ihaque's description of CDE is a bit misleading. The point of this tool isn't so that you can install applications easily. The point of this tool is reproducibility. You should only use CDE when you need to exactly reproduce your environment on a different machine.
The target audience of this tool is testing and research, not the general population.
This isn't meant to be a general install mechanism. You should only use CDE for testing/research purposes when you need to reproduce your environment on a different machine.
ihaque's description mis-characterizes the point of this tool. It's certainly not meant for everyone
CDE isn't meant to be a general install mechanism. You should only use CDE when you need to exactly reproduce your environment on someone else's machine for *testing* purposes.
The example use case of an executable bug report opens up enormous possibilities. You would no longer need to ask the user for information, you can just run the user's setup yourself to gather bug information.
CDE isn't meant to be a general install mechanism. You should only use CDE when you need to exactly reproduce your environment on someone else's machine for *testing* purposes.
The example use case of an executable bug report opens up enormous possibilities. You would no longer need to ask the user for information, you can just run the user's setup yourself to gather bug information.
Ingo's benchmarking completely misses the point of BFS though, which is probably why CK is frustrated. Ingo's benchmarks only measure throughput, they don't measure latency or responsiveness, which is the whole point of BFS.
Where did you get the idea that scientists are trying to create a superbreed of mosquitos? Not even the blurb stated such an idea. Did you not get past the headline or something?
My impression of the article was that it was talking about actual performance, not just MHz. In fact, I don't believe MHz was mentioned anywhere in the article.
Actually I find that 'man mplayer' demonstrates both good and bad characteristics. In my opinion, it is far, far too long for plain text. While it does aim for completeness, it is very painful to find just specific items when you are looking for them.
I once attempted to find out how mplayer config files ought to be written. Not simply where they ought to go, but valid parameters to actually stick into the files. As far as I could tell, the man page did not contain any such information. Perhaps the man page only includes information about the command line, but then where should I go when someone tells me to RTFM? I searched the mplayer website as well, but to no avail. I eventually managed to accomplish what I wanted, but only after a considerable amount of Googling and experimentation. If you find where mplayer config files are discussed in the man page or on the mplayer website, can you tell me where?
You won't have fun in the maze of twisty turns I fear.
The reason I made such an intentionally inflammatory posting was because you had made other posts that demonstrably had an elitist feel to them. This statement, like others, demonstrates an unnecessary projection of superiority.
Furthermore, I really doubt that you can judge my Linux experience solely from what I have said. Perhaps I am one of the core developers for a major Linux distribution who just wanted to make a point of how you were demonstrating the very attributes discussed in the linked article.
You seem to imply that you're in total control while you're skidding. However, you can only pick your intended direction at the very start of the skid. Most people do not react fast enough to set a beneficial direction before skidding. In most situations, skidding is unintentional, so people panic, making the situation worse. In your given situation of avoiding an obstacle, if an obstacle really did suddenly appear out of nowhere, there is very little chance for you to make a quick enough decision for where you will skid before you actually start skidding.
ABS allows you to continue steering while you're braking. You can't do that while you're skidding. So in the whole "avoid an obstacle" scheme, ABS should prove to be infinitely more helpful than whatever skidding can do.
Sure the world will survive it, there's no doubt about it. But what about the living organisms on it? Each major event that you have listed sparked massive extinctions. Now, humanity will probably survive massive changes to the planet, but at what cost? What if previously fertile land becomes desert? People will starve. What happens if oceans rise? We may lose large numbers of our coastal cities. Venice, Italy is already being affected enough by water levels that they have had to install water gates to block off the very water that feeds it. Imagine what happens if problems get worse?
No one is really saying that the human species will be extinct as a result of global warming. But there's no denying that global warming can significantly change the way we live, and almost definitely in negative ways.
It doesn't matter though if people don't care that the cannon itself is missing. It's not about pissing people off, it's about outpranking Caltech hackers. This ought to make things really interesting between Caltech and MIT.
This is hardly GRUB's fault. Rather it is because we are working with incredibly outdated *hardware* system architecture that only know how to do a single thing: load the bootloader. If the bootloader fails, then the system doesn't know how to do anything else.
So no, its not GRUB's fault for not providing a backup plan. It's the system architecture inherited from the 1980s that makes it *impossible* to provide a backup route. Don't go around blaming the GRUB developers for a system they didn't design.
"When GRUB had that error, nobody on the Ubuntu forums even knew what I should do."
Patently false. People were trying to help you, but you weren't playing very nicely.
I agree that Linux has a large number of rough spots that need to be worked out. However, while it is true that Linux still needs a lot of work, there's absolutely no reason why you need to act like an asshat when people are trying to help you. How can you justify your own words, insulting everyone in the community before they even try to help you?
You're also very quick to assume that you know everything there is to know. You're suggestion about bootloaders ("You toss control back to whatever would otherwise load when it fails.") shows absolute ignorance of how operating systems work. Its just wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin.
Ok, lots of interesting points, but still quite a bit to reply to.
And why would you want to take the hard drive out? Hard drives fail more easily than flash. They wanted the laptops to be fairly durable.
As for the screen, you can hit a button in most OSes and change to monochrome at the software level. I'm not sure what it does for you at the hardware level, beyond powersave, which can be already be done by lowering the backlight brightness. Lowering backlight brightness is not quite the same. Can you actually see what's on the screen when you lower the backlight? I'm sure working like that and will cause you to go blind eventually. They wanted the screen to be actually readable like electronic paper.
That's what used laptops are for They wanted something durable, something that can be made in very large numbers, serviceable on location, etc. Used laptops are not durable, do not come in large numbers, and are in general not serviceable even if you're in a modern industrial country and unless you're willing to pay hundreds of dollars, and even then its pretty difficult due to the nature of the laptops being old and unsupported. Then there's the fact that batteries themselves can cost almost $100.
People inside the industry just laughed and went back to work That's because people in the industry have different goals. As I said before, no one in the industry is trying to accomplish the same set of goals. Furthermore, if they're laughing now, how can you expect them to eventually produce a $100 laptop as you argue later on in your post?
Eventually, completely independently and not as a result of anything these people did, laptops get really cheap, especially used ones. One day, they get below $100. I doubt that new laptops will ever get below $100 anytime in the near future, if at all. Realistically speaking, people are willing to pay for new technology, so why would prices ever go down that low? Who in the right mind would sell something at $100 when they can make a lot more money selling it at $1500? In addition you state that the industry is laughing right now, I doubt they have any plans for the near future.
For the sake of argument, maybe in a few decades from now it'll get that low. Maybe. But why wait until then to start thinking about improving people's lives when you can try and do it now?
In addition, you speak in terms of eventually. "This is something that would have happened anyway eventually." However, the project aims for an actual product within several years. I really doubt that you'll see independently developed $100 laptops in several years.
Old laptops are in general crap. The good ones are in very limited numbers.
People hare happy to have them that cheap As I said before, the laptops that this project will produce will be very much underpowered, especially when compared to present technology. The people who would be happy to have such laptops when others are available will be in a very small minority.
If step 2 comes too soon after step 1, it will look like they had an effect on the industry, even though they didn't. They will be credited with something they had no part in doing. Assuming that step 2 comes soon after step 1. Of course, there are absolutely *no* indications that it will.
Suppose that the $100 project succeeds. Should they not get credit for initiating a project to develop a laptop that no one else was developing or even thinking about at the time?
Well, those were just the specs that I remembered off the top of my head, there were more:P Such as built-in wireless, 500 mhz processor, 128 mb of RAM, a real color screen, etc
But that's cool, I didn't know the eMate existed:P
No one in the industry is attempting quite the same thing at all. What the MIT project is attempting to do is to create new technology that compromises between performance and cost. In order to drive cost down, significant computing performance is lost.
I bet you were imagining $100 laptops that were exactly the same as the laptops we have now. That's what I get from your statement "Everyone in the industry is ALREADY focused on making laptops as cheap and plentiful as possible". That is quite wrong. These $100 laptops will be quite different from laptops presently on the market. Just try to find me a laptop that is powered by D cells and a handcrank. Or a laptop without a hard drive. Or a laptop with a screen that switches between color and monochromatic.
Why bother with reduced laptops? Because something is better than nothing at all.
And in terms of MIT taking credit, they started the whole initiative, did they not? Did they not propogate the idea and get the industry to think about it? Aren't they, in fact, developing some of the technology that will go into the laptop?
These projectors will easily blow away any cheap projector in terms of image quality and will supposedly rival many commercial projectors. That's the whole point.
There are also things called hobbies. Hobbies often take up lots of money with very little in return except for enjoyment.
I think you're entirely misunderstanding what's going on here. Its not that 6 feet of land fell into the ocean. The 6 feet diameter refers to the plume, which refers to the "upwelling of molten material from the earth's mantle" -- Dictionary.com
I'd like to see you try and make a 6 feet plume of molten material.
Slashdot Mirror
ihaque's description of CDE is a bit misleading. The point of this tool isn't so that you can install applications easily. The point of this tool is reproducibility. You should only use CDE when you need to exactly reproduce your environment on a different machine.
The target audience of this tool is testing and research, not the general population.
This isn't meant to be a general install mechanism. You should only use CDE for testing/research purposes when you need to reproduce your environment on a different machine.
ihaque's description mis-characterizes the point of this tool. It's certainly not meant for everyone
CDE isn't meant to be a general install mechanism. You should only use CDE when you need to exactly reproduce your environment on someone else's machine for *testing* purposes.
The example use case of an executable bug report opens up enormous possibilities. You would no longer need to ask the user for information, you can just run the user's setup yourself to gather bug information.
CDE isn't meant to be a general install mechanism. You should only use CDE when you need to exactly reproduce your environment on someone else's machine for *testing* purposes.
The example use case of an executable bug report opens up enormous possibilities. You would no longer need to ask the user for information, you can just run the user's setup yourself to gather bug information.
Ingo's benchmarking completely misses the point of BFS though, which is probably why CK is frustrated. Ingo's benchmarks only measure throughput, they don't measure latency or responsiveness, which is the whole point of BFS.
This really deserves its own article
I'd like for you to point out *any* speech recognition systems that perform such a test. Are you saying that they're all stupid?
Where did you get the idea that scientists are trying to create a superbreed of mosquitos? Not even the blurb stated such an idea. Did you not get past the headline or something?
My impression of the article was that it was talking about actual performance, not just MHz. In fact, I don't believe MHz was mentioned anywhere in the article.
Actually I find that 'man mplayer' demonstrates both good and bad characteristics. In my opinion, it is far, far too long for plain text. While it does aim for completeness, it is very painful to find just specific items when you are looking for them.
I once attempted to find out how mplayer config files ought to be written. Not simply where they ought to go, but valid parameters to actually stick into the files. As far as I could tell, the man page did not contain any such information. Perhaps the man page only includes information about the command line, but then where should I go when someone tells me to RTFM? I searched the mplayer website as well, but to no avail. I eventually managed to accomplish what I wanted, but only after a considerable amount of Googling and experimentation. If you find where mplayer config files are discussed in the man page or on the mplayer website, can you tell me where?
You won't have fun in the maze of twisty turns I fear.
The reason I made such an intentionally inflammatory posting was because you had made other posts that demonstrably had an elitist feel to them. This statement, like others, demonstrates an unnecessary projection of superiority.
Furthermore, I really doubt that you can judge my Linux experience solely from what I have said. Perhaps I am one of the core developers for a major Linux distribution who just wanted to make a point of how you were demonstrating the very attributes discussed in the linked article.
You don't like people eh? Oh geee too complicated, all those social behaviors, you might even need to empathize.
Go back to the forums and be snobbish.
Tons of man pages are crappily written. What do you do when "TFM" is a POS?
You seem to imply that you're in total control while you're skidding. However, you can only pick your intended direction at the very start of the skid. Most people do not react fast enough to set a beneficial direction before skidding. In most situations, skidding is unintentional, so people panic, making the situation worse. In your given situation of avoiding an obstacle, if an obstacle really did suddenly appear out of nowhere, there is very little chance for you to make a quick enough decision for where you will skid before you actually start skidding.
ABS allows you to continue steering while you're braking. You can't do that while you're skidding. So in the whole "avoid an obstacle" scheme, ABS should prove to be infinitely more helpful than whatever skidding can do.
What on Earth are you talking about? Were you even trying to address any of my points?
Sure the world will survive it, there's no doubt about it. But what about the living organisms on it? Each major event that you have listed sparked massive extinctions. Now, humanity will probably survive massive changes to the planet, but at what cost? What if previously fertile land becomes desert? People will starve. What happens if oceans rise? We may lose large numbers of our coastal cities. Venice, Italy is already being affected enough by water levels that they have had to install water gates to block off the very water that feeds it. Imagine what happens if problems get worse?
No one is really saying that the human species will be extinct as a result of global warming. But there's no denying that global warming can significantly change the way we live, and almost definitely in negative ways.
It doesn't matter though if people don't care that the cannon itself is missing. It's not about pissing people off, it's about outpranking Caltech hackers. This ought to make things really interesting between Caltech and MIT.
Brass Rat is just an amusing name that MIT students have come up for the class ring. Yes, we know it's a beaver.
"There was no Plan B for when GRUB fails"
This is hardly GRUB's fault. Rather it is because we are working with incredibly outdated *hardware* system architecture that only know how to do a single thing: load the bootloader. If the bootloader fails, then the system doesn't know how to do anything else.
So no, its not GRUB's fault for not providing a backup plan. It's the system architecture inherited from the 1980s that makes it *impossible* to provide a backup route. Don't go around blaming the GRUB developers for a system they didn't design.
"When GRUB had that error, nobody on the Ubuntu forums even knew what I should do."
Patently false. People were trying to help you, but you weren't playing very nicely.
I agree that Linux has a large number of rough spots that need to be worked out. However, while it is true that Linux still needs a lot of work, there's absolutely no reason why you need to act like an asshat when people are trying to help you. How can you justify your own words, insulting everyone in the community before they even try to help you?
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http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=180787&thresh
You're also very quick to assume that you know everything there is to know. You're suggestion about bootloaders ("You toss control back to whatever would otherwise load when it fails.") shows absolute ignorance of how operating systems work. Its just wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin.
Where in grandparent's original post did he *ever* mention the left lane? You are the one who brought it up.
Ok, lots of interesting points, but still quite a bit to reply to.
And why would you want to take the hard drive out?
Hard drives fail more easily than flash. They wanted the laptops to be fairly durable.
As for the screen, you can hit a button in most OSes and change to monochrome at the software level. I'm not sure what it does for you at the hardware level, beyond powersave, which can be already be done by lowering the backlight brightness.
Lowering backlight brightness is not quite the same. Can you actually see what's on the screen when you lower the backlight? I'm sure working like that and will cause you to go blind eventually. They wanted the screen to be actually readable like electronic paper.
That's what used laptops are for
They wanted something durable, something that can be made in very large numbers, serviceable on location, etc. Used laptops are not durable, do not come in large numbers, and are in general not serviceable even if you're in a modern industrial country and unless you're willing to pay hundreds of dollars, and even then its pretty difficult due to the nature of the laptops being old and unsupported. Then there's the fact that batteries themselves can cost almost $100.
People inside the industry just laughed and went back to work
That's because people in the industry have different goals. As I said before, no one in the industry is trying to accomplish the same set of goals. Furthermore, if they're laughing now, how can you expect them to eventually produce a $100 laptop as you argue later on in your post?
Eventually, completely independently and not as a result of anything these people did, laptops get really cheap, especially used ones. One day, they get below $100.
I doubt that new laptops will ever get below $100 anytime in the near future, if at all. Realistically speaking, people are willing to pay for new technology, so why would prices ever go down that low? Who in the right mind would sell something at $100 when they can make a lot more money selling it at $1500? In addition you state that the industry is laughing right now, I doubt they have any plans for the near future.
For the sake of argument, maybe in a few decades from now it'll get that low. Maybe. But why wait until then to start thinking about improving people's lives when you can try and do it now?
In addition, you speak in terms of eventually. "This is something that would have happened anyway eventually." However, the project aims for an actual product within several years. I really doubt that you'll see independently developed $100 laptops in several years.
Old laptops are in general crap. The good ones are in very limited numbers.
People hare happy to have them that cheap
As I said before, the laptops that this project will produce will be very much underpowered, especially when compared to present technology. The people who would be happy to have such laptops when others are available will be in a very small minority.
If step 2 comes too soon after step 1, it will look like they had an effect on the industry, even though they didn't. They will be credited with something they had no part in doing.
Assuming that step 2 comes soon after step 1. Of course, there are absolutely *no* indications that it will.
Suppose that the $100 project succeeds. Should they not get credit for initiating a project to develop a laptop that no one else was developing or even thinking about at the time?
Well, those were just the specs that I remembered off the top of my head, there were more :P Such as built-in wireless, 500 mhz processor, 128 mb of RAM, a real color screen, etc
:P
But that's cool, I didn't know the eMate existed
No one in the industry is attempting quite the same thing at all. What the MIT project is attempting to do is to create new technology that compromises between performance and cost. In order to drive cost down, significant computing performance is lost.
I bet you were imagining $100 laptops that were exactly the same as the laptops we have now. That's what I get from your statement "Everyone in the industry is ALREADY focused on making laptops as cheap and plentiful as possible". That is quite wrong. These $100 laptops will be quite different from laptops presently on the market. Just try to find me a laptop that is powered by D cells and a handcrank. Or a laptop without a hard drive. Or a laptop with a screen that switches between color and monochromatic.
Why bother with reduced laptops? Because something is better than nothing at all.
And in terms of MIT taking credit, they started the whole initiative, did they not? Did they not propogate the idea and get the industry to think about it? Aren't they, in fact, developing some of the technology that will go into the laptop?
These projectors will easily blow away any cheap projector in terms of image quality and will supposedly rival many commercial projectors. That's the whole point.
There are also things called hobbies. Hobbies often take up lots of money with very little in return except for enjoyment.
I think you're entirely misunderstanding what's going on here. Its not that 6 feet of land fell into the ocean. The 6 feet diameter refers to the plume, which refers to the "upwelling of molten material from the earth's mantle" -- Dictionary.com
I'd like to see you try and make a 6 feet plume of molten material.
If you can tell me how to build such a circuit, I will worship you :D I don't quite have the knowledge yet on how to design such a circuit myself.