I'm not anti-human or anything (in fact, I'm good friends with a number of them!). But why should an individual care about whether or not the drama of humanity continues? For instance, if we permit let every person who currently lives to live out a natural and good life, and somehow do so without creating any new people, would that be acceptable?
My point is this: it's nice to know things about the world, but sometimes there's a cost associated with gaining the knowledge. At its best, politics is the expression of the people's will regarding where in that cost/benefit curve we're willing to live.
I'm not saying that the Bush administration is properly representing the people's will, but as Mengele showed us, sometimes the means used to gain scientific knowlege isn't worth it and the scientist must be restrained. In some people's minds, the embryonic stem-cell harvesting is similar to the Mengele behavior. And that's a metaphysical topic of discussion, not a scientific one.
Re:Gotta wonder how IBM feels about this...
on
Lenovo To Shun Linux
·
· Score: 1
how IBM feels about this
IBM is a corporation. It doesn't have feelings, because it doesn't have a mind. Maybe a better question is, "I wonder how the internal support people in IBM feel about this" ?
I don't want Vista to succeed. I like that when people use GNU/Linux, they're reminded that it feels good to share and collaborate. I like that it also makes people start questioning patents, excessive copyright, fair use circumventions, etc. So even if people end up liking Vista, that would feel like a step backward for me because it moves people further away from open-source software.
First off, you have to be confident that the bandwidth limitation isn't occuring somewhere outside the ISP's control.
Secondly, perhaps they're talking about the MAC-level bitrate, and you're measuring the bitrate of application-level data? When you figure that the typical application uses TCP/IP for network comms, there's a *lot* of overhead associated with the feeding and grooming of those protocols.
In my opinion Dapper shouldn't be released yet. I've installed it on two computers and had serious problems on both, and that was using the release candidate that came out just 8 days or so before the final release date of June 1.
I know almost all non-trivial software has bugs, but I'm really worried about Dapper's quality. It's not up to Ubuntu's typical standards. Of course, different people have different experiences with it and can over-generalize their experience to what all users will experience. But if you look at Dapper's bug database, the number of open bugs with non-trivial priority levels is scary. I really hope Ubuntu's great reputation isn't dinged by an overly aggresive release plan.
XML is fundamentally slower than binary formats...
I hear this kind of speach a lot and it concerns me. It seems to me that basically all data files (or network packets, etc.) are binary formats. What's really in question is what kind of higher-level data structures are imposed on those binary formats.
ODT XML files are binary files. So are old Word 2003.doc files. So are Microsoft's new XML files. So it's pointless to claim that a "binary" file format is faster than an XML file format. Perhaps that MS guy meant to say, "XML-based file formats are slower than non-XML-based file formats." At least this is a coherent claim, even if it's not necessarily correct.
The other big mistake: file formats aren't fast or slow. The algorithms for reading and writing them are (or aren't) slow. Marino Marcich of the ODF Alliance implicitely made this point when he said that different ODF-capable applications have different performances. Perhaps you could, in a fit of brilliant computer science analysis, prove that no reader for a particular file format could parse it as fast as Word 2000 can parse a.doc file, but no one has made that claim.
I know there are 100 fair reasons to mod this post down, but it just seemed important to say.
I often get depressed about changes to copyright law, patents, etc. which favor media companies at the expense of most citizens. This code contribution goes the other way. Thanks to everyone who worked on it.
I can at least speak for what happens in the Navy. Navy researchers are encouraged to file for patents, so that the govt. can license the patents to private companies.
I think it's theoretically part of a goal to do a "technology transfer" from the DoD to the private sector. But I don't see why patents need to be part of that. Patents were meant to give you a limited monopoly SO THAT THE RESEARCH EFFORT WAS A GOOD INVESTMENT. But the DoD (and taxpayers) *already* covered the cost of investment.
$337,000,000,000 spent. Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose. I WANT A REFUND!
I suspect the dead or maimed soldiers, Iraqi's, and their spouses, children, and parents want one as well. But they lost more than tax dollars, so we should let them get first in line.
This sounds very much like IBM's problems in the 80's. IBM had a very proprietary attitude regarding busses (MicroChannel Architecture), networking (LUA / SNA), and probably others. My impression (and I worked at IBM for a while) was that IBM figured it could get away with designs that required end-to-end IBM'ness, because the big customers would buy ALL their kit from IBM anyway. And in that sales situation, why let other companies have an in?
Similar thing seems to happen with Microsoft in the last 10 years or so. They want soup-to-nuts control of the software ecosystem. For example, ActiveDirectory on the servers and clients. And like IBM, other companies will have to pay $$$ to MS if they want to be part of that ecosystem (i.e. if they want to provide domain servers). A bit more open than IBM, but not much.
Now, it's possible that the architects at these companies aren't attempting lock-in. Instead, perhaps that think to themselves, "We have some customers who are willing to buy everything from us. For that scenario, let's rethink (and re-build) the entire infrastructure so that it's totally clean and convenient." Thus, the strong affinity of that company's products for working with that company's other products.
But either way, the result is as the parent describes with SONY: In the end, it's just too risky and expensive for most potential customers do swallow that red pill.
First, if you have two variations of species (i.e. macro-kernel vs. micro-kernel Linux), it doesn't matter if both are sufficient. What matters is, will one take off more than the other. So if Tannenbaum is right that the macro-kernel is better, and someone can be bothered to actually implement it, then evolutionary biology theory WOULD indicate that the micro-kernel would win.
Second, you're basically saying that if one variation (macro-kernel) is good enough, then we won't see the creation of any better variations (micro-kernel). There's nothing in evolutionary biology that says the existing of one species that can survive implies no new species will come into existence. In fact, if that were true, evolutionary biology would have stopped with the very first species.
It seems to me that the countries that are racing ahead economically (India and China, especially) have much less in the way of workers' rights than the countries from which they're taking teh work (America, Germany, France, etc.)
This court ruling sounds stupid (relative to my expectations that an employee should spend his time as directed while doing work), and it makes me wonder: are rulings/laws like these part of why other countries eat our lunch?
I haven't seen anything about this: Have automobile accident rates climbed since cell phones become popular? I see so many people talking while driving, that I would expect accident rates would climb if the phone use was dangerous. If accident rates haven't changed, then it seems unlikely that cell phones are a problem.
I don't think that's right. Acting in a way that's consistent with a theory is not the same thing as knowing the theory. And if you don't know the theory, you're likely to be unaware of the advanced conclussions and applications of that theory.
Consider relational algebra normal forms. Anyone who's halfway decent at database design knows to avoid things like unjustified duplication of information in the database, because of issues like consistency, confusing design, and storage space. Someone who knows that is acting consistently with 2nd Normal Form (or something - I don't even remember at this point.) But that person does NOT necessarily know 2nd Normal Form. Or 3rd Normal Form. Or BCNF. Etc.
This reminds me of something from (I think) a Douglas Adams book. He said that calculus isn't hard, because anyone who can figure out where to position a glove to catch a baseball is performing calculus. That's not correct (for most people). Although calculus is one way to figure out where a ball will fly, most people use some other intuitive, non-calculus process to figure out where to put their baseball glove. I think Adams was wrong in the same way the parent posting is.
And this is important, because someone who knows calculus can both calculate a ball's flight path, and determine the volume of a sphere. Some people who can catch baseballs, however, cannot with perfect accuracy calculate the volume of a sphere.
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I'm not anti-human or anything (in fact, I'm good friends with a number of them!). But why should an individual care about whether or not the drama of humanity continues? For instance, if we permit let every person who currently lives to live out a natural and good life, and somehow do so without creating any new people, would that be acceptable?
At least let me get some tissues before describing the box! And I'm at work, son of a #@$#$%#$
Maybe if they'd just paint it to look like a hampster, a lightbulb, or an artillery shell patients wouldn't balk to much :)
;)
(I'd find the links, but I'm at work right now and I do *not* want that showing up in our web logs
For example, we never should have interfered with Mengele's important work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengele
My point is this: it's nice to know things about the world, but sometimes there's a cost associated with gaining the knowledge. At its best, politics is the expression of the people's will regarding where in that cost/benefit curve we're willing to live.
I'm not saying that the Bush administration is properly representing the people's will, but as Mengele showed us, sometimes the means used to gain scientific knowlege isn't worth it and the scientist must be restrained. In some people's minds, the embryonic stem-cell harvesting is similar to the Mengele behavior. And that's a metaphysical topic of discussion, not a scientific one.
I don't want Vista to succeed. I like that when people use GNU/Linux, they're reminded that it feels good to share and collaborate. I like that it also makes people start questioning patents, excessive copyright, fair use circumventions, etc. So even if people end up liking Vista, that would feel like a step backward for me because it moves people further away from open-source software.
I wonder when I became an idealist...
First off, you have to be confident that the bandwidth limitation isn't occuring somewhere outside the ISP's control.
Secondly, perhaps they're talking about the MAC-level bitrate, and you're measuring the bitrate of application-level data? When you figure that the typical application uses TCP/IP for network comms, there's a *lot* of overhead associated with the feeding and grooming of those protocols.
In my opinion Dapper shouldn't be released yet. I've installed it on two computers and had serious problems on both, and that was using the release candidate that came out just 8 days or so before the final release date of June 1.
I know almost all non-trivial software has bugs, but I'm really worried about Dapper's quality. It's not up to Ubuntu's typical standards. Of course, different people have different experiences with it and can over-generalize their experience to what all users will experience. But if you look at Dapper's bug database, the number of open bugs with non-trivial priority levels is scary. I really hope Ubuntu's great reputation isn't dinged by an overly aggresive release plan.
ODT XML files are binary files. So are old Word 2003 .doc files. So are Microsoft's new XML files. So it's pointless to claim that a "binary" file format is faster than an XML file format. Perhaps that MS guy meant to say, "XML-based file formats are slower than non-XML-based file formats." At least this is a coherent claim, even if it's not necessarily correct.
The other big mistake: file formats aren't fast or slow. The algorithms for reading and writing them are (or aren't) slow. Marino Marcich of the ODF Alliance implicitely made this point when he said that different ODF-capable applications have different performances. Perhaps you could, in a fit of brilliant computer science analysis, prove that no reader for a particular file format could parse it as fast as Word 2000 can parse a .doc file, but no one has made that claim.
Thank you Google and CodeWeavers.
I know there are 100 fair reasons to mod this post down, but it just seemed important to say.
I often get depressed about changes to copyright law, patents, etc. which favor media companies at the expense of most citizens. This code contribution goes the other way. Thanks to everyone who worked on it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/30/ms_securit y_patch_eula_gives/
I can at least speak for what happens in the Navy. Navy researchers are encouraged to file for patents, so that the govt. can license the patents to private companies.
I think it's theoretically part of a goal to do a "technology transfer" from the DoD to the private sector. But I don't see why patents need to be part of that. Patents were meant to give you a limited monopoly SO THAT THE RESEARCH EFFORT WAS A GOOD INVESTMENT. But the DoD (and taxpayers) *already* covered the cost of investment.
We'll, I'm curious, since there appears to be relatively recent common ancestry. Do we know if humans can successfully mate with any other primate?
This sounds very much like IBM's problems in the 80's. IBM had a very proprietary attitude regarding busses (MicroChannel Architecture), networking (LUA / SNA), and probably others. My impression (and I worked at IBM for a while) was that IBM figured it could get away with designs that required end-to-end IBM'ness, because the big customers would buy ALL their kit from IBM anyway. And in that sales situation, why let other companies have an in?
Similar thing seems to happen with Microsoft in the last 10 years or so. They want soup-to-nuts control of the software ecosystem. For example, ActiveDirectory on the servers and clients. And like IBM, other companies will have to pay $$$ to MS if they want to be part of that ecosystem (i.e. if they want to provide domain servers). A bit more open than IBM, but not much.
Now, it's possible that the architects at these companies aren't attempting lock-in. Instead, perhaps that think to themselves, "We have some customers who are willing to buy everything from us. For that scenario, let's rethink (and re-build) the entire infrastructure so that it's totally clean and convenient." Thus, the strong affinity of that company's products for working with that company's other products.
But either way, the result is as the parent describes with SONY: In the end, it's just too risky and expensive for most potential customers do swallow that red pill.
"Biodiesel Green... is... PEOPLE!"
This parent is way off base.
First, if you have two variations of species (i.e. macro-kernel vs. micro-kernel Linux), it doesn't matter if both are sufficient. What matters is, will one take off more than the other. So if Tannenbaum is right that the macro-kernel is better, and someone can be bothered to actually implement it, then evolutionary biology theory WOULD indicate that the micro-kernel would win.
Second, you're basically saying that if one variation (macro-kernel) is good enough, then we won't see the creation of any better variations (micro-kernel). There's nothing in evolutionary biology that says the existing of one species that can survive implies no new species will come into existence. In fact, if that were true, evolutionary biology would have stopped with the very first species.
Wow, the Hot Coffee mod just gets EVERYONE in trouble, doesn't it?
Check out the story "Death Ray -- or Accounting Shift?" here: http://www.defensetech.org/
We'd get $0. I'm pretty sure that all MS software lives up to *MS's* standards ;)
It seems to me that the countries that are racing ahead economically (India and China, especially) have much less in the way of workers' rights than the countries from which they're taking teh work (America, Germany, France, etc.)
This court ruling sounds stupid (relative to my expectations that an employee should spend his time as directed while doing work), and it makes me wonder: are rulings/laws like these part of why other countries eat our lunch?
Yeah, whatever...
I haven't seen anything about this: Have automobile accident rates climbed since cell phones become popular? I see so many people talking while driving, that I would expect accident rates would climb if the phone use was dangerous. If accident rates haven't changed, then it seems unlikely that cell phones are a problem.
I don't think that's right. Acting in a way that's consistent with a theory is not the same thing as knowing the theory. And if you don't know the theory, you're likely to be unaware of the advanced conclussions and applications of that theory.
Consider relational algebra normal forms. Anyone who's halfway decent at database design knows to avoid things like unjustified duplication of information in the database, because of issues like consistency, confusing design, and storage space. Someone who knows that is acting consistently with 2nd Normal Form (or something - I don't even remember at this point.) But that person does NOT necessarily know 2nd Normal Form. Or 3rd Normal Form. Or BCNF. Etc.
This reminds me of something from (I think) a Douglas Adams book. He said that calculus isn't hard, because anyone who can figure out where to position a glove to catch a baseball is performing calculus. That's not correct (for most people). Although calculus is one way to figure out where a ball will fly, most people use some other intuitive, non-calculus process to figure out where to put their baseball glove. I think Adams was wrong in the same way the parent posting is.
And this is important, because someone who knows calculus can both calculate a ball's flight path, and determine the volume of a sphere. Some people who can catch baseballs, however, cannot with perfect accuracy calculate the volume of a sphere.