Absolutely definitely Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. If that' s not enough for you, try the mountains of madness and the case of charles dexter ward by lovecraft
We have similar cards for the public transport system here in Helsinki, Finland. Remote-readable, range about 5cm (2 in) from reader max. They were being used to track people's use of public transport until people started complaining A LOT and it was found that it was illegal to do so. They were forced to destroy their database of trips and were only allowed to use the readers to count passengers, not store card numbers.
I think this is meaningful, as it is an ad-hoc way of creating aa VPN. Also it would probably be faster if a few of the nodes have fast connections. If your friends don't see a reason behind this, then maybe it is not meant for your circle of friends. About the anonymous issue, note that Freenet already exists and works to handle that problem. This is meant to address a completely different issue
Ahh... you must be referring to the big brother awards distributed by the EFF's spawn in Finland, EFFi... link here
Sorry, finnish version only, but you can see the lovely award... You want to see the future?
I think somethink called 98lite existed for this. I'm not sure if it works on all versions of Windows, and I'm not sure if it can replace the MS html engine, it supposedly can remove it completely. As for opening OE links with Mozilla, just set Mozilla as default browser and you're done. I did it, you can do it. I no longer use OE since Mozilla's mail app is quite nice
The parallel port zip disk was filling a niche in the market. There was, for example, no other practical way to transfer a big pile of documents from an old laptop to my newer workstation several years ago. No pcmcia, no networking, no cd. It was either Zip or serial port. The zip was an obvious choice. Now, with all my machines networked and the laptop gone (I was only keeping it because of those documents, it was a 486, but it served me well) the ZIP sits in a corner of my desk. I still use it sometimes to transfer big files from a friend's machine on the other end of the city when my alternative is the guy's modem connection. The zip has reasons for its popularity. A device that works on ANY machine with a parallel port and stores a decent amount of data was then an alterantive for floppies. On a machine that cannot support a burner, this is an only option.
of course, I would have liked some details on how he managed to keep the door openable in case the system fails. The article says so, but without the pics I don't understand the idea. Might be nice for younger people to keep room closed from nosy parents/siblings
True.
Step one: sit and hit reload until a new article appears
Step two: spam the message board without even reading the article with bogus posts
Step three: Realise you have no idea what veryone else is talking about and go read the article,/. ing the server off the face of the earth
Indeed, the Army researchers have been reading/.
true, true. Sadly true geeks are no longer aknowledged as anything other than "IT professionals" that in many (by far not all) cases know much less about the field than most geeks from a few years ago. Typical "i can burn my own illegal cd copies I'l so l33t" kids still exist and boast about their skill, blissfully unaware of the fact that everyone and their mother can now do that too, without considering it anything special. Maybe we geeks should just move on to new heights instead of being annoyed by the mainstream reaching our level. The stereotypes will die out, new ones will be created.
Now replace the word baby in every instance in the above post with pretty much any product, and you have a business plan. Then go up to any venture capitalist and show them the plan, especially the second paragraph. Slashdot is useful sometimes.
About half the geeks I know are not virgins, myself included. I don't think that this stereotype holds too well anymore. Actually, I don't think any of the geek stereotypes hold too well anymore
Yes, but how exactly are you going to get several antennas, none of them staionary, and subject to micrometeorites and all sorts of random fluctuations to stay aligned? it's hard enough to put one repeater there and keep it aligned, but a series would be close to impossible and certainly prohibitively expensive. They would have to have a sort of feedback system and automatic alignment, but for feedback a second data channel is needed, and if you have a working data channel, why bother aligning them...
The only moral objections against pornography comes from certain religious belief systems or cultural taboos. Humans procreate in order to further the species, there is nothing wrong with enjoying that act, partaking in it as much as possible (responsibly), or by glorifying it.
Yes, and most religions do glorify it. I myself (with three weeks of experience) have to say it is one of the most enjoyable things ever, and it is so stupid of those certain religions to turn it into a taboo in the first place. I don't want to wait until I die to be happy. Ergo, I enjoy life now. Right now I am happy, happier than ever before. I urge others to abolish religious taboos and just be happy. If religion does make you happy, then stay with that.
I just hate the part when the octopus demon slithers on screen and takes a dump on her forehead. There is something very wrong with that.
It wouldn't sell if someone doesn't buy it. And therefore it would not be produced. Some people just like that stuff and would gladly pay to see it. I don't, you don't, many others don't, but isn't the freedom of speech manifested in allowing others to see/hear both what you like, and what you don't like.
Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.
-- Chapman Cohen
As anyone who has read "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman knows very well.
Another comment to my reply suggested autopackage already(the developer in fact). It is still far from ready though, and it doesn't handle all the things I listed. Fresco is an interesting idea, and I see great power in it, but it is still not ready, and I think that this kind of functionality should be added to X (X local mode or something like that) instead. X is indeed designed with network use and weak terminals in mind, that needs to change, but that does not necessarily imply a rewrite of the whole system. The scalability and adaptation of objects to real-life dimensions in fresco does sound interesting though. However, I don't think that rotation and transparency are too crucial features. If the X protocol was improved with more powerful servers in mind, it would render this whole project useless. It is a good idea however. Hopefully it will evolve into something better than X, it's certainly going that way. However, these two do not solve the problems of my original post. What we need is to get more people behind great tools like autopackage, and then package them(no pun intended) into a distro suited for newcomers. Something akin the xandros (sp?) file manager tool, autopackage, openoffice, and solutions to the other things outlined in my post. Only then will we be able to say that we have a better system. Only then will we be able to switch users to more secure, more robust, MORE userfriendly and more powerful systems, with BETTER software and hardware support than windows. Until then we will always be subjected to lower standards, and we must raise those standards ourselves. Until we come up with something better than windows, easier to switch to than a new version of windows, and easier and more effective to use that windows for MOST tasks that windows computers are used for today, until then, any distribution, no matter how good, will still be INFERIOR to the mainstream user.
No, it is transparent to users. The installer should handle this. As in, if a source version of a package is available, it should be used instead of the binary, compiled, and installed. Binary ditribution should only be used for cases where this doesn't work. This is what I meant with the post you replied to. For games(and other closed-source), the installer should study the system and get the correct binary anutomagically. Several versions of the binaries should be available, and the installer should send a request for a different binary to the game development company if the correct one is not available, and get the closest one that might work.
several related to the actual oconstruction of the binaries themselves
simple, compile everything from source or then have several versions of the binary for different systems. But source for everything seems the best way. that way you don't even have to think of the binary format of the system.
It's easy to work around that however by having remapper modules that figure out where files should be placed
and a general distro= variable set for each installation of the setup tool. remapper should be updated from online db at installer install time.
Link tree conflicts. This is one I was learning about last night, and is the real kicker. The problem is relatively simple: I have a game (any app really) that links against, say, libpng and libSDL. libpng comes in two flavours, 2 and 3, reflecting an ABI break. Normally we'd say, so what, and throw both onto a system, libtool versioning allows it to work. The game is linked against libpng3
again, compile everything from source. If you can't recompile the game itself, either cause setup to fail or run it using an interpreter of some sort. This would be slow, error-prone etc. , but will work until the game is updated. If a newer version of the distro binaries is required, the installer could download and install these at the same time. Nothing bad about upgrading a distro. Auto-update of everything should be automagic and periodic, so this should not happen. The idea about rewriting the linker instructions would solve these problems in the long term, so it's probably just a Good Thing.
Finally, there are a whole host of other issues, like the different naming schemes used by distros, the different installation mechanisms, incompatible install-info scripts and the difficulty of resolving dependancies in a way that still integrates well with the system. Throw in the needs of corporate/enterprise deployment scenarios, and you see what a challenge it has become
These problems can be resolved using the distro= variable mentioned above. The corporate deployment can be handled with the installer periodically (daily? hourly? adjustable priod) checking a package list on a corporate server over a secure connection and then downloading htese packages.
transparent Wine is a reality
It is not transparent enough. it must make absolutely no difference to the user whether they are running windows or linux binaries. It is pretty close though
Lindows can do direct Windows email/address book/bookmarks imports
Do not try to make the computer clever. Such things (such as windows emulation or hardware autodetection) are hard to make work perfectly, and when they don't it is utterly confusing and irritating for the users, even advanced ones
I agree, so we should get them to work perfectly before release. Of course they should not be automated before they work right. I'm not saying we should have this right now, this is a long term plan.
In my opinion, for some more difficult things (like detecting hardware or running windows programs), the distro should not try to automate things, but rather make manual things easier --- just like it should not decide which partition to shrink to make space for linux
hardware detection should be automatic, in my opinion. it should probe hardware, consult a database for which driver to use, use it if available, or download if not available. The installation situation pictured above is for the typical system with only one partition. If there are several partitions, it should be asked which one you want to make space on. But the beginner user, with just one huge part. should not worry about these things.
easy-to-find and up-to-date hardware support database
This kind of driver database was what I was talking about, but it should also include the vendor-specific binary drivers (nvidia) that are required sometimes.
For example, create several distributions based on one of the major ones, with modifications made for compliance with the other major distros' packages. Add a smart installer that can adapt the directory structure of different distros, plus an easy way to search for a certain package among all different package types.
Next, have several distros aimed at different kinds of users. Everything should be graphical from the very start. The installer should never bother the user with manual partition creation and the like. Just a simple question: You have an 80 gig drive, how much of it do you want to leave to your old os, and how much for linux. No more should be asked, ideally. A basic package set is installed for all of those distros, and a set of packages that is target-specific, as in productivity apps. All hardware should be auto-detected, and the smart installer should download the drivers automagically. Most Windows executables should run directly as if they were linux binaries (transparent Wine). There should be a simple, complete configuration utility, which should also include package management. Network access should be transparent. The installer should also install software according to hardware installed. For example cd-burning software will be installed if the system has a burner. Video-editing if firewire ports are present. Hardware detection at boot and periodical software updates according to software package completeness (if the package development has just started, and the package is still buggy, it will be checked for updates more often). Direct importing of emails and address books from existing Windows partitions without user intervention. In short, the user would be ready to start working immediately after installation(which consists ONLY of popping in the cd and selecting partition size then waiting for setup to complete). The smart installer should also handle windows installer programs.
This is a short summary of the features that would lead to rapid adoption of linux on the desktop. It must be made transparent, as non-intrusive as possible, yet easy to customize and all possible options easily available to power users (interface complexity as a setting in the control panel). It must handle everything automagically, so the user never needs to do anything related to the os, only related to the work they are doing.
I realise that this is far off, but one step at a time we could develop a system that would work for average users as well as power users.
Generally, we need to take the following steps:
- The setup program
- The smart installer
- Transparent Wine and windows app integration
- A central driver repository
- Central package database
- Minimal user interaction when not absolutely necessary(of course available as a setting)
- Interdistribution compatibility
- A method of retrieving settings and data from old os
If we handle those issues, we might actually have a better os usability than windows. If we have something easier to install, free(both ways) or at least free as in speech and very cheap, with better usability and better responsiveness, fast automatic bugfixes, better stability and better application base, we have a winner.
Slashdot Mirror
but they are!!! They don't admit it though. They thoroughly enjoy the dominance it gives them.
Absolutely definitely Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. If that' s not enough for you, try the mountains of madness and the case of charles dexter ward by lovecraft
We have similar cards for the public transport system here in Helsinki, Finland. Remote-readable, range about 5cm (2 in) from reader max. They were being used to track people's use of public transport until people started complaining A LOT and it was found that it was illegal to do so. They were forced to destroy their database of trips and were only allowed to use the readers to count passengers, not store card numbers.
I think this is meaningful, as it is an ad-hoc way of creating aa VPN. Also it would probably be faster if a few of the nodes have fast connections. If your friends don't see a reason behind this, then maybe it is not meant for your circle of friends. About the anonymous issue, note that Freenet already exists and works to handle that problem. This is meant to address a completely different issue
What, you mean become like RMS?
Ahh... you must be referring to the big brother awards distributed by the EFF's spawn in Finland, EFFi... link here Sorry, finnish version only, but you can see the lovely award... You want to see the future?
I think somethink called 98lite existed for this. I'm not sure if it works on all versions of Windows, and I'm not sure if it can replace the MS html engine, it supposedly can remove it completely. As for opening OE links with Mozilla, just set Mozilla as default browser and you're done. I did it, you can do it. I no longer use OE since Mozilla's mail app is quite nice
The parallel port zip disk was filling a niche in the market. There was, for example, no other practical way to transfer a big pile of documents from an old laptop to my newer workstation several years ago. No pcmcia, no networking, no cd. It was either Zip or serial port. The zip was an obvious choice. Now, with all my machines networked and the laptop gone (I was only keeping it because of those documents, it was a 486, but it served me well) the ZIP sits in a corner of my desk. I still use it sometimes to transfer big files from a friend's machine on the other end of the city when my alternative is the guy's modem connection. The zip has reasons for its popularity. A device that works on ANY machine with a parallel port and stores a decent amount of data was then an alterantive for floppies. On a machine that cannot support a burner, this is an only option.
of course, I would have liked some details on how he managed to keep the door openable in case the system fails. The article says so, but without the pics I don't understand the idea. Might be nice for younger people to keep room closed from nosy parents/siblings
Nah, they can't do that, they'd be infringing on EA Sports' patented game naming scheme
Shh! Don't tell darpa, they'll label him as a terrorist for knowing about an impending attack and have him cricified
True. /. ing the server off the face of the earth /.
Step one: sit and hit reload until a new article appears
Step two: spam the message board without even reading the article with bogus posts
Step three: Realise you have no idea what veryone else is talking about and go read the article,
Indeed, the Army researchers have been reading
true, true. Sadly true geeks are no longer aknowledged as anything other than "IT professionals" that in many (by far not all) cases know much less about the field than most geeks from a few years ago. Typical "i can burn my own illegal cd copies I'l so l33t" kids still exist and boast about their skill, blissfully unaware of the fact that everyone and their mother can now do that too, without considering it anything special. Maybe we geeks should just move on to new heights instead of being annoyed by the mainstream reaching our level. The stereotypes will die out, new ones will be created.
Now replace the word baby in every instance in the above post with pretty much any product, and you have a business plan. Then go up to any venture capitalist and show them the plan, especially the second paragraph. Slashdot is useful sometimes.
About half the geeks I know are not virgins, myself included. I don't think that this stereotype holds too well anymore. Actually, I don't think any of the geek stereotypes hold too well anymore
Yes, but how exactly are you going to get several antennas, none of them staionary, and subject to micrometeorites and all sorts of random fluctuations to stay aligned? it's hard enough to put one repeater there and keep it aligned, but a series would be close to impossible and certainly prohibitively expensive. They would have to have a sort of feedback system and automatic alignment, but for feedback a second data channel is needed, and if you have a working data channel, why bother aligning them...
I am Jack's total lack of posting responsibility
Yes, and most religions do glorify it. I myself (with three weeks of experience) have to say it is one of the most enjoyable things ever, and it is so stupid of those certain religions to turn it into a taboo in the first place. I don't want to wait until I die to be happy. Ergo, I enjoy life now. Right now I am happy, happier than ever before. I urge others to abolish religious taboos and just be happy. If religion does make you happy, then stay with that.
I just hate the part when the octopus demon slithers on screen and takes a dump on her forehead. There is something very wrong with that.
It wouldn't sell if someone doesn't buy it. And therefore it would not be produced. Some people just like that stuff and would gladly pay to see it. I don't, you don't, many others don't, but isn't the freedom of speech manifested in allowing others to see/hear both what you like, and what you don't like.
Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.
-- Chapman Cohen
As anyone who has read "His Dark Materials" by Phillip Pullman knows very well.
Another comment to my reply suggested autopackage already(the developer in fact). It is still far from ready though, and it doesn't handle all the things I listed. Fresco is an interesting idea, and I see great power in it, but it is still not ready, and I think that this kind of functionality should be added to X (X local mode or something like that) instead. X is indeed designed with network use and weak terminals in mind, that needs to change, but that does not necessarily imply a rewrite of the whole system. The scalability and adaptation of objects to real-life dimensions in fresco does sound interesting though. However, I don't think that rotation and transparency are too crucial features. If the X protocol was improved with more powerful servers in mind, it would render this whole project useless. It is a good idea however. Hopefully it will evolve into something better than X, it's certainly going that way.
However, these two do not solve the problems of my original post. What we need is to get more people behind great tools like autopackage, and then package them(no pun intended) into a distro suited for newcomers. Something akin the xandros (sp?) file manager tool, autopackage, openoffice, and solutions to the other things outlined in my post.
Only then will we be able to say that we have a better system. Only then will we be able to switch users to more secure, more robust, MORE userfriendly and more powerful systems, with BETTER software and hardware support than windows. Until then we will always be subjected to lower standards, and we must raise those standards ourselves. Until we come up with something better than windows, easier to switch to than a new version of windows, and easier and more effective to use that windows for MOST tasks that windows computers are used for today, until then, any distribution, no matter how good, will still be INFERIOR to the mainstream user.
No, it is transparent to users. The installer should handle this. As in, if a source version of a package is available, it should be used instead of the binary, compiled, and installed. Binary ditribution should only be used for cases where this doesn't work. This is what I meant with the post you replied to. For games(and other closed-source), the installer should study the system and get the correct binary anutomagically. Several versions of the binaries should be available, and the installer should send a request for a different binary to the game development company if the correct one is not available, and get the closest one that might work.
nah, even better: unzip;strip;touch;finger;mount;fsck;login;logout;l ogin;logout;more;yes;unmou nt;sleep
simple, compile everything from source or then have several versions of the binary for different systems. But source for everything seems the best way. that way you don't even have to think of the binary format of the system.
It's easy to work around that however by having remapper modules that figure out where files should be placed
and a general distro= variable set for each installation of the setup tool. remapper should be updated from online db at installer install time.
Link tree conflicts. This is one I was learning about last night, and is the real kicker. The problem is relatively simple: I have a game (any app really) that links against, say, libpng and libSDL. libpng comes in two flavours, 2 and 3, reflecting an ABI break. Normally we'd say, so what, and throw both onto a system, libtool versioning allows it to work. The game is linked against libpng3
again, compile everything from source. If you can't recompile the game itself, either cause setup to fail or run it using an interpreter of some sort. This would be slow, error-prone etc. , but will work until the game is updated. If a newer version of the distro binaries is required, the installer could download and install these at the same time. Nothing bad about upgrading a distro. Auto-update of everything should be automagic and periodic, so this should not happen. The idea about rewriting the linker instructions would solve these problems in the long term, so it's probably just a Good Thing.
Finally, there are a whole host of other issues, like the different naming schemes used by distros, the different installation mechanisms, incompatible install-info scripts and the difficulty of resolving dependancies in a way that still integrates well with the system. Throw in the needs of corporate/enterprise deployment scenarios, and you see what a challenge it has become
These problems can be resolved using the distro= variable mentioned above. The corporate deployment can be handled with the installer periodically (daily? hourly? adjustable priod) checking a package list on a corporate server over a secure connection and then downloading htese packages.
transparent Wine is a reality
It is not transparent enough. it must make absolutely no difference to the user whether they are running windows or linux binaries. It is pretty close though
Lindows can do direct Windows email/address book/bookmarks imports
but nobody else can. Thanks for the link anyways
I agree, so we should get them to work perfectly before release. Of course they should not be automated before they work right. I'm not saying we should have this right now, this is a long term plan.
In my opinion, for some more difficult things (like detecting hardware or running windows programs), the distro should not try to automate things, but rather make manual things easier --- just like it should not decide which partition to shrink to make space for linux
hardware detection should be automatic, in my opinion. it should probe hardware, consult a database for which driver to use, use it if available, or download if not available. The installation situation pictured above is for the typical system with only one partition. If there are several partitions, it should be asked which one you want to make space on. But the beginner user, with just one huge part. should not worry about these things.
easy-to-find and up-to-date hardware support database
This kind of driver database was what I was talking about, but it should also include the vendor-specific binary drivers (nvidia) that are required sometimes.
Next, have several distros aimed at different kinds of users. Everything should be graphical from the very start. The installer should never bother the user with manual partition creation and the like. Just a simple question: You have an 80 gig drive, how much of it do you want to leave to your old os, and how much for linux. No more should be asked, ideally. A basic package set is installed for all of those distros, and a set of packages that is target-specific, as in productivity apps. All hardware should be auto-detected, and the smart installer should download the drivers automagically. Most Windows executables should run directly as if they were linux binaries (transparent Wine). There should be a simple, complete configuration utility, which should also include package management. Network access should be transparent. The installer should also install software according to hardware installed. For example cd-burning software will be installed if the system has a burner. Video-editing if firewire ports are present. Hardware detection at boot and periodical software updates according to software package completeness (if the package development has just started, and the package is still buggy, it will be checked for updates more often). Direct importing of emails and address books from existing Windows partitions without user intervention. In short, the user would be ready to start working immediately after installation(which consists ONLY of popping in the cd and selecting partition size then waiting for setup to complete). The smart installer should also handle windows installer programs.
This is a short summary of the features that would lead to rapid adoption of linux on the desktop. It must be made transparent, as non-intrusive as possible, yet easy to customize and all possible options easily available to power users (interface complexity as a setting in the control panel). It must handle everything automagically, so the user never needs to do anything related to the os, only related to the work they are doing.
I realise that this is far off, but one step at a time we could develop a system that would work for average users as well as power users.
Generally, we need to take the following steps:
- The setup program
- The smart installer
- Transparent Wine and windows app integration
- A central driver repository
- Central package database
- Minimal user interaction when not absolutely necessary(of course available as a setting)
- Interdistribution compatibility
- A method of retrieving settings and data from old os
If we handle those issues, we might actually have a better os usability than windows. If we have something easier to install, free(both ways) or at least free as in speech and very cheap, with better usability and better responsiveness, fast automatic bugfixes, better stability and better application base, we have a winner.
all those times mentioned are us-based. I'm no astronomer, but will we see these in Europe?