Please distinguish between the "Bible-thumping zealots" and people who actually practice the tenets of Christianity while at the same time taking a reasonable viewpoint. By "reasonable" I do not mean "scientifically mainstream", however. The fact that living things change over time is quite plainly true. The fact that all DNA is constructed from the same basic building blocks is also true. The revelation that a fraction of the former estimates for human DNA are actually relevant is interesting, but ultimately it doesn't prove anything along the lines of "we are descended from bacteria". The fact that we may have genetic sequences in common with bacteria is not in itself proof; we're also composed in part from minerals like iron, and I see nobody suggesting that human beings evolved from rock. Shared components do not in and of themselves prove ancestry.
>> My main problem with the original is the same
>> problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer
>> type clones: why in the world would your brain
>> kill your body if you 'thought' you died in
>> some VR-type world? It makes no sense.
It makes sense to me if you consider the following (yes, yes, off-topic). The brain implants are put in by Matrix AIs, for their own purposes. If the implant gets the message "this person is dead", it seems like a simple matter to shut off the autonomic nervous system, or overload it - this "the body cannot live without the mind" stuff isn't necessary.
Has anyone considered looking for buffer overflows in the ShareZilla code? send a targeted request for '0xFF, 0xFF' or what-have-you and watch the spam factory turn to Jell-o.
Every geek I know personally would do Neve Campbell.
Above and beyond that, I think many people are attracted to mystery for the intelligence factor - can the audience solve the crime before the characters in the story do? While Scream itself may have been classed as "horror", it is as much of a mystery as Agatha Cristie's work (albeit with a lesser pedigree).
I GM'ed a "Matrix" roleplaying game for awhile, and the question came up: WHY does the body die when you get killed in the Matrix? My explanation was simple: until the PCs were able to figure out exactly how the COMPLETELY UNKNOWN PIECES OF TECHNOLOGY in their skulls worked, nearly anything oculd be justified. After all, an AI with nearly 200 years worth of R&D could probably devise a neural interface that killed you if you died in the simulation, and would have absolutely no compunction about doing so (letting the "real you" live when your Matrix persona had died made no sense, and you could always be recycled for food for the rest of your fellow batter-- humans).
For anything NOT involving a neural interface where you are more or less electrically wired into a computer, it's unrealistic. But when you suggest that electrodes are buried in your scalp, braindamage and death become all too possible.
This is less suspicious than it sounds. It's almost certain that many government departments are already using Windows 95, 98, NT, etc. and have existing applications running on those platforms. Banning those would be a rather poor migration move:) Assuming this story is true, the likely plan is to force the ministries to follow a Linux upgrade path rather than a W2K one, as I'm sure many existing applications would need ported/emulated/tested/replaced. You don't just throw away your IT infrastructure, after all.
"Mystical" is an entirely subjective decision. The spirit of true science, if confronted with the inescapable fact that the world rested on the back of a giant turtle, would be expected to ask, "Ok so what does it consume to stay alive?"
Science is not about supporting what you think is "the right way the universe should work"; it is about making observations and constructing possible explanations based on those observations.
If the universe really does look random, blurry, and oddly mystical, oh well. People make value judgements; science shouldn't.
This really depends on the platform you're using Java on, and what you do with the app before you run it. TYA gives a pretty respectable speed boost. GCJ has just now worked for me (I had to install the GCC 2.95.2 RPMs from Mandrake onto my RH6 box):
garrett@isomorph:~$ time java Hello Hello World 1.52user 0.27system 0:01.79elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs (7492major+4733minor)pagefaults 0swaps
This is true; however, it seems like recently RMS has managed to shed the "raving lunatic" reputation he formerly enjoyed among many members of the community, I think in whole due to the fact that his posts now COME OFF as reasoned, intelligent discourse instead of single-mindedness. Maybe that's because he feels that the war has been swung in favor of free software, and he's relaxing. Who knows. Maybe he's just practicing what he preaches: modify the means, not the end, and he's pursuing the same goal of free software but taking a new tack in doing so.
Re:Let's do it the Cyberspace way...
on
3D Window Manager
·
· Score: 2
As long as you're restricting CORBA to the relatively high-level stuff ("draw a button") rather than putting it in front of the equivalent of XLib ("draw a pixel here, paint it red"). The project to watch for this approach is probably Berlin; they already support the notion of CORBA communication between client and server, where the "toolkit" code is effectively on the server. It's a small step from there to writing a server that creates 3d objects, with no application rewriting necessary (unless your app wanted to manipulate things in 3d itself).
I don't see that as a contradiction. "Script kiddie" and "programmer" are not opposites -- the kiddiez are the ones who don't want to UNDERSTAND, not those who don't want to PROGRAM. There is a distinction, believe it or not.
And as for taking them seriously, the idea that swear words and slams will somehow cancel out the talent and effort that the cDc has demonstrated is laughable. They're not going in for a job interview. They aren't modelling this year's fashionable clothes. They don't need presentability because they aren't trying to pass themselves off as anything but a bunch of guys having fun being elite.
I've been working on ideas for a new Linux distribution (yeah yeah, flame on) that's based around CORBA and XML: backend objects convert a normal program's configuration files into XML and back again, communicating with whatever frontend program you want to write (a java applet, a command-line program, a GUI, whatever). So Apache's httpd.conf gets rendered into XML, the XML gets edited (by whatever means), then the edits get handed back and the backend program converts it back into an httpd.conf file.
There are three specific advantages to this, as opposed to making every program use XML for its configuration: 1. Some programs are just optimized for a particular parsing style. Apache's needs differ from sendmail's, which differ from inetd's. There's no reason each program needs to use XML internally. 2. It's backward compatible. My hypothetical distribution wouldn't need to make major patches for every new release of every daemon in existence. It's also forward compatible, because it doesn't require new daemons to use XML either. 3. It doesn't piss off the "tomsrtbt and vi at 3 am" people, who either by necessity or choice want to be able to hack directly on configuration files.
Does this turn into a "Windows Registry"? No. The only differences between Linux and the Registry is that the Registry is binary, and that it's all in one place-- Linux configurations are scattered all over. This method lets you edit all configuration files using a single tool, but it doesn't give up the ability to hand-edit files if necessary.
The other application XML has in this distribution idea is for package management. Instead of a proprietary format (RPM, DEB, whatever), we have an XML "manifest" or "spec file" in a tarball along with the relevant files; the XML file has a well-defined filename, and tarballs can be created anywhere, without installing any additional software. This doesn't burden software developers with the need to make special arrangements for binary distributions; by including such a spec file with their normal source distribution, they've effectively created an "SRPM" without any additional effort. If they want to package up binaries as well, more power to em; otherwise, someone else can.
Apparently Mr. Dvorak's article was written well before the Google announcement -- at last check, Google runs Linux and has been doing very, very well, not only in serving up search results but in indexing the Web.
It's not IRC, but frankly I consider Google to be more valuable than IRC, and I'm assuming it's more profitable to its owners.:)
The first is the assumption that "the media equals reality". Linux exploits announced in the media and they don't affect NetBSD? Conclusion: NetBSD has no security weaknesses! Hah to you, Penguin! "Linux is the favorite tool of crackers [sic]" I suppose because criminals prefer the automobile we should all stick to mini-vans. Lots of companies announce Linux support and products? Obviously corporations are now driving Linux development! Boy, won't the developers themselves be surprised to hear that.
The second is the assumption that "correctness is superior to functionality". When it's correctness at the expense of functionality (as is arguably the case with certain of the *BSD lines, in certain cases), I take exception to being told "cope".
I do consider this article to be FUD. If you can't argue something's merits without falling back on attacking the perceived competition, you discredit yourself and the subject of your article.
Somebody mentioned the X-10 system, but I didn't see anyone mention another relatively small, mobile device: AIBO. While undoubtedly pricier than the Mindstorm kits ^_^;;, this would be an interesting thing to see.
I could see a lot of potential in an X-10/Jini/Palm crossover. Forget about a universal/learning remote, how about a context-sensitive remote? You just point your Palm at the TV and it automatically changes its controls to those of the television remote; point at the lamp and you get a switch, which sends a signal to your X-10 unit via the Jini proxy.
I can think of one big application: medical monitoring.
If these things can be fitted to detect a range of biologicals in the air, you can just inject some of them into the air around your patients. Instead of scanning a given sample of air, you can be instantly alerted of any foreign agents entering the airspace. Whether or not the motes themselves would pose a health risk is the only question I can see that would need answering.
Ahh, there is that. Whose definition of "fair" will we use this in this year's election?
Premise: fairness can only be adjudicated when all the facts are known. Premise: the facts of the worth of any candidates up for election will never be known until after their terms. Conclusion: no election can ever be fair.
The "Uplift" books from David Brin have an interesting perspective on the "smarter animal" idea. I encourage anyone who wants to pursue a line of speculation like this to pick them up and read them.
I've looked all over creation for the answer to this. For some reason, my Rawhide box at home runs SO51 just fine, but the RH6 box at work doesn't. Maybe something in glibc broke...
Dunno about Debian, but I've seen some very mixed claims about SO51's ability to run under Red Hat 6.
I've worked in the company of two semi-raving FreeBSD advocates, one of which made sure our routers ran it, so I (like a lot of folks here) have logged hours using it.
Based on that experience, I would say two things: 1 - FreeBSD does conform to the "traditional" UNIX standards very nicely. 2 - Conforming to traditional UNIX standards does not always encourage getting work done.
Some of the "tricks" and shortcuts that I can use in Linux (I think someone mentioned ifconfig defaulting to "-a" with no arguments in a previous article) make it a lot easier for me to accomplish things. After all, I'm the administrator! I know what ifconfig does! I don't want to be told the usage, I want it to do something smart when I type "ifconfig". And -a still works, for those old-school admins who happen to type that. So how have we lost anything? That's just one minor example.
I think that is one of the strengths of Linux: it is allowed to "do the right thing, within the limits of the standards" (for some definition of the right thing, but preferably mine). BSD has embraced the standards without necessarily contributing to usability, IMO. Does this make it good for servers that get installed and nobody ever touches again? Absolutely. Would I use it for anything else? Fraid not.
Given their questionable involvement in the open-source effect, this would give them the chance to release something to the OSS community that doesn't really bite into their core business (which right now appears to be selling servers and Java-related stuff). And there's every chance that an open-source StarOffice could integrate with an open-source Mozilla, providing the free counterpoint to Office/IE.
Sun saves on developers and time (unless they just intended to buy it and let it stagnate); they get brownie points with the free-software geeks; they get a competing office product that's already nicely cross-platform.
I'd like to jump in and beg people not to start screaming about "Microsoft's sucky security" until we get more information about the exploit that was used, if any is available (I'll be watching BUGTRAQ for this).
Remember, Hotmail uses both Solaris and NT in various capacities.
A guy I used to work with/for had a FreeBSD box sitting in his car hooked up to the UPS. The reason? He worked with a lot of people who used the WaveLAN wireless-networking cards. The box had a WaveLAN built in and he attached it to an aerial. So all he had to do was park out front of the client's building and put the aerial on the roof. Boom, instant network access.
At the risk of inspiring a Unix war, I'd say the various UNIX vendors were doing just fine with their "quibbling details" before Linux came along -- library incompatibilities, differing command syntax, and so forth. Whereas both Linux and FreeBSD have diverged from the traditional vendors by being free and open, FreeBSD has stuck to the "temple of BSD" standards-based approach, while Linux has felt free to diverge somewhat from that.
The result, as has been pointed out, is a UNIX-alike package that people find easier to use, and has responded quicker to changing computing needs. If you're driving, you can wedge your steering wheel with the Club and you'll probably get better straight-line performance; the problem comes when you need to take a corner.
Slashdot Mirror
Please distinguish between the "Bible-thumping zealots" and people who actually practice the tenets of Christianity while at the same time taking a reasonable viewpoint. By "reasonable" I do not mean "scientifically mainstream", however. The fact that living things change over time is quite plainly true. The fact that all DNA is constructed from the same basic building blocks is also true. The revelation that a fraction of the former estimates for human DNA are actually relevant is interesting, but ultimately it doesn't prove anything along the lines of "we are descended from bacteria". The fact that we may have genetic sequences in common with bacteria is not in itself proof; we're also composed in part from minerals like iron, and I see nobody suggesting that human beings evolved from rock. Shared components do not in and of themselves prove ancestry.
>> My main problem with the original is the same
>> problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer
>> type clones: why in the world would your brain
>> kill your body if you 'thought' you died in
>> some VR-type world? It makes no sense.
It makes sense to me if you consider the following (yes, yes, off-topic). The brain implants are put in by Matrix AIs, for their own purposes. If the implant gets the message "this person is dead", it seems like a simple matter to shut off the autonomic nervous system, or overload it - this "the body cannot live without the mind" stuff isn't necessary.
Has anyone considered looking for buffer overflows in the ShareZilla code? send a targeted request for '0xFF, 0xFF' or what-have-you and watch the spam factory turn to Jell-o.
Every geek I know personally would do Neve Campbell.
Above and beyond that, I think many people are attracted to mystery for the intelligence factor - can the audience solve the crime before the characters in the story do? While Scream itself may have been classed as "horror", it is as much of a mystery as Agatha Cristie's work (albeit with a lesser pedigree).
I GM'ed a "Matrix" roleplaying game for awhile, and the question came up: WHY does the body die when you get killed in the Matrix? My explanation was simple: until the PCs were able to figure out exactly how the COMPLETELY UNKNOWN PIECES OF TECHNOLOGY in their skulls worked, nearly anything oculd be justified. After all, an AI with nearly 200 years worth of R&D could probably devise a neural interface that killed you if you died in the simulation, and would have absolutely no compunction about doing so (letting the "real you" live when your Matrix persona had died made no sense, and you could always be recycled for food for the rest of your fellow batter-- humans).
For anything NOT involving a neural interface where you are more or less electrically wired into a computer, it's unrealistic. But when you suggest that electrodes are buried in your scalp, braindamage and death become all too possible.
This is less suspicious than it sounds. It's almost certain that many government departments are already using Windows 95, 98, NT, etc. and have existing applications running on those platforms. Banning those would be a rather poor migration move :) Assuming this story is true, the likely plan is to force the ministries to follow a Linux upgrade path rather than a W2K one, as I'm sure many existing applications would need ported/emulated/tested/replaced. You don't just throw away your IT infrastructure, after all.
"Mystical" is an entirely subjective decision. The spirit of true science, if confronted with the inescapable fact that the world rested on the back of a giant turtle, would be expected to ask, "Ok so what does it consume to stay alive?"
Science is not about supporting what you think is "the right way the universe should work"; it is about making observations and constructing possible explanations based on those observations.
If the universe really does look random, blurry, and oddly mystical, oh well. People make value judgements; science shouldn't.
This really depends on the platform you're using Java on, and what you do with the app before you run it. TYA gives a pretty respectable speed boost. GCJ has just now worked for me (I had to install the GCC 2.95.2 RPMs from Mandrake onto my RH6 box):
./Hello
garrett@isomorph:~$ time java Hello
Hello World
1.52user 0.27system 0:01.79elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (7492major+4733minor)pagefaults 0swaps
garrett@isomorph:~$ gcj -o Hello --main=Hello Hello.java
garrett@isomorph:~$ time
Hello World
0.14user 0.03system 0:00.17elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (1448major+193minor)pagefaults 0swaps
While this is as far as it gets from industrial-strength benchmarking, all I can say is "oof".
This is true; however, it seems like recently RMS has managed to shed the "raving lunatic" reputation he formerly enjoyed among many members of the community, I think in whole due to the fact that his posts now COME OFF as reasoned, intelligent discourse instead of single-mindedness. Maybe that's because he feels that the war has been swung in favor of free software, and he's relaxing. Who knows. Maybe he's just practicing what he preaches: modify the means, not the end, and he's pursuing the same goal of free software but taking a new tack in doing so.
As long as you're restricting CORBA to the relatively high-level stuff ("draw a button") rather than putting it in front of the equivalent of XLib ("draw a pixel here, paint it red"). The project to watch for this approach is probably Berlin; they already support the notion of CORBA communication between client and server, where the "toolkit" code is effectively on the server. It's a small step from there to writing a server that creates 3d objects, with no application rewriting necessary (unless your app wanted to manipulate things in 3d itself).
I don't see that as a contradiction. "Script kiddie" and "programmer" are not opposites -- the kiddiez are the ones who don't want to UNDERSTAND, not those who don't want to PROGRAM. There is a distinction, believe it or not.
And as for taking them seriously, the idea that swear words and slams will somehow cancel out the talent and effort that the cDc has demonstrated is laughable. They're not going in for a job interview. They aren't modelling this year's fashionable clothes. They don't need presentability because they aren't trying to pass themselves off as anything but a bunch of guys having fun being elite.
I've been working on ideas for a new Linux distribution (yeah yeah, flame on) that's based around CORBA and XML: backend objects convert a normal program's configuration files into XML and back again, communicating with whatever frontend program you want to write (a java applet, a command-line program, a GUI, whatever). So Apache's httpd.conf gets rendered into XML, the XML gets edited (by whatever means), then the edits get handed back and the backend program converts it back into an httpd.conf file.
There are three specific advantages to this, as opposed to making every program use XML for its configuration:
1. Some programs are just optimized for a particular parsing style. Apache's needs differ from sendmail's, which differ from inetd's. There's no reason each program needs to use XML internally.
2. It's backward compatible. My hypothetical distribution wouldn't need to make major patches for every new release of every daemon in existence. It's also forward compatible, because it doesn't require new daemons to use XML either.
3. It doesn't piss off the "tomsrtbt and vi at 3 am" people, who either by necessity or choice want to be able to hack directly on configuration files.
Does this turn into a "Windows Registry"? No. The only differences between Linux and the Registry is that the Registry is binary, and that it's all in one place-- Linux configurations are scattered all over. This method lets you edit all configuration files using a single tool, but it doesn't give up the ability to hand-edit files if necessary.
The other application XML has in this distribution idea is for package management. Instead of a proprietary format (RPM, DEB, whatever), we have an XML "manifest" or "spec file" in a tarball along with the relevant files; the XML file has a well-defined filename, and tarballs can be created anywhere, without installing any additional software. This doesn't burden software developers with the need to make special arrangements for binary distributions; by including such a spec file with their normal source distribution, they've effectively created an "SRPM" without any additional effort. If they want to package up binaries as well, more power to em; otherwise, someone else can.
Apparently Mr. Dvorak's article was written well before the Google announcement -- at last check, Google runs Linux and has been doing very, very well, not only in serving up search results but in indexing the Web.
:)
It's not IRC, but frankly I consider Google to be more valuable than IRC, and I'm assuming it's more profitable to its owners.
The first is the assumption that "the media equals reality". Linux exploits announced in the media and they don't affect NetBSD? Conclusion: NetBSD has no security weaknesses! Hah to you, Penguin! "Linux is the favorite tool of crackers [sic]" I suppose because criminals prefer the automobile we should all stick to mini-vans. Lots of companies announce Linux support and products? Obviously corporations are now driving Linux development! Boy, won't the developers themselves be surprised to hear that.
The second is the assumption that "correctness is superior to functionality". When it's correctness at the expense of functionality (as is arguably the case with certain of the *BSD lines, in certain cases), I take exception to being told "cope".
I do consider this article to be FUD. If you can't argue something's merits without falling back on attacking the perceived competition, you discredit yourself and the subject of your article.
Somebody mentioned the X-10 system, but I didn't see anyone mention another relatively small, mobile device: AIBO. While undoubtedly pricier than the Mindstorm kits ^_^;;, this would be an interesting thing to see.
I could see a lot of potential in an X-10/Jini/Palm crossover. Forget about a universal/learning remote, how about a context-sensitive remote? You just point your Palm at the TV and it automatically changes its controls to those of the television remote; point at the lamp and you get a switch, which sends a signal to your X-10 unit via the Jini proxy.
I can think of one big application: medical monitoring.
If these things can be fitted to detect a range of biologicals in the air, you can just inject some of them into the air around your patients. Instead of scanning a given sample of air, you can be instantly alerted of any foreign agents entering the airspace. Whether or not the motes themselves would pose a health risk is the only question I can see that would need answering.
Ahh, there is that. Whose definition of "fair" will we use this in this year's election?
Premise: fairness can only be adjudicated when all the facts are known.
Premise: the facts of the worth of any candidates up for election will never be known until after their terms.
Conclusion: no election can ever be fair.
The "Uplift" books from David Brin have an interesting perspective on the "smarter animal" idea. I encourage anyone who wants to pursue a line of speculation like this to pick them up and read them.
I've looked all over creation for the answer to this. For some reason, my Rawhide box at home runs SO51 just fine, but the RH6 box at work doesn't. Maybe something in glibc broke...
Dunno about Debian, but I've seen some very mixed claims about SO51's ability to run under Red Hat 6.
I've worked in the company of two semi-raving FreeBSD advocates, one of which made sure our routers ran it, so I (like a lot of folks here) have logged hours using it.
Based on that experience, I would say two things:
1 - FreeBSD does conform to the "traditional" UNIX standards very nicely.
2 - Conforming to traditional UNIX standards does not always encourage getting work done.
Some of the "tricks" and shortcuts that I can use in Linux (I think someone mentioned ifconfig defaulting to "-a" with no arguments in a previous article) make it a lot easier for me to accomplish things. After all, I'm the administrator! I know what ifconfig does! I don't want to be told the usage, I want it to do something smart when I type "ifconfig". And -a still works, for those old-school admins who happen to type that. So how have we lost anything? That's just one minor example.
I think that is one of the strengths of Linux: it is allowed to "do the right thing, within the limits of the standards" (for some definition of the right thing, but preferably mine). BSD has embraced the standards without necessarily contributing to usability, IMO. Does this make it good for servers that get installed and nobody ever touches again? Absolutely. Would I use it for anything else? Fraid not.
Most of the XFree86 distributions I've seen come with a readme that says, more or less:
make World
Failing that (if you really want to do it the hard way), xmkmf -a will execute 'make Makefiles', which should produce your Makefiles for you.
Given their questionable involvement in the open-source effect, this would give them the chance to release something to the OSS community that doesn't really bite into their core business (which right now appears to be selling servers and Java-related stuff). And there's every chance that an open-source StarOffice could integrate with an open-source Mozilla, providing the free counterpoint to Office/IE.
Sun saves on developers and time (unless they just intended to buy it and let it stagnate); they get brownie points with the free-software geeks; they get a competing office product that's already nicely cross-platform.
I'd like to jump in and beg people not to start screaming about "Microsoft's sucky security" until we get more information about the exploit that was used, if any is available (I'll be watching BUGTRAQ for this).
Remember, Hotmail uses both Solaris and NT in various capacities.
A guy I used to work with/for had a FreeBSD box sitting in his car hooked up to the UPS. The reason? He worked with a lot of people who used the WaveLAN wireless-networking cards. The box had a WaveLAN built in and he attached it to an aerial. So all he had to do was park out front of the client's building and put the aerial on the roof. Boom, instant network access.
At the risk of inspiring a Unix war, I'd say the various UNIX vendors were doing just fine with their "quibbling details" before Linux came along -- library incompatibilities, differing command syntax, and so forth. Whereas both Linux and FreeBSD have diverged from the traditional vendors by being free and open, FreeBSD has stuck to the "temple of BSD" standards-based approach, while Linux has felt free to diverge somewhat from that.
The result, as has been pointed out, is a UNIX-alike package that people find easier to use, and has responded quicker to changing computing needs. If you're driving, you can wedge your steering wheel with the Club and you'll probably get better straight-line performance; the problem comes when you need to take a corner.