While something drawing your attention to falling temperature can be useful, I guess the developers didn't test the car when the temperature was hovering around 4 degrees. Having it ping every two minutes really gets on my nerves.
1. As an american, like most americans, I'm not very good at reading celcius.:)
A lot of these threads are making me want to be a mechanic again. Heh.
I found farther down in the thread a link to a project on sourceforge that does exactly what I was wanting, and has links to hardware manufacturers that make connectors for your parallel port to ODB-compliant systems. That's cool.
Been to the track, watched rice-row, laughed at the excited 18 second runners.
I outta point out that the serious rice-boy hot-rodders laugh at those guys too.:) They're funny, that's why we laugh.:)
OTOH, K&N filter + exhaust + chip is actually a bad place to start, in my opinion, even on a rice-burner. Your stock ecu will handle plenty of performance in more useful places, and I put the ecu on the list of things to to in the middle, or afterwards, but not first. FIrst you gotta do your cam(s) (if you've only got one on a rice-burner, maybe you should think about getting a different car, heh). That is, you do your cams first only if you're not tearing down the motor, which is what *should* be first. Exhaust is almost worthless without corresponding intake work, although it does help.
My point is, knowing where to start is half the battle on a rice-burner, because there's so *much* to do. I like the 800hp civic mentioned in the article, though. 2L, 4 cyl, 800hp. That's sweet. A lot of guys can't even get that out of a v8.
You're right about Google not having been declared a monopoly. I don't think that by itself makes it "not" one. OTOH, monopolies are allowed to continue crushing competitors in the specific field they monopolize, so I don't see any (legal) problem with Google's behavior.
Google isn't a monopoly, dork-wit.
Ever hear of Altavista? They're still kicking around and serving a good 20% of the market. A lot of people use iwon.com (I've seen them in the logs), and they're powered by Inktomi. Inktomi is probably Google's next biggest competitor. FAST might be next also, FAST and Inktomi are pretty close to each other.
Also, there's talk that Yahoo will switch to Inktomi, and most of Google's dominance arises from the fact that Yahoo syndicates Google results.
Google isn't a monopoly, and it's only through syndication that over 50% of searchers use Google, but probably close to 50% of people that use Google don't realize they're using Google through syndication.
It isn't just about brakes. It's the maximum torque loading allowed by your gearbox, maximum heat buildup that can be allowed in the slushbox, strength of the universal or CV joints, side loading the suspension can take, aerodynamics, you name it. It takes several hundred people to design a car, and tens of expensive highly qualified engineers to do a proper job of uprating. If even companies like Mercedes occasionally get it wrong (A-Class)it should be obvious that it isn't easy.
Manufacturers don't tune their cars for maximum performance, they tune to a safety margin. A lot of budget hot-rodders just try to push their cars closer to the maximum tolerances without going over to get as much bang for the buck as possible. This is acceptable practice and doesn't require egotistical aftermarket engineering skills. The difference is that the manufacturer has to warranty the car somehow to stay competitive in the market place, the hot-rodders place their own personal warranty on the car (if it breaks, they fix it themselves).
The great thing about drag racing is that the thing only needs to stay together for a quarter mile.
Most of the hobbyist drag racers I've known have also had to use their cars as a daily driver, so winning a race at any cost wasn't acceptable. They have to win the race and then drive the race car to work the next day. This adds an interesting variable to the race, actually.
Another thing to keep in mind, when you've pushed one component far enough that it will exceed the tolerances on another component (axleshafts break pretty easily), then you either replace the component before it breaks, or you replace it after it breaks. Or you just don't actually push it until you can replace the weak part. Over time, I've seen budget hobbying hot-rodders build shitty cars into pretty high-performance cars without ever having to catch a taxi to work. That takes a LOT of skill and brains.
My Viper will always beat your rice. Not to mention your z0g. LOL
No, actually my rice will beat your Viper for 1/3 the cost. After I've put as much money into my rice as you've put into your Viper, you'll be cautioned not to blink if you wanna see me while we're racing.
You haven't seen NASCAR racing. They're still using carborated V8s, basically the same thing they've run since the sixties. Give me road racing with a good 4 wheel drift anytime.
NASCAR's rules about car weight and so forth are to level the playing field technologically so that the sport is about driver skills. Of course, there are still ways to gain a technological advantage, and as a result of NASCAR manufacturers have learned how to mechanically make an engine more efficient, stable, and powerful without using computers as a crutch. Thus, when you add computers to the mix, you get a higher return on the computer since it was added to a better-designed engine than you would if you added it to make a shitty engine better.
Now, I'm not saying this is actually what has happened, because my old 307 has beaten the living piss out of many "modern" engines when talking about reliability. But the opportunity is there and has been partially exploited by all the manufacturers that participate in NASCAR.
Pick your racing preference.:) I find NASCAR boring because of the lack of focus on technology. I find most other racing boring because it's too much like sex. Hours of preparation for 5-20 seconds of performance.:)
Usually the interface is proprietary across manufacturers, though I wouldn't be surprised if some manufacturers shared interfaces (say, Chevrolet and Toyota, or Chrysler and Mitsubishi, or Porsche, Audi, and Volkswagen, etc).
Actually, the ODB standards have forced manufacturers to provide an interface, and you can do some small reprogramming of your ecu with it. The problem is, you can't do it for performance, since OBD stands for "OnBoard Diagnostic" and is intended to be used to test for emissions (the political reason it was created) and as a tool for general diagnostics (the practical reason it was created). It eliminated the old jumper-it and count the blinks method.
Probably, but you'd still need special hardware for the interface. I know of at least one WinCE-based dynometer software package (I believe there's also a Palm version), but I can't remember the name or website at the moment. Google should help.
I haven't heard of any hardware yet that'll allow connection of a laptop to the OBD connector, but I'd like to see it. Once someone makes that, then we can have a free software project to do all the stuff that we currently have to pay $5000 to Snap-On to do. Fuck Snap-On. If Microsoft made tools for mechanics, they'd be called Snap-Off.
Heck, maybe I could even disable that annoying , everytime the temperature drops below 4oC.:)
This is from the poster you replied to, and I can't think of anything stupider than disabling the warning noises. Granter, I can't think of a real good reason why you should have a warning that your engine is COLD, other than that if you hear this ping you should start thinking about your antifreeze/water mixture and checking your service records for when you last had it changed.
Here's the token beowulf cluster reference:
How much performance could be gained by running a beowulf cluster ecu? (probably none, last time I checked most ecus were still 8-bit boxes)
Actually, I don't have much experience with Opera. If Opera is, as you say, stricter than the others, then it sounds like it might be useful to beat on it.:)
Lucky for me, I don't build websites anymore.:)
But my exclusion of Opera was based on numbers rather than it's relative capabilities.
And if the interface is HTML, then there's no special accomodations needed to allow a linux browser instead of a MS one.
A site that I frequent requires you to use IE 4 or Netscape 4+ for SSL reasons (login part). If I hit it with Konqueror it locks me out.
So, I told Konqueror to tell the website that it's actually IE 5. I said "Konqueror, tell those assholes that your Internet Exploder, ok?".
No problems with the site. Of course, the reason they placed the browser restriction was because they require SSL, and iirc SSL didn't get well-supported until the v4 browsers.
Nevermind that they let Mozilla 1.1 in no problem (my usual browser)
If you are really standards compliant then by definition you don't really need to test much.
This particular piece of idealism has yet to materialize. Even when checking your site just for Windows only visitors, you STILL have to check IE 5, IE 5.5, and IE 6. Do you know why? Because all three of them behave like completely different browsers, and because they all have an equal chunk of market. Netscape/Mozilla pretty much has the rest, which is about 7%.
IE has been well-compliant since 5.0, but it certainly isn't perfect. Mozilla has been compliant from the ground up, but even they still haven't implemented complete standards.
In my experience, you have to check your site in all 3 of the IE browsers, but you're usually safe to use whatever Mozilla you're using, at least 1.0, though. You *may* need Netscape 6, but you should check your logs to see. You *may* need Netscape 4. You can probably ignore Opera and Konqueror both, unless you're slashdot.
e Windows boxes and play mp3s, in which case they wouldn't be depending on proprietary platforms
Yes, I wrote that and it looks really stupid.
I was thinking that there wouldn't be a dependence on proprietary platforms because we can run Samba on free platforms. That's all. They wouldn't think that, I'll bet, but I would if I were buying the thing.
I can agree that this is crappy, but if you stand back a bit and look at things pragmatically, you'd understand that they're only catering to 99.9% of the desktop PC universe.
Actually, I've seen reports that show Mac as having about 3-5% of the market, and that GNU/Linux could have from 1-7% (yes, it might be more than Mac). This makes it a maximum of 96% that run Windows, but more realistically probably only about 90%. I hate to nitpick, but the actual numbers are important..1% of the market isn't huge, but 10% of the market is.
I really have no simpathy to rants like these because they are completely illogical.
This is a subjective review, near as I can tell. He intended to say what problems he had, and didn't attempt to say that we would have the same problems (although he didn't put a disclaimer either). Point is, he had a problem with it not working well with his network, so he stated so in the review. Would you prefer reviewers leave out this kind of information?
Now, about actually implementing a device like this. It seems to me that embedding GNU/Linux (or BSD) would allow them to use Samba to hit up the Windows boxes and play mp3s, in which case they wouldn't be depending on proprietary platforms. We'd still complain about having to run a Samba server, but at least we'd be able to do it. Of course, they could embed windows and still hit up a Windows share.
Hey dude, go reread my post, and then I'll take out my "GNU C++" book and show you where in the first chapter that listing appears.:)
Then I'll take out my Borland C++ Builder in 21 days book and show you the same listing in the first chapter.
Then I'll take out my STL book and show you the same listing in the second chapter.
I know what the damn language is, and I know what shows up in the damn books. Just because that listing appears in a C++ book doesn't mean it's C++, and I don't recall saying it was.
My point is - does it matter to you if he writes further non-free work and makes some money out of it? This book is free - and that's what you were promised. At no point did he say "Everything I do for the rest of my life will be free, even if it turns out I'm taking a massive hit on potential profits for my future livelyhood as an author."
Simple answer: No it does not matter to me.
Don't condemn people for the (actually quite reasonable) steps they may or may not take in the future when they're doing the right thing now. More than the right thing, in fact - blazing a trail for others to do the right thing.
I wasn't condemning the author, I was pointing out to the poster of the comment to which I was replying that he hasn't done anything new--yet. If he continues this way and dedicates his life to writing in this fashion, sure. He's broken ground then. The license itself is a bit unique, but not really new. I've taken poetry and crap from kids standing on the street corner "trying to get their name out so a publisher will notice them". What's the difference here, besides that it's offered electronically?
It's like saying "Well, yes Linus developed Linux, but one day he might work for Microsoft - that sucks! Steer clear of Linux!"
Not exactly, because *if* LInus goes to work for Microsoft (or some other company that makes him stop working on GPLd stuff), we will have the very last version of the kernel before he left the project to *continue developing*. We just won't have linus anymore. Authoring and making music (these are both in the discussion as a result of the post to which I originally replied) are different than software development. Someone else can write a Sherlock Holmes story, but it won't be the same as reading something from SIr Arthur Conan Doyle. The style will be different, no matter how good an imitator he is. With Free Software, we can keep working on the code. With Free Novels, we have to depend on him to make his *next* novel free.
And as you pointed out, we can't expect that. Furthermore, as I said, I don't know anything about the author we're actually discussing. AMong the things I don't know: I don't know if he has made a big public to-do about how he writes his stuff and it's Free (as in speech) for the readers. I don't know if he's said that he intends to keep writing stuff and making it available under this license. If he has, then my comments are a real concern. If not, then it may well be his intention to change his model around when he can attract a publisher's attention.
Just keep in mind I wasn't condemning the author, because I don't know anything about the author (I haven't even read one of his stories). I was replying to a post that seemed to indicate some sort of celebration over an author adopting this type of licensing, but I hadn't yet read anything about the author adopting it. It appears to me that he has just used it, but has made no commitment to continue using it. So there doesn't appear to me to be a commitment to celebrate.
Well, at least this book has been distributed under the Creative Commons licence, which means it's never coming out of the public domain (well, the specific public domain in which it exists, anyhow). This sort of licence (and the opensource licences that Redhat et al operate under) are great for ensuring exactly what you fear doesn't occur - ie, free things becoming non-free due to greed after success.
It's not uncommon to offer the first hit(s) for free, and charge later. I'm talking about free as in speech, here.:) In fact, it's a common marketing tactic, so its easy to justify even after the fact. And not entirely a bad tactic, either. In fact, he could get a large audience this way and then take some new work to a publisher and say "It's a guaranteed revenue stream, now give me exactly what I want and nothing else." and have some backing from a tested market.
Then he would have works out that are not free anymore, and he would be in a position to go after anybody who turns around and "pirates" them.
The specific band I referred to did exactly that, even with the after-the-fact justifications and the explanations about how it was different than what they had allowed.
And yes, I knew you were trolling. You just happened to also be talking out your arse, so I brought you up on it.
not talking out of my ass, just speaking my mind.:) That is what these forums are for, right?
Oh right, and root is only for guys name "Steve" who eat Burger King Whoppers.
I was referring to the fact that it's a point and click operation to assign someone administrative priviledges. It's not so simple to turn a regular user into root. That's a different case than logging in as root from the get go, I'm talking about priviledges assigned to an account here. I suspect (but don't know for a fact) that it's possible to give a regular user account permanently root-level access, it's still a different story.
This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the "implementation" (though your fervent zealotry was clear when you contrasted Windows against "real OSs"), but rather common usage: Every guide on Windows administration since the days of NT 3.51 had admonished that one use the administrator account only for administrative purposes.
Actually, it does. Implementation isn't just a matter of how the developers implemented their user security model, it's also a matter of how the end-user has implemented their security policy.
I'll admit right now that my experience in administering in both worlds is EXTREMELY limited.:) So I could be shooting from the hip here. It's also one-sided. I have had a lot of contact with NT administrators, compared to very little contact with *nix administrators.
In any case if one did a poll of the general Slashdot community, I would bet pretty big bucks that a very good portion of them are running under the root account, or a root priviledge account
Ok, how about somebody reply who does this?:) The poll should also include:
Are you logged in at work?
Does your user account at work have these priviledges assigned?
Does your company have a policy allowing or forbidding you to assign root-level rights to a user account?
Keep in mind that there is a different mindset involved. Now, before you go accusing me of being an elitist, I am specifically not saying that one mindset is superior to the other. I don't know that to be true.:) But the mindsets are different, so different things happen.
Now you can accuse me of being an elitist. I don't give a shit.:)
Re:why would i buy?
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No, actually I was trolling.:)
I don't know anything about Cory, I just felt that his example was a tad contrived. One thing that has been demonstrated time and time again, especially with people that work in entertainment, is that success corrupts. A band (or an author) that starts out with high ideals frequently drops them later on when they're looking a huge chunk of cash in the face. When a band (or an author) is able to resist the cash and keeps their ideals, it is the EXCEPTION and NOT the rule.
I don't know enough about Cory to even be able to take a guess that I would feel good about taking, but I remain cynical. I'm also cynical that both RedHat and Mandrake will continue to offer free download versions of their OSs. I'm a cynic.:)
I think that's his point exactly. The alpha geek in your company prolly had a miserable life at the hands of jocks and soshes...the kind of people who grow up to be company execs and marketdroids. BE NICE to your SysAdmin. Otherwise you might find yourself in a world of hurt, because s/he still has scores to settle.
Here's some Voltaire at you:
Perhaps that's why the world we live in NOW is the way it is? Hint: Bill Gates was probably NOT a jock.
Re:And here in palm TealDoc .pdb format
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I converted the text file over to TealDoc format for easy reading on the Palm. Enjoy.
THAT'S how we get electronic books and read them in the park or on vacation without killing trees.:) (I'm ignoring the effects of electronic devices on the environment in order to make this blatantly tree-loving post)
Any decisions made to browse or do email as administrator are the user's fault, it has nothing to do with the implementation. There are plenty of stupid Linux users too who do the same thing (/w root obviously).
True, I'm not trying to say that Linux is better in this regard. In fact, based on my writeup, Windows is better.:) HOWEVER, in the world of Windows administration, it is normal for the administrator to use his administrator account for that stuff, whereas in the Linux world (and UNIX world, as far as I know) it is NOT normal to do so.
But how people behave on their own computers is entirely their own problem. I administer my home computers, and I use a regular user account and make judicial use of the "su" command.:)
Slashdot Mirror
mplayer has a gui !!! ./configure --enable-gui
I found that the gui overloaded the system far more than mplayer itself and was completely unusable.
While something drawing your attention to falling temperature can be useful, I guess the developers didn't test the car when the temperature was hovering around 4 degrees. Having it ping every two minutes really gets on my nerves.
1. As an american, like most americans, I'm not very good at reading celcius. :)
2. I wasn't aware it was external temperature.
Think of something stupider.....
Think of something....
Think of....
Think....
......
Ok, maybe not right this minute. :)
A lot of these threads are making me want to be a mechanic again. Heh.
I found farther down in the thread a link to a project on sourceforge that does exactly what I was wanting, and has links to hardware manufacturers that make connectors for your parallel port to ODB-compliant systems. That's cool.
Been to the track, watched rice-row, laughed at the excited 18 second runners.
I outta point out that the serious rice-boy hot-rodders laugh at those guys too. :) They're funny, that's why we laugh. :)
OTOH, K&N filter + exhaust + chip is actually a bad place to start, in my opinion, even on a rice-burner. Your stock ecu will handle plenty of performance in more useful places, and I put the ecu on the list of things to to in the middle, or afterwards, but not first. FIrst you gotta do your cam(s) (if you've only got one on a rice-burner, maybe you should think about getting a different car, heh). That is, you do your cams first only if you're not tearing down the motor, which is what *should* be first. Exhaust is almost worthless without corresponding intake work, although it does help.
My point is, knowing where to start is half the battle on a rice-burner, because there's so *much* to do. I like the 800hp civic mentioned in the article, though. 2L, 4 cyl, 800hp. That's sweet. A lot of guys can't even get that out of a v8.
I think you missed the point, dude. Maybe you should put a band-aid on that heart of yours, it looks like it's bleeding.
You're right about Google not having been declared a monopoly. I don't think that by itself makes it "not" one. OTOH, monopolies are allowed to continue crushing competitors in the specific field they monopolize, so I don't see any (legal) problem with Google's behavior.
Google isn't a monopoly, dork-wit.
Ever hear of Altavista? They're still kicking around and serving a good 20% of the market. A lot of people use iwon.com (I've seen them in the logs), and they're powered by Inktomi. Inktomi is probably Google's next biggest competitor. FAST might be next also, FAST and Inktomi are pretty close to each other.
Also, there's talk that Yahoo will switch to Inktomi, and most of Google's dominance arises from the fact that Yahoo syndicates Google results.
Google isn't a monopoly, and it's only through syndication that over 50% of searchers use Google, but probably close to 50% of people that use Google don't realize they're using Google through syndication.
Is your name Micah? You talk just like a guy I used to know named that...
It isn't just about brakes. It's the maximum torque loading allowed by your gearbox, maximum heat buildup that can be allowed in the slushbox, strength of the universal or CV joints, side loading the suspension can take, aerodynamics, you name it. It takes several hundred people to design a car, and tens of expensive highly qualified engineers to do a proper job of uprating. If even companies like Mercedes occasionally get it wrong (A-Class)it should be obvious that it isn't easy.
Manufacturers don't tune their cars for maximum performance, they tune to a safety margin. A lot of budget hot-rodders just try to push their cars closer to the maximum tolerances without going over to get as much bang for the buck as possible. This is acceptable practice and doesn't require egotistical aftermarket engineering skills. The difference is that the manufacturer has to warranty the car somehow to stay competitive in the market place, the hot-rodders place their own personal warranty on the car (if it breaks, they fix it themselves).
The great thing about drag racing is that the thing only needs to stay together for a quarter mile.
Most of the hobbyist drag racers I've known have also had to use their cars as a daily driver, so winning a race at any cost wasn't acceptable. They have to win the race and then drive the race car to work the next day. This adds an interesting variable to the race, actually.
Another thing to keep in mind, when you've pushed one component far enough that it will exceed the tolerances on another component (axleshafts break pretty easily), then you either replace the component before it breaks, or you replace it after it breaks. Or you just don't actually push it until you can replace the weak part. Over time, I've seen budget hobbying hot-rodders build shitty cars into pretty high-performance cars without ever having to catch a taxi to work. That takes a LOT of skill and brains.
My Viper will always beat your rice. Not to mention your z0g. LOL
No, actually my rice will beat your Viper for 1/3 the cost. After I've put as much money into my rice as you've put into your Viper, you'll be cautioned not to blink if you wanna see me while we're racing.
You haven't seen NASCAR racing. They're still using carborated V8s, basically the same thing they've run since the sixties. Give me road racing with a good 4 wheel drift anytime.
NASCAR's rules about car weight and so forth are to level the playing field technologically so that the sport is about driver skills. Of course, there are still ways to gain a technological advantage, and as a result of NASCAR manufacturers have learned how to mechanically make an engine more efficient, stable, and powerful without using computers as a crutch. Thus, when you add computers to the mix, you get a higher return on the computer since it was added to a better-designed engine than you would if you added it to make a shitty engine better.
Now, I'm not saying this is actually what has happened, because my old 307 has beaten the living piss out of many "modern" engines when talking about reliability. But the opportunity is there and has been partially exploited by all the manufacturers that participate in NASCAR.
Pick your racing preference. :) I find NASCAR boring because of the lack of focus on technology. I find most other racing boring because it's too much like sex. Hours of preparation for 5-20 seconds of performance. :)
Usually the interface is proprietary across manufacturers, though I wouldn't be surprised if some manufacturers shared interfaces (say, Chevrolet and Toyota, or Chrysler and Mitsubishi, or Porsche, Audi, and Volkswagen, etc).
Actually, the ODB standards have forced manufacturers to provide an interface, and you can do some small reprogramming of your ecu with it. The problem is, you can't do it for performance, since OBD stands for "OnBoard Diagnostic" and is intended to be used to test for emissions (the political reason it was created) and as a tool for general diagnostics (the practical reason it was created). It eliminated the old jumper-it and count the blinks method.
Probably, but you'd still need special hardware for the interface. I know of at least one WinCE-based dynometer software package (I believe there's also a Palm version), but I can't remember the name or website at the moment. Google should help.
I haven't heard of any hardware yet that'll allow connection of a laptop to the OBD connector, but I'd like to see it. Once someone makes that, then we can have a free software project to do all the stuff that we currently have to pay $5000 to Snap-On to do. Fuck Snap-On. If Microsoft made tools for mechanics, they'd be called Snap-Off.
Heck, maybe I could even disable that annoying , everytime the temperature drops below 4oC. :)
This is from the poster you replied to, and I can't think of anything stupider than disabling the warning noises. Granter, I can't think of a real good reason why you should have a warning that your engine is COLD, other than that if you hear this ping you should start thinking about your antifreeze/water mixture and checking your service records for when you last had it changed.
Here's the token beowulf cluster reference:
How much performance could be gained by running a beowulf cluster ecu? (probably none, last time I checked most ecus were still 8-bit boxes)
Actually, I don't have much experience with Opera. If Opera is, as you say, stricter than the others, then it sounds like it might be useful to beat on it. :)
Lucky for me, I don't build websites anymore. :)
But my exclusion of Opera was based on numbers rather than it's relative capabilities.
And if the interface is HTML, then there's no special accomodations needed to allow a linux browser instead of a MS one.
A site that I frequent requires you to use IE 4 or Netscape 4+ for SSL reasons (login part). If I hit it with Konqueror it locks me out.
So, I told Konqueror to tell the website that it's actually IE 5. I said "Konqueror, tell those assholes that your Internet Exploder, ok?".
No problems with the site. Of course, the reason they placed the browser restriction was because they require SSL, and iirc SSL didn't get well-supported until the v4 browsers.
Nevermind that they let Mozilla 1.1 in no problem (my usual browser)
If you are really standards compliant then by definition you don't really need to test much.
This particular piece of idealism has yet to materialize. Even when checking your site just for Windows only visitors, you STILL have to check IE 5, IE 5.5, and IE 6. Do you know why? Because all three of them behave like completely different browsers, and because they all have an equal chunk of market. Netscape/Mozilla pretty much has the rest, which is about 7%.
IE has been well-compliant since 5.0, but it certainly isn't perfect. Mozilla has been compliant from the ground up, but even they still haven't implemented complete standards.
In my experience, you have to check your site in all 3 of the IE browsers, but you're usually safe to use whatever Mozilla you're using, at least 1.0, though. You *may* need Netscape 6, but you should check your logs to see. You *may* need Netscape 4. You can probably ignore Opera and Konqueror both, unless you're slashdot.
I hate replying to myself, I really do. Heh.
e Windows boxes and play mp3s, in which case they wouldn't be depending on proprietary platforms
Yes, I wrote that and it looks really stupid.
I was thinking that there wouldn't be a dependence on proprietary platforms because we can run Samba on free platforms. That's all. They wouldn't think that, I'll bet, but I would if I were buying the thing.
I can agree that this is crappy, but if you stand back a bit and look at things pragmatically, you'd understand that they're only catering to 99.9% of the desktop PC universe.
Actually, I've seen reports that show Mac as having about 3-5% of the market, and that GNU/Linux could have from 1-7% (yes, it might be more than Mac). This makes it a maximum of 96% that run Windows, but more realistically probably only about 90%. I hate to nitpick, but the actual numbers are important. .1% of the market isn't huge, but 10% of the market is.
I really have no simpathy to rants like these because they are completely illogical.
This is a subjective review, near as I can tell. He intended to say what problems he had, and didn't attempt to say that we would have the same problems (although he didn't put a disclaimer either). Point is, he had a problem with it not working well with his network, so he stated so in the review. Would you prefer reviewers leave out this kind of information?
Now, about actually implementing a device like this. It seems to me that embedding GNU/Linux (or BSD) would allow them to use Samba to hit up the Windows boxes and play mp3s, in which case they wouldn't be depending on proprietary platforms. We'd still complain about having to run a Samba server, but at least we'd be able to do it. Of course, they could embed windows and still hit up a Windows share.
Hey dude, go reread my post, and then I'll take out my "GNU C++" book and show you where in the first chapter that listing appears. :)
Then I'll take out my Borland C++ Builder in 21 days book and show you the same listing in the first chapter.
Then I'll take out my STL book and show you the same listing in the second chapter.
I know what the damn language is, and I know what shows up in the damn books. Just because that listing appears in a C++ book doesn't mean it's C++, and I don't recall saying it was.
My point is - does it matter to you if he writes further non-free work and makes some money out of it? This book is free - and that's what you were promised. At no point did he say "Everything I do for the rest of my life will be free, even if it turns out I'm taking a massive hit on potential profits for my future livelyhood as an author."
Simple answer: No it does not matter to me.
Don't condemn people for the (actually quite reasonable) steps they may or may not take in the future when they're doing the right thing now. More than the right thing, in fact - blazing a trail for others to do the right thing.
I wasn't condemning the author, I was pointing out to the poster of the comment to which I was replying that he hasn't done anything new--yet. If he continues this way and dedicates his life to writing in this fashion, sure. He's broken ground then. The license itself is a bit unique, but not really new. I've taken poetry and crap from kids standing on the street corner "trying to get their name out so a publisher will notice them". What's the difference here, besides that it's offered electronically?
It's like saying "Well, yes Linus developed Linux, but one day he might work for Microsoft - that sucks! Steer clear of Linux!"
Not exactly, because *if* LInus goes to work for Microsoft (or some other company that makes him stop working on GPLd stuff), we will have the very last version of the kernel before he left the project to *continue developing*. We just won't have linus anymore. Authoring and making music (these are both in the discussion as a result of the post to which I originally replied) are different than software development. Someone else can write a Sherlock Holmes story, but it won't be the same as reading something from SIr Arthur Conan Doyle. The style will be different, no matter how good an imitator he is. With Free Software, we can keep working on the code. With Free Novels, we have to depend on him to make his *next* novel free.
And as you pointed out, we can't expect that. Furthermore, as I said, I don't know anything about the author we're actually discussing. AMong the things I don't know: I don't know if he has made a big public to-do about how he writes his stuff and it's Free (as in speech) for the readers. I don't know if he's said that he intends to keep writing stuff and making it available under this license. If he has, then my comments are a real concern. If not, then it may well be his intention to change his model around when he can attract a publisher's attention.
Just keep in mind I wasn't condemning the author, because I don't know anything about the author (I haven't even read one of his stories). I was replying to a post that seemed to indicate some sort of celebration over an author adopting this type of licensing, but I hadn't yet read anything about the author adopting it. It appears to me that he has just used it, but has made no commitment to continue using it. So there doesn't appear to me to be a commitment to celebrate.
Well, at least this book has been distributed under the Creative Commons licence, which means it's never coming out of the public domain (well, the specific public domain in which it exists, anyhow). This sort of licence (and the opensource licences that Redhat et al operate under) are great for ensuring exactly what you fear doesn't occur - ie, free things becoming non-free due to greed after success.
It's not uncommon to offer the first hit(s) for free, and charge later. I'm talking about free as in speech, here. :) In fact, it's a common marketing tactic, so its easy to justify even after the fact. And not entirely a bad tactic, either. In fact, he could get a large audience this way and then take some new work to a publisher and say "It's a guaranteed revenue stream, now give me exactly what I want and nothing else." and have some backing from a tested market.
Then he would have works out that are not free anymore, and he would be in a position to go after anybody who turns around and "pirates" them.
The specific band I referred to did exactly that, even with the after-the-fact justifications and the explanations about how it was different than what they had allowed.
And yes, I knew you were trolling. You just happened to also be talking out your arse, so I brought you up on it.
not talking out of my ass, just speaking my mind. :) That is what these forums are for, right?
For one thing, ANYONE can be an administrator.
Oh right, and root is only for guys name "Steve" who eat Burger King Whoppers.
I was referring to the fact that it's a point and click operation to assign someone administrative priviledges. It's not so simple to turn a regular user into root. That's a different case than logging in as root from the get go, I'm talking about priviledges assigned to an account here. I suspect (but don't know for a fact) that it's possible to give a regular user account permanently root-level access, it's still a different story.
This has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the "implementation" (though your fervent zealotry was clear when you contrasted Windows against "real OSs"), but rather common usage: Every guide on Windows administration since the days of NT 3.51 had admonished that one use the administrator account only for administrative purposes.
Actually, it does. Implementation isn't just a matter of how the developers implemented their user security model, it's also a matter of how the end-user has implemented their security policy.
I'll admit right now that my experience in administering in both worlds is EXTREMELY limited. :) So I could be shooting from the hip here. It's also one-sided. I have had a lot of contact with NT administrators, compared to very little contact with *nix administrators.
In any case if one did a poll of the general Slashdot community, I would bet pretty big bucks that a very good portion of them are running under the root account, or a root priviledge account
Ok, how about somebody reply who does this? :) The poll should also include:
Keep in mind that there is a different mindset involved. Now, before you go accusing me of being an elitist, I am specifically not saying that one mindset is superior to the other. I don't know that to be true. :) But the mindsets are different, so different things happen.
Now you can accuse me of being an elitist. I don't give a shit. :)
No, actually I was trolling. :)
I don't know anything about Cory, I just felt that his example was a tad contrived. One thing that has been demonstrated time and time again, especially with people that work in entertainment, is that success corrupts. A band (or an author) that starts out with high ideals frequently drops them later on when they're looking a huge chunk of cash in the face. When a band (or an author) is able to resist the cash and keeps their ideals, it is the EXCEPTION and NOT the rule.
I don't know enough about Cory to even be able to take a guess that I would feel good about taking, but I remain cynical. I'm also cynical that both RedHat and Mandrake will continue to offer free download versions of their OSs. I'm a cynic. :)
I think that's his point exactly. The alpha geek in your company prolly had a miserable life at the hands of jocks and soshes...the kind of people who grow up to be company execs and marketdroids. BE NICE to your SysAdmin. Otherwise you might find yourself in a world of hurt, because s/he still has scores to settle.
Here's some Voltaire at you:
Perhaps that's why the world we live in NOW is the way it is? Hint: Bill Gates was probably NOT a jock.
I converted the text file over to TealDoc format for easy reading on the Palm. Enjoy.
THAT'S how we get electronic books and read them in the park or on vacation without killing trees. :) (I'm ignoring the effects of electronic devices on the environment in order to make this blatantly tree-loving post)
Any decisions made to browse or do email as administrator are the user's fault, it has nothing to do with the implementation. There are plenty of stupid Linux users too who do the same thing (/w root obviously).
True, I'm not trying to say that Linux is better in this regard. In fact, based on my writeup, Windows is better. :) HOWEVER, in the world of Windows administration, it is normal for the administrator to use his administrator account for that stuff, whereas in the Linux world (and UNIX world, as far as I know) it is NOT normal to do so.
But how people behave on their own computers is entirely their own problem. I administer my home computers, and I use a regular user account and make judicial use of the "su" command. :)
For the same reason that you'd go see a concert of a band that allows you to trade bootlegs of their concerts.
Why would I do that in the first place if I know they're just gonna make a big move later on to stop file sharing after they're successful?