'Windows NT and VMS: The Rest of the Story' published by Windows NT Magazine, but they won't let you read it any longer), I have wondered whether Compaq could free VMS, tweak it a little, slap X11 and WINE on top, and come up with a free replacement for Windows NT (if not 100% compatible, at least it would support NT concepts like the registry better than Unix does).
Unfortunately, although VMS and NT are very similar, and some NT 'features' such as the registry have been fed back into VMS, that doesn't mean they are the same. But wouldn't it be nice?
But what is the plural of 'mouse' as in 'pointing device'? I'm sure it's 'mice', but some people say 'mouses' for some reason.
Stupid, but marginally better than 'OSF/1'. They can't call it 'Digital Unix' since the Digital brand has all but disappeared. I think we will have to call it 'DEC Unix' - the name 'DEC' will probably annoy the Compaq marketing people even more than it annoyed the Digital marketing people.
Personally, I prefer NT3.51 to 4.0. It *feels* more solid and stable as well as being more stable. Probably it's that clunky Win3.1 interface that gives the 'solid' feel, compared to the Win95 interface with Start Menus flitting up and down and random popups appearing all the time.
Anyway, I believe that between the release of Win95 and NT4, Microsoft released the new shell as an addon for NT3.51. If you ran 3.51 with the new shell, it might be a good way to get a stable Windows system with a modern interface (as well as lower system requirements than the 64MB minimum recommended for NT4SP5). I think it was freely downloadable, but I haven't found a copy on Microsoft's site (the filename was newshell.exe, I am told). Does anyone have a copy?
I can understand that businesses might be wary of letting their competitors know what they are buying, but I don't see why ordinary consumers *should* care.
If Amazon wants to take details of what books I buy, and share them with other book buyers to help them find books they want, I don't have a problem with that. In turn, I would hope that the other buyers will be happy to share their data to help me out.
It's not as if disclosing what type of books you like is any big breach of privacy. Many people put up web pages containing such things, or their lists of bookmarks, or whatever else.
I've bluescreened my NT4SP5 box twice today by running the DOS version of XaoS. This is a consistent, reproducible way to bluescreen NT (it worked on another machine with SP3, too.)
XaoS is an excellent realtime fractal zoomer, BTW. But don't run it on NT (even with the 'Windows-friendly' -i_love_bill switch) unless you have synced your disks first.
Are you using a special style sheet, or your own font? The nonstandard quote characters that Microsoft likes aren't in all fonts, even on Windows.
No, you don't understand! The Pentium III (r) makes the Internet come alive! It gives you dancing Intel bunnymen and strange viking-type people to enrich your Web experience! If you're not using a Pentium III (r) processor to browse the Web, you're missing out!
http://www.intel. com/home/pentiumiii/surf.htm?iid={showroom=body}I'm not sure that the bazaar model would translate at all well to a Linux 'installation and getting started' book. To take one example, how much swap space is needed? Everyone has their own opinions on this; any 'collaborative' book could not be decisive. It might be like 'design by comittee'.
The point is, most books need an author with an opinion. Even though expert users may not always agree with the author's opinion, it's needed to pull things together and keep the book focussed.
One way this could be made to work is similar to how many successful free software projects work - make it modular. If the book is split into twenty chapters, with at most two people working on each chapter, then you wouldn't have people stepping on each others' toes. You'd also need a single editor who has the final say on what goes in and what goes out, with maybe a couple of sub-editors who check and revise things before sending them upwards.
Er... have you seen the Qt prices? A single-developer licence for Qt is $1550, for one platform only. I'm sure Delphi sells for a lot less than that.
And there is no 'runtime price' - the price is per developer only.
Okay, so which is which?
I don't think they will choose Qt, because you can't develop proprietary software with it unless you pay hefty licence fees. Not only would Borland have to pay up, but possibly also every Delphi developer. Unless they cut a deal with Troll Tech, of course.
I have heard that sometimes, CPU makers get round the problem of low yields from cache by making two versions of a chip, one with cache and one without. The versions without cache are just those where the cache failed quality control, and has been disabled. If only part of the cache is flawed, you can disable just that part and produce a low-end version with smaller cache.
I heard that a particular 386 clone which came in two versions, with 4KB and 8KB cache, used this technique. The 4KB version was identical to the more expensive chip, but with half the cache disabled.
Firstly, Knuth has recently proposed a solution to this problem, where 'kilobyte' = 10 ** 3 bytes, and 'large kilobyte' = 2**10 bytes: see 'What is a kilobyte?' at his news page.
Secondly, the main reason hard disk manufacturers prefer the smaller decimal units is that it makes their disks sound bigger.
Thirdly, I believe that there is a difference in captialization for 'kilobyte' depending on which kind you mean. 1 kB = 1000 bytes, but 1 KB = 1024 bytes. (Don't forget also that the abbreviation for 'byte' is 'B'; lowercase 'b' is for 'bit'.)
He lives in Wales - see his wife's diary at http://roadrunner.swansea.linux.org.uk/~hobbit/ind ex.html.
I think that beer is actually free in the GNU sense, because once you have it, you can do anything you like with it. Unfortunately, trademark laws mean that you might have to change the name a little, but apart from that it is indeed 'free'. There is no licence agreement restricting what you can use it for, how many people can drink it at once, etc.
Is that a new operating system, like GNU/Linux? Maybe the Wine people will get there one day.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'presumed innocent'. Do you mean that the government is trying to stop you doing something, not as punishment for a proven crime, but just because of what you might do? But there are plenty of examples of this elsewhere. Firearms laws are a classic examples, but there are many others. The question is, is it going too far in this case?
Just for the record, I do not support banning of satellite phones just because they are difficult to tap. The loss of freedom does not justify the rather hazy benefits to law enforcement. But I understand that governments do sometimes have to make these decisions. BTW, I'm not American.
Just how multiuser is NT? There is Terminal Server, but most NT installations allow only one user at a time, although you can create multiple accounts.
Some people might say that Linux is becoming clogged up with newbies and 'lusers', and that they are moving on to more exclusive systems such as FreeBSD. Some Amiga users are actually pleased that the Amiga scene is dying, because it means that the only people left are the real diehards ().
But you can take the opposite view! Let's get as many clueless mainstream users into Linux as possible. Then all the poseurs and people who just use Linux because it's kewl will leave, and the 'real' users can be left in peace.