smich wrote: What does nt vs Linux look like on a 486 66 w. 8 meg of ram? Hmmm?
About the same as Linux vs DOS look like on a 286.
Such a test is pretty useless. It won't convince anyone to go Linux in their company, no more than it would when you port Linux to a toaster. Companies buy using either "we have so much to spend, what's the best we can buy for it?" or "we need this and this, what is the best deal we can get?". A 486 will seldom be an option.
shri wrote: Suppose I made some product which would be of no interest to any persons with any sort of disability?
Like what for instance? You'd think a blind person would have a parent, spouse, child, friend that isn't blind and they want to buy something for? Also, companies do employ blind people. What makes you think such a person doesn't investigate what to buy where?
shri also wrote: How does this affect companies like Real? Macromedia? Adobe? The companies that have invested a fair amount in producing good tools for graphics savvy sites?
I doubt it will effect them a lot. Just for the record, years ago, when the development of HTML was still open (in the HTML-WG), there was someone working on CSS for speech browsers. He worked for Adobe, and was blind.
Darchmare wrote: How can an artist express him/herself with only a gray background and some ugly browser-defined font?
Well, if (s)he can't, she's rather limited. But that's beside the point. First, HTML is designed to be easily accessable for all; if you misuse HTML and produce limited access documents, you don't know the medium you are working with. And how serious should we take an artist that doesn't know the materials (s)he's working with?
Secondly, if you think that standard HTML means gray backgrounds and an ugly defined font, you don't know HTML, and you don't know browsers either. Most, if not all, browsers that have a gray background by default allow you, as a user of the browser, to pick a different background. Heck, even lynx can do that, if run on a terminal that can do colours. Furthermore, HTML as had support for stylesheets from the moment it got formalized. HTML 2.0, the first HTML standard, describing the situation of early 1994 had support for stylesheets. Just because browsers with a large marketing budget (Netscape, Microsoft) suffer from the NIH (not invented here) syndrome and were late to catch on (with Microsoft leading the way for Netscape) doesn't mean stylesheets weren't there. A stylesheet gives the "artist"/"marketing droid" the fluff (s)he wants, and the reader the option to override or ignore the things (s)he can't or won't want to deal with.
ajf wrote: If I say something unflattering about their products, noone who uses those products will see it. It's not about what I can see, because I don't use this software.
And the same is true of newspaper that don't publish articles that are unflattering to themselves, television networks that don't broadcast programs that are unflattering to themselves and you not telling your boss that your coworker thinks you do a lousy job. It's independent of whether something is automated or not.
As for the proposals of your minister, I'd say the minister is evil, not the products. If you kill someone with an axe, you are evil, not the axe.
--- Abigail
Automated filtering can become censorship
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· Score: 1
Erskin wrote: Someone can be pissy and hornery and insulting and still be right. Algorithms can miss this. Adults have a better chance admitting it.
So what? I can decide not to read the NY Times, not to visit Slashdot, or not to watch Jerry Springer and miss someone who was right. That doesn't make censorship. I would have made the decision, purely based on the lable. Automating such a process doesn't make a different.
Slashdotters afraid of automation?
--- Abigail
Katz misses the point, I think.
on
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· Score: 1
Brian Knotts wrote: Blocking software like Net Nanny, etc., *is* evil, though.
No it's not. You might not like how it works, but others might like it. You are free to use Net Nanny, and you are free to not use it. Since it will filter for you only if you take specific actions, how can its filtering be evil?
ajf wrote: So if you use them, you don't have freedom of choice at all - you place yourself in a situation where you must trust someone else to know what you want to block.
But you are free to use the products or not! If you don't want to be censored, by all means, don't use a product that filters! Noone is forcing you to use such a product.
--- Abigail
"ShutUp" software predates the web.
on
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· Score: 1
JonKatz is totally wrong. The ignore buttons aren't new at all. Just like all these sites (including slashdot) were you can post your messages are reinventing Usenet (but with a very lousy user interface), the option to ignore posters is just a copycat from newsreaders. I've used a "killfile" to junk usenet postings based on poster, subject, number of lines and other criteria since the '80s. It's necessary to make Usenet reading managable.
As for AOL and other sites rejecting posts on certain criteria, that also has its Usenet equivalent: moderated newsgroups. If you want to post foul language, just don't do it on a site that doesn't tolerate it. Pick a site that does, or make your own site.
The comparison with Free Speech is wrong. Free Speech gives you the right to voice your opinion, but it doesn't force anyone to actually listen to you. And Free Speech says that the government will not prevent you for saying what you want to say; it doesn't give you the right to piss in someone elses livingroom.
If you're upset people don't listen to you, well, play a different tune. Don't blame the person who opens the door to theatre some the audience can leave!
Zanzar suggested: I wonder if they did something funny, like disabling SMP for linux?
Well, maybe they did. But that's easy to find out, isn't? You know what test they did, so you can repeat it. This time, you enable SMP and you publish your results.
It's very easily to say "Oh, this was sponsored by Microsoft, so I just discard it". And no doubt, a gazillion posts here in slashdot will say something like "it was a bullshit test" and "no matter what they say, Linux is faster". But repeating a mantra doesn't make it true. And it certainly won't convince anyone who has to decide what to use.
If you think they are wrong, prove them wrong. They told you what tests they were using, they told you the configuration parameters. Repeat the test, and publish your results. If you think the kernel can be better tweaked, by all means publish results that are better. That will help the Linux community infinitely more than discarding the results because they were sponsored by Microsoft.
Before you argue "the Linux community doesn't have the money to do such a large test", let me point out that such an argument works in favour of Microsoft. If Linux can't do such a large test, but Microsoft can, wouldn't it be more logical that Microsoft does perform better under heavy load, because they have the resources to test it, while Linux doesn't?
I would like to see Linux perform better than NT, perferably in a standard, repeatable test.
Of course I know Windows outsells Unix, but who cares? What are people interested in with Linux? Be technically good, or have many sales? Sales should not be an issue - I didn't even consider that.
My point is that Windows is *not* technically better than Unix, despite the "driving force" of games. Hence, Linux doesn't have to have games just to advance itself.
Interesting points; however they fail to address the underlying point of the previous poster, which is "games drive the market."
If that is true, Windows and Intel, and possible the Mac should beat Unix and the hardware it runs on hands down, as there are only a few games available for Unix platforms, and hardly any large, graphical ones. Intel certainly doesn't produce the best quality hardware that's out there, and I doubt many people in this forum will say that Windows beats Unix hands down. I certainly won't say that.
In fact, I'd like to make an observation. Of the big OSses, the shittiest is the one with the most games. Does anyone suggest Linux should go that way?
What's really holding game developers back? Apart from the obvious marketshare advantage of windows games?
Games are usually commercial, propriatary software. Linux addicts boast the "free and open" site of their system. That doesn't sound like a public a game producer can sell many games too.
A large percentage of the Linux (or better, Unix users (probably VMS as well)) are real users, not consumers. For them, the computer is the game.
Where would Linux be if Linus (and RMS and many others) had waisted their time playing games?
If you think it's necessary for the Linux community to have games, fire up your editor and write one. Don't count on me, because I don't think there's anything to gain with it.
I don't understand the final remark "I wish I wasn't my own company- could use a sick day." Doesn't that make it a lot easier to take a sick day? You don't need to phone in....
Or does it mean that CmdrTaco doesn't want to sacrifice his own money, but he thinks it's ok to do it on the expense of someone else?
Melissa does no harm to the computer, but merely sends 20 email forwards. People may say this ties up mail servers, but at work, I write more than 20 emails daily.
Users are stupid.
If you really think your email production is comparable with the way the Melissa virus spread itself, you're more stupid than the "users".
I guess women who got raped have to blame themselves as well. They should just have stayed home!
Having to lock your car, or having to run virusprotection software is a bad thing. Stealing a car stereo from an unlocked car is as much a crime as stealing a car stereo from a locked car. The existance of anti-virus software is no excuse for the release of any virus.
I guess you think everyone should wear bulletproof vests as well?
In the good old days Netscape was the first to support new technologies
That is simply not true. Sure, the marketing team of Netscape has always wanted you to believe that. Netscape has always been good in marketing - how else can you get such a marketshare in such a short time? Netscape has always tried to have the image of them fighting the evil empire, Microsoft, but Netscape used many of Microsofts techniques.
Netscape usually wasn't the first the support new technologies, it was the first to ignore standards, and come with incompatible alternatives.
Tables are a good example. Tables in HTML were proposed long before even Mosaic Communications existed. Specs were formalized around the time the first Netscape betas became available. Half a year later, Netscape 1.1 was the first Netscape to have tables. Which were incompatible with the standards, and implementations of other browsers.
Just like Microsoft, from day 1, Netscape has had the "NIH" syndrome. (Not Invented Here). The only standards Netscape likes are the ones they set themselves.
The web has been ruined many years ago, and Netscape is one of the main culprits.
Uruk wrote: Many slashdotters do not speak english as their first language,
That might be true, but judging from the address, the author probably has the same native language I have. I tried "retranslating" parts of the text back to the original language. Believe me, it didn't get any better.
I agree with previous posters about the article being incoherent. Having an HTML rewriting "back-to-the-basics" proxy, his articles turn into a gray mess. A line break doesn't make a paragraph, and doesn't make a header. And since it doesn't, my browser obviously doesn't show it.
Rowan gives me the impression of being a whiner. Why should I care about his hardware? Why should we care he doesn't like his hardware? If you don't like Intel processors, by all means, buy something else. Buy a SPARC. Buy an alpha. You can even keep running Linux with those processors.
A sentence in the article that really puzzled me was A Proxy server enables you to add so much important features to an Internet client without having to do too much porgramming in the client itself, that it can be used as a very strong example for some of my thoughts on GNU/Linux. What is Rowan trying to say? Is he trying to say something? Or is he just showing that he's no clue what's he talking about? (This guy is writing a book???)
Finally, I have one question for Rowan. It's nice to say Open Source is fine and that it has benefits, but what is your contribution?
> The ONLY person responsible for LEARNING anything is the student.
That's not the point the students are making. They were told they needed no prior knowledge.
I can give you a class in topology, tell you that all you need to know in advance is addition, charge you a large sum of money, and then fail you because the course assumed you know a lot more than addition. Would you think you were to person to blame?
> but you won't know jack shit about handling real applications programming in any of them.
And you don't know jack shit about car mechanics either. You don't need an academic degree to do some programming. Academics is about science, not trades. Edsgar Dijkstra said "Computer Science has as much to do with programming as astronomy has with telescope building."
Slashdot Mirror
Crudpuppy asks: "Please tell me it isn't so".
It is. It isn't new news either. If it was an April fools joke, it would be an *early* one. This news dates from early march.
Hopefully, slashdot will usually publish recent news, not something that's old and forgotten....
--- Abigail
About the same as Linux vs DOS look like on a 286.
Such a test is pretty useless. It won't convince anyone to go Linux in their company, no more than it would when you port Linux to a toaster. Companies buy using either "we have so much to spend, what's the best we can buy for it?" or "we need this and this, what is the best deal we can get?". A 486 will seldom be an option.
--- Abigail
Like what for instance? You'd think a blind person would have a parent, spouse, child, friend that isn't blind and they want to buy something for? Also, companies do employ blind people. What makes you think such a person doesn't investigate what to buy where?
shri also wrote: How does this affect companies like Real? Macromedia? Adobe? The companies that have invested a fair amount in
producing good tools for graphics savvy sites?
I doubt it will effect them a lot. Just for the record, years ago, when the development of HTML was still open (in the HTML-WG), there was someone working on CSS for speech browsers. He worked for Adobe, and was blind.
--- Abigail
Well, if (s)he can't, she's rather limited. But that's beside the point. First, HTML is designed to be easily accessable for all; if you misuse HTML and produce limited access documents, you don't know the medium you are working with. And how serious should we take an artist that doesn't know the materials (s)he's working with?
Secondly, if you think that standard HTML means gray backgrounds and an ugly defined font, you don't know HTML, and you don't know browsers either. Most, if not all, browsers that have a gray background by default allow you, as a user of the browser, to pick a different background. Heck, even lynx can do that, if run on a terminal that can do colours. Furthermore, HTML as had support for stylesheets from the moment it got formalized. HTML 2.0, the first HTML standard, describing the situation of early 1994 had support for stylesheets. Just because browsers with a large marketing budget (Netscape, Microsoft) suffer from the NIH (not invented here) syndrome and were late to catch on (with Microsoft leading the way for Netscape) doesn't mean stylesheets weren't there. A stylesheet gives the "artist"/"marketing droid" the fluff (s)he wants, and the reader the option to override or ignore the things (s)he can't or won't want to deal with.
--- Abigail
And the same is true of newspaper that don't publish articles that are unflattering to themselves, television networks that don't broadcast programs that are unflattering to themselves and you not telling your boss that your coworker thinks you do a lousy job. It's independent of whether something is automated or not.
As for the proposals of your minister, I'd say the minister is evil, not the products. If you kill someone with an axe, you are evil, not the axe.
--- Abigail
Someone can be pissy and hornery and insulting and still be right. Algorithms can miss this. Adults have a better chance admitting it.
So what? I can decide not to read the NY Times, not to visit Slashdot, or not to watch Jerry Springer and miss someone who was right. That doesn't make censorship. I would have made the decision, purely based on the lable. Automating such a process doesn't make a different.
Slashdotters afraid of automation?
--- Abigail
Blocking software like Net Nanny, etc., *is* evil, though.
No it's not. You might not like how it works, but others might like it. You are free to use Net Nanny, and you are free to not use it. Since it will filter for you only if you take specific actions, how can its filtering be evil?
--- Abigail
But you are free to use the products or not! If you don't want to be censored, by all means, don't use a product that filters! Noone is forcing you to use such a product.
--- Abigail
As for AOL and other sites rejecting posts on certain criteria, that also has its Usenet equivalent: moderated newsgroups. If you want to post foul language, just don't do it on a site that doesn't tolerate it. Pick a site that does, or make your own site.
The comparison with Free Speech is wrong. Free Speech gives you the right to voice your opinion, but it doesn't force anyone to actually listen to you. And Free Speech says that the government will not prevent you for saying what you want to say; it doesn't give you the right to piss in someone elses livingroom.
If you're upset people don't listen to you, well, play a different tune. Don't blame the person who opens the door to theatre some the audience can leave!
--- Abigail
Certainly. There's a lot to be improved on Perls performance.
--- Abigail
What keeps you from falsifying the tests?
--- Abigail
Well, maybe they did. But that's easy to find out, isn't? You know what test they did, so you can repeat it. This time, you enable SMP and you publish your results.
--- Abigail
It's very easily to say "Oh, this was sponsored by Microsoft, so I just discard it". And no doubt, a gazillion posts here in slashdot will say something like "it was a bullshit test" and "no matter what they say, Linux is faster". But repeating a mantra doesn't make it true. And it certainly won't convince anyone who has to decide what to use.
If you think they are wrong, prove them wrong. They told you what tests they were using, they told you the configuration parameters. Repeat the test, and publish your results. If you think the kernel can be better tweaked, by all means publish results that are better. That will help the Linux community infinitely more than discarding the results because they were sponsored by Microsoft.
Before you argue "the Linux community doesn't have the money to do such a large test", let me point out that such an argument works in favour of Microsoft. If Linux can't do such a large test, but Microsoft can, wouldn't it be more logical that Microsoft does perform better under heavy load, because they have the resources to test it, while Linux doesn't?
I would like to see Linux perform better than NT, perferably in a standard, repeatable test.
--- Abigail
If you want to know _exactly_ what the computer is doing... Look at the source.
The source doesn't tell you what it is doing. All the source can tell you is what it will do when it is in a specific state and gets a certain input.
--- Abigail
My point is that Windows is *not* technically better than Unix, despite the "driving force" of games. Hence, Linux doesn't have to have games just to advance itself.
--- Abigail
Interesting points; however they fail to address the underlying point of the previous poster, which is "games drive the market."
If that is true, Windows and Intel, and possible the Mac should beat Unix and the hardware it runs on hands down, as there are only a few games available for Unix platforms, and hardly any large, graphical ones. Intel certainly doesn't produce the best quality hardware that's out there, and I doubt many people in this forum will say that Windows beats Unix hands down. I certainly won't say that.
In fact, I'd like to make an observation. Of the big OSses, the shittiest is the one with the most games. Does anyone suggest Linux should go that way?
--- Abigail
What's really holding game developers back? Apart from the obvious marketshare advantage of windows games?
If you think it's necessary for the Linux community to have games, fire up your editor and write one. Don't count on me, because I don't think there's anything to gain with it.
--- Abigail
Or does it mean that CmdrTaco doesn't want to sacrifice his own money, but he thinks it's ok to do it on the expense of someone else?
-- Abigail
Melissa does no harm to the computer, but merely sends 20 email forwards. People may say this ties up mail servers, but at work, I write more than 20 emails daily.
Users are stupid.
If you really think your email production is comparable with the way the Melissa virus spread itself, you're more stupid than the "users".
Do some math.
--- Abigail
Having to lock your car, or having to run virusprotection software is a bad thing. Stealing a car stereo from an unlocked car is as much a crime as stealing a car stereo from a locked car. The existance of anti-virus software is no excuse for the release of any virus.
I guess you think everyone should wear bulletproof vests as well?
--- Abigail
In the good old days Netscape was the first to support new technologies
That is simply not true. Sure, the marketing team of Netscape has always wanted you to believe that. Netscape has always been good in marketing - how else can you get such a marketshare in such a short time? Netscape has always tried to have the image of them fighting the evil empire, Microsoft, but Netscape used many of Microsofts techniques.
Netscape usually wasn't the first the support new technologies, it was the first to ignore standards, and come with incompatible alternatives.
Tables are a good example. Tables in HTML were proposed long before even Mosaic Communications existed. Specs were formalized around the time the first Netscape betas became available. Half a year later, Netscape 1.1 was the first Netscape to have tables. Which were incompatible with the standards, and implementations of other browsers.
Just like Microsoft, from day 1, Netscape has had the "NIH" syndrome. (Not Invented Here). The only standards Netscape likes are the ones they set themselves.
The web has been ruined many years ago, and Netscape is one of the main culprits.
--- Abigail
Many slashdotters do not speak english as their first language,
That might be true, but judging from the address, the author probably has the same native language I have. I tried "retranslating" parts of the text back to the original language. Believe me, it didn't get any better.
I agree with previous posters about the article being incoherent. Having an HTML rewriting "back-to-the-basics" proxy, his articles turn into a gray mess. A line break doesn't make a paragraph, and doesn't make a header. And since it doesn't, my browser obviously doesn't show it.
Rowan gives me the impression of being a whiner. Why should I care about his hardware? Why should we care he doesn't like his hardware? If you don't like Intel processors, by all means, buy something else. Buy a SPARC. Buy an alpha. You can even keep running Linux with those processors.
A sentence in the article that really puzzled me was A Proxy server enables you to add so much important features to an Internet client without having to do too much porgramming in the client itself, that it can be used as a very strong example for some of my thoughts on GNU/Linux. What is Rowan trying to say? Is he trying to say something? Or is he just showing that he's no clue what's he talking about? (This guy is writing a book???)
Finally, I have one question for Rowan. It's nice to say Open Source is fine and that it has benefits, but what is your contribution?
-- Abigail
AC wrote:
> The ONLY person responsible for LEARNING anything is the student.
That's not the point the students are making. They were told they needed no prior knowledge.
I can give you a class in topology, tell you that all you need to know in advance is addition, charge you a large sum of money, and then fail you because the course assumed you know a lot more than addition. Would you think you were to person to blame?
-- Abigail
Enahs wrote:
> but you won't know jack shit about handling real applications programming in any of them.
And you don't know jack shit about car mechanics either. You don't need an academic degree to do some programming. Academics is about science, not trades. Edsgar Dijkstra said "Computer Science has as much to do with programming as astronomy has with telescope building."
-- Abigail
barzok wrote:
> There are some nasty copyright, etc. issues with Calvin.
I don't think there are. Calvins creator (Bill Watterson, IIRC) just doesn't want any Calvin merchandize.
-- Abigail