Can somebody explain to me how the atmosphere on this moon can be water vapour based when it is so cold. Won't rapid condensation result..followed by freezing?
Or is the water vapor atmosphere being put out by massive jets which are themselves caused by the icy surface being in touch with the molten core?
If these jets do exist they must be huge and it seems likely that whereever these jets exist, that those areas are much warmer than other places on the moon - perhaps even as warm as places on earth.
I agree. From my experience with designing using CSS divs alone, it has been a very frustrating experience. Getting DIVs to hold their position has been very difficult and I have had some real problems with it. I would have saved myself loads of work by just using table markup instead.
As for semantic HTML, you could achieve quite the same level of semantic information using tables and spans. And so, yes, I agree with you completely.
The US and the Western educational systems are making themselves irrelevant and useless by being overly influenced by child psychologists.
Students who perform badly in school are no longer failed because child psychology pronounces that, if failed, a child's morale and self-confidence is doomed forever. So undeserving students are allowed to clear exams and tests. The educationists now believe that you shouldn't even use words like failure in school.
This results in good performers not getting the credit they deserve which will, over a course of time, discourage them from trying to excel.
Children should be taught the value of working hard, about coping with failure, about getting up and having a go again, about not quitting. Instead we teach the kids that they can get away without work. There is a lot of wisdom in the old saying "No pain, No gain".
The situation is gotten so bad that educationists favour removing the whole examination system altogether - so that students do not have to cope with the "stress" or risk "failure"! Also, to make the situation worse, the education system is dumbed down to meet the standards of the lowest common denominator! This thinking is so obtuse, its unbelievable!
If this wasn't enough, we have a whole range of terms for new fangled learning disorders - most of these so-called disorders can be explained as lack of discipline, and lack of adequate motivation to learn. This has been discussed on Slashdot before, so there is no point in rehashing anything here.
So yes, if the education system in the US is to be improved, the educationists will have to get real. The world is hard, it rewards the performers and punishes the rest. If the education system does not reflect this cold reality in some way, it is doomed to fail the people it is trying to help.
Yes, the fact that the Linux kernel point releases happen quite often does cause real problems for hardware companies.
Linux's driver architecture is flawed - this is because the way the Linux kernel must be installed onto a machine is in itself a flawed process.
Here is why I consider it flawed:
The device driver must be recompiled for each point release of the kernel. That is, when I install a new version of the Linux kernel (even if it is a minor point release), I must necessarily recompile all the device drivers for that point release of the kernel or I must get the precompiled driver modules (for that exact point release) and install them.
This is not how Windows 98/2000/XP works - you can install a kernel update (Service Pack) and still continue to use the same device drivers - you won't have to download new device drivers or recompile existing ones.
Why is this a flaw? It is a flaw because it expects all hardware manufactures / device driver writers to provide either:
The source code for each point release of the kernel.
or
The precompiled driver for each point release / patch of the kernel.
This is not going to work since there are so many different linux kernel versions and a whole range of patches (-ac etc) out there.
This requirement to recompile device drivers for each kernel release can be real problem - I experienced this problem first-hand recently when I tried to install Linux on a machine with a SATA harddisk and a southbridge chipset (SIS965L) which is not supported by Linux (might be fixed now).
During the installation, the harddisk was not being found since the Southbridge chipset was not being recognized - the distribution (CentOS) did give me the option of loading the device driver from a separate CD/floppy, but the problem is that I only have the the device driver source code.. and I cannot install the device driver unless I compiled it for that specific kernel version of the CentOS distribution I was trying to install.. and I cannot compile for that version of the kernel unless I already have a Linux machine with that kernel installed - a catch-22 situation.
Ideally what we should have is something like this on the file system:/kernel (with subdirs/2.6.11/2.6.12 etc)/drivers (in compiled form)/conf (where we list which drivers are to be loaded with settings for each with subdirectories for different profiles/server/gaming etc). This could also be in the/etc directory.)
One should be able to change the contents of/kernel without updating either/drivers or/conf unless there is a huge change in the structure of the kernel or a change in the device driver interface in the kernel.
This way, I can take the backup of the/drivers and the/conf directory to a disk and if I have to reinstall the Linux on my machine (even if it is a different distribution of Linux with a slightly different kernel), I can just restore the/drivers and/conf directory to setup all my hardware properly.
Does anyone know if the new Fedora release supports the SIS965L southbridge chipset required for SATA support?
Also, what about the support for the SIS 190/900 ethernet?
I think Linux is a good OS but it really needs a better device driver management layer. Linux needs to come with a facility for easily adding in and removing device drivers without requiring kernel compilation (and by implication, expecting the kernel source code to be present on the machine).
Yes, I am aware of loadable device drivers (using insmod, modprobe etc), but I am not talking about those.. I am talking of device drivers which I can obtain directly from the vendor in binary form without getting one binary driver for each sub point release of the kernel.
As it stands, if I want to install a device driver for a new hardware, I will first need to download the kernel source, and compile the kernel after selecting the device driver during the kernel configuration. If the device driver is not part of the kernel source, I will need to get the device driver source corresponding to the kernel release and then compile it (after munging around with some settings).
At one time not so long ago companies took pride in not laying off people. The boast was that X company hasn't laid off a single work in so many decades.
Management tried not to layoff people as much as possible because laying off people was seen as a shameful thing to do - an admission of failure on the part of the management to run the company profitably.
To avoid this loss of face, companies resorted to cutting management pay, selling assets and so on. The moment a company announced a layoff, it would appear all over the papers - the market will see it as a sign that the company is down in the dumps.. analysts would rate the company down.
But now the situation has completely reversed. When a company announces huge layoffs, analysts actually rate the company higher. Also, the management will now gloat about how they have "streamlined" operations.. cut of the extra "fat".. become "lean and mean".. etc.. The implication is always that the layoffs were a smart thing to do.
There is no shame anymore..no accountability on the part of the management. The fact that thousands just lost their jobs because the business strategies framed by the suits came up a cropper does not seem to fill the management with a sense of shame or remorse. Fact is, after a round of layoffs, the executives might even give themselves a pay hike!! They will also announce proudly about how they have "increased" their profitability and worked on the "bottomline".
It is quite sad. There is very little honour anymore.
The rupee has appreciated (gone up in value) over the past year.. from about Rs.49/dollar to about Rs.43/dollar now. The Indian Reserve Bank devalues the rupee by purchasing dollars to stem its rise so as to allow Indian exports to be competitive.
I empathize with you and I can say that just reading this article makes me very sad. It must be so very difficult for everyone concerned.
I don't mean to be trite - but could it be that the children are just not disciplined? I am referring to the old fashioned strong parental disciplining being applied..
Something that might interest you - very rarely are these kinds of behaviour noticed among the children in the east. That has perhaps something to do with the fact that people from the East have pretty stern with their kids when it comes to discipline.
But even in the east, we are increasingly seeing behaviour such as what you have described, but mostly from families where parents have gone lax with the disciplining.
There might be some truth in the statement - spare the rod and spoil the child.
Make sense. I am like that too. I go for the very basic models with as few "luxury" items as possible.
Keeps the weight of the car down, fewer things to service / break, fewer things to suck the battery, and more options for custom improvements.
And where I stay, I don't need a heater, but I might get a radio.
But the car must have a sturdy construction - not made of steel/aluminium as thin as a coke can material.
Does SATA work right now? on SIS965L southbridge
on
FreeBSD 5.4 Released
·
· Score: 1
Does anyone know / has anyone tested if FreeBSD 5.4 supports the SIS965L southbridge chipset ?
And also, how is the support for SIS190 Ethernet? Sorry about posting these questions here, but I haven't received much response in the kernel mailing lists (atleast not on Linux).
You must re-read that license agreement - it states specifically that OEM copies must be given only with a non-peripheral component such as a harddisk, cpu, motherboard etc.. just any hardware won't count.
Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. Any idea how this works - if you do, please do email me on prem at songbirdtech.com.
I know it is possible to insmod a new module.. but the module must be first compiled along with that kernel.
These RHEL driver updates - are these just driver modules precompiled for the version of RHEL kernel installed? I mean, if the version of the RHEL kernel installed on my computer is 2.6.9, would I need to get the driver update CD for 2.6.9 kernel or can I just pickup any of the driver CDs and insmod any of the modules in?
I think it will be useful to have a system whereby drivers can be loaded without requiring the entire kernel to be compiled.
Granted most distributions do ship with as many of the drivers as possible, but I have found myself in a spot a few times when the Linux kernel did not have the drivers for something fairly critical which was needed during installation - for instance, I am trying to install linux onto my AMD64 machine but none of the linux kernels (including 2.6.11) support the southbridge chipset on my motherboard.. and so Linux cannot detect the harddisk on my computer...which means I cannot install Linux on the machine now.
I installed XP on the same machine without a problem - just popped in the device driver CD and the harddisk was immediately recognized.
It will be great to have that facility on Linux as well - changed your graphics card? just pop in the driver CD and install the driver and you are ready to go..
I won't venture to say "No, you can run a business with 5 figures or less".. because it is likely that the business you have in mind requires fairly heavy investment in equipment (if you are into manufacturing, for instance).
But having started two companies, I can advise you to try and lower the entry cost a bit by leasing/hiring equipment and space instead of going for outright purchase.
Ofcourse there is stuff you cannot lease (for instance, you may not be able to lease an offset printer - if printing is the business you want to get into).. but a lot of stuff can be leased; examples include furniture, computers, delivery vehicles etc.
You might look at leasing and say - "Well, it will be more expensive in the long run".. but what I have to say to that is this - you need to get started first.. if the entry cost is going to keep you from starting there is no point in looking at where you will be 2 years from now.. get started first.. and whatever will help you get started (which lowers the entry barrier) you must latch onto.
SVG might have solved some of the problems that Flash is solving now, except for the fact that Mozilla/Firefox support for SVG is quite bad..especially on Linux.
The Adobe SVG plugin has a whole range of problems running on Linux.
But even if SVG for Mozilla/Linux was fully supported on Linux, it still does not solve all the issues that Flash solves - for instance, SVG has no support for audio (at least not now).
I too believe that an individual must take full responsibility for their actions instead of blaming everyone else (companies/spouse/parents/peer group/nation) for every mistake they make.
However it is possible that these violent games / movies / literature can provide stimulus and/or teach behaviour that could adversely affect individuals who are constantly exposed to such stuff.
We learn our sense of style/taste/fashion/etiquette/morals from what we observe around us - from our parents, from the movies we see, from magazines, newspapers, peer groups, sport mates and so on. It is therefore very likely that video games affect our "culture" or patterns of thinking as well.
The problem with violence on tv or the video games is that it desensitizes us. This is particularly true in the case of children since they learn quicker than adults and are also easily influenced.
What that implies is that parents will now have to take great care to make sure that children are not exposed to such negative influences.
At the same time, it is perhaps useful to ask the question - shouldn't the society also care about what is influencing its members? would a civilized society allow racist propoganda to be preached or condoned? should it allow a casteist agenda (in my country India) to be preached and enforced? should the society allow violent behaviour to be treated on the same level as sport?
Before I started my technology company, I was a partner and the head of technology for a firm dealing with advertising and web design.
I can vouch for the truth of the parent's statement. Advertising is never about the truth - it is about conveying a perception of the truth which masks all weaknesses and exaggerates anything even remotely nice about a product.
Re:Mini Review
on
Offshoring IT
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Talking of English - what makes you think that Americans speak better English? Care to back that up? A lot of Indians speak much better English than many Americans.
I am already doing this in my company - it is at a very early stage of implmentation.
The primary premise is that software development is similar to artisanship - where an "artisan" joins work in a fairly junior grade and then learns the ropes from seniors and mentors who actively train their juniors on actual projects - all work is closely supervised with the express aim of maturing the skills of the juniors.
All programmers join as apprentices and have to work their way up by earning the respect of their peers. All code is to be reviewed by seniors/mentors and peers and based on their review, the programmers will advance in grade.
Everyone needs to know programming as well as an additonal skill - be it housekeeping, administration, finance etc so they can take on other roles if needed. In addition to programming, everyone will be associated with one of the additional roles they choose - for instance, you might be a programmer, but you could also be incharge of housekeeping responsibilities.
Everyone is given an opportunity to choose the role in which they would like to work - for instance, people showing interest in marketing will be given the option of joining the marketing team as long as the marketing team is convinced that the person fits that role.
Programmers are taken only based on references from others already in the organization - ofcourse, all this means that the company grows very slowly, but the advantages are that the skill levels are kept very high and people can move to a different division/department at short notice.
Also, everyone in the organization interacts much more with each other and this helps team dynamics.
I guess the work ethic and the general work philosophy is a bit like in a kibutz.
I wonder if it is possible for Rocklyte to implement 3D rendering features like in Avalon in their Athene Desktop.
I have tried out Athene and it is very fast - they claim over 25% speed increase to X11.. This is a complete alternative to X11 but can also run X11 apps.. Try out the free version http://www.rocklyte.com/athene/. You can run games on the desktop using SDL.. they have a version of Doom and Quake available for download as well.
I was very impressed with both the desktop as well as the underlying technologies - the desktop is scripted using an XML-like language called DML..and the engine used is called Pandora.
The graphics driver technology is based on SNAP graphics from SciTech and seems very easy to manage.
My two primary gripes with the system were that the licensing seems a little restrictive.. and also, the package management software seemed very weak (if you are using the OS).
But other than that - a very polished desktop.. and underlying API. Most impressive.. Definitely the most innovative and cutting edge Linux desktop and distribution around.
Also wonder if there is a move to implement Windows Forms (for Mono) using the Pandora Engine SDK.
The scenario that you have just presented is something that I have personally dealt with..
I had someone who applied to me for work and as I interviewed him, it became clear to me that he was quite good and I fully intended to recruit him.
But towards the end of the interview when I asked him when he would be willing to join, he stated something along the lines that "sooner is better" since he wanted to slight those who were then employing him.
I told him that I couldn't employ someone with that attitude and he lost, what would otherwise have been, an excellent job.
Slashdot Mirror
Can somebody explain to me how the atmosphere on this moon can be water vapour based when it is so cold. Won't rapid condensation result..followed by freezing?
Or is the water vapor atmosphere being put out by massive jets which are themselves caused by the icy surface being in touch with the molten core?
If these jets do exist they must be huge and it seems likely that whereever these jets exist, that those areas are much warmer than other places on the moon - perhaps even as warm as places on earth.
Anyone who can comment on this?
I agree. From my experience with designing using CSS divs alone, it has been a very frustrating experience. Getting DIVs to hold their position has been very difficult and I have had some real problems with it. I would have saved myself loads of work by just using table markup instead.
As for semantic HTML, you could achieve quite the same level of semantic information using tables and spans. And so, yes, I agree with you completely.
The US and the Western educational systems are making themselves irrelevant and useless by being overly influenced by child psychologists.
Students who perform badly in school are no longer failed because child psychology pronounces that, if failed, a child's morale and self-confidence is doomed forever. So undeserving students are allowed to clear exams and tests. The educationists now believe that you shouldn't even use words like failure in school.
This results in good performers not getting the credit they deserve which will, over a course of time, discourage them from trying to excel.
Children should be taught the value of working hard, about coping with failure, about getting up and having a go again, about not quitting. Instead we teach the kids that they can get away without work. There is a lot of wisdom in the old saying "No pain, No gain".
The situation is gotten so bad that educationists favour removing the whole examination system altogether - so that students do not have to cope with the "stress" or risk "failure"! Also, to make the situation worse, the education system is dumbed down to meet the standards of the lowest common denominator! This thinking is so obtuse, its unbelievable!
If this wasn't enough, we have a whole range of terms for new fangled learning disorders - most of these so-called disorders can be explained as lack of discipline, and lack of adequate motivation to learn. This has been discussed on Slashdot before, so there is no point in rehashing anything here.
So yes, if the education system in the US is to be improved, the educationists will have to get real. The world is hard, it rewards the performers and punishes the rest. If the education system does not reflect this cold reality in some way, it is doomed to fail the people it is trying to help.
Yes, the fact that the Linux kernel point releases happen quite often does cause real problems for hardware companies.
/kernel (with subdirs /2.6.11 /2.6.12 etc) /drivers (in compiled form) /conf (where we list which drivers are to be loaded with settings for each with subdirectories for different profiles /server /gaming etc). This could also be in the /etc directory.)
/kernel without updating either /drivers or /conf unless there is a huge change in the structure of the kernel or a change in the device driver interface in the kernel.
/drivers and the /conf directory to a disk and if I have to reinstall the Linux on my machine (even if it is a different distribution of Linux with a slightly different kernel), I can just restore the /drivers and /conf directory to setup all my hardware properly.
Linux's driver architecture is flawed - this is because the way the Linux kernel must be installed onto a machine is in itself a flawed process.
Here is why I consider it flawed:
The device driver must be recompiled for each point release of the kernel. That is, when I install a new version of the Linux kernel (even if it is a minor point release), I must necessarily recompile all the device drivers for that point release of the kernel or I must get the precompiled driver modules (for that exact point release) and install them.
This is not how Windows 98/2000/XP works - you can install a kernel update (Service Pack) and still continue to use the same device drivers - you won't have to download new device drivers or recompile existing ones.
Why is this a flaw? It is a flaw because it expects all hardware manufactures / device driver writers to provide either:
The source code for each point release of the kernel.
or
The precompiled driver for each point release / patch of the kernel.
This is not going to work since there are so many different linux kernel versions and a whole range of patches (-ac etc) out there.
This requirement to recompile device drivers for each kernel release can be real problem - I experienced this problem first-hand recently when I tried to install Linux on a machine with a SATA harddisk and a southbridge chipset (SIS965L) which is not supported by Linux (might be fixed now).
During the installation, the harddisk was not being found since the Southbridge chipset was not being recognized - the distribution (CentOS) did give me the option of loading the device driver from a separate CD/floppy, but the problem is that I only have the the device driver source code.. and I cannot install the device driver unless I compiled it for that specific kernel version of the CentOS distribution I was trying to install.. and I cannot compile for that version of the kernel unless I already have a Linux machine with that kernel installed - a catch-22 situation.
Ideally what we should have is something like this on the file system:
One should be able to change the contents of
This way, I can take the backup of the
Does anyone know if the new Fedora release supports the SIS965L southbridge chipset required for SATA support?
Also, what about the support for the SIS 190/900 ethernet?
I think Linux is a good OS but it really needs a better device driver management layer. Linux needs to come with a facility for easily adding in and removing device drivers without requiring kernel compilation (and by implication, expecting the kernel source code to be present on the machine).
Yes, I am aware of loadable device drivers (using insmod, modprobe etc), but I am not talking about those.. I am talking of device drivers which I can obtain directly from the vendor in binary form without getting one binary driver for each sub point release of the kernel.
As it stands, if I want to install a device driver for a new hardware, I will first need to download the kernel source, and compile the kernel after selecting the device driver during the kernel configuration. If the device driver is not part of the kernel source, I will need to get the device driver source corresponding to the kernel release and then compile it (after munging around with some settings).
This is, ofcourse, far from ideal.
At one time not so long ago companies took pride in not laying off people. The boast was that X company hasn't laid off a single work in so many decades.
Management tried not to layoff people as much as possible because laying off people was seen as a shameful thing to do - an admission of failure on the part of the management to run the company profitably.
To avoid this loss of face, companies resorted to cutting management pay, selling assets and so on. The moment a company announced a layoff, it would appear all over the papers - the market will see it as a sign that the company is down in the dumps.. analysts would rate the company down.
But now the situation has completely reversed. When a company announces huge layoffs, analysts actually rate the company higher. Also, the management will now gloat about how they have "streamlined" operations.. cut of the extra "fat".. become "lean and mean".. etc.. The implication is always that the layoffs were a smart thing to do.
There is no shame anymore..no accountability on the part of the management. The fact that thousands just lost their jobs because the business strategies framed by the suits came up a cropper does not seem to fill the management with a sense of shame or remorse. Fact is, after a round of layoffs, the executives might even give themselves a pay hike!! They will also announce proudly about how they have "increased" their profitability and worked on the "bottomline".
It is quite sad. There is very little honour anymore.
The rupee has appreciated (gone up in value) over the past year.. from about Rs.49/dollar to about Rs.43/dollar now. The Indian Reserve Bank devalues the rupee by purchasing dollars to stem its rise so as to allow Indian exports to be competitive.
I empathize with you and I can say that just reading this article makes me very sad. It must be so very difficult for everyone concerned.
I don't mean to be trite - but could it be that the children are just not disciplined? I am referring to the old fashioned strong parental disciplining being applied..
Something that might interest you - very rarely are these kinds of behaviour noticed among the children in the east. That has perhaps something to do with the fact that people from the East have pretty stern with their kids when it comes to discipline.
But even in the east, we are increasingly seeing behaviour such as what you have described, but mostly from families where parents have gone lax with the disciplining.
There might be some truth in the statement - spare the rod and spoil the child.
Make sense. I am like that too. I go for the very basic models with as few "luxury" items as possible.
Keeps the weight of the car down, fewer things to service / break, fewer things to suck the battery, and more options for custom improvements.
And where I stay, I don't need a heater, but I might get a radio.
But the car must have a sturdy construction - not made of steel/aluminium as thin as a coke can material.
Does anyone know / has anyone tested if FreeBSD 5.4 supports the SIS965L southbridge chipset ?
And also, how is the support for SIS190 Ethernet? Sorry about posting these questions here, but I haven't received much response in the kernel mailing lists (atleast not on Linux).
You must re-read that license agreement - it states specifically that OEM copies must be given only with a non-peripheral component such as a harddisk, cpu, motherboard etc.. just any hardware won't count.
Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. Any idea how this works - if you do, please do email me on prem at songbirdtech.com.
I know it is possible to insmod a new module.. but the module must be first compiled along with that kernel.
These RHEL driver updates - are these just driver modules precompiled for the version of RHEL kernel installed? I mean, if the version of the RHEL kernel installed on my computer is 2.6.9, would I need to get the driver update CD for 2.6.9 kernel or can I just pickup any of the driver CDs and insmod any of the modules in?
I think it will be useful to have a system whereby drivers can be loaded without requiring the entire kernel to be compiled.
Granted most distributions do ship with as many of the drivers as possible, but I have found myself in a spot a few times when the Linux kernel did not have the drivers for something fairly critical which was needed during installation - for instance, I am trying to install linux onto my AMD64 machine but none of the linux kernels (including 2.6.11) support the southbridge chipset on my motherboard.. and so Linux cannot detect the harddisk on my computer...which means I cannot install Linux on the machine now.
I installed XP on the same machine without a problem - just popped in the device driver CD and the harddisk was immediately recognized.
It will be great to have that facility on Linux as well - changed your graphics card? just pop in the driver CD and install the driver and you are ready to go..
I won't venture to say "No, you can run a business with 5 figures or less".. because it is likely that the business you have in mind requires fairly heavy investment in equipment (if you are into manufacturing, for instance).
But having started two companies, I can advise you to try and lower the entry cost a bit by leasing/hiring equipment and space instead of going for outright purchase.
Ofcourse there is stuff you cannot lease (for instance, you may not be able to lease an offset printer - if printing is the business you want to get into).. but a lot of stuff can be leased; examples include furniture, computers, delivery vehicles etc.
You might look at leasing and say - "Well, it will be more expensive in the long run".. but what I have to say to that is this - you need to get started first.. if the entry cost is going to keep you from starting there is no point in looking at where you will be 2 years from now.. get started first.. and whatever will help you get started (which lowers the entry barrier) you must latch onto.
I hope this helps.
Yes, Linux can make use of a paging file. You can create a large file and use mkfs to create a swap partition on the file.
0 2/2250257&tid=129&tid=42/
You can then mount this file as a swap partition. You can make a fstab entry to mount this file at boot up as a swap partition.
Please see this URL:
http://enterprise.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/03/
Yes, I think this definitely looks more sensible. It would have reduced the size of documents considerably and it does look cleaner.
Consider a XML snippet:
<sampletag name="this" type="that">
Some value
</sampletag>
This could be translated into
(sampletag [name="this"] [type="that"]Some value)
which is much smaller.
I wonder if someone will consider this for real
SVG might have solved some of the problems that Flash is solving now, except for the fact that Mozilla/Firefox support for SVG is quite bad..especially on Linux.
The Adobe SVG plugin has a whole range of problems running on Linux.
But even if SVG for Mozilla/Linux was fully supported on Linux, it still does not solve all the issues that Flash solves - for instance, SVG has no support for audio (at least not now).
I too believe that an individual must take full responsibility for their actions instead of blaming everyone else (companies/spouse/parents/peer group/nation) for every mistake they make.
However it is possible that these violent games / movies / literature can provide stimulus and/or teach behaviour that could adversely affect individuals who are constantly exposed to such stuff.
We learn our sense of style/taste/fashion/etiquette/morals from what we observe around us - from our parents, from the movies we see, from magazines, newspapers, peer groups, sport mates and so on. It is therefore very likely that video games affect our "culture" or patterns of thinking as well.
The problem with violence on tv or the video games is that it desensitizes us. This is particularly true in the case of children since they learn quicker than adults and are also easily influenced.
What that implies is that parents will now have to take great care to make sure that children are not exposed to such negative influences.
At the same time, it is perhaps useful to ask the question - shouldn't the society also care about what is influencing its members? would a civilized society allow racist propoganda to be preached or condoned? should it allow a casteist agenda (in my country India) to be preached and enforced? should the society allow violent behaviour to be treated on the same level as sport?
We need support for the Adobe and Corel SVG plugins. The newest Adobe plugin support is flaky at best with frequent crashes.
Before I started my technology company, I was a partner and the head of technology for a firm dealing with advertising and web design.
I can vouch for the truth of the parent's statement. Advertising is never about the truth - it is about conveying a perception of the truth which masks all weaknesses and exaggerates anything even remotely nice about a product.
Talking of English - what makes you think that Americans speak better English? Care to back that up? A lot of Indians speak much better English than many Americans.
In India :) yes, seriously. I am based out of Madras, India. http://www.songbirdtech.com.
I am already doing this in my company - it is at a very early stage of implmentation.
The primary premise is that software development is similar to artisanship - where an "artisan" joins work in a fairly junior grade and then learns the ropes from seniors and mentors who actively train their juniors on actual projects - all work is closely supervised with the express aim of maturing the skills of the juniors.
All programmers join as apprentices and have to work their way up by earning the respect of their peers. All code is to be reviewed by seniors/mentors and peers and based on their review, the programmers will advance in grade.
Everyone needs to know programming as well as an additonal skill - be it housekeeping, administration, finance etc so they can take on other roles if needed. In addition to programming, everyone will be associated with one of the additional roles they choose - for instance, you might be a programmer, but you could also be incharge of housekeeping responsibilities.
Everyone is given an opportunity to choose the role in which they would like to work - for instance, people showing interest in marketing will be given the option of joining the marketing team as long as the marketing team is convinced that the person fits that role.
Programmers are taken only based on references from others already in the organization - ofcourse, all this means that the company grows very slowly, but the advantages are that the skill levels are kept very high and people can move to a different division/department at short notice.
Also, everyone in the organization interacts much more with each other and this helps team dynamics.
I guess the work ethic and the general work philosophy is a bit like in a kibutz.
Would like to hear what you guys think of this.
I wonder if it is possible for Rocklyte to implement 3D rendering features like in Avalon in their Athene Desktop.
I have tried out Athene and it is very fast - they claim over 25% speed increase to X11.. This is a complete alternative to X11 but can also run X11 apps.. Try out the free version http://www.rocklyte.com/athene/. You can run games on the desktop using SDL.. they have a version of Doom and Quake available for download as well.
I was very impressed with both the desktop as well as the underlying technologies - the desktop is scripted using an XML-like language called DML..and the engine used is called Pandora.
The graphics driver technology is based on SNAP graphics from SciTech and seems very easy to manage.
My two primary gripes with the system were that the licensing seems a little restrictive.. and also, the package management software seemed very weak (if you are using the OS).
But other than that - a very polished desktop.. and underlying API. Most impressive.. Definitely the most innovative and cutting edge Linux desktop and distribution around.
Also wonder if there is a move to implement Windows Forms (for Mono) using the Pandora Engine SDK.
The scenario that you have just presented is something that I have personally dealt with..
I had someone who applied to me for work and as I interviewed him, it became clear to me that he was quite good and I fully intended to recruit him.
But towards the end of the interview when I asked him when he would be willing to join, he stated something along the lines that "sooner is better" since he wanted to slight those who were then employing him.
I told him that I couldn't employ someone with that attitude and he lost, what would otherwise have been, an excellent job.