I once considered replacing my Harddisk with a flash drive, because I thought flash would be faster. I checked the specs and found out they are slower, more expensive, smaller and so on.
But Flashdrives have a better "spinup" speed. On your regular PC the hardware and memory-check will be slower than spinning up you harddrive. But on a embeded device the harddrive spinup will be the slowest part. So putting the OS on a flashdrive for a fast boot does make sense.
Just read a few of the other articles on that site -- these people are polemicists, not economists. And not very good ones, either; their arguments have many logical holes. Lots of vigorous arm-waving, no rigor. It's probably some Republican-funded policy paper mill, clearly not an academic think tank./ignore
Oh, at first I thought you were reffering to slashdot.org. Silly me;)
Newsflash: ALL patents are algorithms. Stop acting like this unique to computers. Chemical process patents, for example, are structurally and functionally indistinguishable and very obviously map into the same space as "software algorithms" and yet those are not considered controversial.
Ignoring its application, algorithms and chemical processes are the same. Ignoring illumination, black and white are the same. You are oversimplyifing.
Patents are not equally bad applied for chemical prozesses and applied to algorithms. Example: Programms work better if they use standards. Patents easily forbid the use of standards.
I really want to challenge you once in a Space Cadet match. I love your Homepage. Your passion and dedication is an example for all us longhairs. Keep up the good work.
I wonder if one could setup a dual-core cpu computer to run for two users. A second graphics card or a dualhead card with a second montior attached, a second keyboard and a second mouse and you just spared a second entire computer. That sounds to me like a system that might work. And while we are at it, what about adding a third one? Would that be a way to spare some money for... lets say a internet cafe or school?
Or even on universal education. Hmmm, perhaps we should follow the lead of other nations and let the dropouts drop out, and kick out the ones that need kicking out?
I guess you could do that. But with the next survey you would probably score even lower. 'Cause the survey covers all kids, and those kicked out of school would drag the average even further down.
Unfortunately, I think our education system is going in the wrong direction; instead of challenging students to excel, the bar is lowered and simply "trying" will earn you a passing grade.
I can second that. A friend of mine went to the USA for about half a year. When he came back, he said that those multiple choice tests were a joke. He didn't need to do any homework to pass the tests. Simple guessing was sufficent to succeed.
So, "war is a necessary part of humanity" because some people have never learned to control their aggressive tendencies?
While one might argue that you need weapons to defend yourselve (and your nation, while we are at it) you must aknowledge that "the others" will find ways to get access to the new techonolgies too. So in the end, building bigger war machines will result in a arms race leading to even more brutal wars. Not more safty as you seem to imply.
Then you go on comparing your work with raising kids and working as a sheetmetal worker. I guess the probablity that you will create something harmfull for human society is far greater while you research stuff for better arms than when you raise kids or work with metal in general. Additionaly, raising kids is not really optional. If we wouldn't do that, humanity would be exctinct within a generation. But I'm not sure if we really need even bigger killing machines.
If you have no fans and no harddrives on a computer, you can get a fairly ruggedized machine. Of course you need to turn off the swap-space, else you will run out of your 100'000 write cycles pretty fast. There are also drivers which try to use all parts of the solid-state drive equaly.
A solid state drive used like should outlive a harddrive easly.
I got moderation Points. But after reading some of the replies to your comment, I was thinking to support you by responding myself.
I support your view, that the general public shouldn't need to know anything but the most basic security procedures. Using the computer to surf the net is often compared to driving a car. I had to learn more than a year how to drive to get a driving licence. Using a computer is a lot more complex than driving a car and knowing when to hand it to someone to maintain it. With computers, users are exposed to so much stuff to learn that they are happy when the computer does somewhat what they need to have. People are burdend enough to get their machine doing what they need. They don't want to learn yet another thing, just because the machine can't seem to protect itself.
The general public has been trained to click dialogs away without reading them because most time they either they don't know what it means or they don't know how they could remedy/react to the problem. So they click them away hoping the computer still somehow does what they expect them to do.
Expecting that every user with internet-access becomes an expert in computer security expert is never going to happen. People should know how to surf securly, but as it is right now, there is to much to read and to learn. For anyone who doesn't like to learn the in and outs of a computer (i.E. most users) its a frustrating, time consuming and seemingly endless task.
There is still much to do, to make surfing the web as securly and as easy as possible.
He's way to old to really be a programmer these days, anyhow.
I wonder, is there an age when programmers get too old to program. At what age is this? Is there something one should or shouldn't to do to preserve the ability to be a programmer?
I'm with you on your point that more people would pay for windows instead of pirating it, if Windwos would be cheaper. I'd even say that the loss due to the lower price could be recouped by the gained sale.
I strongly disagree that micorsoft should recoup loss due to lower initial selling with paied upgrades. Most people would simply ignore upgrades. Even now when upgrades are free, many don't upgrade. Microsoft allready get a bad rep because many un-patched Windows PCs spread worms and virii, they even pulled the anti-piracy check out of SP2 so that even pirated installation can be patched.
I can reproduce my Firefox crash anytime on my WinXP machine. Just install Linky Extension. Browse to a pornthumbnail page. Open 6 Pages and load all pictures from them with Linky.
This worked without a crash with Firefox 8.0,
Creating artwork for a game requires more time, effort, and skill than coding game engine.
I'm both a coder and I also like to draw. (http://madmike.ch) There is no implicit higher complexity into drawing compared to programming. Both will need some skill and some dedication to learn the proper ways.
The Problem is a (digital) artist will need to have some sense of how art works on a computer. How his artwork will look like on a screen and how to create art directly on a computer. You won't want to draw with a mouse.
As a sidenote, I couldn't get my wacom to work with the a 2.6 kernel as of now:-/
I'm swiss and I served in the swiss army, so i might shed some light in to the swiss army knife concept.
All swiss soldiers do have of a swiss army knife. We aren't trained to defend ourself with those knifes though. They aren't build for that, stabbing someone with a such a knife might close the blade and hurt the one holding it.
Traditionally it was concieved to be used only for the higher ranked officers as tool to open wine bottles and other common tasks. Today, every soldier has one.
It is true that the swiss army had specialized troops moving around with bikes (not anymore), we also had troops spezialized to transport heavy stuff with horses (not anymore). Both would have served very well if we would been cut from petrol supply, which would be very grave in this country without its own petrol sources.
Swiss neutrality is a myth if you think its about not getting involved with either fighting party. It involves smiling at both sides equaly, not enranging either one too much, tradining goods on booth sides. Switzerland took as much nazy-money as the took allied money.
I guess that is what traditonal software enterprises said about FOSS. It might seem incredible at first to think that free contributions can build something as complex as a complete OS, but now we know it can be done.
Why do think this wouldn't apply to something like a Book?
Until the proprietary software world gets a handle on bootleging of their software Linux has zero chance of making it to the desktop in a big way. As a Linux user trying to tell people about "Free" software, I get looked at like a raving lunatic. They already have tons of "free" (and easier to use) software on their computers.
Although I tend to agree with you that piracy is slowing linux adoption I disagree on the zero chance part. Linux is as gratis as a pirated Windows, but there is still the other free aspects of Linux. One can not only have Linux for free but modify it too and redistribute it. Most won't do this, but still we all already profit from that fact. Just recently a friend of mine asked me about building a dedicated firewall computer. I told him about the hardware requirements and ipcop. He was all puzzled when I told him that it's free. A free Linux distribution customized to such a task. Try that with pirated a Windows.
What kind of updates would you sell? I guess there are some types of updates possible:
- Security updates. Microsoft provides them for free. Don't see how they could sell them.
- Data updates. Like with AVirus software. Updates to virus signatures. MS could sell a subscription to Powerpoint-Clipart Galleries with regular updates or new Fonts... well, that's what I can think right now
- Feature updates. That's what MS is trying to do with every major release. The Same with more features. People don't like the new office releases because of the feature-creep. I don't see how this would improve with small incremental updates. Also MS tends to break backward compatibility to older Office version. People don't like that either.
I guess it's hard to sell software by subscription. Either you get some kind of data updates.
OTOH maybe they could sell a service, like others do with RPG Games like Everquest and the like. I Guess MS allready tried this kind of business with Passport and other MSN stuff. Didn't work out too good for now.
Have you ever tried educating the public about anything?
Educating the public is actually pretty easy. Just lie and tell them the government will be able to snoop around on their insecure browser with their insecure OS and will find out if they are speeding...
sometimes I scare myself with my evil thoughts *sniker*
Is anyone reminded of the whole way VRML on the web turned out to be such a massive dud
VRML didn't make it because it was (1) modeled with html-tags which made it heavy to load without adding much as to edditing models by text editor and (2) Computers with 3D acceleration were the exception.
VRML would have been interesting for stuff like archtectual demonstrations. Imagine walking through a VRML Theme-Park before actualy visiting the real one. Think about Route-finders with a 3D-View.
Slashdot Mirror
I checked the specs and found out they are slower, more expensive, smaller and so on.
But Flashdrives have a better "spinup" speed. On your regular PC the hardware and memory-check will be slower than spinning up you harddrive. But on a embeded device the harddrive spinup will be the slowest part. So putting the OS on a flashdrive for a fast boot does make sense.
Oh, at first I thought you were reffering to slashdot.org. Silly me ;)
Ignoring its application, algorithms and chemical processes are the same.
Ignoring illumination, black and white are the same.
You are oversimplyifing.
Patents are not equally bad applied for chemical prozesses and applied to algorithms.
Example: Programms work better if they use standards. Patents easily forbid the use of standards.
I really want to challenge you once in a Space Cadet match. I love your Homepage. Your passion and dedication is an example for all us longhairs. Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Herbie
I wonder if one could setup a dual-core cpu computer to run for two users. A second graphics card or a dualhead card with a second montior attached, a second keyboard and a second mouse and you just spared a second entire computer. That sounds to me like a system that might work. And while we are at it, what about adding a third one? Would that be a way to spare some money for... lets say a internet cafe or school?
I guess you could do that. But with the next survey you would probably score even lower. 'Cause the survey covers all kids, and those kicked out of school would drag the average even further down.
I can second that. A friend of mine went to the USA for about half a year. When he came back, he said that those multiple choice tests were a joke. He didn't need to do any homework to pass the tests. Simple guessing was sufficent to succeed.
While one might argue that you need weapons to defend yourselve (and your nation, while we are at it) you must aknowledge that "the others" will find ways to get access to the new techonolgies too. So in the end, building bigger war machines will result in a arms race leading to even more brutal wars. Not more safty as you seem to imply.
Then you go on comparing your work with raising kids and working as a sheetmetal worker. I guess the probablity that you will create something harmfull for human society is far greater while you research stuff for better arms than when you raise kids or work with metal in general.
Additionaly, raising kids is not really optional. If we wouldn't do that, humanity would be exctinct within a generation. But I'm not sure if we really need even bigger killing machines.
A solid state drive used like should outlive a harddrive easly.
I support your view, that the general public shouldn't need to know anything but the most basic security procedures. Using the computer to surf the net is often compared to driving a car. I had to learn more than a year how to drive to get a driving licence. Using a computer is a lot more complex than driving a car and knowing when to hand it to someone to maintain it. With computers, users are exposed to so much stuff to learn that they are happy when the computer does somewhat what they need to have. People are burdend enough to get their machine doing what they need. They don't want to learn yet another thing, just because the machine can't seem to protect itself.
The general public has been trained to click dialogs away without reading them because most time they either they don't know what it means or they don't know how they could remedy/react to the problem. So they click them away hoping the computer still somehow does what they expect them to do.
Expecting that every user with internet-access becomes an expert in computer security expert is never going to happen. People should know how to surf securly, but as it is right now, there is to much to read and to learn. For anyone who doesn't like to learn the in and outs of a computer (i.E. most users) its a frustrating, time consuming and seemingly endless task.
There is still much to do, to make surfing the web as securly and as easy as possible.
I agree that FOSS does not have any inherent immunity against feature bloat, but...
OpenOffice and Mozilla have both started as closed source projects before it was turned into FOSS. So you can't really use them in such a comparison.
Greets
I wonder, is there an age when programmers get too old to program. At what age is this? Is there something one should or shouldn't to do to preserve the ability to be a programmer?
Inquiring (and ageing) minds wants to know.
Do you mind if I make a copy of your Comment for my new homepage with a link on your Slashdot profile? What about if I make a translation in german?
I strongly disagree that micorsoft should recoup loss due to lower initial selling with paied upgrades. Most people would simply ignore upgrades. Even now when upgrades are free, many don't upgrade. Microsoft allready get a bad rep because many un-patched Windows PCs spread worms and virii, they even pulled the anti-piracy check out of SP2 so that even pirated installation can be patched.
I can reproduce my Firefox crash anytime on my WinXP machine. Just install Linky Extension. Browse to a pornthumbnail page. Open 6 Pages and load all pictures from them with Linky. This worked without a crash with Firefox 8.0,
I'm both a coder and I also like to draw. (http://madmike.ch) There is no implicit higher complexity into drawing compared to programming. Both will need some skill and some dedication to learn the proper ways.
The Problem is a (digital) artist will need to have some sense of how art works on a computer. How his artwork will look like on a screen and how to create art directly on a computer. You won't want to draw with a mouse.
As a sidenote, I couldn't get my wacom to work with the a 2.6 kernel as of now :-/
All swiss soldiers do have of a swiss army knife. We aren't trained to defend ourself with those knifes though. They aren't build for that, stabbing someone with a such a knife might close the blade and hurt the one holding it. Traditionally it was concieved to be used only for the higher ranked officers as tool to open wine bottles and other common tasks. Today, every soldier has one.
It is true that the swiss army had specialized troops moving around with bikes (not anymore), we also had troops spezialized to transport heavy stuff with horses (not anymore). Both would have served very well if we would been cut from petrol supply, which would be very grave in this country without its own petrol sources.
Swiss neutrality is a myth if you think its about not getting involved with either fighting party. It involves smiling at both sides equaly, not enranging either one too much, tradining goods on booth sides. Switzerland took as much nazy-money as the took allied money.
When will anyone at slashdot start to check even the most basic stuff?!
Why do think this wouldn't apply to something like a Book?
free as in Bear :)
Although I tend to agree with you that piracy is slowing linux adoption I disagree on the zero chance part. Linux is as gratis as a pirated Windows, but there is still the other free aspects of Linux.
One can not only have Linux for free but modify it too and redistribute it. Most won't do this, but still we all already profit from that fact. Just recently a friend of mine asked me about building a dedicated firewall computer. I told him about the hardware requirements and ipcop. He was all puzzled when I told him that it's free. A free Linux distribution customized to such a task. Try that with pirated a Windows.
- Security updates. Microsoft provides them for free. Don't see how they could sell them.
- Data updates. Like with AVirus software. Updates to virus signatures. MS could sell a subscription to Powerpoint-Clipart Galleries with regular updates or new Fonts... well, that's what I can think right now
- Feature updates. That's what MS is trying to do with every major release. The Same with more features. People don't like the new office releases because of the feature-creep. I don't see how this would improve with small incremental updates.
Also MS tends to break backward compatibility to older Office version. People don't like that either.
I guess it's hard to sell software by subscription. Either you get some kind of data updates.
OTOH maybe they could sell a service, like others do with RPG Games like Everquest and the like. I Guess MS allready tried this kind of business with Passport and other MSN stuff. Didn't work out too good for now.
Greets HerbieStone
Educating the public is actually pretty easy. Just lie and tell them the government will be able to snoop around on their insecure browser with their insecure OS and will find out if they are speeding...
sometimes I scare myself with my evil thoughts *sniker*
VRML didn't make it because it was (1) modeled with html-tags which made it heavy to load without adding much as to edditing models by text editor and (2) Computers with 3D acceleration were the exception.
VRML would have been interesting for stuff like archtectual demonstrations. Imagine walking through a VRML Theme-Park before actualy visiting the real one. Think about Route-finders with a 3D-View.
But VRML was too weak to do those sort of things.