Disregarding Lindoze for a moment, I'll just say "I second that comment about 'Focus!'".
Imagine a boxing match.
Over here in this corner, weighing 691 Million Pounds, is Billy "Boom Boom" Gates! (95% of the crowd roars. Bill's shuffling like Muhammad Ali. Steve Ballmer is popping Bill's mouthpiece in, and helping him out of his satin fight robe)
And over here in this corner, is OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD! (confused muttering from crowd... a hippie in the back screams "far out man!" and is dragged out by security)
And over here in this corner, is Mr. Linux himself. Linus "Red Hat Debian SuSE Knoppix Mandrake Slackware" Torvalds and his gang! (crowd titters a bit, the crowded Linux corner acknowledges the crowd for a nanosecond, and then proceeds to get into a punching match with itself. RMS tries to get into the action, but is pushed towards the BSD corner. The BSD corner pushes him back. He gives up and takes out a flute. The crowd pelts him with vegetables)
And finally, over here in this corner, Mr Steve Jobs and his Apple Picking Punchers! (Much scattered applause, Verne Troyer and Yao Ming quickly duck under the ropes and join Steve. Jeff Goldblum helps Steve into his fighting turtleneck)
Anyway... the point is that Microsoft has gotta love all of the divisiveness amongst its competitors. I ran out of corners to mention parties like Sun, HP, and SCO (Somewhat Crazy Orangutans), but it just helps to make the point: There's WAY too many *nix'en alternatives vying for attention - dissipating energy in the process...
McLaren had an awful year. I actually miss Mika Hakkinen! (I'm a Tifosi)
re: launch control, I forgot to mention.. all of the drivers like to lay down rubber at their grid postions at the start of the formation lap (done with launch control off). That way they have a little more grip at the start of the race.
I'm against traction control in F1, but I don't see any way they could enforce it. The tech is always one step ahead of scrutineering!
Just to be a little pedantic, it's "launch control". Steve Matchett (of Speed Channel, and his own books) is particularly great at explaining all of the F1 tech stuff.
F1 drivers spend some time over the weekend doing practice starts from the end of the pit lane. What they're doing is trying to calibrate the launch control to the local surface (grip), and the tire compound being used that weekend.
You'll rarely see an F1 driver more frustrated than when they are stalled on the grid due to a software problem! Talk about embarassing programming moments...
>On the BMW mailing lists a few years ago, there was a guy >who posted often about such issues. His name is Jim >Conforti, and he makes one of (if not the) top aftermarket >engine chips for BMWs. We are talking uber-geek here.
Heh heh. and not only chips... JIm sells a "Shark
Injector" which upgrades the OBD II software
via the engine diagnostic port (such as my '97
M3) See Jim's site, or just do a search for "M3 Shark Injector". Combined with a cold air intake, there's
a noticeable difference on the track (and, er, certain
backroads too...) Happy Customer.
Sometime in the 1980's - West Coast Computer Faire...
Jef is on a panel, and the talk is about UI, or the future of computing, or some such.
Jef states that he doesn't see the need for User Groups. He doesn't like the idea that people that own computers get together to help each other out.
He said "You don't see Washing Machine User Groups". He may have mentioned the toaster as well.
To this day, I felt he misses a fundamental point:
You don't do your taxes on a washing machine.
You don't write books with your toaster.
A lot of what we do with computers (some of us, anyways...) is inherently cerebral, and social.
OF COURSE we are going to get together to talk about them, in person or online.
You can dumb down a UI as much as you want, hide as many details as possible, in an attempt to spoon feed the masses of the Blinking Twelve. But the fact remains: if there's some thinking involved with the task at hand, users will want to get together to share experiences.
So Jef, take back the example about the Washing Machine:-)
Note: Strider, Mr. Mythic Hero from beginning to end, doesn't do all that much in the grand scheme of things - he secures his kingdom but does not save the world
I would not mind them using "underlying code, or blueprint", as long as they would get the whole "cracker" versus "hacker" terminology correct. (but I fear it may be too late for "hacker" to get back its 1980's meaning...)
Shunting heat around in a laptop is interesting, but it's only a detour that doesn't solve the real problem...
The problem is that we need some advance that will increase computational speed AND run cooler. Much cooler. Nanotech's still a ways off. What's going to be the tech between present day and then?
It doesn't matter where you put fans in a laptop. It doesn't matter how you try to get rid of the heat. You still have lots of folks (like my wife, for one) that want to place their laptop on a down comforter, or some other surface that does NOTHING to disperse heat.
p.s. I've been listening to damn computer fans since 1981 (Vax 11/750). Sick of 'em (but yet my study has 3 machines running... go figure)
With any discussion about RMS and his myriad of contributions, it's great to look up a little history in order to keep perspective.
In particular, I recall the era of Emacs vs Lucid Emacs vs Epoch (basically 3 variants of Emacs, some incompatibilities, a lot of confusion, and a bit of a dropped-ball on the part of the FSF).
You may even see a few familiar names in there, such as a kid named Marc Andreesen...
My example is: RMS has given us Emacs and GCC as two of his best efforts. But, he's also been pretty difficult to work with over the years (aside from meetings and other examples others have posted). I have to wonder how this has affected the development of HURD, which started in 1990.
My perspective is... He's a great coder, and has made lots of valuable, tangible contributions. BUT... He should not be a front-man for the idea of Free Software. It's difficult for a lot of people to get past the poor messenger, and to the message itself (think "business decision makers" for a moment)
Sorry this is unfocused. I am orbiting around the
"great contributions, but still makes me cringe" vibe of RMS.
Just guessing here (as far as games go), but with most commerical software, the pressure is ON to SHIP THE DAMN THING. The emphasis goes on killing the biggest bugs, and all sorts of patches and quick fixes often creep in towards the end. Oh, and feature creep...
There's a balance:
* can have it totally optimized, with lots of features missing, and ship now * can have it somewhat well-debugged, and bloated, and ship soon * can have it 12-18 months from now, very optimized, and well-debugged
Just can't have it totally-optimized, totally debugged, and on-time!
"So Barthelet introduced measurable goals and objectives for each programmer. Everything would be tracked, including the number of lines programmers were writing each day."
Tracking the lines of code written? Talk about an invitation to bloat! Having been on large commerical software projects before, sitting with other developers reviewing code submissions, I can say that one would get laughed out of the room if they merely wrote with a "number of lines submitted" mentality.
Unasked-for advice to would-be project managers: It's the quality of the code, not the number of lines it takes to make things happen. Experienced developers know what I'm talking about. Number of features implemented, and number of bugs squished, are far more reliable indicators of ones' contribution.
I have skimmed over CIPE.php So.. if I am reading this correctly, this would allow a lightweight VPN over an arbitrary public AP? (getting hung up over the "how is routing handled?" part)
Slashdot Mirror
They use a different type of streaming.
Watch out for that yellow snow.
Disregarding Lindoze for a moment, I'll just say "I second that comment about 'Focus!'".
Imagine a boxing match.
Over here in this corner, weighing 691 Million Pounds, is Billy "Boom Boom" Gates! (95% of the crowd roars. Bill's shuffling like Muhammad Ali. Steve Ballmer is popping Bill's mouthpiece in, and helping him out of his satin fight robe)
And over here in this corner, is OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD! (confused muttering from crowd... a hippie in the back screams "far out man!" and is dragged out by security)
And over here in this corner, is Mr. Linux himself. Linus "Red Hat Debian SuSE Knoppix Mandrake Slackware" Torvalds and his gang! (crowd titters a bit, the crowded Linux corner acknowledges the crowd for a nanosecond, and then proceeds to get into a punching match with itself. RMS tries to get into the action, but is pushed towards the BSD corner. The BSD corner pushes him back. He gives up and takes out a flute. The crowd pelts him with vegetables)
And finally, over here in this corner, Mr Steve Jobs and his Apple Picking Punchers! (Much scattered applause, Verne Troyer and Yao Ming quickly duck under the ropes and join Steve. Jeff Goldblum helps Steve into his fighting turtleneck)
Anyway... the point is that Microsoft has gotta love all of the divisiveness amongst its competitors. I ran out of corners to mention parties like Sun, HP, and SCO (Somewhat Crazy Orangutans), but it just helps to make the point: There's WAY too many *nix'en alternatives vying for attention - dissipating energy in the process...
One wonders why Apple didn't spring this at SFMW03. The cynic in me says that the keynote was so long already, that something had to get shelved.
In the meantime, here's something fun you can do with iTunes, indeed anything that outputs sound on a Mac:
Audio Hijack - AH lets you tweak the sound of any app....and it can record streams as well. An awesome app.
McLaren had an awful year. I actually miss Mika
Hakkinen! (I'm a Tifosi)
re: launch control, I forgot to mention.. all of the drivers
like to lay down rubber at their grid postions at
the start of the formation lap (done with launch control
off). That way they have a little more grip at the start
of the race.
I'm against traction control in F1, but I don't see any way
they could enforce it. The tech is always one step
ahead of scrutineering!
Just to be a little pedantic, it's "launch control".
Steve Matchett (of Speed Channel, and his
own books) is particularly great at explaining
all of the F1 tech stuff.
F1 drivers spend some time over the weekend
doing practice starts from the end of the pit
lane. What they're doing is trying to calibrate
the launch control to the local surface (grip),
and the tire compound being used that weekend.
You'll rarely see an F1 driver more frustrated than
when they are stalled on the grid due to a software
problem! Talk about embarassing programming
moments...
>On the BMW mailing lists a few years ago, there was a guy >who posted often about such issues. His name is Jim >Conforti, and he makes one of (if not the) top aftermarket >engine chips for BMWs. We are talking uber-geek here.
Heh heh. and not only chips... JIm sells a "Shark Injector" which upgrades the OBD II software via the engine diagnostic port (such as my '97 M3) See Jim's site, or just do a search for "M3 Shark Injector". Combined with a cold air intake, there's a noticeable difference on the track (and, er, certain backroads too...) Happy Customer.
btw: R.I.P. BMW CCA Founder: Michel Potheau
Know why a lighted keyboard makes sense?
Husband/Wife, one wants sleep. One wants to surf.
One wants the ALL of the lights off, right now, or there will
be hell to pay.
That's why
Here ya go:
Beowulf and the Critics -- Feb. 2003
I'll tell ya a Jef Raskin story.
Sometime in the 1980's - West Coast Computer Faire...
Jef is on a panel, and the talk is about UI, or the
future of computing, or some such.
Jef states that he doesn't see the need for User Groups.
He doesn't like the idea that people that own computers
get together to help each other out.
He said "You don't see Washing Machine User Groups". He may have mentioned the toaster as well.
To this day, I felt he misses a fundamental point:
You don't do your taxes on a washing machine.
You don't write books with your toaster.
A lot of what we do with computers (some of us,
anyways...) is inherently cerebral, and social.
OF COURSE we are going to get together to
talk about them, in person or online.
You can dumb down a UI as much as you want,
hide as many details as possible, in an attempt
to spoon feed the masses of the Blinking Twelve.
But the fact remains: if there's some thinking
involved with the task at hand, users will want to
get together to share experiences.
So Jef, take back the example about the Washing Machine
They send John Dvorak off to Siberia!
Yep.
The general "rule" I think of is "you can say
anything you want, but you better take
responsibility for everything you say".
A lot of trouble seems to come from people
"forgetting" the second part.
Usenetter since 1984.
hmmmm.. one word: Weathertop.
ok, let's say they were going to make a Star Trek Movie with your favorite cast members, good and evil. From ANY of the series.
..etc..
Who would you want?
Who are the opponents?
Cast members I couldn't do without:
* Worf
* Seven of Nine
* Data
* Spock
* Checkov
Leave 'em at home:
* Kes
* Troi
* Dr Pulaski
* The Kazon
Favorite disturbers of the Peace:
* Q!
* Ferengi
* Borg Queen
* Klingons (before treaty...)
and so on...
> It may or may not surprise you that burned Seattleites smell a lot like roasted coffee.
:-) (residue in fatty tissues)
But isn't that a function of all the coffee they drink while they're alive?
"decaf just gives the illusion of coffee"
I would not mind them using "underlying code, or blueprint", as long as they would get the whole "cracker" versus "hacker" terminology correct. (but I fear it may be too late for "hacker" to get back its 1980's meaning...)
and -3 "You know damn well what you did!"
Well, Klingons would not use Windows.
There is no honor in the Blue Screen Of Death.
The OS of a warrior must not crash! Anything less is for the Patok!
Shunting heat around in a laptop is interesting, but it's only a detour that doesn't solve the real problem...
The problem is that we need some advance that will increase computational speed AND run cooler. Much cooler. Nanotech's still a ways off. What's going to be the tech between present day and then?
It doesn't matter where you put fans in a laptop. It doesn't matter how you try to get rid of the heat. You still have lots of folks (like my wife, for one) that want to place their laptop on a down comforter, or some other surface that does NOTHING to disperse heat.
p.s. I've been listening to damn computer fans since 1981 (Vax 11/750). Sick of 'em (but yet my study has 3 machines running... go figure)
With any discussion about RMS and his myriad of contributions, it's great to look up a little history in order to keep perspective.
In particular, I recall the era of Emacs vs Lucid Emacs vs Epoch (basically 3 variants of Emacs, some incompatibilities, a lot of confusion, and a bit of a dropped-ball on the part of the FSF).
Wind your way-back machine to 1992, via deja.com: Lucid Emacs threads
You may even see a few familiar names in there, such as a kid named Marc Andreesen...
My example is: RMS has given us Emacs and GCC as two of his best efforts. But, he's also been pretty difficult to work with over the years (aside from meetings and other examples others have posted). I have to wonder how this has affected the development of HURD, which started in 1990.
My perspective is... He's a great coder, and has made lots of valuable, tangible contributions. BUT... He should not be a front-man for the idea of Free Software. It's difficult for a lot of people to get past the poor messenger, and to the message itself (think "business decision makers" for a moment)
Sorry this is unfocused. I am orbiting around the "great contributions, but still makes me cringe" vibe of RMS.
You can still get Bored Of The Rings, which is a 1969-era parody. Oh, wait, you'd have to read the real books first to get most of the jokes :-)
> So many games are bloated...
A comment that applies to lots of 1.0 releases...
Just guessing here (as far as games go), but with most commerical software, the pressure is ON to SHIP THE DAMN THING. The emphasis goes on killing the biggest bugs, and all sorts of patches and quick fixes often creep in towards the end. Oh, and feature creep...
There's a balance:
* can have it totally optimized, with lots of features missing, and ship now
* can have it somewhat well-debugged, and bloated, and ship soon
* can have it 12-18 months from now, very optimized, and well-debugged
Just can't have it totally-optimized, totally debugged, and on-time!
"So Barthelet introduced measurable goals and objectives for each programmer. Everything would be tracked, including the number of lines programmers were writing each day."
Tracking the lines of code written? Talk about an invitation to bloat! Having been on large commerical software projects before, sitting with other developers reviewing code submissions, I can say that one would get laughed out of the room if they merely wrote with a "number of lines submitted" mentality.
Unasked-for advice to would-be project managers: It's the quality of the code, not the number of lines it takes to make things happen. Experienced developers know what I'm talking about. Number of features implemented, and number of bugs squished, are far more reliable indicators of ones' contribution.
"Mongo write 500 lines today! Mongo allocate gigabyte! Memory smoke! Computer crash! Mongo sad!"
Knock Knock...
"Who's there?"
GNU
"GNU who?"
GNU want to give me $250 for a $50 drive with $15 worth of CDRs?
GNO!
> CIPE
I have skimmed over CIPE.php So.. if I am reading this correctly, this would allow a lightweight VPN over an arbitrary public AP? (getting hung up over the "how is routing handled?" part)
Pardon my ignorance on this, but what would the options be for using a public WiFi AP securely?
I assume that WEP (yes, I know that WEP != "secure") would be turned off, so what does that leave?
ssh tunnel?
IPSec?
Anything else?