Well, the main difference between discovery and invention is that a discovery is something that already existed, that you found. An invention is something you thought up, that nobody ever thought of before.
I support his claim that discoveries should not be patentable.
Make no mistake, IBM is only interested in Linux because it can use it to make a profit. It couldn't care less if it's open source or not, only that Linux is free for them to put on boxes, thus, more profit for them.
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Linux isn't going to stop being GPL'd anytime soon, so the more clout we can get going behind linux, the better. Whether it's because of money, or because of freedom, it really doesn't matter that much.
Sure, many of us have the skill to set up a simple blog, but the real question is, would they be any good? I doubt it. Things like MovableType exist to save you the trouble of doing it yourself.
It's called code reuse, and it's a virtue, not a sin.
Forgot to mention, the 'xscreensaver-command -lock' bit means that pretty much the second X loads, you'll have your screensaver running. You might see X's default black/white pattern for a second, but xscreensaver should load mostly instantly. There won't be any "waiting 1 minute for the screensaver to start" or anything like that, it'll be instant.
So with that, if you can trim up the boot sequence, you'll end up with a really fast booting system. You won't be waiting for your standalone box to try and connect to the internet, you won't be waiting for it to load uneccessary daemons, you won't be waiting for GNOME to load, you won't have to type in a login at all. It'll be *really* fast.
This is the flexability of linux;)
I might even do this with an LFS system, just for the sake of saving HD space and all that (only installing the bare minimums). All you'd really need is X and xscreensaver, though I'm not sure if you would need GDM in order to have automatic logins.
You have to then configure GDM to automatically log you in at boot (redhat comes with a nice GUI config program for doing that, when using Gnome, look in the "System" menu IIRC), then log out so you're at the GDM login screen, and select Screensaver as your new windowmanager. What'll happen is you'll log in and get the screensaver, then if you put in your password to unlock the screen, it'll just log you out and you'll be back at GDM (so you'll be able to set your WM back to gnome so you can go in and configure the system if you want).
Any linux system comes with any number of programs that will hide the mouse cursor -- they're called screensavers.
What I would have done is, first of all, use Gnome. Then configure your screensaver to have random pictures from a given directory (easy with xscreensaver, gnome's default). Then you change your GDM options to automatically log you in, then you go and trim out your boot options (disable loading of networking, etc, you can really speed up the boot by doing that). After that, change your WM to be just xscreensaver, reboot, and disconnect the keyboard and mouse.
Then you'd have a computer that would boot right into an xscreensaver slideshow, no mouse cursor displayed, and since the keyboard & mouse are disconnected, there is no way to trigger xscreensaver's "unlock the screen" dialogue.
Yep, canada is a nation of hunters, every man in my family owns a rifle and kills (and eats) deer during hunting season.
Not to mention that we watch exactly the same damn TV in canada as in the US. So TV violence & gun ownership cannot possibly be the reason that the US is so bad for gun deaths.
Depends what you mean by the conversation being over... this conversation has spiralled into a discussion of Godwin's law, which, as you can see, is going quite strong. I'd hardly call the conversation dead, just hopelessly off-topic.
A lot of people seem to think that Godwin's law means that the thread must end when Hitler is mentioned, but that's not really true. The only way to violate Godwin's law is to have an infinitely long thread without mentioning Hitler or the Nazis even once, which is impossible (you can't have an infinitely long thread, it has to end at some point).
The law simply states that the longer a thread goes on for, the more likely it is that somebody will mention Hitler. It's all probabilities -- in this case, Hitler was mentioned straight off the bat.
That much I understand. If I have a CD, I can loan it to a friend. If he makes a copy of it, he's in violation of the law, but that's largely irrelevant to the act of me loaning him my CD.
Not in Canada. Ignoring the fact that uploading & downloading music on kazaa is actually legal (until an appeal overturns it), it's actually legal to lend somebody a CD, have them make a personal backup for themselves, then take your CD back. It's still illegal to make a copy of a CD and hand out the copy, though.
I agree, I'm getting 160k/s down as we speak, which is really pushing the limits of my piddly little cable connection.
Well, the main difference between discovery and invention is that a discovery is something that already existed, that you found. An invention is something you thought up, that nobody ever thought of before.
I support his claim that discoveries should not be patentable.
Make no mistake, IBM is only interested in Linux because it can use it to make a profit. It couldn't care less if it's open source or not, only that Linux is free for them to put on boxes, thus, more profit for them.
And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Linux isn't going to stop being GPL'd anytime soon, so the more clout we can get going behind linux, the better. Whether it's because of money, or because of freedom, it really doesn't matter that much.
(let's pull a number out of my ass, 0.00001%)
That's a pretty shitty number, dude.
(actually I don't know how accurate it is, but it had to be said)
Right now -- just use mplayer.
Sure, many of us have the skill to set up a simple blog, but the real question is, would they be any good? I doubt it. Things like MovableType exist to save you the trouble of doing it yourself.
It's called code reuse, and it's a virtue, not a sin.
Forgot to mention, the 'xscreensaver-command -lock' bit means that pretty much the second X loads, you'll have your screensaver running. You might see X's default black/white pattern for a second, but xscreensaver should load mostly instantly. There won't be any "waiting 1 minute for the screensaver to start" or anything like that, it'll be instant.
;)
So with that, if you can trim up the boot sequence, you'll end up with a really fast booting system. You won't be waiting for your standalone box to try and connect to the internet, you won't be waiting for it to load uneccessary daemons, you won't be waiting for GNOME to load, you won't have to type in a login at all. It'll be *really* fast.
This is the flexability of linux
I might even do this with an LFS system, just for the sake of saving HD space and all that (only installing the bare minimums). All you'd really need is X and xscreensaver, though I'm not sure if you would need GDM in order to have automatic logins.
You have to then configure GDM to automatically log you in at boot (redhat comes with a nice GUI config program for doing that, when using Gnome, look in the "System" menu IIRC), then log out so you're at the GDM login screen, and select Screensaver as your new windowmanager. What'll happen is you'll log in and get the screensaver, then if you put in your password to unlock the screen, it'll just log you out and you'll be back at GDM (so you'll be able to set your WM back to gnome so you can go in and configure the system if you want).
Any linux system comes with any number of programs that will hide the mouse cursor -- they're called screensavers.
What I would have done is, first of all, use Gnome. Then configure your screensaver to have random pictures from a given directory (easy with xscreensaver, gnome's default). Then you change your GDM options to automatically log you in, then you go and trim out your boot options (disable loading of networking, etc, you can really speed up the boot by doing that). After that, change your WM to be just xscreensaver, reboot, and disconnect the keyboard and mouse.
Then you'd have a computer that would boot right into an xscreensaver slideshow, no mouse cursor displayed, and since the keyboard & mouse are disconnected, there is no way to trigger xscreensaver's "unlock the screen" dialogue.
QED.
So I looked into it,
funny on so many levels.
Yep, canada is a nation of hunters, every man in my family owns a rifle and kills (and eats) deer during hunting season.
Not to mention that we watch exactly the same damn TV in canada as in the US. So TV violence & gun ownership cannot possibly be the reason that the US is so bad for gun deaths.
You are, of course, talking about Pangrams.
My favourite is "Bright vixens jump; dozy fowl quack."
Well, there is Project Gutenberg.
I think that's more mironic than ironic... ;)
Depends what you mean by the conversation being over... this conversation has spiralled into a discussion of Godwin's law, which, as you can see, is going quite strong. I'd hardly call the conversation dead, just hopelessly off-topic.
A lot of people seem to think that Godwin's law means that the thread must end when Hitler is mentioned, but that's not really true. The only way to violate Godwin's law is to have an infinitely long thread without mentioning Hitler or the Nazis even once, which is impossible (you can't have an infinitely long thread, it has to end at some point).
The law simply states that the longer a thread goes on for, the more likely it is that somebody will mention Hitler. It's all probabilities -- in this case, Hitler was mentioned straight off the bat.
It's actually a good thing; more women for us!
It means he's ditching IPv4 altogether and going exclusively with IPv6. I think.
I think you'd have a hard time finding a US citizen who's ancestors didn't immigrate to North America at some point.
Sorry, I should have said "any decent linux distro" ;)
Wow, looks awesome! Does it come with a G5?
ah, flash and j2re... I try to put off installing those for as long as possible ;)
Any linux distro comes with so much stuff, I don't think there are even 10 things that I install after I'm done the OS install...
I'll grab bittorrent (official client), firefox, thunderbird, and I think that's about it.
Dunno about dune, but that kind of thing was in Stargate... they had force fields that deflected bullets, but were basically useless against knives.
That much I understand. If I have a CD, I can loan it to a friend. If he makes a copy of it, he's in violation of the law, but that's largely irrelevant to the act of me loaning him my CD.
Not in Canada. Ignoring the fact that uploading & downloading music on kazaa is actually legal (until an appeal overturns it), it's actually legal to lend somebody a CD, have them make a personal backup for themselves, then take your CD back. It's still illegal to make a copy of a CD and hand out the copy, though.