The only victims in the AutoCAD place are the chumps that have to use it. And have to upgrade to overcome the deficiencies of the previous versions.
In my experience AutoCAD is the epidamy of bloat-ware, legacy-bogged, and monopoly-driven software. It is entirely incomplete and quite bug-ridden despite almost 20 years of development.
I find myself dreaming of the day when Microsoft gets hungry enough to decide to take that market away from Autodesk.
I can not think of a less-deserving company or product than AutoCAD. Unfortunately, market conditions and the consevative nature of the industries it pretends to serve make it quite a smug and uncontested "killer-app."
One more item of note is that Microsoft and Autodesk are actually competitiors at this pont. With the purchase of Visio, Microsoft also aquired IntelliCAD, an "AutoCAD" clone.
Nothing original, I concede, but the obvious should be restated. often:
Sharing is the best way to stimulate a market, if I like a piece of music, I want to tell others about it. It enriches them and raises my social status (or at least sense of worth). This is what "tape trading" used to be all about and it is exactly what file trading is now about. Sucky music doesn't stay in my shared directory for very long.
The truth is that the RIAA is fighting against the very essence of civilized culture, they are doing their best to defend their short term interests while ignoring the fact that without an enthusiastic audience they will be the first to loose. When no one is willing to pay money for the next one hit wonder's overproduced album, and the record companies slowly starve there will still be a million independent artists working hard for our attention, they do know how to use the current technology and they will be the ones benefiting the most from all this.
If you ask me, this issue has already been won. All they can to is try to intimidate anyone they can. This attempt to get parents to "police" their children will only reinforce the idea that "sharing is cool." It makes sharing, and resisting the media conglomerate's influence immediately anti-authority and anti-establishment, forbidden fruit, therefore immensely cool. It's over.
And while we were at it, when was the last time that you were able to initiate local (landline) or cellular service without provifing ID, and credit information(for non-prepaid)?
If, let's say I had $200 burining a hole in my pocket and I wanted a new toy, this would make sense... but since the Powershot has an MSRP of $800 ($600 Street), and the Advance SP is $100, I don't think you can compare them at _any_ level.
This writeup is so bogus, it should be titled "I spent $700 dollars of a bunch of shit, and I need to justify it to myself somehow....
Step 1: use stone and concrete. The Romans used stone and concrete extensively, and many of their public works projects are STILL standing two thousand years later. Today we have reinforced concrete, which is even stronger than anything the Romans had. Also, this will make it prohibitively expensive to tear your house down if anyone gets any bright ideas about turning your property into a parking lot in a hundred years. Concrete is permeable
Step 6: make sure the house sits at the base (or top) of a cliff or some other construction-inconvenient location. Then plant LOTS of oak trees all over the place. Within fifty years they'll turn into a nice forest. This has a couple of benefits:Root Infiltration
Step ONE Hire an Architect.
Idiotic Spelling Mistakes
on
Opencroquet
·
· Score: 1
Man, I wish there was a way to revise posts...
Esxciting Ideas & Hopes for Open Source
on
Opencroquet
·
· Score: 1
This has gotten me thinking and I'm rather excited my the potential of the topic.In fact I think that all of us shouldbe quite excited by the prospect of a "fresh"approach tomost of the computing concepts we've grown accustomed to.I just wish that I didn't have a real job so that I could commit years of my life to pursuing these ideas as an open source contributor, or in post/graduate studies (or maybe both).
So here goes:
Although I am not a "technical" person, the idea of using a 3D environment to communicate concepts such as network elements, directory structures, files, file dependencies, processes, devices, etc. is truly exciting. A variety of things such as size, complexity, interdependence, hierarchy become much more obvious to people once they are "experienced." I have a much easier time telling my aunt ( new computer user) that the "playing cards are inside the cigar box over the coffee table in the kitchen" rather than "the shortcut to solitaire is in the games sub-menu of the accessories program launcher (start menu)... but it's actually a "link" which is actually a file located in...some folder... which contains information pointing to another file, which is an executable, which is, actually the "game""... whew!
The point of the above is that I think that typical computer use has already grown beyond what the 2-dimensional "desktop" analogies can provide, so it is necessary to look at, and attempt to implement new ideas.I think this 3d-os stuff is very closely related to Microsoft's "database-File System" initiatives, both are attempts to provide a much more flexible way for users to manage the now-immense amounts of information we routinely deal with. Furthermore, I think that the implementation that will win, and basically revolutionize things over again will be the cleanest, most "obvious" one.
This is a great opportunity for the Open Source community, instead of bickering about how to clone Microsoft and apple's newest desktop-tweaks we should be pushing ahead, actually not "ahead" but in dozens of different directions, all cross-competing, communications, sharing ideas, concepts and maybe even components. This KDE/Gnome thing is a joke, same with all of the other miscellaneous stupid desktop managers.
There are allot of other utterly fascinating aspects of the topic that I am going to restrain myself from mention in this single post, but let me say that this shit has to be taken seriously by all of us, and this is one way that we can all "help things."
OK, I'm overreaching, but this is slashdot, right?
...Back in '93. I had a sweet Amiga 3000 running AmigaOS 3.1. Sheer perfection... for a year or two...
It wasen't 'till a couple of years later when the nicer PowerPC macs started appearing on campus that I felt it was time to move on. But never since that time have I been so completely satisfied by a hardware/software combination...
One of these days I'll get ahold of a modern Mac and see if that level of "niceness" is attainable still...
Its one thing to create the "Internet Tax" but do we have taxes for interstate mail-order and shopping-channel type of retail?
It's been quite some time since I've ordered anything by the more conventional methids, but I don't think so...
You aremost definitely wrong: BeOS' structure is quite "UNIX flavored."
1. the CLI is BASH
2. The directory structure is arranged using the root/directory/device metaphors, like all Unices. (as opposed to C:/ or hd0: or whatever..)
for starters....
This is it! A legacy-free, fast, UNIX-y OS, that could easily be used by casual(ie non-programmer/UNIX Admin types) and novices. If half of the Open-Source proponents out there really wanted to "make a difference" Open BeOS would be the project theyd be contributing to.
I love Linux, love Open Source and all it stands for, but I'm sorry to say, it will never be able to deliver an elegant desktop sulution.
As far as I'm concerned BeOS, could have been the most perfect home-PC solution. Regardless of whether it could ever find mainstream acceptance it not the point.
Sure, no driver support, and nothing but half-assed apps to play around with, but still. The OS achieves a kind of balance, "perfection" if you will...
Any group or company looking to overhaul Linux for _actual_ desktop use should take a very close look at BeOS. The way the OS is structured, the way deviced are handled, the simplicity and flexibility of the GUI, the way the shell coexists with the GUI.
I don't want "full" UNIX, just the stuff that matters to me: A quick, good and consistent user interface, modern applications/drivers/utilities/, a clean directory structure, a refined, legacy-free configuration options to mess around with... and who knows? maybe even some ports of Linux apps
Free local? what? where I live I still can't get anything cheaper than $35, most of which is taxes... and cellular alternatives are MUCH cheaper
...long distance is probably more important to consumers than local, and as it turns out that's dirt cheap in the US too... thanks to competition.
Now about cell phones. It is different in the US because people live different:
In the US people move out early on, in Japan and most of Europe yound people have more economic hurdles to deal with and stay home longer... if you want to keep the parents out of the social life you want a cell phone.
Outside of the US people spend more time outside of their houses (and even less watching TV)... this translates to less land line usage and more cell phone usage.
Outside of the US telecom is highly regulated/government run; except cellular, which is usually quite competitive... furthermore infastructure is quite a bit cheaper for wireless...
We are behind in the US because we don't care all that much about elegance or simplicity, bigger is better and the more the better, in other words we are mostly gluttons. Consider the cars we drive, the food we eat and how we dress.
A smaller phone is not very likely to be perceived as being better, here in the US. Put some beazzler jewels on them, and a "Polo" label on them and then they'll move.
Another reason why palm and WinCE are on their way out. This what its all about: "convergence".
Ever since getting the P800's cheper brother, the T68i, I've never looked back. Now I no longer have to carry around my palm pilot and keep my appointments and contacts on a tiny, tiny device.
Seriously, this is the most BS sounding "security solution" I've heard of in a while.
It seems like the Prof. is just trying to get some publicity so he can bring in the next grant. I'll be impressed when someone comes up with an elegant, efficient security concept, not something that needs $10k just to work. The truth is, secure data is now being stored on PDAs and Cell Phones. IMO, these "minimal" or rather specialized devices will need to have integral data security features, but with much less overhead and dedicated hardware.
What about the same solution as an alternative to Cell Phone towers?
Re:"Decentralization" or Unrestriction
on
Decentralization
·
· Score: 1
Conversely: Napster... Geek has idea, implements... suits come on board... hilarity ensues.
IBM hasn't caused a serious industry-wide trend, it will eventually happen, but it shows to me that they haven't developed a model that is compelling enough for others to emulate... yet.
I wonder how the top-down (non-geek driven) cell-phone sweep that is changing the landscape compares to these observations...
Perhaps it is a social-driven phenomenon, and while computing culture is converging with mainstream society (at least in the US), the two will be more difficult to identify.
I think P2P is going to be a reocurring technoilogy that will surface and fade untill a "magic" implementation sweeps the market; becomes widely accepted; and ingrained in our maiunstream society... much like videotaping TV shows (timeshifting) did in the 80s.
"Decentralization" or Unrestriction
on
Decentralization
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I thing that the "Geek" and "Suit" generalization is utterly limited.
It is probably a mistake to try to relate this "balance" to the future of Silicon Valley or our economy for the following reason: There must be tangible financial benefits for there "home-brewed" or "geek-driven" applications to really be exploited and capitalized on.
That was the case for the internet's early days (before the web) and still is the case for P2P; it isn't the first person who manages to come up with something new that benefits from it, it is the first person who figures out how to make a profit from it... and has incentive to market, etc...
The article cited in the story is actually quite thought-provoking in regard to the future of the internet and challenges posed by unchecked and unethical capitalism and greed.
On the other hand, is it really a "good thing" to have the owner of the company apply his moral judgment to the service he provides; When it is such a "fixture" of the internet at the moment.
there are over 700 replies to the story and most of them are caught in on the porn vs.drugs/alchohol issue. This is really so offtopic it's not funny. And I have to admit, I am really disappointed at/. (The community and the site) for this.
In regard to the actual topic at hand, I think that since it's a private company, then the owners can do whatever they please. There are consequences to their actions, and if their decisions start to effect the popularity of the site or the sites advertising value, they are the only ones that suffer because of it. There will always be another competitor that will want to provide the same level of convenience but better and win market share and $$. Competition is good.
Now if Google was about to start aggressively defending business practices and filing frivolous patents for defensive reasons, like, it seems, every major corp. out there is doing that would certainly taint their corporate image. They would loose trust/following/users right away; all someone would have to do is provide a comparable service and rake in the money.
Personally, I think that there are way to go public but keep control, mainly by not being greedy and not divesting the share base completely... For example (and I'm not a money person, so I could be wrong...) selling 45% of the company out to the open market, but keeping the rest. You would be being part of someone else's company, you know who will be running the company... and the risk associated with someone being "moral" in their business conduct (heaven help us).
Slashdot Mirror
The only victims in the AutoCAD place are the chumps that have to use it. And have to upgrade to overcome the deficiencies of the previous versions.
In my experience AutoCAD is the epidamy of bloat-ware, legacy-bogged, and monopoly-driven software. It is entirely incomplete and quite bug-ridden despite almost 20 years of development. I find myself dreaming of the day when Microsoft gets hungry enough to decide to take that market away from Autodesk.
I can not think of a less-deserving company or product than AutoCAD. Unfortunately, market conditions and the consevative nature of the industries it pretends to serve make it quite a smug and uncontested "killer-app."
At some point someone mentioned to me that Bill G's mother was actually sitting on IBM's board of directors at the time the MS-DOS deal went down.
I Believe it, but can someone substantiate this?
Just FYI it's 2"x6" before the lumber is allowed to dry.
I fully concur.
One more item of note is that Microsoft and Autodesk are actually competitiors at this pont. With the purchase of Visio, Microsoft also aquired IntelliCAD, an "AutoCAD" clone.
Nothing original, I concede, but the obvious should be restated. often:
Sharing is the best way to stimulate a market, if I like a piece of music, I want to tell others about it. It enriches them and raises my social status (or at least sense of worth). This is what "tape trading" used to be all about and it is exactly what file trading is now about. Sucky music doesn't stay in my shared directory for very long.
The truth is that the RIAA is fighting against the very essence of civilized culture, they are doing their best to defend their short term interests while ignoring the fact that without an enthusiastic audience they will be the first to loose. When no one is willing to pay money for the next one hit wonder's overproduced album, and the record companies slowly starve there will still be a million independent artists working hard for our attention, they do know how to use the current technology and they will be the ones benefiting the most from all this.
If you ask me, this issue has already been won. All they can to is try to intimidate anyone they can. This attempt to get parents to "police" their children will only reinforce the idea that "sharing is cool." It makes sharing, and resisting the media conglomerate's influence immediately anti-authority and anti-establishment, forbidden fruit, therefore immensely cool. It's over.
no one said that you HAD to keep the old number.
And while we were at it, when was the last time that you were able to initiate local (landline) or cellular service without provifing ID, and credit information(for non-prepaid)?
If, let's say I had $200 burining a hole in my pocket and I wanted a new toy, this would make sense... but since the Powershot has an MSRP of $800 ($600 Street), and the Advance SP is $100, I don't think you can compare them at _any_ level.
This writeup is so bogus, it should be titled "I spent $700 dollars of a bunch of shit, and I need to justify it to myself somehow....
Step 1: use stone and concrete. The Romans used stone and concrete extensively, and many of their public works projects are STILL standing two thousand years later. Today we have reinforced concrete, which is even stronger than anything the Romans had. Also, this will make it prohibitively expensive to tear your house down if anyone gets any bright ideas about turning your property into a parking lot in a hundred years.
Concrete is permeable
Step 6: make sure the house sits at the base (or top) of a cliff or some other construction-inconvenient location. Then plant LOTS of oak trees all over the place. Within fifty years they'll turn into a nice forest. This has a couple of benefits: Root Infiltration
Step ONE Hire an Architect.
Man, I wish there was a way to revise posts...
This has gotten me thinking and I'm rather excited my the potential of the topic.In fact I think that all of us shouldbe quite excited by the prospect of a "fresh"approach tomost of the computing concepts we've grown accustomed to.I just wish that I didn't have a real job so that I could commit years of my life to pursuing these ideas as an open source contributor, or in post/graduate studies (or maybe both).
... but it's actually a "link" which is actually a file located in ...some folder... which contains information pointing to another file, which is an executable, which is, actually the "game""... whew!
So here goes:
Although I am not a "technical" person, the idea of using a 3D environment to communicate concepts such as network elements, directory structures, files, file dependencies, processes, devices, etc. is truly exciting. A variety of things such as size, complexity, interdependence, hierarchy become much more obvious to people once they are "experienced." I have a much easier time telling my aunt ( new computer user) that the "playing cards are inside the cigar box over the coffee table in the kitchen" rather than "the shortcut to solitaire is in the games sub-menu of the accessories program launcher (start menu)
The point of the above is that I think that typical computer use has already grown beyond what the 2-dimensional "desktop" analogies can provide, so it is necessary to look at, and attempt to implement new ideas.I think this 3d-os stuff is very closely related to Microsoft's "database-File System" initiatives, both are attempts to provide a much more flexible way for users to manage the now-immense amounts of information we routinely deal with. Furthermore, I think that the implementation that will win, and basically revolutionize things over again will be the cleanest, most "obvious" one.
This is a great opportunity for the Open Source community, instead of bickering about how to clone Microsoft and apple's newest desktop-tweaks we should be pushing ahead, actually not "ahead" but in dozens of different directions, all cross-competing, communications, sharing ideas, concepts and maybe even components. This KDE/Gnome thing is a joke, same with all of the other miscellaneous stupid desktop managers. There are allot of other utterly fascinating aspects of the topic that I am going to restrain myself from mention in this single post, but let me say that this shit has to be taken seriously by all of us, and this is one way that we can all "help things."
OK, I'm overreaching, but this is slashdot, right?
...Back in '93. I had a sweet Amiga 3000 running AmigaOS 3.1. Sheer perfection... for a year or two...
It wasen't 'till a couple of years later when the nicer PowerPC macs started appearing on campus that I felt it was time to move on. But never since that time have I been so completely satisfied by a hardware/software combination...
One of these days I'll get ahold of a modern Mac and see if that level of "niceness" is attainable still...
Its one thing to create the "Internet Tax" but do we have taxes for interstate mail-order and shopping-channel type of retail?
It's been quite some time since I've ordered anything by the more conventional methids, but I don't think so...
You aremost definitely wrong: BeOS' structure is quite "UNIX flavored." 1. the CLI is BASH 2. The directory structure is arranged using the root/directory/device metaphors, like all Unices. (as opposed to C:/ or hd0: or whatever..) for starters....
This is it! A legacy-free, fast, UNIX-y OS, that could easily be used by casual(ie non-programmer/UNIX Admin types) and novices. If half of the Open-Source proponents out there really wanted to "make a difference" Open BeOS would be the project theyd be contributing to.
I love Linux, love Open Source and all it stands for, but I'm sorry to say, it will never be able to deliver an elegant desktop sulution.
As far as I'm concerned BeOS, could have been the most perfect home-PC solution. Regardless of whether it could ever find mainstream acceptance it not the point.
Sure, no driver support, and nothing but half-assed apps to play around with, but still. The OS achieves a kind of balance, "perfection" if you will...
Any group or company looking to overhaul Linux for _actual_ desktop use should take a very close look at BeOS. The way the OS is structured, the way deviced are handled, the simplicity and flexibility of the GUI, the way the shell coexists with the GUI.
I don't want "full" UNIX, just the stuff that matters to me: A quick, good and consistent user interface, modern applications/drivers/utilities/, a clean directory structure, a refined, legacy-free configuration options to mess around with... and who knows? maybe even some ports of Linux apps
Free local? what? where I live I still can't get anything cheaper than $35, most of which is taxes... and cellular alternatives are MUCH cheaper
...long distance is probably more important to consumers than local, and as it turns out that's dirt cheap in the US too... thanks to competition.
Now about cell phones. It is different in the US because people live different:
In the US people move out early on, in Japan and most of Europe yound people have more economic hurdles to deal with and stay home longer... if you want to keep the parents out of the social life you want a cell phone.
Outside of the US people spend more time outside of their houses (and even less watching TV)... this translates to less land line usage and more cell phone usage. Outside of the US telecom is highly regulated/government run; except cellular, which is usually quite competitive... furthermore infastructure is quite a bit cheaper for wireless...
We are behind in the US because we don't care all that much about elegance or simplicity, bigger is better and the more the better, in other words we are mostly gluttons. Consider the cars we drive, the food we eat and how we dress.
A smaller phone is not very likely to be perceived as being better, here in the US. Put some beazzler jewels on them, and a "Polo" label on them and then they'll move.
Another reason why palm and WinCE are on their way out. This what its all about: "convergence".
Ever since getting the P800's cheper brother, the T68i, I've never looked back. Now I no longer have to carry around my palm pilot and keep my appointments and contacts on a tiny, tiny device.
Seriously, this is the most BS sounding "security solution" I've heard of in a while.
It seems like the Prof. is just trying to get some publicity so he can bring in the next grant. I'll be impressed when someone comes up with an elegant, efficient security concept, not something that needs $10k just to work.
The truth is, secure data is now being stored on PDAs and Cell Phones. IMO, these "minimal" or rather specialized devices will need to have integral data security features, but with much less overhead and dedicated hardware.
What about the same solution as an alternative to Cell Phone towers?
Conversely: Napster... Geek has idea, implements... suits come on board... hilarity ensues.
IBM hasn't caused a serious industry-wide trend, it will eventually happen, but it shows to me that they haven't developed a model that is compelling enough for others to emulate... yet.
I wonder how the top-down (non-geek driven) cell-phone sweep that is changing the landscape compares to these observations...
Perhaps it is a social-driven phenomenon, and while computing culture is converging with mainstream society (at least in the US), the two will be more difficult to identify.
I think P2P is going to be a reocurring technoilogy that will surface and fade untill a "magic" implementation sweeps the market; becomes widely accepted; and ingrained in our maiunstream society... much like videotaping TV shows (timeshifting) did in the 80s.
It is probably a mistake to try to relate this "balance" to the future of Silicon Valley or our economy for the following reason: There must be tangible financial benefits for there "home-brewed" or "geek-driven" applications to really be exploited and capitalized on.
That was the case for the internet's early days (before the web) and still is the case for P2P; it isn't the first person who manages to come up with something new that benefits from it, it is the first person who figures out how to make a profit from it... and has incentive to market, etc...
The article cited in the story is actually quite thought-provoking in regard to the future of the internet and challenges posed by unchecked and unethical capitalism and greed.
On the other hand, is it really a "good thing" to have the owner of the company apply his moral judgment to the service he provides; When it is such a "fixture" of the internet at the moment.
there are over 700 replies to the story and most of them are caught in on the porn vs.drugs/alchohol issue. This is really so offtopic it's not funny. And I have to admit, I am really disappointed at /. (The community and the site) for this.
In regard to the actual topic at hand, I think that since it's a private company, then the owners can do whatever they please. There are consequences to their actions, and if their decisions start to effect the popularity of the site or the sites advertising value, they are the only ones that suffer because of it. There will always be another competitor that will want to provide the same level of convenience but better and win market share and $$. Competition is good.
Now if Google was about to start aggressively defending business practices and filing frivolous patents for defensive reasons, like, it seems, every major corp. out there is doing that would certainly taint their corporate image. They would loose trust/following/users right away; all someone would have to do is provide a comparable service and rake in the money.
Personally, I think that there are way to go public but keep control, mainly by not being greedy and not divesting the share base completely... For example (and I'm not a money person, so I could be wrong...) selling 45% of the company out to the open market, but keeping the rest. You would be being part of someone else's company, you know who will be running the company... and the risk associated with someone being "moral" in their business conduct (heaven help us).