Particularly when the jackasses who run
this site intentionally post controvertial stories. The new comment moderation policy effectively hides spicy posts.
Gnome looks/works ok. I have to say I prefer
XFCE, but I don't expect that opinion to be
universal. One thing I positively hate about Gnome
is Nautilus. It is vile. Preventing it from
popping up in your startup session is like snapping
snot off your fingernail. It leaves.directories everywhere, like a slug trailing slime! Please will someone drive a stake through this thing's heart?
Open Source software...that will destroy 85% of the market value of US companies and drive companies who are currently outsourcing to "draconian measures even worse than outsourcing."
The market value of a few software companies is irrelevent compared
to the massive increases in productivity and standards of living that result from free software.
Even though the world is awash in free software,
creating systems and solutions using it is still very lucrative. Ask IBM.
There has been a noticable improvement in the
2.5-2.6 cycle compared to 2.3-2.4. Linus and the team has done a super job. Bitkeeper gets
a lot of credit for it. I can't help but wonder if
similar results would not have been achieved with
CVS, Subversion, or arch. Are there any features
Bitkeeper has that the free alternatives do not?
The GCC project is of comparable complexity to
Linux. They use CVS with some success, don't
they?
I am glad XP's are made in Germany but if you
want a great mobo one country has mastery,
Taiwan: ASUS, ABIT, MSI, Soyo, Shuttle, and
probably lots more I don't know about. Taiwan
rules.
I love my AMD 2800+ but I was appalled at how much pressure I had to put on the heatsink to attach
it to the CPU & socket - with a screwdriver no less. There was about 1 mm of thermal material between
the heat sink and a crushed CPU.
Intel's double latch system seems much less
hairy. All's well that ends well, after 10 minutes
of terror the BIOS of my mobo came up fine. You can't argue with AMD's price.
I just loaded Gentoo on a new Athlon machine I put together. The Gentoo is not particularly friendly to machines that aren't networked. Once or twice I had to download a.tar.gz to get some
of the emerges to work. I still like it a lot.
The installation handbook is quite helpful.
rc-update leads to an exceptionally clean machine.
It is much more pleasant than debian.
Setting up the net.ppp0 emerge package was straight forward. Unfortunately
my machine has a crummy winmodem. I have been unable to find a working driver for it yet. $6
down the drain. Either I get a well supported and
more expensive US Robotics modem or suck it up
and go with an ethernet connection. I can't imagine syncing with GBs of source over 56K dialup. If you use dialup, make sure the Linux
kernel supports it directly.
NASA has been working closely with the "international community" for 10 years now on IIS.
Where has it gotten us? We have a moribund
program consisting of Russian and American station
occupants patching holes in the wall, entertaining celebrity guests, and trying to keep from strangling each other. Apollo represents the high point
of space exploration, not exceeded in 30+ years.
I would like to see the U.S. go back to it.
My problem with Penrose is this -- there's no reason to believe that human consciousness is anything more than the result of purely mechanical processes in the brain.
His thesis is that the brain is *not* the equivalent of a Turing machine and spends 400+
pages making a compelling argument why that is the case.
Great reply. I don't think it is too offtopic. The post is about the limits of computation
What I take away from Penrose's popular books
is that he is agnostic about AI, but that it is not
achievable within the confines of a Turing machine.
He takes a strong Platonic viewpoint thoughout - ideas and
understanding having being, which minds gradually
discover. If he suggests that strong AI proponents
think that understanding lies within the book I can see why you would be perturbed.
The Emperor's New Mind is a thoughtful and wide
ranging essay. Anyone who prattles on about
computers achieving human levels of intelligence
should read it. I don't know why you feel it fails
miserably, perhaps you could share the reasons.
In response to detailed comments he
got for ENM he published "Shadows of the Mind"
which provides a great deal more technical substance
to the already detailed arguments in ENM.
Very insightful. The holy wars within the GNU/Linux world are as isometric as they
are endless. Use
a soulless federation like Debian, a commercial
sellout like SuSE or RedHat, or a lovingly crafted, wisely designed, endlessly upgradable, feel at home source distribution like Gentoo. I leave it up to you!
So, that in a nutshell is the Microsoft method. Understand the market, and the customers, and then go pedal to the metal, with release after release focused on what the customers need, incorporating their feedback. That puts the competition into reaction mode. And of course it helps if they also make a strategic error because they are under so much pressure.
I have often wondered what Hitler or Stalin's
own historical account would read like. Now I know. Implicit is the assumption that the competition is not customer focused. Microsoft arrogance at its worst! Here is a factual translation of the whitewash listed above...
Spread FUD about your competitors products. Impede their progress by insuring that their next
release does not work with the next version of windows. Lure their key personnel with M$.
Release a childish clone of their product. Make sure they are not interoperable. Bundle
the clone with Windows and hype it incessantly. Repeat until your competitors die.
Buy the competitors that survive.
These results are amazing. Notice that the thermal dark areas show clear embayment relationships to the brighter thermal areas.
This is just what you would expect to see if
the dark regions are liquid oceans and the
bright regions are icy highlands.
Fail-over and redundant systems are neccessary in a situation like this where any mistake can result in impressive accident. To limp on on 3 gyros for so long is faulty thinking, and goes to show just how badly the cutbacks are affecting space exploration.
The Columbia disaster and the slow schedule of the return to flight have brought about the reliance on gyro redundance and rocket backup. This is hardly due to faulty thinking. The real faulty thinking was relying on the space shuttle to build the station in 30 flights without an accident.
Internationalizing space would be great, but
lets look at the facts: a U.S. is relatively
active in space flight but relies on a dangerous vehicle. Russia is weak financially and can
only maintain a limited launch rate of small
(but excellent) spacecraft. Europe has good
launch capability but no manned effort (figure that out). Other nations are bit players.
The U.S., Russia, and Europe are already collaborating on the IIS, and it isn't working out that well for anyone. Spacefaring nations might
be better off going it alone for 20 years.
Fuck you you American git. Keep on consuming. Keep on polluting. Shame you don't have a fucking clue what climate change will do to the millions around the globe critically balanced as they are in their interaction with the environment. That includes North America as well. In years to come we'll be hanging you bastards for crimes against humanity.
Up yours jackoff. Climate change will inevitably effect billions around the globe.
That is how nature operates. Climate is not
static. My point is neither is it predictable.
You can do nothing with silly political
mechanizations to control it. I doubt
very much that Americans will be anything other
than the hangman. I would insult your nationality
if I knew it.
Stories like this should be flagged -1, Flamebait before they are posted. What more can you say about this pseudoscientific crap? The idea that you can manipulate climate to some unspecified favorable end by manipulating the CO2 emissions of wealthy nations is absurd. Repetition of the same tired arguments does not make them anymore true. I can understand that increasing global temperature will cause sea-level to rise, but what is the cause and effect with flooding? There is none. Another thing, what is worse than global warming? Global cooling! I for one like an early spring. Happy earthday everyone.
You really have no clue about how the standards body works do you?
Maybe not. I do know that those standards will
be taken less seriously if the process that decides on them is corrupt. As a Microsoft employee one must assume that Mr.
Sutter will support their proposed extensions. But for what reasons? Purely on merit, or because it is in his company's best interest? The conflict of interest is brazen and obvious, except to you
of course. I guess you have to know how "standards bodies work" to rationalize it.
Herb Sutter mentions planned C++/.Net CLR extensions being discussed for later inclusion in the C++ standard in last months C/C++
Journal. (Sorry, there is no link on their site yet.) I thought it odd that the chairman of
such a standards board would mention M$ proprietary
software so favorably. Then I saw that he works for
M$ and understood perfectly. No conflicts of
interest here. Enough to make you sick. I wonder
what Stroustoup thinks of this. What next? A
Microsoftie on Sun's Java steering committee perhaps?
We fought hard to win those court cases. And we did win. Big time.
Chortle. There is nothing about Sun that is Big time after the settlement. $1.2G will do
little to alter the disasterous strategic course
Sun finds itself on.
He has his own rather peculiar definition of "free" that I think violates the First Law of Thermodynamics (energy is conserved)
This is really a bizarre statement. Stallman
and the FSF clarify the meaning of their use of
"free" practically everytime they use the word; it is the same meaning as is implied throughout the U.S. constitution. I don't know if it violates the first law of thermodynamics, but in 20 years
it has shown itself to be a remarkable
perpetual machine.
Slashdot Mirror
Particularly when the jackasses who run this site intentionally post controvertial stories. The new comment moderation policy effectively hides spicy posts.
Great link. If I had 5 style points to give I would.
Gnome looks/works ok. I have to say I prefer XFCE, but I don't expect that opinion to be universal. One thing I positively hate about Gnome is Nautilus. It is vile. Preventing it from popping up in your startup session is like snapping snot off your fingernail. It leaves .directories everywhere, like a slug trailing slime! Please will someone drive a stake through this thing's heart?
Open Source software...that will destroy 85% of the market value of US companies and drive companies who are currently outsourcing to "draconian measures even worse than outsourcing."
The market value of a few software companies is irrelevent compared to the massive increases in productivity and standards of living that result from free software. Even though the world is awash in free software, creating systems and solutions using it is still very lucrative. Ask IBM.
There has been a noticable improvement in the 2.5-2.6 cycle compared to 2.3-2.4. Linus and the team has done a super job. Bitkeeper gets a lot of credit for it. I can't help but wonder if similar results would not have been achieved with CVS, Subversion, or arch. Are there any features Bitkeeper has that the free alternatives do not?
The GCC project is of comparable complexity to Linux. They use CVS with some success, don't they?
Turing's contributions were obviously profound but Lisp fans demand that Alonzo Church's contributions be given similar recognition.
Read out loud. Slowly. NA-TIO-NAL DEBT BUD-GET DE-FI-CIT And you still think the US is such a great economic power?
Too true. But to the rest of the world I say EX-PORT ECO-NO-MIES, TREA-SURY NOTES, UN-EM-PLOY-MENT.
You are not creditors, you are partners! -- Donald Trump
I am glad XP's are made in Germany but if you want a great mobo one country has mastery, Taiwan: ASUS, ABIT, MSI, Soyo, Shuttle, and probably lots more I don't know about. Taiwan rules.
I love my AMD 2800+ but I was appalled at how much pressure I had to put on the heatsink to attach it to the CPU & socket - with a screwdriver no less. There was about 1 mm of thermal material between the heat sink and a crushed CPU. Intel's double latch system seems much less hairy. All's well that ends well, after 10 minutes of terror the BIOS of my mobo came up fine. You can't argue with AMD's price.
When can we get our next iTunes article?
Right after the next global warming one.
I just loaded Gentoo on a new Athlon machine I put together. The Gentoo is not particularly friendly to machines that aren't networked. Once or twice I had to download a .tar.gz to get some
of the emerges to work. I still like it a lot.
The installation handbook is quite helpful.
rc-update leads to an exceptionally clean machine.
It is much more pleasant than debian.
Setting up the net.ppp0 emerge package was straight forward. Unfortunately
my machine has a crummy winmodem. I have been unable to find a working driver for it yet. $6
down the drain. Either I get a well supported and
more expensive US Robotics modem or suck it up
and go with an ethernet connection. I can't imagine syncing with GBs of source over 56K dialup. If you use dialup, make sure the Linux
kernel supports it directly.
NASA has been working closely with the "international community" for 10 years now on IIS. Where has it gotten us? We have a moribund program consisting of Russian and American station occupants patching holes in the wall, entertaining celebrity guests, and trying to keep from strangling each other. Apollo represents the high point of space exploration, not exceeded in 30+ years. I would like to see the U.S. go back to it.
My problem with Penrose is this -- there's no reason to believe that human consciousness is anything more than the result of purely mechanical processes in the brain.
His thesis is that the brain is *not* the equivalent of a Turing machine and spends 400+ pages making a compelling argument why that is the case.
Great reply. I don't think it is too offtopic. The post is about the limits of computation
What I take away from Penrose's popular books is that he is agnostic about AI, but that it is not achievable within the confines of a Turing machine. He takes a strong Platonic viewpoint thoughout - ideas and understanding having being, which minds gradually discover. If he suggests that strong AI proponents think that understanding lies within the book I can see why you would be perturbed.
The Emperor's New Mind is a thoughtful and wide ranging essay. Anyone who prattles on about computers achieving human levels of intelligence should read it. I don't know why you feel it fails miserably, perhaps you could share the reasons. In response to detailed comments he got for ENM he published "Shadows of the Mind" which provides a great deal more technical substance to the already detailed arguments in ENM.
Very insightful. The holy wars within the GNU/Linux world are as isometric as they are endless. Use a soulless federation like Debian, a commercial sellout like SuSE or RedHat, or a lovingly crafted, wisely designed, endlessly upgradable, feel at home source distribution like Gentoo. I leave it up to you!
So, that in a nutshell is the Microsoft method. Understand the market, and the customers, and then go pedal to the metal, with release after release focused on what the customers need, incorporating their feedback. That puts the competition into reaction mode. And of course it helps if they also make a strategic error because they are under so much pressure.
I have often wondered what Hitler or Stalin's own historical account would read like. Now I know. Implicit is the assumption that the competition is not customer focused. Microsoft arrogance at its worst! Here is a factual translation of the whitewash listed above...
Spread FUD about your competitors products. Impede their progress by insuring that their next release does not work with the next version of windows. Lure their key personnel with M$. Release a childish clone of their product. Make sure they are not interoperable. Bundle the clone with Windows and hype it incessantly. Repeat until your competitors die. Buy the competitors that survive.
These results are amazing. Notice that the thermal dark areas show clear embayment relationships to the brighter thermal areas. This is just what you would expect to see if the dark regions are liquid oceans and the bright regions are icy highlands.
Fail-over and redundant systems are neccessary in a situation like this where any mistake can result in impressive accident. To limp on on 3 gyros for so long is faulty thinking, and goes to show just how badly the cutbacks are affecting space exploration.
The Columbia disaster and the slow schedule of the return to flight have brought about the reliance on gyro redundance and rocket backup. This is hardly due to faulty thinking. The real faulty thinking was relying on the space shuttle to build the station in 30 flights without an accident.
Internationalizing space would be great, but lets look at the facts: a U.S. is relatively active in space flight but relies on a dangerous vehicle. Russia is weak financially and can only maintain a limited launch rate of small (but excellent) spacecraft. Europe has good launch capability but no manned effort (figure that out). Other nations are bit players. The U.S., Russia, and Europe are already collaborating on the IIS, and it isn't working out that well for anyone. Spacefaring nations might be better off going it alone for 20 years.
Fuck you you American git. Keep on consuming. Keep on polluting. Shame you don't have a fucking clue what climate change will do to the millions around the globe critically balanced as they are in their interaction with the environment. That includes North America as well. In years to come we'll be hanging you bastards for crimes against humanity.
Up yours jackoff. Climate change will inevitably effect billions around the globe. That is how nature operates. Climate is not static. My point is neither is it predictable. You can do nothing with silly political mechanizations to control it. I doubt very much that Americans will be anything other than the hangman. I would insult your nationality if I knew it.
Stories like this should be flagged -1, Flamebait before they are posted. What more can you say about this pseudoscientific crap? The idea that you can manipulate climate to some unspecified favorable end by manipulating the CO2 emissions of wealthy nations is absurd. Repetition of the same tired arguments does not make them anymore true. I can understand that increasing global temperature will cause sea-level to rise, but what is the cause and effect with flooding? There is none. Another thing, what is worse than global warming? Global cooling! I for one like an early spring. Happy earthday everyone.
You really have no clue about how the standards body works do you?
Maybe not. I do know that those standards will be taken less seriously if the process that decides on them is corrupt. As a Microsoft employee one must assume that Mr. Sutter will support their proposed extensions. But for what reasons? Purely on merit, or because it is in his company's best interest? The conflict of interest is brazen and obvious, except to you of course. I guess you have to know how "standards bodies work" to rationalize it.
Herb Sutter mentions planned C++/.Net CLR extensions being discussed for later inclusion in the C++ standard in last months C/C++ Journal. (Sorry, there is no link on their site yet.) I thought it odd that the chairman of such a standards board would mention M$ proprietary software so favorably. Then I saw that he works for M$ and understood perfectly. No conflicts of interest here. Enough to make you sick. I wonder what Stroustoup thinks of this. What next? A Microsoftie on Sun's Java steering committee perhaps?
We fought hard to win those court cases. And we did win. Big time.
Chortle. There is nothing about Sun that is Big time after the settlement. $1.2G will do little to alter the disasterous strategic course Sun finds itself on.
He has his own rather peculiar definition of "free" that I think violates the First Law of Thermodynamics (energy is conserved)
This is really a bizarre statement. Stallman and the FSF clarify the meaning of their use of "free" practically everytime they use the word; it is the same meaning as is implied throughout the U.S. constitution. I don't know if it violates the first law of thermodynamics, but in 20 years it has shown itself to be a remarkable perpetual machine.
A bit like Prince, you know?
Perhaps we should call the new release "The Window System Formerly Known as X"