Just be sure to add an order for the required$600 video card with that.
And by the way... where do you work? I'd like to send in an application. Sure, I have a dual-processor G5 sitting here, but it's just a meager 1.8Ghz and my display, let's not even talk about my display...
I may be mistaken, but doesn't Lookingglass have a lot of Java under the hood?
Mea culpa. I hadn't realized so much of it was Java3D based.
Of course, that turns out to mean it's a set of routines and API layered on top of whatever 3D libs you have laying around ( typically OpenGL, YEAY OpenGL ) but yea, the parent is nowhere near as off-topic as I had thought. It'll be interesting to see if someone takes the initiative to write a C, C++ or Obective-C version once this goes GPL, or if it'll turn out that doing so doesn't have any real adavantage. The Java3D stuff I've run into so far is pretty well as fast as any other 3D stuff, once the darn JVM is launched, of course...
Please tell us, when Java is Open Source, how will standards compliance be enforced ?
When Sun gets a good answer to that question, I believe they very well may make Java more open than it is, if not make it completely FOSS. Even with it being as 'closed' as it is, it's *still* more difficult to write-once than it should be ( though easily do-able ), just because their compatablility tests don't catch the sometimes subtle bugs that application developers can run into. It's a fine line to walk; Sun doesn't want to force bug-free JVMs before a vendor can release, or they'd never get to market, but the goal of cross-platform compatability requires nearly bug-free or bug-compatable VMs. It's a tough enough task without some independant developer with GPL'd source deciding to release a 'tweaked' version that doesn't support 90% of javax.swing.*, just because they're 'only targeting platform XYZ" or whatever.
It's very well to argue that Java should be open source, but to do so without addressing the issues involved is almost like trolling...
And yes, I agree completely that open source is good, but what exactly does Sun have to gain by your proposal ?
That, and how off-topic is Java from the story at hand? Way, way off-topic.
I mean, c'mon, how frickin' cool would it be to have this kind of 3D desktop running on an Opteron-based Linux machine with a really nice graphics card in it? Damn! You should be singing the praises of Sun right now, what's wrong with you, man, what's it take to get you excited ?!? You get FP and *that* is the best you can do, a tired old "what about Java" bitch ?!? This is about a cool 3D desktop demo going GPL !
what world are *you* living in that hasn't fallen apart over the past few years??
I might like to move there, but I suspect, like some other folks, you've simply stopped following the news...
So, you're saying your PCs are completely problem-free? You don't get tons of spam and haven't heard of major web hosting services DDoSed by zombified Windows users? Huh.
I'd say something about this, but I'm afraid I'd be labeled an Apple Fanboy.
Since I don't live in the U.K, France or Germany, and haven't ever bought music from the iTunes store, I guess I don't really have anything to say about this anyway... other than this is really a bit of a non-story, isn't it ?
Even the biggest competition Apple might have had in Europe decided to leave the business rather than compete with Apple on this. The article cites "Apple and Napster", but really, Napster? OD2 was worried about Napster? Somehow I think if it was just Napster, OD2 wouldn't have gone looking for an exit strategy.
This is a very good general design for an office space, although I do think smaller, individual offices are a good way to go if possible. Everyone gets a window office ( with a REAL door ). There is a big, central area with large tables and tools of the trade and good ( preferably natural ) lighting. People get to put whatever they want in their own office ( and close the door when need be ) up to the point where it slows productivity.
This of course doesn't work too well if your building is *really* big. More smaller buildings ( or wings ) are better than one big brick with a windowless interior.
People working on the same or similar projects get adjacent offices. Offices should be large enough to not feel cramped but too small to even *think* about putting two workstations in. Each office "ring" like this should have at most 15 or so offices- and should mirror your teams. This is a good design for creative professionals to work in.
You have teams with more than 15 members? Who manages that team, and how well? Think about subdividing it. Really.
If you can't, for whatever reason, give people real, individual offices, you're probably better off with big, open, space rather than thin walls that block light but nothing else. Cubes suck, period. If you have the luxury of designing your space from the ground up, design it so people can have real offices with an informal gathering space right outside every team member's door.
Just in case anyone was wondering if this type of thing will influence the car purchase choice of *anyone*, the answer is a definite yes.
My boss, with this announcement, is suddenly *really* interested in purchasing a BMW. He'd never talked about BMW before this... it's exactly the type of thing that luxury car owners use to decide which car to buy. BMW knows their market.
Why should the console market be different than the IT market?
It's all about the games in the console market. It's all about the programs in the IT market. MS has been leading the IT market around because the perception ( based largely on reality ) is that _most_ programs are written for MS system. The fact that most of those programs suck doesn't matter much, really.
Fortunately for Sony, *they* have the most console games, and will continue to do so as long as they pull off backwards compatability.
As long as _most_ games are available only on Sony's console, _most_ people will go for that console ( until there's some XBox exclusive they *must* have, which won't sway the majority of consumers - it didn't with Halo, did it? ).
Of course, by holding it's huge bags of cash in front of game developer's noses, and making game development on it's platform _much_ easier than Sony's, *and* providing better, competitively priced hardware, Microsoft *might* be able to tip the game-publishing advantange in their favor. But it'll be a huge task that MS can only consider because of their *massive* bankroll.
Did I even *imply* that Slolaris beats Linux? Pull-eeze!
If you're *generous* towards Solaris, you'll say it's about on par with Linux... but I'm not that generous.
Hell, I even once worked for Sun, and I'm going to just say it- for just about any job that you'd use Solaris for, I'd use Linux instead- and save a boatload of cash doing so. Outside of ( as you point out ) a few server administration packages and specialized Sparc-only apps, I'm not sure why you'd buy a Sun these days, there are definitely better, cheaper *nix options ( ok, mainly Linux, *BSD and OS X ), and clearly lots of folks think the same way I do on this, or Sun wouldn't be hurting so badly.
No, there's no stats error there. Mac users keep their machines _longer_ than Windows users.
The 200Mhz PII which I use as a doorstop doesn't count.
I'm not talking about Mac LC's, I'm talking about 333Mhz G3 machines which run OS X just fine. Try running Windows XP on a PII of any clock speed. I dare you.
And people think Macintosh users are the fanatics... weird...
Now, let's be serious for a second. Did I say any of 1-5?
No. I said Macintosh users keep their hardware on average much longer than PC users keep their hardware, so the relative yearly *sales* percentages of Macintosh hardware vs. PC hardware doesn't reflect the number of Macintosh users vs. PC users.
Did I lie?
No.
How old is your PC, anyway? No, not your oldest PC, your most recently purchased one. You run XP on that?
How much have you spent on PC harware in the past 2 years? Really? Interesting...
Actually, if your PC is more than a couple of years old, my Macintoshis faster than your PC ( I've recently upgraded at work, replacing my 4-year-old G4 ), not that it matters much... the software is better, that's what's important.
Ok, I'm done being serious in my feeding of a windows fanboy troll, so I'll say :
I wouldn't want my penis to grow any, I'd hurt my wife...;-)... what, you can't go 4 hours? My gal married me because I kept her up *all* night and left her walking funny the next day...
If sun would decide to use AQUA as it's desktop I think we would see a lot of rebirth in Solaris..
That's so high on the list of improbable turns of events, I really did laugh when I read it. Part of Sun's dilema right now is how to convince folks to run Solaris and buy a Sun rather than buy OS X and a G5 PowerMac.
I really doubt McNealy would highlight Apple's competitive advantage *while* paying licening fees ( as if Jobs would license his OS's look-and-feel ! ). Again, we'd see OS X for Intel first.
Linux not really a threat as far as Sun is concerned- their desktop is comprable if not better, and they sell Linux distros anyway if you can't be convinced to buy their hardware... ( gee, do you wonder why Steve doesn't think that'll work for Apple? Oh, that's right, it didn't work for NeXT... )
Joel here also mistakenly buys the argument that Mac users are only 2.3% of the population. Not so. Mac users who bought a machine *this year* are 2.3% or so. But Mac users keep and use their machines for a _lot_ longer- they're actually more like 10% of users.
It seems there may be a fewapplications for Mac OS X as well. More importantly, Objective-C and Cocoa are easy enough that more OS X programs are being made every day. Developers indeed. If the Linux community could get some standardizationg together and throw some effort behind GNUStep... sigh... that would be nice, too, but Apple's more likely to release OS X for Intel ( i.e. don't hold your breath ). GNUStep is getting closer, though...
If it weren't for guys like Joel with their "if it's not Microsoft it's just weird" attitude and willingness to spread MS FUD, users would have a lot more options, and more developers would be able to make a better living slinging more code for more platforms, rather than being forced to eat Microsoft's swill.
I program in Objective-C, using Cocoa libs under Mac OS X.;-)
< ducks, fearing SmallTalk programmers with flamethrowers >
What's amazing is that Java combined with the hack-y nature of the Win32 APIs finally forced Microsoft to create something that's still not as good as NeXTStep was 15 years ago, and probably isn't ( yet ) as good as Java ( it's just optimized for it's single target platform ).
I'll leave for those who care to debate Java vs.NET. For me, that's a debate that is pointless unless.NET somehow becomes cross-platform, at which point I expect Bill Gates to burst into flames.
Sorry, that comment was a little over the top, but seriously, the parent post was just dumb. He called for the US to withdraw from the UN because he didn't like a policy pushed by... the US !
He just took the wrath built up by 3 and a half years of G.W. Bush for it... and even the Bush camp publicly will distance itself from the truly isolationist view that this guy was peddling.
At two years old (he's four now), my son could put the tape in the VCR (even looks to make sure there's not one in already and ejects it if there is), switch the TV to Video, press play, and fast forward through the previews with no help from me.
That's nothin'.
You should see my two-year-old navigate noggin and nick jr. on my flat-panel iMac. It kinda freaks people out to see him in action- he never misses a target.
His appleworks drawing skills are pretty mind-blowing as well. Those color palette squares are *small*, but he hits the one he wants every time, and he knows what all of the tools do. "Look, dad, I draw a circle!"
Damn kid was working the VCR ( and remarkably, the remote ) months before he figured out point-and-click on our "hard to use" one-button mouse. We have locked up the tapes to keep his TV viewing down, but he's figured out that we TiVo Maisy, though we already keep the remote out of reach or he'll be watching South Park ( his other favorite cartoon, sigh ). I'd say he knows how to play PS2 games as well, but I'll wait until he decides to do something with Spiderman *other* than make him jump off buildings ( OK, I'm worried about the kid, I'll admit... ) to make that claim. His cousin's GameBoy Advance is more his speed.
The computer does cut down on his TV and video game time, though, for what good that does... we make a real effort to get him outside- I worry about other kids his age, though, parents have got to make a serious effort these days; we're going to have a generation of couch potatoes that make the current crop of adults look like frickin' exercise buffs.
since the page now returns "auction invalid", it seems that the answer to your question might be "yes" and he's attracted just enough attention to get shut down.
The US seems to be behind this all the way, making your dumb-ass isolationist hick neo-con comments even more dumb-ass. We'd just better hope the UN comes up with a way to pull our sorry asses out of the fire that is Iraq- we need the UN now more than ever before.
What government is in the pocket of big media corporations, and all about taking *your* individual rights away ? The US of A.
"Land of the Free? Whoever told you that is your Enemy!"
I can't send email to *anyone* at AOL now, despite running an OpenBSD firewalled Linux server for our business. It's doesn't even bounce, just disappears into the void. There are *no* Windows worms or spam coming out of my network, but some ass at AOL decided to block the whole ADSL subnet anyway.
I'm sure someone on this thread has pointed this out, but you *clearly* need to have a talk with your ISP, get them to solve the problem. i.e. your ISP has to stop hosting spammers, and clear up the issue with AOL themselves ( the AOL folks will talk to an ISP, but you're actually *nobody* to them ).
If your ISP is blacklisted due to spammers using their network ( hint: it's YOUR network to AOL ), and your ISP won't fix the problem, it's time to change ISPs. Duh. Think about it.
1) Stability. I have a windows machine. It just stopped booting one day. I couldn't get it going again without re-installing the OS. It's done this before. So I stopped using the windows machine, even after taking the time to re-install the system. I still have a mess of drivers I need to install to get the thing working right again, but why bother ? 2) Windows XP broke a chunk of win32 app compatability. I don't feel like buying new versions of those apps, or paying for XP, for that matter. Microsofts' inclination towards per-machine licenses and subscription-based licenses are spooky, too. I'd like to keep my costs down once making a hardware/software purchase. 3) Windows has improved in ease-of-use, but it's still a patchwork of utilities in many ( most ) ways, and there is a bare minimum of inter-application conformity and support. 4) Unlike many people, I want a computer system I can program without spending a lot of cash for a set of libraries and compiler. 5) It's not my first consideration, but the business practices of Microsoft make my stomach churn. I'd like to see at least a _few_ viable software companies out there, rather than one monopoly.
That said, (1) stability is my main reason. If my PC had never hosed itself to the point of requiring a system restore, I'd still be using it at least occasionally.
As it is, I've gone on to OS X with the purchase of a flat-panel iMac, and I haven't looked back... programming Objective-C with a powerful, freely provided IDE beats the hell out of Visual Studio.NET... a *free* ADC account beats the hell out of MS developer program prices. Most apps I need ( and some I just want ) come for free with the machine, which is bundled with a complete OS. The machine is so easy to use, my two-year-old navigates the desktop, web browser, and filesystem. It's easy enough to admin that I've been able to provide him with an account that he can't screw up.
just so you know, deleting the mail prefs file doesn't help, and this problem is being seen by others ( odd thing is, it only happens on *some* messages, what's up with *that*? ).
I may hold off on updating my own machine... at least until my new G5 shows up;-)
He has earned this nickname, but to keep it, he feels he must always apply every update the second it's available. So we just refuse to admin his machine.
Of course, he's installed this update, and now he's having issues with some ( not all, some ) email messages where hitting 'reply' or 'forward' fails to bring up a new message window. He says quitting and relaunching brings up the not-previously-visible windows. He also sees this:
2004-05-27 10:47:57.016 Mail[403] Loaded MailPriority 1.4 Panther in Mail.app v618
2004-05-27 10:48:31.962 Mail[403] Uncaught exception - *** -[NSCFDictionary setObject:forKey:]: attempt to insert nil value 2004-05-27 10:48:31.963 Mail[403] *** Attempt to remove unrecognized exception handler 0xbfffd210 2004-05-27 10:48:31.973 Mail[403] *** -[NSCFString string]: selector not recognized 2004-05-27 10:48:31.973 Mail[403] *** -[NSCFString string]: selector not recognized
someone tried to use nil as a dictionary key, I guess...
Is anyone else seeing this type of issue, or should we blame this on his overly-modified ( frickin' chrome-look everywhere ), haxie-filled environment ?
I had almost forgotten... back in the day ( ok, 1998 or so ) a buddy of mine had a little indie musician-promotion website for which he'd had some high school kid admining his servers. My buddy's a musician, not a computer guy.
He called me up one day saying "uh... my admin has completely flaked/skipped town, and I don't know my root passwords".
I took a trip from silicon valley up to the Sierra foothills mountain community he worked out of, showed him how to force console-login to his main Solaris server, and I reset his root password. The easiest 10 minutes work I ever had. He was absolutely overjoyed.
That afternoon, we went out for drinks. That night his girlfriend made a nice fried chicken dinner. After that, we went to a local inn where he played some damn fine acoustic guitar.
The next day, we went whitewater rafting on the American River. It was sweet.
What makes this case difficult for the farmer to win is the fact that the courts have on record as fact that he sprayed a section of his crop with Roundup and then harvested the surviving plants, knowing that his neighbors had planted the patented plants. Thus he systematically eliminated all non-resistant Canola. Basically, this was a bad example- in fact, Monsanto says they basically knew what this guy was up to, and the case wouldn't have developed like it did if they hadn't already been onto him ( his seed processing plant took some of his crop aside to give to Monsanto, etc. ). The guy should have known it'd go down like this. and he probably did, but he figured that property rights would trump patent rights.
What's scary is that, in the view of the judge, patent rights trump property rights. The judge doesn't even consider the farmer's property rights in this case, he says they're not relevant.
From the FA:
96The appellants argue, finally, that Monsanto's activities tread on the ancient common law property rights of farmers to keep that which comes onto their land. Just as a farmer owns the progeny of a "stray bull" which wanders onto his land, so Mr. Schmeiser argues he owns the progeny of the Roundup Ready Canola that came onto his field. However, the issue is not property rights, but patent protection. Ownership is no defence to a breach of the Patent Act.
I suppose the software-based example of the same is that if someone posts code on the internet ( or spams you with it in email ). and it's code that uses patented techniques, you can't put the code in your own commercial program and use the defense that someone "gave" you the code.
In my hypothetical case above, you might be able to say that you didn't know about the patent and came to the result on your own, but I don't think that would give you much protection. The farmer in this case, supposedly by knowing that surrounding farmers used the patented plant and by taking seed from an area he'd sprayed with roundup, intentionally went out of his way to get the patented product and thus had knowledge of it's patented nature. So it's like someone was working at a company with a license for software patent A showed you the code, and, knowing it was patented, you used it outside of the licensed company anyway.
In any case, such detailed analysis of the law misses the fact that it's poor law, period. Law limiting the production of products which are easy to produce will just mean there are illegal producers. Lawmakers and the corporations who back them shouldn't ignore such reality to such an impressive degree. Otherwise they're just blowing taxpayer money on court fees by writing laws that call for lots of litigation.
IMHO, for something to be allowed as a patent, it should be as a requirement easy to restrict it's use. If you sell a machine that makes copies of itself, you shouldn't be able to patent that machine. But that's just my opinion; it's a complicated idea to explain to politicians, and an impossible one to get by the business lobby.
Of course, writing stupid laws is what lawy^H^H^H^H^H politicians do best.
Slashdot Mirror
I *especially* take issue with their use of JavaScript. Just because I frickin' *hate* JavaScript. I mean, why not use a *good* scripting language?
And by the way... where do you work? I'd like to send in an application. Sure, I have a dual-processor G5 sitting here, but it's just a meager 1.8Ghz and my display, let's not even talk about my display...
Mea culpa. I hadn't realized so much of it was Java3D based.
Of course, that turns out to mean it's a set of routines and API layered on top of whatever 3D libs you have laying around ( typically OpenGL, YEAY OpenGL ) but yea, the parent is nowhere near as off-topic as I had thought. It'll be interesting to see if someone takes the initiative to write a C, C++ or Obective-C version once this goes GPL, or if it'll turn out that doing so doesn't have any real adavantage. The Java3D stuff I've run into so far is pretty well as fast as any other 3D stuff, once the darn JVM is launched, of course...
Please tell us,
when Java is Open Source, how will standards compliance be enforced ?
When Sun gets a good answer to that question, I believe they very well may make Java more open than it is, if not make it completely FOSS. Even with it being as 'closed' as it is, it's *still* more difficult to write-once than it should be ( though easily do-able ), just because their compatablility tests don't catch the sometimes subtle bugs that application developers can run into. It's a fine line to walk; Sun doesn't want to force bug-free JVMs before a vendor can release, or they'd never get to market, but the goal of cross-platform compatability requires nearly bug-free or bug-compatable VMs. It's a tough enough task without some independant developer with GPL'd source deciding to release a 'tweaked' version that doesn't support 90% of javax.swing.*, just because they're 'only targeting platform XYZ" or whatever.
It's very well to argue that Java should be open source, but to do so without addressing the issues involved is almost like trolling...
And yes, I agree completely that open source is good, but what exactly does Sun have to gain by your proposal ?
That, and how off-topic is Java from the story at hand? Way, way off-topic.
I mean, c'mon, how frickin' cool would it be to have this kind of 3D desktop running on an Opteron-based Linux machine with a really nice graphics card in it? Damn! You should be singing the praises of Sun right now, what's wrong with you, man, what's it take to get you excited ?!? You get FP and *that* is the best you can do, a tired old "what about Java" bitch ?!? This is about a cool 3D desktop demo going GPL !
I might like to move there, but I suspect, like some other folks, you've simply stopped following the news...
So, you're saying your PCs are completely problem-free? You don't get tons of spam and haven't heard of major web hosting services DDoSed by zombified Windows users? Huh.
Since I don't live in the U.K, France or Germany, and haven't ever bought music from the iTunes store, I guess I don't really have anything to say about this anyway... other than this is really a bit of a non-story, isn't it ?
Even the biggest competition Apple might have had in Europe decided to leave the business rather than compete with Apple on this. The article cites "Apple and Napster", but really, Napster? OD2 was worried about Napster? Somehow I think if it was just Napster, OD2 wouldn't have gone looking for an exit strategy.
This of course doesn't work too well if your building is *really* big. More smaller buildings ( or wings ) are better than one big brick with a windowless interior.
People working on the same or similar projects get adjacent offices. Offices should be large enough to not feel cramped but too small to even *think* about putting two workstations in. Each office "ring" like this should have at most 15 or so offices- and should mirror your teams. This is a good design for creative professionals to work in.
You have teams with more than 15 members? Who manages that team, and how well? Think about subdividing it. Really.
If you can't, for whatever reason, give people real, individual offices, you're probably better off with big, open, space rather than thin walls that block light but nothing else. Cubes suck, period. If you have the luxury of designing your space from the ground up, design it so people can have real offices with an informal gathering space right outside every team member's door.
My boss, with this announcement, is suddenly *really* interested in purchasing a BMW. He'd never talked about BMW before this... it's exactly the type of thing that luxury car owners use to decide which car to buy. BMW knows their market.
It's all about the games in the console market. It's all about the programs in the IT market. MS has been leading the IT market around because the perception ( based largely on reality ) is that _most_ programs are written for MS system. The fact that most of those programs suck doesn't matter much, really.
Fortunately for Sony, *they* have the most console games, and will continue to do so as long as they pull off backwards compatability.
As long as _most_ games are available only on Sony's console, _most_ people will go for that console ( until there's some XBox exclusive they *must* have, which won't sway the majority of consumers - it didn't with Halo, did it? ).
Of course, by holding it's huge bags of cash in front of game developer's noses, and making game development on it's platform _much_ easier than Sony's, *and* providing better, competitively priced hardware, Microsoft *might* be able to tip the game-publishing advantange in their favor. But it'll be a huge task that MS can only consider because of their *massive* bankroll.
Did I even *imply* that Slolaris beats Linux? Pull-eeze!
If you're *generous* towards Solaris, you'll say it's about on par with Linux... but I'm not that generous.
Hell, I even once worked for Sun, and I'm going to just say it- for just about any job that you'd use Solaris for, I'd use Linux instead- and save a boatload of cash doing so. Outside of ( as you point out ) a few server administration packages and specialized Sparc-only apps, I'm not sure why you'd buy a Sun these days, there are definitely better, cheaper *nix options ( ok, mainly Linux, *BSD and OS X ), and clearly lots of folks think the same way I do on this, or Sun wouldn't be hurting so badly.
The 200Mhz PII which I use as a doorstop doesn't count.
I'm not talking about Mac LC's, I'm talking about 333Mhz G3 machines which run OS X just fine. Try running Windows XP on a PII of any clock speed. I dare you.
And people think Macintosh users are the fanatics... weird...
No. I said Macintosh users keep their hardware on average much longer than PC users keep their hardware, so the relative yearly *sales* percentages of Macintosh hardware vs. PC hardware doesn't reflect the number of Macintosh users vs. PC users.
Did I lie?
No.
How old is your PC, anyway? No, not your oldest PC, your most recently purchased one. You run XP on that?
How much have you spent on PC harware in the past 2 years? Really? Interesting...
Actually, if your PC is more than a couple of years old, my Macintosh is faster than your PC ( I've recently upgraded at work, replacing my 4-year-old G4 ), not that it matters much... the software is better, that's what's important.
Ok, I'm done being serious in my feeding of a windows fanboy troll, so I'll say :
I wouldn't want my penis to grow any, I'd hurt my wife... ;-)... what, you can't go 4 hours? My gal married me because I kept her up *all* night and left her walking funny the next day...
Oh, wait. I'm still being serious. oh well...
That's so high on the list of improbable turns of events, I really did laugh when I read it. Part of Sun's dilema right now is how to convince folks to run Solaris and buy a Sun rather than buy OS X and a G5 PowerMac.
I really doubt McNealy would highlight Apple's competitive advantage *while* paying licening fees ( as if Jobs would license his OS's look-and-feel ! ). Again, we'd see OS X for Intel first.
Linux not really a threat as far as Sun is concerned- their desktop is comprable if not better, and they sell Linux distros anyway if you can't be convinced to buy their hardware... ( gee, do you wonder why Steve doesn't think that'll work for Apple? Oh, that's right, it didn't work for NeXT... )
It seems there may be a few applications for Mac OS X as well. More importantly, Objective-C and Cocoa are easy enough that more OS X programs are being made every day. Developers indeed. If the Linux community could get some standardizationg together and throw some effort behind GNUStep... sigh... that would be nice, too, but Apple's more likely to release OS X for Intel ( i.e. don't hold your breath ). GNUStep is getting closer, though...
If it weren't for guys like Joel with their "if it's not Microsoft it's just weird" attitude and willingness to spread MS FUD, users would have a lot more options, and more developers would be able to make a better living slinging more code for more platforms, rather than being forced to eat Microsoft's swill.
I program in Objective-C, using Cocoa libs under Mac OS X. ;-)
What's amazing is that Java combined with the hack-y nature of the Win32 APIs finally forced Microsoft to create something that's still not as good as NeXTStep was 15 years ago, and probably isn't ( yet ) as good as Java ( it's just optimized for it's single target platform ).
I'll leave for those who care to debate Java vs .NET. For me, that's a debate that is pointless unless .NET somehow becomes cross-platform, at which point I expect Bill Gates to burst into flames.
He just took the wrath built up by 3 and a half years of G.W. Bush for it... and even the Bush camp publicly will distance itself from the truly isolationist view that this guy was peddling.
That's nothin'.
You should see my two-year-old navigate noggin and nick jr. on my flat-panel iMac. It kinda freaks people out to see him in action- he never misses a target.
His appleworks drawing skills are pretty mind-blowing as well. Those color palette squares are *small*, but he hits the one he wants every time, and he knows what all of the tools do. "Look, dad, I draw a circle!"
Damn kid was working the VCR ( and remarkably, the remote ) months before he figured out point-and-click on our "hard to use" one-button mouse. We have locked up the tapes to keep his TV viewing down, but he's figured out that we TiVo Maisy, though we already keep the remote out of reach or he'll be watching South Park ( his other favorite cartoon, sigh ). I'd say he knows how to play PS2 games as well, but I'll wait until he decides to do something with Spiderman *other* than make him jump off buildings ( OK, I'm worried about the kid, I'll admit... ) to make that claim. His cousin's GameBoy Advance is more his speed.
The computer does cut down on his TV and video game time, though, for what good that does... we make a real effort to get him outside- I worry about other kids his age, though, parents have got to make a serious effort these days; we're going to have a generation of couch potatoes that make the current crop of adults look like frickin' exercise buffs.
since the page now returns "auction invalid", it seems that the answer to your question might be "yes" and he's attracted just enough attention to get shut down.
The US seems to be behind this all the way, making your dumb-ass isolationist hick neo-con comments even more dumb-ass. We'd just better hope the UN comes up with a way to pull our sorry asses out of the fire that is Iraq- we need the UN now more than ever before.
What government is in the pocket of big media corporations, and all about taking *your* individual rights away ? The US of A.
"Land of the Free? Whoever told you that is your Enemy!"
I can't send email to *anyone* at AOL now, despite running an OpenBSD firewalled Linux server for our business. It's doesn't even bounce, just disappears into the void. There are *no* Windows worms or spam coming out of my network, but some ass at AOL decided to block the whole ADSL subnet anyway. I'm sure someone on this thread has pointed this out, but you *clearly* need to have a talk with your ISP, get them to solve the problem. i.e. your ISP has to stop hosting spammers, and clear up the issue with AOL themselves ( the AOL folks will talk to an ISP, but you're actually *nobody* to them ). If your ISP is blacklisted due to spammers using their network ( hint: it's YOUR network to AOL ), and your ISP won't fix the problem, it's time to change ISPs. Duh. Think about it.
1) Stability.
.NET... a *free* ADC account beats the hell out of MS developer program prices. Most apps I need ( and some I just want ) come for free with the machine, which is bundled with a complete OS. The machine is so easy to use, my two-year-old navigates the desktop, web browser, and filesystem. It's easy enough to admin that I've been able to provide him with an account that he can't screw up.
I have a windows machine. It just stopped booting one day. I couldn't get it going again without re-installing the OS. It's done this before. So I stopped using the windows machine, even after taking the time to re-install the system. I still have a mess of drivers I need to install to get the thing working right again, but why bother ?
2) Windows XP broke a chunk of win32 app compatability. I don't feel like buying new versions of those apps, or paying for XP, for that matter. Microsofts' inclination towards per-machine licenses and subscription-based licenses are spooky, too. I'd like to keep my costs down once making a hardware/software purchase.
3) Windows has improved in ease-of-use, but it's still a patchwork of utilities in many ( most ) ways, and there is a bare minimum of inter-application conformity and support.
4) Unlike many people, I want a computer system I can program without spending a lot of cash for a set of libraries and compiler.
5) It's not my first consideration, but the business practices of Microsoft make my stomach churn. I'd like to see at least a _few_ viable software companies out there, rather than one monopoly.
That said, (1) stability is my main reason. If my PC had never hosed itself to the point of requiring a system restore, I'd still be using it at least occasionally.
As it is, I've gone on to OS X with the purchase of a flat-panel iMac, and I haven't looked back... programming Objective-C with a powerful, freely provided IDE beats the hell out of Visual Studio
I hate replying a week later, but...
;-)
just so you know, deleting the mail prefs file doesn't help, and this problem is being seen by others ( odd thing is, it only happens on *some* messages, what's up with *that*? ).
I may hold off on updating my own machine... at least until my new G5 shows up
He has earned this nickname, but to keep it, he feels he must always apply every update the second it's available. So we just refuse to admin his machine.
Of course, he's installed this update, and now he's having issues with some ( not all, some ) email messages where hitting 'reply' or 'forward' fails to bring up a new message window. He says quitting and relaunching brings up the not-previously-visible windows. He also sees this :
someone tried to use nil as a dictionary key, I guess...Is anyone else seeing this type of issue, or should we blame this on his overly-modified ( frickin' chrome-look everywhere ), haxie-filled environment ?
He called me up one day saying "uh... my admin has completely flaked/skipped town, and I don't know my root passwords".
I took a trip from silicon valley up to the Sierra foothills mountain community he worked out of, showed him how to force console-login to his main Solaris server, and I reset his root password. The easiest 10 minutes work I ever had. He was absolutely overjoyed.
That afternoon, we went out for drinks. That night his girlfriend made a nice fried chicken dinner. After that, we went to a local inn where he played some damn fine acoustic guitar.
The next day, we went whitewater rafting on the American River. It was sweet.
What's scary is that, in the view of the judge, patent rights trump property rights. The judge doesn't even consider the farmer's property rights in this case, he says they're not relevant.
From the FA: 96The appellants argue, finally, that Monsanto's activities tread on the ancient common law property rights of farmers to keep that which comes onto their land. Just as a farmer owns the progeny of a "stray bull" which wanders onto his land, so Mr. Schmeiser argues he owns the progeny of the Roundup Ready Canola that came onto his field. However, the issue is not property rights, but patent protection. Ownership is no defence to a breach of the Patent Act.
I suppose the software-based example of the same is that if someone posts code on the internet ( or spams you with it in email ). and it's code that uses patented techniques, you can't put the code in your own commercial program and use the defense that someone "gave" you the code.
In my hypothetical case above, you might be able to say that you didn't know about the patent and came to the result on your own, but I don't think that would give you much protection. The farmer in this case, supposedly by knowing that surrounding farmers used the patented plant and by taking seed from an area he'd sprayed with roundup, intentionally went out of his way to get the patented product and thus had knowledge of it's patented nature. So it's like someone was working at a company with a license for software patent A showed you the code, and, knowing it was patented, you used it outside of the licensed company anyway.
In any case, such detailed analysis of the law misses the fact that it's poor law, period. Law limiting the production of products which are easy to produce will just mean there are illegal producers. Lawmakers and the corporations who back them shouldn't ignore such reality to such an impressive degree. Otherwise they're just blowing taxpayer money on court fees by writing laws that call for lots of litigation.
IMHO, for something to be allowed as a patent, it should be as a requirement easy to restrict it's use. If you sell a machine that makes copies of itself, you shouldn't be able to patent that machine. But that's just my opinion; it's a complicated idea to explain to politicians, and an impossible one to get by the business lobby.
Of course, writing stupid laws is what lawy^H^H^H^H^H politicians do best.