Open the page in IE (I used 5.5) and save the page as "Web Page Complete" on your drive.
Now simply load the page in mozilla from your hard drive. It rendered ok in mozilla 0.9.5 for me except the text started about halfway down the screen.
How often do you hear the "If you haven't done anything wrong, then don't have anything to hide (from the authorities)" argument? People are scared and insecure by nature; most will give up everything to get that feeling of comfortable insultaion back.
People have fast reactions and such short memories. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail.
Given that the human face recognition performed by the check-in agents did not keep the hijackers out, there is no reason to think that computer face recognition would help
I may not agree with coputerized facial recognition but this quote uses some piss poor logic. One would think that a quick proof reading would weed out such flagrantly poorly reasoned arguments. First, the people who are checking in passengers are not equipped with a database of known terrorists or "wanted" criminals. they probably haven't even studied a single poster tacked up in their local post office.
Second, anyone who has ever been to an airport like Newark or JFK know that the people working there are only motivated to do about $5.50 worth of work per hour. A computer would not have a motivation problem.
There are reasons not to support it, (fostering a false sence of security and laziness since it is not %100 accurate, or civil rights reasons) but I seriously doubt that it will lower the rate of identified criminals. RMS should stick to his core reasons not to implement this system and stop grasping at straws.
http://www.trolltech.com/company/announce/30pre. ht ml
Database Programming
Qt 3.0 will include a platform- and database-independent API for accessing SQL databases. The API has both ODBC support and database-specific drivers for Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL databases, and custom drivers may be added. Database-aware controls that provide automatic synchronization between GUI and database are included in Qt 3.0. The Qt Designer has full support for these new controls, resulting in a RAD solution for database applications
You know... every one of those Compaq Proliants that you bought and wiped to put unix on is still money as far as Microsoft is concerned.
They don't really care if you buy them and throw them away. It pumps their market share statistics just the same; it makes Compaq and Dell believe that you wanted a Win2k computer; it is one less computer that Rackable, VA Linux or whatever would have sold.
The multi platform 3D modeling program
blender (full featured and fits on a floppy!) has had this for a few years now. It's really pretty easy to get used to.
You guys thought that the id number stored in the cue cat and the pentium III chips were bad...
Just wait until this device is a two way street and your user-id is a retinal scan. You just can't fake that one without reverse engineering the device itself. Oh wait. That's illegal and wrong.
User 45235334 likes to download music on his home computer and lives in NYC... lets put a MTV TRL banner ad in the middle of their field of view.
One thing that strikes me about flatland that I don't hear people talk about much is the stickingly effective way that Abott uses analogy to help deal with hard to grasp concepts.
Don't understand what you can do in 4 dimensional space? No problem; just analyze what you can do in 3D that someone in 2D can't. Simply extrapolate from there.
This book taught me about seeing reality from other's perspectives, about the power of analogy, and the value of approaching a problem starting from where the *other* person's viewpoints lie.
Most of the ways I hear it pronounced are Guh-nome or just nome. Once I saw Ximian and helix code and all of the evolution references I thought that maybe GNOME was pronounced gee-nome. (as in mapping the human GNOME:)
So then how the hell do you pronounce gnutella?
And how would the bovine lasses having money change anything?
IMHO, they should have been addressing some of the design patterns that are harder to implement in C++.
I mean just look around at what people *want* to do with the language. Look at Qt and their.moc files. Why not add that to the language and save Qt and everyone else some time? Most people who have tried signals and slots agree that it's a pretty good, straigtforward implementation.
Strictly speaking you are absolutly correct and I stand corrected.
However, my argument still stands because most users don't consider their kernel to be their OS, and they consider their Operating System to be Linux and not GNU (which it really is as debian HURD developers will quickly point out to you). So the difference is largely a misnomer...
My point here would be that desktop users may want choices, but more importantly, they want intelligent default choices to be made for them by their distributions so they don't ever have to worry about it. This includes not defaulting to buggy software or worm vulnerable builds of BIND. A good OS will instill confidence in the user by making good default choices on their behalf (which Windows/Mac do well) and allowing them to inspect and change them if they desire (which linux does well). Both of these are the responsabilty of the distro if linux is ever to move over to the desktop.
First of all... This is a linux problem and not just a Bind problem becuase bind gets installed in a lot of distributions by default. It's the same people who talk about linux taking over the desktop who later say that it's the user's fault that they should know what their machine is doing.
If linux is just for hackers, then fine. BUT, if you have ever expressed that you want linux to be the default instead of Mac, Windows or whatever then you owe it to yourself to be realistic about why most people use computers. It's probably different than why you do, and it's probably because they just want software that does a job for them. They don't care how it works and they shouldn't have to. We don't make fun of people who don't know what happened when their car breaks. Sure... it's respectable to know why, but it's not a sin not to.
And second...
Regardless, you should have tripwire or something running anyway
That is a total cop-out! I'm sure every one here knows that a windows user would get absolutly jumped on if they said something like that about windows security. "Security hole in windows? you should be running antivirus software. It's your own fault."
I'm a fool-ish investor as I read the fool daily, (BTW: a Fool is the opposite of the Wall Street Wise. You know... the ones who tell you to trust them as they trade your money away and stick you with commisions and "marketing fees".) and one of the points that all long term growth companies share is a moat around their business. This makes it hard for competition to take away their business and ensures that they stay king even if the market punishes them (for whatever reason) or they go in the wrong direction for a while.
MSFT and Palm do this through their monopoly of their respective software worlds. Coca-cola does it by having the most recognizable product in the world. With Intel it is the high barrier of entry to chip fabrication that makes it impossible for a company like AMD or Transmeta from wiping them out. Some (actually most) also use patents to keep other businesses out of their houses.
I have no idea how RHAT could possibly maintain a moat around their business if they are giving away their software. I think Brand recognition is their best bet.
Linux might be unique; RHAT's business model might be unique; Money is money. I don't see how they can ever be as profitable to an investor as MSFT has been. I wish it weren't that way.
Red hat got those numbers by cutting costs and through an aquisition. The business still has some growing to do, and remember... they are still a reletively small company. Lets all hope they can pull it off.
This is probably a feature so that they can give you technical support.
"We ga-run-tee you will have 100% satisfaction with our tech support. Hell, we'll even file your quicken tax forms for you and finish your doctoral thesis while we're at it!"
My Bad. I shouldn't have said RTFM but perhaps RTFSC? (source code) Read the research. Read it. Don't just listen to what other people say (like your parents did?) and look for reasons that the research may be invalid. You would be surprised at how often correlated data is construed to be causial data in research; Nobody questions it either. Don't just buy a book and raise your kids. Buy all of the books (or I guess lease them hahaha!:) with as many different viewpoints as possible. Read each one thinking that it may be correct. Then decide what to do. Most people here only really understand one view.
Nowhere in my post do I advocate "shielding children from the real world" nor do I believe that these problems should be ignored. You may not believe it but sometimes a countering argument provided to you on slashdot will not be in diametric opposition (read: evil) to yours.
Hiding all truth from children is unhealthy. So is bombarding them with "reality" in an effort to make them fit to live in an ugly horrible world. "Reality" is complex and subtle and children will come up with simple explenations for complex situations. You must understand that.
There are no bunnies on my lawn, even a few rats; I am happy. I'm sorry you aren't (and I know that doesn't help you).
So at what age do you suddenly gain rights? 16? 18? 21? I've seen some extremely smart 10 year olds with a far better grasp on reality than many adults.
It's not a black and white kind of thing; That's why it's a diffucult problem that will require complex or imperfect solutions. The important thing is to note that it is also not an intellegence thing as well. Young children are not even *capable* of abstract thought so any discussion of the abstract will be lost on them. When was the last time you talked about an issue in the abstract and tried to simultaniously understand how someone who can only comprehend concrete thinking will take it. In this case it is very important to understand the audience. For Example: there is a lot of money going into teaching very young children the importance of the food pyramid and eating right. The diets of young children should actually be the responsibility of the parents to decide. WHAT!!!! those dictators! EVIL! It turns out that you can tell a child that vitamins are good for them, and oranges are good for them because they contain vitamins and then watch in horror as they scarf down hoho's at the very next meal. You have to tell them to eat oranges. You have to give them the oranges and take away the hoho's because they can't process the information yet. They can't apply what they learned to their own behaviour.
Oh yeah, we'd better not tell children about death, it might upset them. Come on, you can't hide everything. It's safer for people to know that the world isn't perfect...
No one is talking about the world being perfect. Loss, and hardship are actually very important for child development. But.... what messages are the children going to pick up from this? It may not be the same one you would hope they will.
The above poster is right (and there is plenty of scientific psycological research to back it up) about children being mentally different than adults. That tends to get overlooked on slashdot a lot. (because of the age of the audience here?)
I wish more slashdotters would RTFM when it came to childhood development and research before posting about it.
I just don't feel the solution is as simple as people think.... And i do feel very sorry for the girl who had her project pulled. She learned a very real and very harsh lesson.
Wright's engineering was well ahead of anyone else's at the time. He was building what his contemporaries (and certainly his contractors) considered to be impossible. While the story of the extra steel supports is true, the builders also installed an entire stone wall under one of the balconies to support it. It was later removed when the Kaufmanns realized that Wright had soon after removed the top layer of stones and the wall had never actually been supporting anything for years. I have heard that the extra steel reinforcement added weight to the terrace and was responsible for the weakness. I guess there are several accounts of the situation going around.
The sagging on the main cantilevered terrace was mainly due to an error. The concrete was cast at true horizontal and not slightly upward as it should have been to compensate for gravity once the wooden supports were removed. One corner of it has drooped almost 6" since then! Wright was furious about that one too.:)
When I went to see it they had removed one of the main flagstones in the livingroom and replaced it with plexiglass so you could see the cracks in the support beams. They were also measuring the stress that the tour groups put on the balconies using little shock sensors.
The sad thing about any supports they will have to put up is that they will almost definitly run vertically and will partially spoil the visual effect of the house. The bookshelves that the Kaufmann's son added to his upstairs bedroom have vertical supports and add a subtle "not quite right" feeling to the room that is only really noticable when someone points it out to you but definitly tangable.
Anyways, thank you for the link and I will try to hold my idols somewhere a little closer to the earth. I promise.;)
As somone who has quoted Wright in my sig for some time now (See the article dept.) I feel I should point something out.
Wright saw things as a whole object. He spent months thinking about the construction of Fallingwater and visiting the site. He drew the first concept draft in about 3 hours. (he actually called the client to come over and see what he had drawn before sitting down to draw it) It changed Very little from that initial drawing. Most experts at the time said the horizontal balconies would not stay floating out into space the way they do and would collapse. The workers were constantly changing the plans because they did not have faith in Wright's design. (Modern analysis now shows that these workers acually ended up weakening the structure)
As someone who has actually walked through fallingwater, I think one could easily say that the design is the most elegant, natural design you could possibly want.
To apply Wright's ideas to the concept of software engineering: I would say you either have to be very gifted in how your brain processes/sees information, data and functionality, or create a system that is whole and complete through lots of careful adjustments and evolution. The latter seems to be the common OSS approach however the former is the more respected/impressive way.:) I suppose one could argue that even Wright evolved his prarie style and his catilevered/fallingwater style over several hundered homes. I guess I can see some similarities between Wright, Torvalds, and Wall among others. (inspired design, excellent execution, and refinement over time)
I think the important lesson here would be that all of these people create something that stands as a whole unified concept that doesn't sprawl out where it doesn't belong and is fundamental enough to change the way other people see the world or problem space. They all thought about their designs A LOT! They are all artists and craftsmen.
Wright's work inspires me and fills me with awe, as does perl and the linux kernel. Does your software?
Now even the poorest Americans have cars, television, telephones, heat, clean water, sanitary sewers -- things that the richest millionaires of 1900 could not buy. These technologies promise an end to physical want in the near future.
We should be rejoicing in mutually creating a heaven on earth!
Heaven on earth indeed! Technology doesn't make the world substatially better. Stuff does not make people truly happy. It's true that with the advancement of technology individuals have to face less hardships, but that doesn't mean the world is any better off. Hardship is not enjoyable but is a necessary part of growth. Weight training makes a person's body strong. Hardship makes a person emotionally strong. Mind you I am not advocating hardship and pain in quantities that it destroys or disrupts a person's growth, but a little bit in easy to swallow quantaties is healthy. I don't want people to become the emotional equivalent of veal.:)
Too often I see people heralding technology as the answer to everything. Let's not overextend it here. TV, MP3's and DVD's are not the answer to Pain and Suffering. Emotional strength is. DVD's will not end physical want, they increase it!
Other than this one point I agree with this article.
Slashdot Mirror
"These are quirky, quirky people."
;)
That is clearly a reference to Linus.
-pos
Open the page in IE (I used 5.5) and save the page as "Web Page Complete" on your drive.
Now simply load the page in mozilla from your hard drive. It rendered ok in mozilla 0.9.5 for me except the text started about halfway down the screen.
-pos
I doubt you'd see different results.
How often do you hear the "If you haven't done anything wrong, then don't have anything to hide (from the authorities)" argument? People are scared and insecure by nature; most will give up everything to get that feeling of comfortable insultaion back.
People have fast reactions and such short memories. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail.
-pos
Given that the human face recognition performed by the check-in agents did not keep the hijackers out, there is no reason to think that computer face recognition would help
I may not agree with coputerized facial recognition but this quote uses some piss poor logic. One would think that a quick proof reading would weed out such flagrantly poorly reasoned arguments. First, the people who are checking in passengers are not equipped with a database of known terrorists or "wanted" criminals. they probably haven't even studied a single poster tacked up in their local post office.
Second, anyone who has ever been to an airport like Newark or JFK know that the people working there are only motivated to do about $5.50 worth of work per hour. A computer would not have a motivation problem.
There are reasons not to support it, (fostering a false sence of security and laziness since it is not %100 accurate, or civil rights reasons) but I seriously doubt that it will lower the rate of identified criminals. RMS should stick to his core reasons not to implement this system and stop grasping at straws.
-pos
Probably, the trolls beat them to it.
. ht ml
http://www.trolltech.com/company/announce/30pre
Database Programming
Qt 3.0 will include a platform- and database-independent API for accessing SQL databases. The API has both ODBC support and database-specific drivers for Oracle, PostgreSQL and MySQL databases, and custom drivers may be added. Database-aware controls that provide automatic synchronization between GUI and database are included in Qt 3.0. The Qt Designer has full support for these new controls, resulting in a RAD solution for database applications
The truth is more important than the facts.
You know... every one of those Compaq Proliants that you bought and wiped to put unix on is still money as far as Microsoft is concerned.
They don't really care if you buy them and throw them away. It pumps their market share statistics just the same; it makes Compaq and Dell believe that you wanted a Win2k computer; it is one less computer that Rackable, VA Linux or whatever would have sold.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Just so that everyone knows:
The multi platform 3D modeling program
blender (full featured and fits on a floppy!) has had this for a few years now. It's really pretty easy to get used to.
Congrats to KDE
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
You guys thought that the id number stored in the cue cat and the pentium III chips were bad...
Just wait until this device is a two way street and your user-id is a retinal scan. You just can't fake that one without reverse engineering the device itself. Oh wait. That's illegal and wrong.
User 45235334 likes to download music on his home computer and lives in NYC... lets put a MTV TRL banner ad in the middle of their field of view.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
One thing that strikes me about flatland that I don't hear people talk about much is the stickingly effective way that Abott uses analogy to help deal with hard to grasp concepts.
Don't understand what you can do in 4 dimensional space? No problem; just analyze what you can do in 3D that someone in 2D can't. Simply extrapolate from there.
This book taught me about seeing reality from other's perspectives, about the power of analogy, and the value of approaching a problem starting from where the *other* person's viewpoints lie.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
It makes me question how to pronounce GNOME.
:)
Most of the ways I hear it pronounced are Guh-nome or just nome. Once I saw Ximian and helix code and all of the evolution references I thought that maybe GNOME was pronounced gee-nome. (as in mapping the human GNOME
So then how the hell do you pronounce gnutella?
And how would the bovine lasses having money change anything?
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Right on!
.moc files. Why not add that to the language and save Qt and everyone else some time? Most people who have tried signals and slots agree that it's a pretty good, straigtforward implementation.
IMHO, they should have been addressing some of the design patterns that are harder to implement in C++.
I mean just look around at what people *want* to do with the language. Look at Qt and their
just my 2 cents...
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Come on guys...
April Fools Day is over. Enough with the impossible stories; I mean who would believe that Amiga was making a comeback really?
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
I tried to warn you guys back in day but nooooo...
:(
There were people back then saying, "You're being rediculous, courts would never hold that up!" I wish I had been wrong.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
They are using a modified version of the standard client so any grief you cause them with traffic increases you will cause your own users as well.
I guess the only defense would be lots of metallica.mp3 files that are not mp3 files... but again you will be confusing normal gnutella users too.
Freenet is probably the best defense.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Strictly speaking you are absolutly correct and I stand corrected.
However, my argument still stands because most users don't consider their kernel to be their OS, and they consider their Operating System to be Linux and not GNU (which it really is as debian HURD developers will quickly point out to you). So the difference is largely a misnomer...
My point here would be that desktop users may want choices, but more importantly, they want intelligent default choices to be made for them by their distributions so they don't ever have to worry about it. This includes not defaulting to buggy software or worm vulnerable builds of BIND. A good OS will instill confidence in the user by making good default choices on their behalf (which Windows/Mac do well) and allowing them to inspect and change them if they desire (which linux does well). Both of these are the responsabilty of the distro if linux is ever to move over to the desktop.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
First of all... This is a linux problem and not just a Bind problem becuase bind gets installed in a lot of distributions by default. It's the same people who talk about linux taking over the desktop who later say that it's the user's fault that they should know what their machine is doing.
If linux is just for hackers, then fine. BUT, if you have ever expressed that you want linux to be the default instead of Mac, Windows or whatever then you owe it to yourself to be realistic about why most people use computers. It's probably different than why you do, and it's probably because they just want software that does a job for them. They don't care how it works and they shouldn't have to. We don't make fun of people who don't know what happened when their car breaks. Sure... it's respectable to know why, but it's not a sin not to.
And second...
Regardless, you should have tripwire or something running anyway
That is a total cop-out! I'm sure every one here knows that a windows user would get absolutly jumped on if they said something like that about windows security. "Security hole in windows? you should be running antivirus software. It's your own fault."
flame on.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
I'm a fool-ish investor as I read the fool daily, (BTW: a Fool is the opposite of the Wall Street Wise. You know... the ones who tell you to trust them as they trade your money away and stick you with commisions and "marketing fees".) and one of the points that all long term growth companies share is a moat around their business. This makes it hard for competition to take away their business and ensures that they stay king even if the market punishes them (for whatever reason) or they go in the wrong direction for a while.
MSFT and Palm do this through their monopoly of their respective software worlds. Coca-cola does it by having the most recognizable product in the world. With Intel it is the high barrier of entry to chip fabrication that makes it impossible for a company like AMD or Transmeta from wiping them out. Some (actually most) also use patents to keep other businesses out of their houses.
I have no idea how RHAT could possibly maintain a moat around their business if they are giving away their software. I think Brand recognition is their best bet.
Linux might be unique; RHAT's business model might be unique; Money is money. I don't see how they can ever be as profitable to an investor as MSFT has been. I wish it weren't that way.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Just for some perspective:
Foolish perspective
Red hat got those numbers by cutting costs and through an aquisition. The business still has some growing to do, and remember... they are still a reletively small company. Lets all hope they can pull it off.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
This is probably a feature so that they can give you technical support.
"We ga-run-tee you will have 100% satisfaction with our tech support. Hell, we'll even file your quicken tax forms for you and finish your doctoral thesis while we're at it!"
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
My Bad. I shouldn't have said RTFM but perhaps RTFSC? (source code) Read the research. Read it. Don't just listen to what other people say (like your parents did?) and look for reasons that the research may be invalid. You would be surprised at how often correlated data is construed to be causial data in research; Nobody questions it either. Don't just buy a book and raise your kids. Buy all of the books (or I guess lease them hahaha! :) with as many different viewpoints as possible. Read each one thinking that it may be correct. Then decide what to do. Most people here only really understand one view.
Nowhere in my post do I advocate "shielding children from the real world" nor do I believe that these problems should be ignored. You may not believe it but sometimes a countering argument provided to you on slashdot will not be in diametric opposition (read: evil) to yours.
Hiding all truth from children is unhealthy. So is bombarding them with "reality" in an effort to make them fit to live in an ugly horrible world. "Reality" is complex and subtle and children will come up with simple explenations for complex situations. You must understand that.
There are no bunnies on my lawn, even a few rats; I am happy. I'm sorry you aren't (and I know that doesn't help you).
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
So at what age do you suddenly gain rights? 16? 18? 21? I've seen some extremely smart 10 year olds with a far better grasp on reality than many adults.
It's not a black and white kind of thing; That's why it's a diffucult problem that will require complex or imperfect solutions. The important thing is to note that it is also not an intellegence thing as well. Young children are not even *capable* of abstract thought so any discussion of the abstract will be lost on them. When was the last time you talked about an issue in the abstract and tried to simultaniously understand how someone who can only comprehend concrete thinking will take it. In this case it is very important to understand the audience. For Example: there is a lot of money going into teaching very young children the importance of the food pyramid and eating right. The diets of young children should actually be the responsibility of the parents to decide. WHAT!!!! those dictators! EVIL! It turns out that you can tell a child that vitamins are good for them, and oranges are good for them because they contain vitamins and then watch in horror as they scarf down hoho's at the very next meal. You have to tell them to eat oranges. You have to give them the oranges and take away the hoho's because they can't process the information yet. They can't apply what they learned to their own behaviour.
Oh yeah, we'd better not tell children about death, it might upset them. Come on, you can't hide everything. It's safer for people to know that the world isn't perfect...
No one is talking about the world being perfect. Loss, and hardship are actually very important for child development. But.... what messages are the children going to pick up from this? It may not be the same one you would hope they will.
The above poster is right (and there is plenty of scientific psycological research to back it up) about children being mentally different than adults. That tends to get overlooked on slashdot a lot. (because of the age of the audience here?)
I wish more slashdotters would RTFM when it came to childhood development and research before posting about it.
I just don't feel the solution is as simple as people think.... And i do feel very sorry for the girl who had her project pulled. She learned a very real and very harsh lesson.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Wright's engineering was well ahead of anyone else's at the time. He was building what his contemporaries (and certainly his contractors) considered to be impossible. While the story of the extra steel supports is true, the builders also installed an entire stone wall under one of the balconies to support it. It was later removed when the Kaufmanns realized that Wright had soon after removed the top layer of stones and the wall had never actually been supporting anything for years. I have heard that the extra steel reinforcement added weight to the terrace and was responsible for the weakness. I guess there are several accounts of the situation going around.
:)
;)
The sagging on the main cantilevered terrace was mainly due to an error. The concrete was cast at true horizontal and not slightly upward as it should have been to compensate for gravity once the wooden supports were removed. One corner of it has drooped almost 6" since then! Wright was furious about that one too.
When I went to see it they had removed one of the main flagstones in the livingroom and replaced it with plexiglass so you could see the cracks in the support beams. They were also measuring the stress that the tour groups put on the balconies using little shock sensors.
The sad thing about any supports they will have to put up is that they will almost definitly run vertically and will partially spoil the visual effect of the house. The bookshelves that the Kaufmann's son added to his upstairs bedroom have vertical supports and add a subtle "not quite right" feeling to the room that is only really noticable when someone points it out to you but definitly tangable.
Anyways, thank you for the link and I will try to hold my idols somewhere a little closer to the earth. I promise.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this exacly what the mozilla project's Tinderbox and smokering test do?
Accountability is important when code breaks. =)
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
As somone who has quoted Wright in my sig for some time now (See the article dept.) I feel I should point something out.
:) I suppose one could argue that even Wright evolved his prarie style and his catilevered/fallingwater style over several hundered homes. I guess I can see some similarities between Wright, Torvalds, and Wall among others. (inspired design, excellent execution, and refinement over time)
Wright saw things as a whole object. He spent months thinking about the construction of Fallingwater and visiting the site. He drew the first concept draft in about 3 hours. (he actually called the client to come over and see what he had drawn before sitting down to draw it) It changed Very little from that initial drawing. Most experts at the time said the horizontal balconies would not stay floating out into space the way they do and would collapse. The workers were constantly changing the plans because they did not have faith in Wright's design. (Modern analysis now shows that these workers acually ended up weakening the structure)
As someone who has actually walked through fallingwater, I think one could easily say that the design is the most elegant, natural design you could possibly want.
To apply Wright's ideas to the concept of software engineering: I would say you either have to be very gifted in how your brain processes/sees information, data and functionality, or create a system that is whole and complete through lots of careful adjustments and evolution. The latter seems to be the common OSS approach however the former is the more respected/impressive way.
I think the important lesson here would be that all of these people create something that stands as a whole unified concept that doesn't sprawl out where it doesn't belong and is fundamental enough to change the way other people see the world or problem space. They all thought about their designs A LOT! They are all artists and craftsmen.
Wright's work inspires me and fills me with awe, as does perl and the linux kernel. Does your software?
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
Now even the poorest Americans have cars, television, telephones, heat, clean water, sanitary sewers -- things that the richest millionaires of 1900 could not buy. These technologies promise an end to physical want in the near future.
:)
We should be rejoicing in mutually creating a heaven on earth!
Heaven on earth indeed! Technology doesn't make the world substatially better. Stuff does not make people truly happy. It's true that with the advancement of technology individuals have to face less hardships, but that doesn't mean the world is any better off. Hardship is not enjoyable but is a necessary part of growth. Weight training makes a person's body strong. Hardship makes a person emotionally strong. Mind you I am not advocating hardship and pain in quantities that it destroys or disrupts a person's growth, but a little bit in easy to swallow quantaties is healthy. I don't want people to become the emotional equivalent of veal.
Too often I see people heralding technology as the answer to everything. Let's not overextend it here. TV, MP3's and DVD's are not the answer to Pain and Suffering. Emotional strength is. DVD's will not end physical want, they increase it!
Other than this one point I agree with this article.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.