In fact, MeeGo can't be even killed by Nokia dropping it, because it is open source project and there are lot of companies who are planning to use it in their products. Yes, Nokia was big supporter, but other than that - if there will be usage for it, it will live on. Not sure about WP7 if Microsoft fails to make a dent in market share with their bought love from Nokia.
Leaving all "open standards versus open source" debate aside, it is interesting that these discussions usually bring so much emotions on the surface. Also topic of TFA indicates need for flame.
Well, there is simple deal - Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox has nice market share. They are planning to push V8. It is their decision. It is their strategy. Will work it or not - it is not a subject here. Somehow lot of people feel offended by such competition in first place. Why? Does it suddenly cancel all movies, clips available in H.264? No. Can it kill H.264? With Firefox taking H.264 decoding from Windows - hardly. So what's the problem then?
I see good reasoning in existence of video formats free from patent and royalty shackles. Not everything on video in Internet is entertainment. Not everything has to be compatible with your latest iPhone. But I don't deny H.264 has a solid market share and place in electronic entertainment.
The Matrix, on the other hand, was a movie where a sequel was completely impossible. Neo had already won. The war was over but for the fussy details. There is simply no possible way that anyone could do a sequel of any good with that movie. You have one movie, it told the whole story. There's no room for any sort of sequel, period.
But who said that Neo already won war? He won *one* fight with agents. I think monologue of Neo at the end of the Matrix was clear indication that this is not the end. It was quite clear that war wasn't over.
My problem with geeks who hate Matrix (not just dislike, which is fine, art is subjective), is that it ruined story of ever mighty Neo for them - and they don't want to admit it. In second and third one, suddenly Neo is just a puzzle of bigger enigma. Suddenly he is just a element of the system. Which brings us to another question - why such reaction? Lot of people reacted angrily with revelation at the end of "Matrix Reloaded". But in fact, it finally made sense. It finally brought some *logical* explanation to Neo enigma. And the third one was about how not enigmas, how not prophecies makes us what we are, but what we decide to do. Which in fact was *main* idea of the first film.
So in total, while artistic and aesthetic values of second and third sequels are quite lessened by special effects grandeur, story-wise they make sense.
Maybe that's the whole problem with some of these sci-fi sequels - people have already imagined how story continues and then they get disappointed when author goes totally different direction.
It is a surprise how do you got +4 insightful. Sorry to burst your dream, but in Europe, where huge bulk of mobile phones are bought without contract Android is already very popular and making huge inroads. And that was just first wave, with bugs and hiccups. Sure, lot of HTC droids where kinda experimental, but after that everything vent smoothly. HTC Dream, Desire, Desire HD, Samsung Galaxy S - those are big names in Europe and they are sold like hot cakes. Heck, even Sony Ericsson first Android phone Xperia X10 with 1.6 (while rest already using 2.1 or 2.2) did quite good and they brought upgrade to 2.1 customers some three months after release, which is first such upgrade for SE phones. I have bought HTC Tatoo for my girlfriend and she is quite happy. It is not the best of droids, but it is small, quick, resembles more of phone than super remote control, and it has HTC Sense UI.
Also I wouldn't write down Nokia just yet. It is high tech monster with lot of potential. Yes, there are kinda late with their MeeGo smartphone line, but their customers love their brand and if they will start their line just in right time this year, I'm looking for a lot of smartphone converts from Nokia dumbphone users.
Truth to be told, problem isn't with OLPC, but with their 'customers'. They were happy about getting laptops cheaply, but when they discovered that they won't run Windows, but Sugar or Fedora they weren't pleased. So OLPC tried to work with Microsoft to port Windows XP to OLPC 1 and OLPC 1.5, Microsoft made half-assed effort, didn't quite succeeded, and OLPC were back to recommending Sugar/Fedora combo (or simply Fedora).
So while they could say that ARM could run Windows desktop OS, as you said it is still vaporware for now (with Microsoft's development speed I would aim for 3 - 4 years), and it is more like sales point than actual field requirement for now. It is for administrative people who don't dig computers, but they now Microsoft and Windows. So when it is said 'it COULD run Windows', they concerns are already addressed.
Also I would like to note that some three years ago there weren't much ARM solutions available for such level - no one used ARM for laptops and whole ARM platform were far from openness. So I think Windows argument is merely window-dressing and true reasons for ARM adaptation 'so late' is more technical than political ones.
NYT article is well written and informative. It's clearly not assuming that there is something wrong with scientific method, but just asks - could it be? There is excellent reply by George Musser at "Scientific American" http://cot.ag/hWqKo2
This is what I call interesting and engaging public discussion and journalism.
First of all, to get my own opinion aside - while I think whistle blowing and leaking information about criminal/unethical activities of government and big business must be one of foundations of democratic society (there is no other working alternative so far), I see WikiLeaks more like sensationalism. Assange is an ass, I don't like him, but I don't see how US or Swedish government can get him sentenced, and while I strongly disagree with his naive point of view (realistically governments should have possibility to keep secrets, and no, no government would be good enough in such case), I still vote with all four to have him free rights to speech, free rights to release papers he got.
One important detail though - releasing such information as cables you must understand that there will be consequences - and far reaching ones. You can't just release them and think - well, it's their problem now. Maybe, but if you are reasonable, then you will admit that cable leaks will do some harm. No matter how anarchists would like it, there will be no world without responsibility. If cable leaks will create tense political situation which will result in something nasty - you will have to live with that.
That's what I don't like in this new wave of neoanarchism. They clearly hate everyone with a power, and want to bring system down. But they don't want take responsibility for that. In old days, activists did bad things in a eye of the law (but necessary for society) - and they went to prison for that. Now Internet and Web gives them tools to do that without putting their feet where their word is. It is not anarchism, it's pure irresponsibility.
Talking about Zimbabwe - while this particular cable is bad for situation there, Mugabe needs very little if any reason to go nuts. He knows that everyone except his supporters want to seem him gone. So of course he will react on such news. So what we see here there are real consequences WikiLeaks and their supporters will have to live with. There is no blame, there is no accusation or incrimination. Just a fact that it is quite possible that we will have to wait a quite longer for Mugabe removal from power.
I clearly didn't watch Terminator and Terminator 2 for effects. Yeah, they were nice and same time disturbing (nuclear explosion in a city, burning alive and blowing children into pieces, thank you), but story what was enough compeling. While being pure action, it has so many levels... Cameron knows how to tell the story.
Did I watch LOTR or Harry Potter only for efects? No. Did I enjoyed not so succesful Constantin? I did, and it was because of story.
Like it or not, but when bank goes bankrupt, lot of shit hits the pan. I know "modern human" should despise banks, and I don't like them, but saying that services what bank provides - mostly short term credits and credits for production - are not worth saving is living in "la la" land. Yes, some banks goes bankrupt and nothing wrong with that, but if all sector slips underwater - it is a problem.
Are banks stupid and arrogant? Yes. Did their speculations wasted world economy? Yes. Can we do without them? Unfortunately not. At least not now, not at this instance. Yes, we *should* look for better organization of economy, but unless there is some serious pioneering in this field by respected country (Scandinavia, India, Japan), this simply won't happen. Another alternative is to inform people about this complex issue and increase their knowledge in this field. Then they could start to request politicians to do something about it.
Well, there was lot of hype about Second Life...but Facebook differs from that with fact that people actually uses it for every day communication with friends. Horror, isn't it.
In fact, I don't dig that social networks hate floating around these days. Geeks use them. Common crowd use them. Some overdose them heavily. Some have their social necessities fulfilled. Some try to use it to replace something they don't have in life. Some use them just for fun - and get it plenty. Go figure.
While Twitter is not Jack Of All Trades as Facebook claims to be for example, it is very useful tool for information freaks. It really is useful IF used properly - or complete waste of time if not. I use it to get info about lot of interesting things which I would miss otherwise. No, I don't use it for 'OMG Radiohead rulles'. I also use it for spreading information which can be interesting for others too.
In fact Twitter IS micro blogging, so in nutshell, it has mostly those same strengths and weaknesses as normal blogging. However, it is much easier to just write small message than compose entire blog entry. So you can state a fact about traffic on road. Or result in sports game. Or anything what happens, you witnessing it and want to spread message quickly. It feels and works like sms network.
So, again, it really depends how do you use this tool. Some companies use it to get fast and quick communication with clients when needed. They follow filters and tags and react if there is a problem.
As I know, lot of Western Europe countries already laying out plans of going cold turkey of petroleum (first for warm distribution). In fact, Europe is more ready than US, where Obama and similar thinkers are struggling to get message out - even after bay nightmare.
It can get nasty, but we still have time to fix it.
Such amount of data about such theoretical overblown privacy buzz? Layers dance a happy dance. Americans, your legal system *sometimes* (so far) is farce.
It is real time wiki on steroids, and there is place for such tool, especially in software development. But I can see it to be used in other areas like event planning, rescue operations, etc.
It is reasonable that Google obsoleted their service, as it is really more for people to install and use locally. As it is XMPP based, I expect to see federation of Google Wave servers in, for example, open source world or big software development house.
Ok, more details about ugly side of war. We all know what happens there. Pakistan is _partly_ to blame about Taliban? News at 11. Civil casualities? Sadly, but these things happen in the war.
Except ammo for Afghan war opponents it doesn't give me or any other knowledgeable person new stuff about situation there. I respect WikiLeaks about other leakages, but I think this is overplayed and overhyped just for site owner's sake - and it feels wrong to do that. It feels that Julian doesn't want WikiLeaks to be neutral source of information but propaganda voice.
Movies invoke compasion or anger, they invoke emotions. Games can do the same, but their main aim is to provide expierence, interactivity. So it takes to be both excelent gamer and excelent scripthead to hit the nail. For example, it is quite clear to me that movie in Half-Life universe would rock - but it would have to be very different from the game. And that's the problem - writing something unique yet comming from same universe is huge risk, and requires true talent. Unfortunately, so far we have seen Uwe Boll likes who takes a risk.
This kinda tells about power of your brand...
on
Apple Announces iPhone 4
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
...when you can announce that your document viewer will support PDFs and everyone is in the awe:)
As more new servers are deployed for virtualization, Xen superiority over KVM slowly, but surely disappears. First of all, all new tech has virtualization acceleration support in CPUs. Now, for example, using KVM in combination with paravirtualized network and storage drivers (which are packaged and used in Ubuntu as default), Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS has the same speed and performance as guest as using Xen. Also huge improvements into libvirt stack and virt-manager have played role here - yes, I know, Xen also can use libvirt, but still - as it is more and more easier to deploy virtual machines, be it development or server environment. I have worked with Xen exclusively in the past for some three years, and most problems have been kernel patching issues and in fact, HVM support (because you still have to emulate some devices with quemu, which leaks like crazy, I guess that's reason why KVM now uses paravirtualized devices for net/storage). I don't have time to compile code for production servers, so if KVM is in kernel, and it is supported by kernel team and distribution, I will go for it. I was reserved And I guess lot of newcommers in virtualization will too.
In nutshell, Xen devs shoot in the foot here. Have they agreed to be included in main kernel three and be more welcome with patches, it would be more interesting competition here.
I have enough of "OMG! Google pushes Chrome everywhere and it gains on early adopters base, we are doomed!" crowd. I use browsers for 15 years, and Firefox is still number one for me and lot of other geeks. No, I don't care how fast Chrome is, because it so unstable and full with webkit rendering bugs. They have great foundations to work on, but they are not fully there yet. They are growing nicely, I admit, and Google knows how to code. But they still have a long road to be leader.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact, MeeGo can't be even killed by Nokia dropping it, because it is open source project and there are lot of companies who are planning to use it in their products. Yes, Nokia was big supporter, but other than that - if there will be usage for it, it will live on. Not sure about WP7 if Microsoft fails to make a dent in market share with their bought love from Nokia.
Enough said.
Leaving all "open standards versus open source" debate aside, it is interesting that these discussions usually bring so much emotions on the surface. Also topic of TFA indicates need for flame.
Well, there is simple deal - Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox has nice market share. They are planning to push V8. It is their decision. It is their strategy. Will work it or not - it is not a subject here. Somehow lot of people feel offended by such competition in first place. Why? Does it suddenly cancel all movies, clips available in H.264? No. Can it kill H.264? With Firefox taking H.264 decoding from Windows - hardly. So what's the problem then?
I see good reasoning in existence of video formats free from patent and royalty shackles. Not everything on video in Internet is entertainment. Not everything has to be compatible with your latest iPhone. But I don't deny H.264 has a solid market share and place in electronic entertainment.
The Matrix, on the other hand, was a movie where a sequel was completely impossible. Neo had already won. The war was over but for the fussy details. There is simply no possible way that anyone could do a sequel of any good with that movie. You have one movie, it told the whole story. There's no room for any sort of sequel, period.
But who said that Neo already won war? He won *one* fight with agents. I think monologue of Neo at the end of the Matrix was clear indication that this is not the end. It was quite clear that war wasn't over.
My problem with geeks who hate Matrix (not just dislike, which is fine, art is subjective), is that it ruined story of ever mighty Neo for them - and they don't want to admit it. In second and third one, suddenly Neo is just a puzzle of bigger enigma. Suddenly he is just a element of the system. Which brings us to another question - why such reaction? Lot of people reacted angrily with revelation at the end of "Matrix Reloaded". But in fact, it finally made sense. It finally brought some *logical* explanation to Neo enigma. And the third one was about how not enigmas, how not prophecies makes us what we are, but what we decide to do. Which in fact was *main* idea of the first film.
So in total, while artistic and aesthetic values of second and third sequels are quite lessened by special effects grandeur, story-wise they make sense.
Maybe that's the whole problem with some of these sci-fi sequels - people have already imagined how story continues and then they get disappointed when author goes totally different direction.
It is a surprise how do you got +4 insightful. Sorry to burst your dream, but in Europe, where huge bulk of mobile phones are bought without contract Android is already very popular and making huge inroads. And that was just first wave, with bugs and hiccups. Sure, lot of HTC droids where kinda experimental, but after that everything vent smoothly. HTC Dream, Desire, Desire HD, Samsung Galaxy S - those are big names in Europe and they are sold like hot cakes. Heck, even Sony Ericsson first Android phone Xperia X10 with 1.6 (while rest already using 2.1 or 2.2) did quite good and they brought upgrade to 2.1 customers some three months after release, which is first such upgrade for SE phones. I have bought HTC Tatoo for my girlfriend and she is quite happy. It is not the best of droids, but it is small, quick, resembles more of phone than super remote control, and it has HTC Sense UI.
Also I wouldn't write down Nokia just yet. It is high tech monster with lot of potential. Yes, there are kinda late with their MeeGo smartphone line, but their customers love their brand and if they will start their line just in right time this year, I'm looking for a lot of smartphone converts from Nokia dumbphone users.
Truth to be told, problem isn't with OLPC, but with their 'customers'. They were happy about getting laptops cheaply, but when they discovered that they won't run Windows, but Sugar or Fedora they weren't pleased. So OLPC tried to work with Microsoft to port Windows XP to OLPC 1 and OLPC 1.5, Microsoft made half-assed effort, didn't quite succeeded, and OLPC were back to recommending Sugar/Fedora combo (or simply Fedora).
So while they could say that ARM could run Windows desktop OS, as you said it is still vaporware for now (with Microsoft's development speed I would aim for 3 - 4 years), and it is more like sales point than actual field requirement for now. It is for administrative people who don't dig computers, but they now Microsoft and Windows. So when it is said 'it COULD run Windows', they concerns are already addressed.
Also I would like to note that some three years ago there weren't much ARM solutions available for such level - no one used ARM for laptops and whole ARM platform were far from openness. So I think Windows argument is merely window-dressing and true reasons for ARM adaptation 'so late' is more technical than political ones.
So we will have new sequel "The Social Network: Goldman Sachs years"?
Diaspora, where are you?
NYT article is well written and informative. It's clearly not assuming that there is something wrong with scientific method, but just asks - could it be? There is excellent reply by George Musser at "Scientific American" http://cot.ag/hWqKo2
This is what I call interesting and engaging public discussion and journalism.
First of all, to get my own opinion aside - while I think whistle blowing and leaking information about criminal/unethical activities of government and big business must be one of foundations of democratic society (there is no other working alternative so far), I see WikiLeaks more like sensationalism. Assange is an ass, I don't like him, but I don't see how US or Swedish government can get him sentenced, and while I strongly disagree with his naive point of view (realistically governments should have possibility to keep secrets, and no, no government would be good enough in such case), I still vote with all four to have him free rights to speech, free rights to release papers he got.
One important detail though - releasing such information as cables you must understand that there will be consequences - and far reaching ones. You can't just release them and think - well, it's their problem now. Maybe, but if you are reasonable, then you will admit that cable leaks will do some harm. No matter how anarchists would like it, there will be no world without responsibility. If cable leaks will create tense political situation which will result in something nasty - you will have to live with that.
That's what I don't like in this new wave of neoanarchism. They clearly hate everyone with a power, and want to bring system down. But they don't want take responsibility for that. In old days, activists did bad things in a eye of the law (but necessary for society) - and they went to prison for that. Now Internet and Web gives them tools to do that without putting their feet where their word is. It is not anarchism, it's pure irresponsibility.
Talking about Zimbabwe - while this particular cable is bad for situation there, Mugabe needs very little if any reason to go nuts. He knows that everyone except his supporters want to seem him gone. So of course he will react on such news. So what we see here there are real consequences WikiLeaks and their supporters will have to live with. There is no blame, there is no accusation or incrimination. Just a fact that it is quite possible that we will have to wait a quite longer for Mugabe removal from power.
I clearly didn't watch Terminator and Terminator 2 for effects. Yeah, they were nice and same time disturbing (nuclear explosion in a city, burning alive and blowing children into pieces, thank you), but story what was enough compeling. While being pure action, it has so many levels... Cameron knows how to tell the story.
Did I watch LOTR or Harry Potter only for efects? No. Did I enjoyed not so succesful Constantin? I did, and it was because of story.
I would strongly disagree.
Like it or not, but when bank goes bankrupt, lot of shit hits the pan. I know "modern human" should despise banks, and I don't like them, but saying that services what bank provides - mostly short term credits and credits for production - are not worth saving is living in "la la" land. Yes, some banks goes bankrupt and nothing wrong with that, but if all sector slips underwater - it is a problem.
Are banks stupid and arrogant? Yes. Did their speculations wasted world economy? Yes. Can we do without them? Unfortunately not. At least not now, not at this instance. Yes, we *should* look for better organization of economy, but unless there is some serious pioneering in this field by respected country (Scandinavia, India, Japan), this simply won't happen. Another alternative is to inform people about this complex issue and increase their knowledge in this field. Then they could start to request politicians to do something about it.
Well, there was lot of hype about Second Life...but Facebook differs from that with fact that people actually uses it for every day communication with friends. Horror, isn't it.
In fact, I don't dig that social networks hate floating around these days. Geeks use them. Common crowd use them. Some overdose them heavily. Some have their social necessities fulfilled. Some try to use it to replace something they don't have in life. Some use them just for fun - and get it plenty. Go figure.
While Twitter is not Jack Of All Trades as Facebook claims to be for example, it is very useful tool for information freaks. It really is useful IF used properly - or complete waste of time if not. I use it to get info about lot of interesting things which I would miss otherwise. No, I don't use it for 'OMG Radiohead rulles'. I also use it for spreading information which can be interesting for others too.
In fact Twitter IS micro blogging, so in nutshell, it has mostly those same strengths and weaknesses as normal blogging. However, it is much easier to just write small message than compose entire blog entry. So you can state a fact about traffic on road. Or result in sports game. Or anything what happens, you witnessing it and want to spread message quickly. It feels and works like sms network.
So, again, it really depends how do you use this tool. Some companies use it to get fast and quick communication with clients when needed. They follow filters and tags and react if there is a problem.
I just have to say this - poor bastards. This is utterly fucked up system and illogical one.
Well, that's simply not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_copyright
It is very popular myth, but unfortunately not true.
As I know, lot of Western Europe countries already laying out plans of going cold turkey of petroleum (first for warm distribution). In fact, Europe is more ready than US, where Obama and similar thinkers are struggling to get message out - even after bay nightmare.
It can get nasty, but we still have time to fix it.
Such amount of data about such theoretical overblown privacy buzz? Layers dance a happy dance. Americans, your legal system *sometimes* (so far) is farce.
It is real time wiki on steroids, and there is place for such tool, especially in software development. But I can see it to be used in other areas like event planning, rescue operations, etc.
It is reasonable that Google obsoleted their service, as it is really more for people to install and use locally. As it is XMPP based, I expect to see federation of Google Wave servers in, for example, open source world or big software development house.
Ok, more details about ugly side of war. We all know what happens there. Pakistan is _partly_ to blame about Taliban? News at 11. Civil casualities? Sadly, but these things happen in the war.
Except ammo for Afghan war opponents it doesn't give me or any other knowledgeable person new stuff about situation there. I respect WikiLeaks about other leakages, but I think this is overplayed and overhyped just for site owner's sake - and it feels wrong to do that. It feels that Julian doesn't want WikiLeaks to be neutral source of information but propaganda voice.
And yet another time company has product understocked and has troubles to keep their online shop up, news at 11.
Apple, this way of creating hype is getting way old.
Movies invoke compasion or anger, they invoke emotions. Games can do the same, but their main aim is to provide expierence, interactivity. So it takes to be both excelent gamer and excelent scripthead to hit the nail. For example, it is quite clear to me that movie in Half-Life universe would rock - but it would have to be very different from the game. And that's the problem - writing something unique yet comming from same universe is huge risk, and requires true talent. Unfortunately, so far we have seen Uwe Boll likes who takes a risk.
...when you can announce that your document viewer will support PDFs and everyone is in the awe :)
As more new servers are deployed for virtualization, Xen superiority over KVM slowly, but surely disappears. First of all, all new tech has virtualization acceleration support in CPUs. Now, for example, using KVM in combination with paravirtualized network and storage drivers (which are packaged and used in Ubuntu as default), Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS has the same speed and performance as guest as using Xen. Also huge improvements into libvirt stack and virt-manager have played role here - yes, I know, Xen also can use libvirt, but still - as it is more and more easier to deploy virtual machines, be it development or server environment. I have worked with Xen exclusively in the past for some three years, and most problems have been kernel patching issues and in fact, HVM support (because you still have to emulate some devices with quemu, which leaks like crazy, I guess that's reason why KVM now uses paravirtualized devices for net/storage). I don't have time to compile code for production servers, so if KVM is in kernel, and it is supported by kernel team and distribution, I will go for it. I was reserved And I guess lot of newcommers in virtualization will too.
In nutshell, Xen devs shoot in the foot here. Have they agreed to be included in main kernel three and be more welcome with patches, it would be more interesting competition here.
I have enough of "OMG! Google pushes Chrome everywhere and it gains on early adopters base, we are doomed!" crowd. I use browsers for 15 years, and Firefox is still number one for me and lot of other geeks. No, I don't care how fast Chrome is, because it so unstable and full with webkit rendering bugs. They have great foundations to work on, but they are not fully there yet. They are growing nicely, I admit, and Google knows how to code. But they still have a long road to be leader.
In distribution, which have claimed several times, that they suggest to use LTS releases, leaving regular releases for early adopters.
p.s. ZFS have had fatal bugs too after major stable release.