Never stand directly in front of a breaker or other device to engage or especially to disengage said device. Never ever cut more than one wire at a time unless the other ends are still in the box/on the reel. Never use cheap tools or test equipment, never wear anything but 100% cotton unless it is flame retardant. Never trust anyone but yourself, and be very very critical of that person. Never think you have to actually touch something before it can hurt, maim or kill you. Never assume that because something is grounded that it is harmless. Never get in the current path, voltage is impressive, but it is the current that kills. Never assume anything is dead or it might be you, hell never assume anything anyway. Never do anything with thinking it over really really well, and again, and again.
I am pretty sure just heard on PBS radio, I believe it was the "Marketplace" program Friday that Dell had failed to release earning reports for the last 2 or 3 quarters. I also remember hearing in the last month or so the Michael Dell is returning to fill the CEO role in the company. All this reads to me like a company in trouble.
If they intend to ship a box ready for Joe sixpack or grandmaw the DMCA and libdecss issues, licensing of the necessary proprietary formats,codecs and such will be really big issues. Then there are the GPL issues with the distribution of proprietary binary drivers, codecs, but I am unsure of how big an issue this would be as I guess it could be handled via separate media or by online updates.
As for how this fits with Microsoft, I would suspect that Novell might very well be an easy thus early certified vendor with a MS sanctioned version of SLED. I run openSuse here because I like it and have always found Suse to be the cream of the Linux crop, but I hope that this is not going to be exclusive to only those Linux companies that have signed a nasty compact wit MS. But who knows, maybe Dell is really in bad fiducial shape and are desperate enough to consider using this in setting up a legal attack on the "sell Windows exclusively or lose your discount" tax Microsoft has managed to levy on all of us.
I really don't have a problem with people making a very good living writing software. But you know nearly every time I have been tempted into buying closed source packaged software I have come away feeling screwed over. Not because of what I paid, but for the piss poor product and support I got for the money, or like OS/2 where IBM chose to let it die a slow painful death. Since moving away from Windows and OS/2 an onto Linux my main satisfaction comes from things working well, the quality of support I get, and the comfort of not depending on a single company's vision or ethics, not the price - the inexpensive nature of FOSS to me is just another bonus.
I wish Micheal Dell the best in getting his company back on its feet. I believe that a major PC builder like Dell could very well be the ice in the crack that breaks the Microsoft monopoly in this market. I also believe that if the legal issues about things like the DMCA can be resolved that the average person will find a lot to like about Linux and FOSS in general. I suspect that the first and second movers that bring Linux to the masses could profit from it very well. And last but not least, if business leaders and politicians get the heads out of their collective arses and get the patent/legal issues dealt with, the rate of innovation possible in a more free and open marketplace would be astounding. Innovation into what is possible with a product is the best fuel for expansion of the products market. Current details and implementation of IP laws and excessive protection of monopolies, especially in software, media and telecom industires, have what is possible on a very short leash.
I read enough of this topic to see the Free Market mantra coming up over and over and over. I am fed up with hearing about "free market" this and that. Listen close now! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MARKET! The markets are anything but free! Global corporations have bought the legislation to ensure such. This has always been the case to some extent, there has never been a truly free market anywhere on as a grand scale as a nation. I doubt that there has ever been one larger than a individual Quaker community or metropolitan sized street market/bazaar. Today the manipulation of markets for the gain of the privileged few are happening very effectively all over the world. Anywhere national or state level legislation doesn't work out they just bribe or coerce local officials. Wonder why so many in the third world hate us in the first? They see us in the light of these "business leaders" and our rah-rah support of these "free market heroes" and their propaganda.
As for free markets I am not even sure we want really free markets, as they are probably just too volatile to support a stable society the size we have today. What annoys me is all these business and political types running around shouting the free market mantra and holding up a free market as some sort of holy rule that we cannot muck with, when such does not even exist. I wish I had all the answers, I would be most pleased to share them. I can share this much, DO NOT believe the propaganda that we have a free market economy in the USA! The professed aspirations of such aside it is not and never has been such and getting less and less free with every legislative session. In addition regardless of any executive or legislative changes the SCOTUS of today is unlikely to shift back to anything like balanced in less than a decade at best, so get used to the rule of the corporate oligarchy. About the only possible way out would be if the judicial branch, SCOTUS in particular felt their own power or personal safety was seriously threatened by these interests, then they might wake up and see the damage being done to the working people of this nation. Of course in such a case by the time they have gain such insight they might actually find themselves neutered anyway. The big difference between today and recent history, in the USA anyway, is that the balance of power, political influence and wealth distribution between those that produce via their physical labor, creative ability's or information juggling/processing skills and the parasites that exist upon such has gotten wildly out of hand, again, not that is has ever been fair. sheezz!
Yea any one of the several ways listed below and probably a few others as well:
Wine is a Linux implementation of the Windows API that can run many Windows apps IE included, I use it to run IE 6 occasionally.
Run Windows and IE under the free VMWare server, I use it to run Win 98 or NT4.0 occasionally.
It may be that telling Firefox to send an IE app identity string in requests will do what you want. I seem to remember that this can be set in.jsprefs with a text editor or I believe there is a extension/addon that do this via the GUI.
If these sites require ActiveX components or a specific version of the MS kludge of Java you will probably be limited to Wine or VMWare, possibly in the Java case to only VMWare running Windows with the kludged version of Java installed.
"If I didn't, I certainly wouldn't go out and buy a $100 modem just to use a free OS."
I can understand that but you get a used external Courier vEverything off eBay for under $25US bucks these days. I know this because since I recently moved on to a SAT modem I thought I would sell my Courier, which BTW I did give $100US for -used from eBay, about five years ago. I decided to keep it for emergencies when I saw the prices they are bringing today.These things really are the tanks of serial com and the improvement in performance could be more than you might suspect. They handle crappy lines and noise much better than most others I have used and thus have many fewer retransmit requests which equals more data in less time. FYI most lab assay equipment I have seen uses this brand and model exclusively for serial com functions.
As for the parent topic. My satellite service is of course way better than dialup and I would not want to go back. However the "fair access" bandwidth limits make it impractical to download anything like CD or gasp DVD images. I even have to plan for major updates to the several installations here and often pass on updates to some VM installs as just not worth it. This however is not any different for Windows updates, and at least Linux is more flexible in respect to updates. Oh BTW you are not likely to see many instances of 10mb per day of serious bug fixes or security related updates for Linux anyway, at least for a little while longer:).
What I don't get is the fever over Ubuntu. I understand people have preferences and such and embrace the variety. Heck polymorphic choice is one of Linux's most endearing qualities. I have also found Ubuntu and especially Kubuntu, I don't really care for Gnome so much, to be solid and pretty damn easy. Still to me the Ubuntu noise is way past what it deserves. I have tried every major distro and a lot of arcane ones as well over the years since I gave up on IBM & OS/2. I have found Suse or now openSuse has always been and still is the most polished, stable and easy of the lot. I am not happy with the Novell deal either but remember folks openSuse is not SLED. Still I am happy to see the excitement that Ubuntu has generated, and thus grateful for the efforts of their developers, benefactors and advocates.
I have been very impressed with how well E.O.Wilson is able to communicate some rather complex ideas. His style follows well the rules suggested by good old Eric Blair:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Another scientist to master of this very effective style was mythologist Joseph Campbell. The best conveyors or knowledge have always managed to say the most with the least effort by keeping it as clean, simple and culturally neutral as possible. I find that most my favorite writers tend to have this in common, Eric Blair himself (AKA George Orwell), Papa Hemingway, Arthur C Clarke, Kurt Vongut, Michio Kaku among others. A lot of journalists, authors, politicians and even/. posters could benefit from applying those 6 simple rules, myself included, sometimes;)
I am left to wonder if increases in charged particles could result in increases in cloud formation and thus affect the climate via things such as IR reflection issues.
I am not a banner waving advocate of either camp on the GW/CO2 issue at this time. This should not to be taken to mean that I am disinterested in the related issues or possible consequences.
"So, can anyone actually tell me what's the point?"
I don't disagree with your base observation that a lot of the stuff on newer desktops interfaces, 3D & 2D are more about eye candy and less about useful features. However I have found some of the eye candy to be really useful as well. I have been using use Beryl on openSuse for a while now and have some observations on this matters. For one thing I check the openSuse section on Beryls forum every weekend for news on the latest snapshot versions, and install the ones that seem stable, which lately has been pretty much all of them. I have found a lot of the more annoying performance and important feature issues in stable releases are usually fixed in the snapshots. As for the features I have found useful:
The "input zoom" function has been very handy, being able to zoom in and still have functional controls is nice.
The "thumbnail previews" of windows on the taskbar works so well that I prefer it to the desktop pager.
The "application switcher" and the "scale" features usefulness sure beat the heck out of a window list.
I keep a lot of stuff open sometimes and use the "cube" as a 16 sided ring that I find makes it very easy to flip between view ports with my mouse wheel or to zoom out rotate and pick one. A pager with 16 desktops would be a pain to use.
The group & tab feature seems like it is going to be the feature I have been wanting for sometime now as soon as I take the time to learn it and assign the application windows.
The per window transparency adjustment, mouse wheel and alt key makes it easy take a quick peek behind the current window and flip back quickly.
The time variable opacify on loss of focus feature for windows helps reduce distractions where I have several windows in one view port.
The "negative" feature sure helps with eyestrain and with poorly designed web pages.
The "annotate" feature has been useful in quickly showing others what I mean about a specific item, both in Linux itself or in web pages and documents or in some of the CAD/CAM design tools I use.
I know some of these features have counter parts that are not part of Beryl, but they are still of the same design intent and carry a similar overhead. I realize a lot of these features are keyboard shortcut intensive, but this something I have long been used to anyway. It may be that I put more importance than some on how something looks, but I find a good looking desktop on my PC is almost as important to me aesthetically as my custom built oak desk and cabinets are. I mean do you still like to use applications that use the CDE toolbox? Is your physical desk made of concrete blocks, milk crates and 2x8's, well my has been in the past too, but do you like it that way?
Finer things always come with a price, I also like to have a good looking woman on my arm, and you can't tell me there is no overhead cost there. Besides all this the "Damn, what, what did you just do? Cool, how much does this 3D stuff cost? Does it run on XP?" reactions I get from Windows users are just priceless.
I myself could be described as a small l libertarian who is about off the left side of the scale on social issues but fiducially pretty darn conservative, ie: cheap. I also have this personality glitch wherein I get pretty annoyed if things do not work properly and consistently. Free Software is about as good as it gets from my point of view. It works very well as a matter of normal course, I can do what ever the hell I want with it on my computer, it is inexpensive to obtain in the extreme. As a bonus I end up connecting with a lot of like minded folks with whom I can share, trade, improve and support others in developing this software without the parasitic authoritarian, bean counting and marketing types demanding their divvy. Oh but if only the rest of my life should fit so well to my inclinations wants and needs....
... would the editors give this type of FUDmucker a headline. But as soon as I tried to RTFA, I know that is poor form, but anyway in about 30 seconds I got the ole "failure to connect" response from the web server. Ha! I say to myself they just did a lefthanded DDOS attack on the FUDmucker via the Slashdot effect. CmdrTaco I am humbled.....
"I dont know what i know, but one thing I do know and that is; 'that i know what i dont know'."
Ahh grasshopper, on first impression one would think that such a good thing, because:
"It ain't what folks don't know thats gets them in the most trouble, it's the things they think they know that ain't so" Will Rodgers (or a close paraphrase of something he said anyway)
However one should be endeavor to be more agnostic on the certainty of ones agnosis of things one has yet to grok, a logically recursive blackhole this is.
Sorry to pick on your tagline, actually I like its recursive illogicality.:)
"Until the US creates a Constituional Amendment which defines a citizen's right to privacy"
Already taken care of in Amendment 4 in pretty plain language, ie: "secure in" = inviolable or private. Even IF this could be argued, Amendments 9 & 10 cover the rights to privacy via explicit reservation of all unenumerated rights. Our "public servants" just need to be taught to respect the constitution as it exists. I'm sorry but we can have endless writ specifying and confirming our rights, unless or until we hold those who would ignore and/or abuse these writs and the rights they define to serious consequence such writ is just "a goddamn piece of paper".
Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
"AFAIK, Dell isn't even in the thin client business, they are in the PC business."
There are hundreds of cute little Dell branded cigar box sized units setup to boot XP across the network where I work,(health care). Started seeing them about 3 years ago, now they are everywhere and seem almost the exclusive solution where the clinical staff needs a wired network access point. Not to mention the nearly equivalent number of 1u Dell's racked in the data center.
No no not I for one. I prefer them shaken NOT stirred. Say two flasks attached to a belt worn by a rather energetic and otherwise scantily clad hottie sounds like a fun method. Is this a memory derived from a scene in a Bond movie?
I think what this is about has very little to do with Apple specifically. What it is about is throwing a stick in the spokes of Virtual Machine technology as it relates to the common PC and workstation. They hope to cripple and confuse the VM issue long enough to develop counter measures. From what I have read recently the future of the PC OS will very likely include VM "Hyper-Visor" type code sitting between conventional OS services and the hardware. As usual with emerging technologies, it seems that Microsoft is lagging a bit behind several others in the implementation of virtualization. There is also the issue of whether they can ever manage to gain control of the technology. Others such as VMWare, Parallels, Novell, Sun and IBM have considerable experience and history, read patents out the yasoo, with the technology. With hardware due for a generational shift toward poly-core processors and serious hardware support for virtualization long before the five years it took to get Vista out the door, they had to address the issue. As typical for Microsoft, they choose to use a restrictive kludge instead of innovation, though I suspect it is the only real option they had ready.
I also suspect that the DRM technology built in to Vista may be of issue as well but I don't really know enough to speculate on these things. As for Apple they seem to have the same blinders on, or they maybe they are just holding their cards very very close, though I would think that any serious efforts at VM technology for OSX would leak from Apple dev labs if this were so. I may be seeing this wrong but from what I can tell VM technology could be the most promising and versatile technical advancement for user freedom and thus the most disruptive thing in computer OS software since GNU/Linux. I can see where Microsoft feels their only choice at this time is to muck the playing field. I would have been surprised if they had not done so.
You mean META level system utilitys like Suse's Yast2, Madrivia's MCC, etc. Then there are the tools in KDE or Gnomes control centers, which at least with KDE in Suse also have the capacity to launch Yast2 modules. Personally I find the GUI system management tools in Suse for example far superior to those in Windows XP Pro. I do still ocassionally head off to/etc with a text editor, but it is do things like customize the main menu icon on my kicker panel, that most people would not care to do. As for the use of plain text for most configuration files being a liability, I see it as a strength. I still remember the pain, hassles and hazards of huge monolithic and thus often corrupted binary config files in Windows and OS/2. As for LSB, I would like to see better and more consistent implementation made by distros but it is still far from a "joke".
.. is preservation and expansion of power. I do not dispute that Gates has an interest in helping people. I do not dispute that on the balance the foundation could be a extraordinary positive agent of change in the world. However nearly all such foundations have a common trait due to the laws that support their existence. By giving away 5% of the wealth they avoid a tax rate that would most likely be higher than 5%. The reinvestment of the 95% remaining wealth should yield a average return of much better than 5%. From the basic facts in should be obvious that not only is the foundation perpetually self replenishing it is actually growing in wealth and thus power. Additionally the wealth it controls, it controls itself, not the representatives of the people via the tax man. So the power stays within the executors of the foundation perpetually, or at least as long as the laws allow it to do so. As to whether an individual foundation turns out to be a beast or a angel will be for future historians to decide. In this specific case I can only note that due to the level of initial holdings it has the potential to be one of the greatest agents of change in human history.
"Windows became the dominant system purely because it gave people what they wanted. No other reason."
Not really, Windows became what it is from a combination of several factors. Number one is preloads, that Microsoft managed to persuade IBM to tie a MSDOS license to each CPU clone was an outstandingly brilliant business move. That it can manipulate vendors into preinstalls today is due to failures of the legal system to act. Some of the success is due to simple good fortune of being at the right place and time. Some is due to vision of seeing the possibilities. Much more is due to ruthless practices, ethical flexibility in regard to acquisition of others persons ideas, even IP as they themselves define it. Somewhat more than most expect a lot is due to MS being rather soft on the piracy of Windows in the early years. In the later years it has been more about manipulation, deception and marketing, oops sorry those are kinda of the same thing. I will concede that compared to commercial versions of UNIX, DOS and especially Windows was rather cheap and easy, read dumbed down and limited to make is so. Since IBM PC cloned hsrdwsre was also much cheaper than Apples MS scores again.
It may very well be that many here need to be better informed of natural philosophy. However a Wikipedia linked mini dissertation on how "Hobbesian" or "Lockean" philosophical base principles are related to software development and the marketplace is pointless in such a construct and I can easiy twist such an argument around on you. As brilliant as these men were they or no other person has ever nailed down the human condition well enough to support such an argument. Yes there are "Machiavellian" persons about in the world and there are those who strive to the ideals of Gandhi, however the vast majority of persons fall into the vast grey center. These opposing philosophical views often work out in the real world in ways you might not expect.
An example is called for here: Modern Linux distributions are much closer to what the vast majority of people would choose as per your definition of "Hobbesian values". That it is cheap, and dependable are attributes that most people want is due mostly to the merits of the FOSS "Lockean" type of ideals. Linux is getting easier to use and more dependable with each generation. Microsoft indeed realizes all these trends and this is why they are being as aggressive as possible in the deals they cut, the manipulation, deception, collusion and the FUD they spew forth.
On the other hand Windows is getting more expensive, less easy to use in many ways, and its relevance is being diminished by the greed of MS the RIAA and others.
I just signed the document and as of then : 3109 people have added their signatures to this document. I can understand why Bruce would hesitate to edit it now. Hey he has provided a space for your comments, just use it to present your IMHO rather excellent logic. Myself, I noted the parable of the scorpion and the eagle as being most topical. Wabi-Sabi Matthew
"The average user never installs an operating system"
I don't disagree with the basic premise of your points but there is another view you are missing here. Indeed very few average users will ever do an install of a NEW OS. But most are well versed in reinstalling a certain one from system restore media every few months, guess which one that is:). Most of the ones I know usually end up losing personal files, which I know is mostly a backup issue, but that is sooo "complicated" that few ever do so on a regular basis.
I forgot the last time I installed, reinstalled, upgraded, or updated an OS and lost ANY, that is zero, null, nill, zip, not a frackin one, of my personal files in the process. I have made many many backups of my personal files and will continue to do so, but the only time I have ever had to restore any of them on a Linux system was due to the death of hardware. Not only have I migrated my personal files between new hardware, but many of them between several Linux distro's, OS/2 and BSD, and of course between several file systems as well.
Today I keep most of my personal files in an over 100gb/kommonstuff directory tree, with a daily updated mirrow of the changes or additions on a second physical drive and occasionaly to a third drive. I access them from over two dozen Linux distros, most of which are VM's, as well as from other Linux boxes on my lan. Like I say I forgot the year I last lost personal files from an OS crash, but I can remember the OS and it was not Linux, nor was it OS/2 or BSD, guess which OS it was.
"I definitely think that anyone (poor or not) should earn what they get. I think one of the greatest things that has undermined US culture and other cultures is poorly designed welfare systems."
Personally I think that while poorly designed and implemented social welfare systems are a problem, they are less of a problem than inherited affluence. There are way to many who do not appreciate the importance of the assistance they get from their parents or other benefactors. In my experience the most vocal critics of public social support systems are those who have had overly generous private support systems, ie: wealthy or at least comfortably well off parents or grandparents. In my 50 or so years I have found that neither sloth or intelligence usually have much to do with ones fiducial conditions. Sometimes fiducial success results from where one places such as a priority in life coupled with a dogged persistence toward some such goal, more often though it is due to the initial bootstrap one has received from ones ancestors. The most fiducially successful persons are those with lives that are reflective of both base issues. And yes many of the more reflective and intelligent successful persons are aware and appreciative of the bootstrap, many more however are clueless of its importance in their lives, indeed most of these types see such as something they are entitled to.
"People have come to believe that they are entitled from someone for the basic necessities in life."
In a civilized society the idea an individual should be entitled to the basic necessities in life is not really that bad of an ideal to build upon. However as a member of said society they also have a responsibility to contribute as best they can back into said society. I know that I sound a bit like Karl Marx but he was not entirely wrong, you have to place yourself in his time and place to understand his views. I do believe there is a social responsibility that we a have, if nothing else to our ancestors efforts and honor. This is coming from someone that considers himself very much an (small o) objective thinking independent person with a (small l) libertarian view of life.
"In terms of knowledge, however, I think think it should be free."
I agree and besides "It wants to be"! I know that was shameless and I guess it sounds a bit silly to anthropomorphize such, however in the big picture we all "stand on the shoulders of giants". The base ideals that Thomas Jefferson had that gave birth to the patent system allowed people to receive benefits from their creativity and efforts for a reasonable period of time. Too bad it has been corrupted almost to ruination by shameless greedy types.
This ignores the synergy that can and usually does result from sharing of knowledge. The gnosis and thus power of both the original creator and those they share with can both increase as long as the transaction is open both ways. BTW your entire perspective on this is, from my view, at the heart of what "free" software is about, GNU/Linux is one excellent proof of of the models success.
Slashdot Mirror
Never stand directly in front of a breaker or other device to engage or especially to disengage said device.
Never ever cut more than one wire at a time unless the other ends are still in the box/on the reel.
Never use cheap tools or test equipment, never wear anything but 100% cotton unless it is flame retardant.
Never trust anyone but yourself, and be very very critical of that person.
Never think you have to actually touch something before it can hurt, maim or kill you.
Never assume that because something is grounded that it is harmless.
Never get in the current path, voltage is impressive, but it is the current that kills.
Never assume anything is dead or it might be you, hell never assume anything anyway.
Never do anything with thinking it over really really well, and again, and again.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
I am pretty sure just heard on PBS radio, I believe it was the "Marketplace" program Friday that Dell had failed to release earning reports for the last 2 or 3 quarters. I also remember hearing in the last month or so the Michael Dell is returning to fill the CEO role in the company. All this reads to me like a company in trouble.
If they intend to ship a box ready for Joe sixpack or grandmaw the DMCA and libdecss issues, licensing of the necessary proprietary formats,codecs and such will be really big issues. Then there are the GPL issues with the distribution of proprietary binary drivers, codecs, but I am unsure of how big an issue this would be as I guess it could be handled via separate media or by online updates.
As for how this fits with Microsoft, I would suspect that Novell might very well be an easy thus early certified vendor with a MS sanctioned version of SLED. I run openSuse here because I like it and have always found Suse to be the cream of the Linux crop, but I hope that this is not going to be exclusive to only those Linux companies that have signed a nasty compact wit MS. But who knows, maybe Dell is really in bad fiducial shape and are desperate enough to consider using this in setting up a legal attack on the "sell Windows exclusively or lose your discount" tax Microsoft has managed to levy on all of us.
I really don't have a problem with people making a very good living writing software. But you know nearly every time I have been tempted into buying closed source packaged software I have come away feeling screwed over. Not because of what I paid, but for the piss poor product and support I got for the money, or like OS/2 where IBM chose to let it die a slow painful death. Since moving away from Windows and OS/2 an onto Linux my main satisfaction comes from things working well, the quality of support I get, and the comfort of not depending on a single company's vision or ethics, not the price - the inexpensive nature of FOSS to me is just another bonus.
I wish Micheal Dell the best in getting his company back on its feet. I believe that a major PC builder like Dell could very well be the ice in the crack that breaks the Microsoft monopoly in this market. I also believe that if the legal issues about things like the DMCA can be resolved that the average person will find a lot to like about Linux and FOSS in general. I suspect that the first and second movers that bring Linux to the masses could profit from it very well. And last but not least, if business leaders and politicians get the heads out of their collective arses and get the patent/legal issues dealt with, the rate of innovation possible in a more free and open marketplace would be astounding. Innovation into what is possible with a product is the best fuel for expansion of the products market. Current details and implementation of IP laws and excessive protection of monopolies, especially in software, media and telecom industires, have what is possible on a very short leash.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
I read enough of this topic to see the Free Market mantra coming up over and over and over. I am fed up with hearing about "free market" this and that. Listen close now! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE MARKET! The markets are anything but free! Global corporations have bought the legislation to ensure such. This has always been the case to some extent, there has never been a truly free market anywhere on as a grand scale as a nation. I doubt that there has ever been one larger than a individual Quaker community or metropolitan sized street market/bazaar. Today the manipulation of markets for the gain of the privileged few are happening very effectively all over the world. Anywhere national or state level legislation doesn't work out they just bribe or coerce local officials. Wonder why so many in the third world hate us in the first? They see us in the light of these "business leaders" and our rah-rah support of these "free market heroes" and their propaganda.
As for free markets I am not even sure we want really free markets, as they are probably just too volatile to support a stable society the size we have today. What annoys me is all these business and political types running around shouting the free market mantra and holding up a free market as some sort of holy rule that we cannot muck with, when such does not even exist. I wish I had all the answers, I would be most pleased to share them. I can share this much, DO NOT believe the propaganda that we have a free market economy in the USA! The professed aspirations of such aside it is not and never has been such and getting less and less free with every legislative session. In addition regardless of any executive or legislative changes the SCOTUS of today is unlikely to shift back to anything like balanced in less than a decade at best, so get used to the rule of the corporate oligarchy. About the only possible way out would be if the judicial branch, SCOTUS in particular felt their own power or personal safety was seriously threatened by these interests, then they might wake up and see the damage being done to the working people of this nation. Of course in such a case by the time they have gain such insight they might actually find themselves neutered anyway. The big difference between today and recent history, in the USA anyway, is that the balance of power, political influence and wealth distribution between those that produce via their physical labor, creative ability's or information juggling/processing skills and the parasites that exist upon such has gotten wildly out of hand, again, not that is has ever been fair. sheezz!
Wabi-sabi
Matthew
"What is it with Utah businesses?"
See "Whats the Matter With Kansas?"
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Yea any one of the several ways listed below and probably a few others as well:
.jsprefs with a text editor or I believe there is a extension/addon that do this via the GUI.
Wine is a Linux implementation of the Windows API that can run many Windows apps IE included, I use it to run IE 6 occasionally.
Run Windows and IE under the free VMWare server, I use it to run Win 98 or NT4.0 occasionally.
It may be that telling Firefox to send an IE app identity string in requests will do what you want. I seem to remember that this can be set in
If these sites require ActiveX components or a specific version of the MS kludge of Java you will probably be limited to Wine or VMWare, possibly in the Java case to only VMWare running Windows with the kludged version of Java installed.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"If I didn't, I certainly wouldn't go out and buy a $100 modem just to use a free OS."
:).
I can understand that but you get a used external Courier vEverything off eBay for under $25US bucks these days. I know this because since I recently moved on to a SAT modem I thought I would sell my Courier, which BTW I did give $100US for -used from eBay, about five years ago. I decided to keep it for emergencies when I saw the prices they are bringing today.These things really are the tanks of serial com and the improvement in performance could be more than you might suspect. They handle crappy lines and noise much better than most others I have used and thus have many fewer retransmit requests which equals more data in less time. FYI most lab assay equipment I have seen uses this brand and model exclusively for serial com functions.
As for the parent topic. My satellite service is of course way better than dialup and I would not want to go back. However the "fair access" bandwidth limits make it impractical to download anything like CD or gasp DVD images. I even have to plan for major updates to the several installations here and often pass on updates to some VM installs as just not worth it. This however is not any different for Windows updates, and at least Linux is more flexible in respect to updates. Oh BTW you are not likely to see many instances of 10mb per day of serious bug fixes or security related updates for Linux anyway, at least for a little while longer
What I don't get is the fever over Ubuntu. I understand people have preferences and such and embrace the variety. Heck polymorphic choice is one of Linux's most endearing qualities. I have also found Ubuntu and especially Kubuntu, I don't really care for Gnome so much, to be solid and pretty damn easy. Still to me the Ubuntu noise is way past what it deserves. I have tried every major distro and a lot of arcane ones as well over the years since I gave up on IBM & OS/2. I have found Suse or now openSuse has always been and still is the most polished, stable and easy of the lot. I am not happy with the Novell deal either but remember folks openSuse is not SLED. Still I am happy to see the excitement that Ubuntu has generated, and thus grateful for the efforts of their developers, benefactors and advocates.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
I have been very impressed with how well E.O.Wilson is able to communicate some rather complex ideas. His style follows well the rules suggested by good old Eric Blair:
/. posters could benefit from applying those 6 simple rules, myself included, sometimes ;)
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Another scientist to master of this very effective style was mythologist Joseph Campbell. The best conveyors or knowledge have always managed to say the most with the least effort by keeping it as clean, simple and culturally neutral as possible. I find that most my favorite writers tend to have this in common, Eric Blair himself (AKA George Orwell), Papa Hemingway, Arthur C Clarke, Kurt Vongut, Michio Kaku among others. A lot of journalists, authors, politicians and even
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Source:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm - George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
I am left to wonder if increases in charged particles could result in increases in cloud formation and thus affect the climate via things such as IR reflection issues.
- a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=TLG&q=clim ate+change+and+cloud+generation+by+charged+particl es&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox
I am not a banner waving advocate of either camp on the GW/CO2 issue at this time. This should not to be taken to mean that I am disinterested in the related issues or possible consequences.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Cultivation of livestock? Just how deep does one plant a cow anyway? ;)
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"So, can anyone actually tell me what's the point?"
I don't disagree with your base observation that a lot of the stuff on newer desktops interfaces, 3D & 2D are more about eye candy and less about useful features. However I have found some of the eye candy to be really useful as well. I have been using use Beryl on openSuse for a while now and have some observations on this matters. For one thing I check the openSuse section on Beryls forum every weekend for news on the latest snapshot versions, and install the ones that seem stable, which lately has been pretty much all of them. I have found a lot of the more annoying performance and important feature issues in stable releases are usually fixed in the snapshots. As for the features I have found useful:
The "input zoom" function has been very handy, being able to zoom in and still have functional controls is nice.
The "thumbnail previews" of windows on the taskbar works so well that I prefer it to the desktop pager.
The "application switcher" and the "scale" features usefulness sure beat the heck out of a window list.
I keep a lot of stuff open sometimes and use the "cube" as a 16 sided ring that I find makes it very easy to flip between view ports with my mouse wheel or to zoom out rotate and pick one. A pager with 16 desktops would be a pain to use.
The group & tab feature seems like it is going to be the feature I have been wanting for sometime now as soon as I take the time to learn it and assign the application windows.
The per window transparency adjustment, mouse wheel and alt key makes it easy take a quick peek behind the current window and flip back quickly.
The time variable opacify on loss of focus feature for windows helps reduce distractions where I have several windows in one view port.
The "negative" feature sure helps with eyestrain and with poorly designed web pages.
The "annotate" feature has been useful in quickly showing others what I mean about a specific item, both in Linux itself or in web pages and documents or in some of the CAD/CAM design tools I use.
I know some of these features have counter parts that are not part of Beryl, but they are still of the same design intent and carry a similar overhead. I realize a lot of these features are keyboard shortcut intensive, but this something I have long been used to anyway. It may be that I put more importance than some on how something looks, but I find a good looking desktop on my PC is almost as important to me aesthetically as my custom built oak desk and cabinets are. I mean do you still like to use applications that use the CDE toolbox? Is your physical desk made of concrete blocks, milk crates and 2x8's, well my has been in the past too, but do you like it that way?
Finer things always come with a price, I also like to have a good looking woman on my arm, and you can't tell me there is no overhead cost there. Besides all this the "Damn, what, what did you just do? Cool, how much does this 3D stuff cost? Does it run on XP?" reactions I get from Windows users are just priceless.
Wabi-Sabi
matthew
Personally I would rather just wait around for the big one in a thousand years.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
That would be a sub-optimal result.
That would be one hell of an understatement
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
I myself could be described as a small l libertarian who is about off the left side of the scale on social issues but fiducially pretty darn conservative, ie: cheap. I also have this personality glitch wherein I get pretty annoyed if things do not work properly and consistently. Free Software is about as good as it gets from my point of view. It works very well as a matter of normal course, I can do what ever the hell I want with it on my computer, it is inexpensive to obtain in the extreme. As a bonus I end up connecting with a lot of like minded folks with whom I can share, trade, improve and support others in developing this software without the parasitic authoritarian, bean counting and marketing types demanding their divvy. Oh but if only the rest of my life should fit so well to my inclinations wants and needs....
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"I dont know what i know, but one thing I do know and that is; 'that i know what i dont know'."
:)
Ahh grasshopper, on first impression one would think that such a good thing, because:
"It ain't what folks don't know thats gets them in the most trouble, it's the things they think they know that ain't so" Will Rodgers (or a close paraphrase of something he said anyway)
However one should be endeavor to be more agnostic on the certainty of ones agnosis of things one has yet to grok, a logically recursive blackhole this is.
Sorry to pick on your tagline, actually I like its recursive illogicality.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"Until the US creates a Constituional Amendment which defines a citizen's right to privacy"
Already taken care of in Amendment 4 in pretty plain language, ie: "secure in" = inviolable or private. Even IF this could be argued, Amendments 9 & 10 cover the rights to privacy via explicit reservation of all unenumerated rights. Our "public servants" just need to be taught to respect the constitution as it exists. I'm sorry but we can have endless writ specifying and confirming our rights, unless or until we hold those who would ignore and/or abuse these writs and the rights they define to serious consequence such writ is just "a goddamn piece of paper".
Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Source: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"AFAIK, Dell isn't even in the thin client business, they are in the PC business."
There are hundreds of cute little Dell branded cigar box sized units setup to boot XP across the network where I work,(health care). Started seeing them about 3 years ago, now they are everywhere and seem almost the exclusive solution where the clinical staff needs a wired network access point. Not to mention the nearly equivalent number of 1u Dell's racked in the data center.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
No no not I for one. I prefer them shaken NOT stirred. Say two flasks attached to a belt worn by a rather energetic and otherwise scantily clad hottie sounds like a fun method. Is this a memory derived from a scene in a Bond movie?
Wabi Sabi
Matthew
I think what this is about has very little to do with Apple specifically. What it is about is throwing a stick in the spokes of Virtual Machine technology as it relates to the common PC and workstation. They hope to cripple and confuse the VM issue long enough to develop counter measures. From what I have read recently the future of the PC OS will very likely include VM "Hyper-Visor" type code sitting between conventional OS services and the hardware. As usual with emerging technologies, it seems that Microsoft is lagging a bit behind several others in the implementation of virtualization. There is also the issue of whether they can ever manage to gain control of the technology. Others such as VMWare, Parallels, Novell, Sun and IBM have considerable experience and history, read patents out the yasoo, with the technology. With hardware due for a generational shift toward poly-core processors and serious hardware support for virtualization long before the five years it took to get Vista out the door, they had to address the issue. As typical for Microsoft, they choose to use a restrictive kludge instead of innovation, though I suspect it is the only real option they had ready.
I also suspect that the DRM technology built in to Vista may be of issue as well but I don't really know enough to speculate on these things. As for Apple they seem to have the same blinders on, or they maybe they are just holding their cards very very close, though I would think that any serious efforts at VM technology for OSX would leak from Apple dev labs if this were so. I may be seeing this wrong but from what I can tell VM technology could be the most promising and versatile technical advancement for user freedom and thus the most disruptive thing in computer OS software since GNU/Linux. I can see where Microsoft feels their only choice at this time is to muck the playing field. I would have been surprised if they had not done so.
Matthew
You mean META level system utilitys like Suse's Yast2, Madrivia's MCC, etc. Then there are the tools in KDE or Gnomes control centers, which at least with KDE in Suse also have the capacity to launch Yast2 modules. Personally I find the GUI system management tools in Suse for example far superior to those in Windows XP Pro. I do still ocassionally head off to /etc with a text editor, but it is do things like customize the main menu icon on my kicker panel, that most people would not care to do. As for the use of plain text for most configuration files being a liability, I see it as a strength. I still remember the pain, hassles and hazards of huge monolithic and thus often corrupted binary config files in Windows and OS/2. As for LSB, I would like to see better and more consistent implementation made by distros but it is still far from a "joke".
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
.. is preservation and expansion of power. I do not dispute that Gates has an interest in helping people. I do not dispute that on the balance the foundation could be a extraordinary positive agent of change in the world. However nearly all such foundations have a common trait due to the laws that support their existence.
By giving away 5% of the wealth they avoid a tax rate that would most likely be higher than 5%. The reinvestment of the 95% remaining wealth should yield a average return of much better than 5%. From the basic facts in should be obvious that not only is the foundation perpetually self replenishing it is actually growing in wealth and thus power. Additionally the wealth it controls, it controls itself, not the representatives of the people via the tax man. So the power stays within the executors of the foundation perpetually, or at least as long as the laws allow it to do so. As to whether an individual foundation turns out to be a beast or a angel will be for future historians to decide. In this specific case I can only note that due to the level of initial holdings it has the potential to be one of the greatest agents of change in human history.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"Windows became the dominant system purely because it gave people what they wanted. No other reason."
Not really, Windows became what it is from a combination of several factors. Number one is preloads, that Microsoft managed to persuade IBM to tie a MSDOS license to each CPU clone was an outstandingly brilliant business move. That it can manipulate vendors into preinstalls today is due to failures of the legal system to act. Some of the success is due to simple good fortune of being at the right place and time. Some is due to vision of seeing the possibilities. Much more is due to ruthless practices, ethical flexibility in regard to acquisition of others persons ideas, even IP as they themselves define it. Somewhat more than most expect a lot is due to MS being rather soft on the piracy of Windows in the early years. In the later years it has been more about manipulation, deception and marketing, oops sorry those are kinda of the same thing. I will concede that compared to commercial versions of UNIX, DOS and especially Windows was rather cheap and easy, read dumbed down and limited to make is so. Since IBM PC cloned hsrdwsre was also much cheaper than Apples MS scores again.
It may very well be that many here need to be better informed of natural philosophy. However a Wikipedia linked mini dissertation on how "Hobbesian" or "Lockean" philosophical base principles are related to software development and the marketplace is pointless in such a construct and I can easiy twist such an argument around on you. As brilliant as these men were they or no other person has ever nailed down the human condition well enough to support such an argument. Yes there are "Machiavellian" persons about in the world and there are those who strive to the ideals of Gandhi, however the vast majority of persons fall into the vast grey center. These opposing philosophical views often work out in the real world in ways you might not expect.
An example is called for here: Modern Linux distributions are much closer to what the vast majority of people would choose as per your definition of "Hobbesian values". That it is cheap, and dependable are attributes that most people want is due mostly to the merits of the FOSS "Lockean" type of ideals. Linux is getting easier to use and more dependable with each generation. Microsoft indeed realizes all these trends and this is why they are being as aggressive as possible in the deals they cut, the manipulation, deception, collusion and the FUD they spew forth.
On the other hand Windows is getting more expensive, less easy to use in many ways, and its relevance is being diminished by the greed of MS the RIAA and others.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
I just signed the document and as of then : 3109 people have added their signatures to this document. I can understand why Bruce would hesitate to edit it now. Hey he has provided a space for your comments, just use it to present your IMHO rather excellent logic. Myself, I noted the parable of the scorpion and the eagle as being most topical.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"The average user never installs an operating system"
:). Most of the ones I know usually end up losing personal files, which I know is mostly a backup issue, but that is sooo "complicated" that few ever do so on a regular basis.
/kommonstuff directory tree, with a daily updated mirrow of the changes or additions on a second physical drive and occasionaly to a third drive. I access them from over two dozen Linux distros, most of which are VM's, as well as from other Linux boxes on my lan. Like I say I forgot the year I last lost personal files from an OS crash, but I can remember the OS and it was not Linux, nor was it OS/2 or BSD, guess which OS it was.
I don't disagree with the basic premise of your points but there is another view you are missing here. Indeed very few average users will ever do an install of a NEW OS. But most are well versed in reinstalling a certain one from system restore media every few months, guess which one that is
I forgot the last time I installed, reinstalled, upgraded, or updated an OS and lost ANY, that is zero, null, nill, zip, not a frackin one, of my personal files in the process. I have made many many backups of my personal files and will continue to do so, but the only time I have ever had to restore any of them on a Linux system was due to the death of hardware. Not only have I migrated my personal files between new hardware, but many of them between several Linux distro's, OS/2 and BSD, and of course between several file systems as well.
Today I keep most of my personal files in an over 100gb
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
"I definitely think that anyone (poor or not) should earn what they get. I think one of the greatest things that has undermined US culture and other cultures is poorly designed welfare systems."
Personally I think that while poorly designed and implemented social welfare systems are a problem, they are less of a problem than inherited affluence. There are way to many who do not appreciate the importance of the assistance they get from their parents or other benefactors. In my experience the most vocal critics of public social support systems are those who have had overly generous private support systems, ie: wealthy or at least comfortably well off parents or grandparents. In my 50 or so years I have found that neither sloth or intelligence usually have much to do with ones fiducial conditions. Sometimes fiducial success results from where one places such as a priority in life coupled with a dogged persistence toward some such goal, more often though it is due to the initial bootstrap one has received from ones ancestors. The most fiducially successful persons are those with lives that are reflective of both base issues. And yes many of the more reflective and intelligent successful persons are aware and appreciative of the bootstrap, many more however are clueless of its importance in their lives, indeed most of these types see such as something they are entitled to.
"People have come to believe that they are entitled from someone for the basic necessities in life."
In a civilized society the idea an individual should be entitled to the basic necessities in life is not really that bad of an ideal to build upon. However as a member of said society they also have a responsibility to contribute as best they can back into said society. I know that I sound a bit like Karl Marx but he was not entirely wrong, you have to place yourself in his time and place to understand his views. I do believe there is a social responsibility that we a have, if nothing else to our ancestors efforts and honor. This is coming from someone that considers himself very much an (small o) objective thinking independent person with a (small l) libertarian view of life.
"In terms of knowledge, however, I think think it should be free."
I agree and besides "It wants to be"! I know that was shameless and I guess it sounds a bit silly to anthropomorphize such, however in the big picture we all "stand on the shoulders of giants". The base ideals that Thomas Jefferson had that gave birth to the patent system allowed people to receive benefits from their creativity and efforts for a reasonable period of time. Too bad it has been corrupted almost to ruination by shameless greedy types.
"It seems that creating knowledge creates power, sharing knowledge shares power."
This ignores the synergy that can and usually does result from sharing of knowledge. The gnosis and thus power of both the original creator and those they share with can both increase as long as the transaction is open both ways. BTW your entire perspective on this is, from my view, at the heart of what "free" software is about, GNU/Linux is one excellent proof of of the models success.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew