A version or two back, I tried some operations on recursive matricies with Maxima. For example, construct a 2x2 matrix whose entries are 2x2 symbolic matricies. Take the inverse, you'll get a result but it is not correct. Note that the result should be the same as that of the 4x4. I'm not even sure this recursive definition of inverse is possible (that's what I was exploring), but Maxima gave me an answer with no warnings. I think the problem stems from having different operators for (matrix vs scalar) multiplication in Maxima. My other experience indicates it's a fantastic program.
So did we. We learned to sketch graphs in calculus. Use calc to quickly find minima, maxima, points of inflection and zero derivatives (flat spots). Algebra to find zeros, asyptotes, and zero denominators. There was a list of like 10 features we were supposed to find - by the time you get all that stuff on there, the graph is actually quite good. You learn a hell of a lot more than sticking the equation in a calculator or computer and looking at the resulting picture.
That's a nice list of packages. The problem that people will look at it and ask "WTF is 'R'?". Most of the names are absolute $h|t and you offer little in the way of descriptions. Quantian should take a hint from the gnome HIG (human interface guidelines) and put meaningful text in the menus rather than the meaningless names of the programs. I rather liked the mandlebrot zoomer program, but I'm not sure why I even tried the menu item called xaos (was that it?) to find it.
BTW, I also recommend not having multiple programs that do the same task, or at least not too many. Pick the best in terms of functionality and support and drop others that offer little above this choice. OTOH, if you've got room on the CD... But people need some way to sift through and make sense of it all. Quantian looks like shovelware because it is.
"The guy's looking for a symbolic mathematics package."
Use Maxima. It does symbolic math very well. And if you're over in Linux, you can use Maxima as a plugin for TeXmacs for really pretty mathematical documents.
I always site Octave and Maxima when people ask about math software. One for numeric and one for symbolic.
" If AMD can increase the clockspeeds really well on their 90nm chips intel is a goner."
Actually, what AMD needs is not faster processors, it's higher production capacity. They're not getting 300mm wafers until 2006. Their deal for increased capacity with Chartered I read starts in 2006. By then, Intel will no doubt be catching up in terms of performance. Not that anyone needs top performance these days...
Unless its critically important, send them the document in OOo format and suggest they need to use OOo to open it - they can then convert it if they want. You've probably been sent stuff in.pdf and had to download the software to open it at some point... Carefully make THEM look like they're incompatible and need to download the tool;-)
"Just think what weaning the U.S. off oil-dependence would do for its world politics."
I'm all for that, but to rehash some other old debates: Wind and water are only good for producing electricity and much of our electricity is produced from coal (not a political problem). There is no clear way to power cars with electricity. Batteries don't provide the range, are made of nasty stuff, and take too long to charge.
I think my realestate teacher was probably right. If I build a tall building, you'll have to update your charts. My point was that the rules favor the land owners, but when there is a real conflict the government will likely step in and push it in favor of the party with the most value to society (i.e. the one with the depest pockets). If I want to build a really really tall HAM radio tower (way beyond what people normally do) the FAA would probably object. If Donald Trump wanted to build a new skyscraper, he'd get his way - unless it's at the end of an important runway, but nobody wants tall buildings near airports anyway.
What do GA pilots think of the new wind turbines popping up in some places? These can reach around 1000 feet and tend to be in rural areas.
I tried Dragon several years ago. It worked, but you really need accuracy to the nines (99.99%) to be productive with it. One mistake in 100 sylables means constant corrections. I did make a little flying demo that took english commands (right, left, up, down, slower, faster) and it was cool to control it via voice commands. There was no distinction between typing commands and speaking them though. I would recommend (if they don't have it already) the Gnome and KDE folks provide a seperate input stream for voice commands to all applications - or something. If it's there, people will code for it even if the free recognition software isn't that great yet. If there are apps that support it, people will improve the recognition software.
Actually, in realestate class they said we do. It all depends. I can certainly buy a chunk of land and build a 5000ft building on it as long as I get the zoning approved by the local government. The FAA can't do much about it. Now if I try that at the end of a runway, they'll get involved and probably be able to stop me. That's not because the FAA controls all airspace, but because they control it around airports. I'm not sure if they claim to control everything over some altitude or not...
Since those chips are made on an old process, is Intel going to upgrade the fab, close it, or manufacture something that can still make use of it. Licensing DMD from TI would be a nice replacement for the failed LCOS initiative and it doesn't require state of the art chip geometry. Not that I've ever heard of TI licensing that stuff.
If you're ever in the SF area, I would highly recommend stopping in Laser Reflections . These guy operate a holographic studio and do portraits. They also have a large selection of stock holograms you can purchase. I have not seen them in person (yet). For you pervs out there, they do have some holopr0n - Playmates.
Just check out the web site. They ROCK. Gotta be the best job in the world.
"and when you consider the drain spammers are on the economy"
Spammers help the economy. Look at the companies doing business trying to combat spam. And some people do actually buy the products advertised. It also offers political benefits: it's one more stupid issue that people talk about, thus distracting them from more important issues. Plus, you can pass anti-spam legislation to look like you're helping people.
The solution is simple: hashcash (though I would have used a different algorithm)
Also, not all of the good stuff comes from "amateurs". Much free software comes from people who write code for a living and like it as a hobby too. Astronomers are a little different, the "professional" ones are just people who manage to somehow get paid for their "hobby";-)
The work produced/done should stand on its own - not be judged by the "qualifications" of who did it. Ones qualifications should be based on what he's done, not who his employer was while doing it.
"One could easily make the argument that when an author refuses to distribute their product, they aren't living up to their side of the deal."
So if Linus stops distributing a little older version of the Linux kernel, some company could take a copy and start doing as they please with it? i.e. making a proprietary product of it. I think I may have to agree with the court on this one. Should we all feel free to install copies of Windows98 because Microsoft doesn't still offer it? Do we need some new definitions so abandoned works are still protected if there are newer versions available? That precludes ripping off old games on old hardware because a "new version" for PS2 or XBox may be available - in the future even.
It looks like a slippery slope to me. Or else a lot of arbitrary new definitions.
Saying slashdot makes sense is just a way to discredit the anti-voting-machine crowd. People will check out the dot, and they'll think it's a bunch of kooks complaining about this stuff.
"Also, the effort required to write an OpenGL driver is significantly greater than writing a DirectX driver."
No one has to write an OpenGL driver from scratch. You just start with MESA and start offloading stuff to hardware as much as you can. It's not a great route to a great system, but it's a straigh forward route to something that works and is feature complete.
I always keep around a disk full of free (as in beer) software to give people. It has the Windows versions of:
Audacity
BitTorrent - probably doesn't belong
Blender
FlightGear - along with our local scenery area
Gaim
Gimp
GnuGo - never seen any interest in this (duh)
GTK - for Gimp and Gaim, but it adds confusion
Inkscape - version 0.40 due any day now
Maxima
Mozilla - FireFox and Thunderbird
Mplayer
OpenOffice.org
Python - for the geeky kids
VideoLan
All this crap fits on one CD. I don't usually distribute it in quantity, but it comes in handy rather often. No one wants everything on it, but there is something for everyone. I also include an HTML file that lists descriptions of each program and links to the project web sites. Whenever someone tells me about the "free" copy of some commercial package they have, I just give them the CD and tell them which legally free package to load instead. In some cases, the free version offers something they don't have with the ripped-off one they've been using.
One guy at work actually wanted to stream video over his network at home. I gave him the CD and said "install VideoLan". After some setup issues, he has everything he wanted and is rather happy with it. It really goes over well when you fulfill an need people have.
1) Agreed. Companies fear the GPL often due to lack of understanding.
2) Adding transparency to X11 is not a big deal to a company like nVidia - one OSS hacker did it in a weekend. Business people get all worked up over the smallest things and think they're going to dominate a market because of some little improvement.
3) OSS (or rather Free Software since we're talking GPL) is hardly a "club for a couple kids" unless you count IBM and Oracle as little kids. How is anyone supposed to "look in and see things that would be useful to them" unless they have access to source code? That's exactly what the GPL is designed to promote.
4) Agreed, use whatever license you like for your own code.
The crux of this is your points 2 & 3. Allowing someone to make a proprietary version (to maintain an advantage) prevents people from looking inside to see how that new version works. Funny that a company doesn't want to give people the same opportunity they had themselves. If you want a proprietary product, follow your #4 and don't use GPLed code and deal with the added costs.
Companies have to realize what business they are in. If they make hardware they shouldn't be so concerned about their software copyrights.
Slashdot Mirror
A version or two back, I tried some operations on recursive matricies with Maxima. For example, construct a 2x2 matrix whose entries are 2x2 symbolic matricies. Take the inverse, you'll get a result but it is not correct. Note that the result should be the same as that of the 4x4. I'm not even sure this recursive definition of inverse is possible (that's what I was exploring), but Maxima gave me an answer with no warnings. I think the problem stems from having different operators for (matrix vs scalar) multiplication in Maxima. My other experience indicates it's a fantastic program.
So did we. We learned to sketch graphs in calculus. Use calc to quickly find minima, maxima, points of inflection and zero derivatives (flat spots). Algebra to find zeros, asyptotes, and zero denominators. There was a list of like 10 features we were supposed to find - by the time you get all that stuff on there, the graph is actually quite good. You learn a hell of a lot more than sticking the equation in a calculator or computer and looking at the resulting picture.
BTW, I also recommend not having multiple programs that do the same task, or at least not too many. Pick the best in terms of functionality and support and drop others that offer little above this choice. OTOH, if you've got room on the CD... But people need some way to sift through and make sense of it all. Quantian looks like shovelware because it is.
Use Maxima. It does symbolic math very well. And if you're over in Linux, you can use Maxima as a plugin for TeXmacs for really pretty mathematical documents.
I always site Octave and Maxima when people ask about math software. One for numeric and one for symbolic.
Actually, what AMD needs is not faster processors, it's higher production capacity. They're not getting 300mm wafers until 2006. Their deal for increased capacity with Chartered I read starts in 2006. By then, Intel will no doubt be catching up in terms of performance. Not that anyone needs top performance these days...
Unless its critically important, send them the document in OOo format and suggest they need to use OOo to open it - they can then convert it if they want. You've probably been sent stuff in .pdf and had to download the software to open it at some point... Carefully make THEM look like they're incompatible and need to download the tool ;-)
I'm all for that, but to rehash some other old debates: Wind and water are only good for producing electricity and much of our electricity is produced from coal (not a political problem). There is no clear way to power cars with electricity. Batteries don't provide the range, are made of nasty stuff, and take too long to charge.
Cue up the biofuel ranting...
What do GA pilots think of the new wind turbines popping up in some places? These can reach around 1000 feet and tend to be in rural areas.
I tried Dragon several years ago. It worked, but you really need accuracy to the nines (99.99%) to be productive with it. One mistake in 100 sylables means constant corrections. I did make a little flying demo that took english commands (right, left, up, down, slower, faster) and it was cool to control it via voice commands. There was no distinction between typing commands and speaking them though. I would recommend (if they don't have it already) the Gnome and KDE folks provide a seperate input stream for voice commands to all applications - or something. If it's there, people will code for it even if the free recognition software isn't that great yet. If there are apps that support it, people will improve the recognition software.
Actually, in realestate class they said we do. It all depends. I can certainly buy a chunk of land and build a 5000ft building on it as long as I get the zoning approved by the local government. The FAA can't do much about it. Now if I try that at the end of a runway, they'll get involved and probably be able to stop me. That's not because the FAA controls all airspace, but because they control it around airports. I'm not sure if they claim to control everything over some altitude or not...
You'd think he could produce a copy of the software he wrote...
Since those chips are made on an old process, is Intel going to upgrade the fab, close it, or manufacture something that can still make use of it. Licensing DMD from TI would be a nice replacement for the failed LCOS initiative and it doesn't require state of the art chip geometry. Not that I've ever heard of TI licensing that stuff.
I hope switching the A's does not change make it possible again. I would guess it doesn't.
Just check out the web site. They ROCK. Gotta be the best job in the world.
There doesn't seem to be a way to prevent spam without a central authority to validate identities or having a sender-pays scheme like hashcash.
BTW, my post about the economic benefits of spam was supposed to be funny ;-)
Spammers help the economy. Look at the companies doing business trying to combat spam. And some people do actually buy the products advertised. It also offers political benefits: it's one more stupid issue that people talk about, thus distracting them from more important issues. Plus, you can pass anti-spam legislation to look like you're helping people.
The solution is simple: hashcash (though I would have used a different algorithm)
The work produced/done should stand on its own - not be judged by the "qualifications" of who did it. Ones qualifications should be based on what he's done, not who his employer was while doing it.
So if Linus stops distributing a little older version of the Linux kernel, some company could take a copy and start doing as they please with it? i.e. making a proprietary product of it. I think I may have to agree with the court on this one. Should we all feel free to install copies of Windows98 because Microsoft doesn't still offer it? Do we need some new definitions so abandoned works are still protected if there are newer versions available? That precludes ripping off old games on old hardware because a "new version" for PS2 or XBox may be available - in the future even.
It looks like a slippery slope to me. Or else a lot of arbitrary new definitions.
Deanna Troy or Dr. Crusher?
Saying slashdot makes sense is just a way to discredit the anti-voting-machine crowd. People will check out the dot, and they'll think it's a bunch of kooks complaining about this stuff.
No one has to write an OpenGL driver from scratch. You just start with MESA and start offloading stuff to hardware as much as you can. It's not a great route to a great system, but it's a straigh forward route to something that works and is feature complete.
WTF, Does she know the US government paid for the development of just such a game? And it's avaialable for free download too...
Not everyone needs schools either.
Not everyone needs water & sewer.
Not everyone needs sidewalks
Not everyone uses the parks
There's all sorts of stuff that local goverments fund that not everyone uses. When the net is free, even more people will be using it too.
Audacity
BitTorrent - probably doesn't belong
Blender
FlightGear - along with our local scenery area
Gaim
Gimp
GnuGo - never seen any interest in this (duh)
GTK - for Gimp and Gaim, but it adds confusion
Inkscape - version 0.40 due any day now
Maxima
Mozilla - FireFox and Thunderbird
Mplayer
OpenOffice.org
Python - for the geeky kids
VideoLan
All this crap fits on one CD. I don't usually distribute it in quantity, but it comes in handy rather often. No one wants everything on it, but there is something for everyone. I also include an HTML file that lists descriptions of each program and links to the project web sites. Whenever someone tells me about the "free" copy of some commercial package they have, I just give them the CD and tell them which legally free package to load instead. In some cases, the free version offers something they don't have with the ripped-off one they've been using.
One guy at work actually wanted to stream video over his network at home. I gave him the CD and said "install VideoLan". After some setup issues, he has everything he wanted and is rather happy with it. It really goes over well when you fulfill an need people have.
2) Adding transparency to X11 is not a big deal to a company like nVidia - one OSS hacker did it in a weekend. Business people get all worked up over the smallest things and think they're going to dominate a market because of some little improvement.
3) OSS (or rather Free Software since we're talking GPL) is hardly a "club for a couple kids" unless you count IBM and Oracle as little kids. How is anyone supposed to "look in and see things that would be useful to them" unless they have access to source code? That's exactly what the GPL is designed to promote.
4) Agreed, use whatever license you like for your own code.
The crux of this is your points 2 & 3. Allowing someone to make a proprietary version (to maintain an advantage) prevents people from looking inside to see how that new version works. Funny that a company doesn't want to give people the same opportunity they had themselves. If you want a proprietary product, follow your #4 and don't use GPLed code and deal with the added costs.
Companies have to realize what business they are in. If they make hardware they shouldn't be so concerned about their software copyrights.